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Working through the doldrums of a passionate Amateur Radio operator

One of the great things about amateur radio is that there are so many different aspects to the hobby. One can spend years on DX’ing only to become enamored with VHF and then move on to some digital mode.

It’s all learning.

But sometimes, there is simply a lull. A period of time where not much happens. I’ve been through that time here; not much has been posted for several weeks. Most of it is the day job…some stuff that is very exciting is happening and there is even better stuff coming up. But, have all of that going on and then switch to a Mac from Windows for work and your hobby and you don’t have a lot of time to get back into serious hobby work.

I’m trying to get the Mac to talk to my radio through my microHAM interface. I’ve looked at a couple different programs. I’ve tried to make it work. But what I have done is spend a half hour on it and then said…no, more important stuff to do on the day job, so go do it. I’ve asked for some help — and have gotten it. More on that later. But I haven’t had time to do the serious work to get everything working.

In other words, a poor attempt to get stuff set up that doesn’t represent the passion of the hobby. It happens.

Does that mean the hobby doesn’t mean as much to me? Nope. It just means that a hobby is a hobby and sometimes the hobby doesn’t count as much as that which earns you a living.

I need to respect that. And I do. But I feel guilty about it anyway. Wouldn’t you?

Oh…and doesn’t the site’s new look just rock?

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If you were thinking of upgrading to Windows 7 for ham radio

You may want to reconsider that notion and just buy another Windows PC. Or a Mac.

I still have an XP laptop and I’d never go through the exceptional hassle of upgrading to the greatness of Windows 7.

Here’s the chart:

Windows 7 upgrade chartHere’s the operative statement to upgrade from XP to Windows 7:

All of the others, denoted by blue boxes, will require what Microsoft calls a “Custom Install,” also known as a “clean install”–a procedure Microsoft doesn’t even refer to as an “upgrade.” For most average, nontechie consumers whose PCs have a single hard disk, that will require a tedious, painful process with the following steps: Temporarily relocating your personal files to an external drive or other computer, wiping your hard drive clean, then installing Windows 7, then moving your personal files back, then re-installing all of your programs from their original disks or download files, then reinstalling all of their updates and patches that may have been issued since the original installation files were released.

Microsoft will provide a free “Easy Transfer” program to assist in this process, but this software won’t transfer your programs, only your personal files and settings.

Not so much. I’ll wait.

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Signals!

You see, if you turn the radio on and have an antenna, you can hear signals on the air!
Now to connect the radio to the iMAC. Hmmmm….

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K9JY Hacked!

The K9JY site was hacked over the last couple of days and you should have seen some weird screen renderings of the site. All should now be good. At least I hope so.
I’m security-minded
I try and not go nuts on the security stuff, but ever since I started putting out the K9JY WriteLog User Site, [...]

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The iMac: Will ham radio be the same?

Well, I took the plunge. I bought an iMac. Interestingly, it was over two months ago, but I haven’t gotten around to doing any ham radio stuff with it yet. Too busy getting the rest of it setup for the business (Cube Rules).
I’ve seen a bit of software out there for ham radio on the [...]

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How to learn from every ham radio contest

When taking notes at the end of the contest — what went well and what could have been better — what should you consider for inclusion?
Here’s a short trigger list for what you can learn from every contest:
Equipment

Radio working properly
Amplifier working properly
Keyer working properly
Computer issues
Contesting software issues
Interface issues
Rotor box issues

Antennas

Each antenna, each band notes
Directional weakness [...]

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CW Skimmer Wins Dayton Hamvention Pileup Contest

The Kansas City DX Club Pileup Contest is an annual bragging rights event for the serious CW operator in ham radio. This year’s contest offered up a bit of a different competitor — CW Skimmer, that often maligned software program that attempts to copy Morse code using digital dits and dahs wrapped in binary computer [...]

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Multi-operator contesting teams and sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation also impacts the productivity and performance of teams. This, from Bob Sutton, in Sleep Deprivation and Group Performance. While the point of view of sleep deprivation is on business teams, I think it directly applies to ham radio multi-operator contesting teams as well. Especially those that have not operated together often enough to [...]

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What Ham Radio talking points need

Ham radio is a diverse hobby. It’s a technical, engineering, builder, emergency service hobby. But ask most people about ham radio and you get stories of RF interference or a puzzled look followed by a question about 1950. I mean, the Internet obliterated ham radio, didn’t it?
Over at Innismir.net, there is a great dissection of [...]

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Ham radio Photo DXpeditions

Crossing my e-mail was a note that Svalbard (JW) shore operations were approved for July 4th and July 14th of this year. You may work this short operation with radios, vertical antennas and less than a 100-watts. But, that’s not why you should pay attention to this operation.
It is the photography
Breathtaking is the best way [...]

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Ham radio contesting Wiki site

Ham radio contesting has lots of information in many different places — including the most popular articles here on K9JY.com — 30 days, 30 contesting tips. Pete, N4ZR, has spearheaded the creation of a Wiki site devoted to contesting called the Contesting Compendium. The idea for ham radio contesting is to have a single site [...]

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Ham Radio Sunspot Saturday — April 25, 2009

NOT!

by DJMcCrady
Reversed polarity from this sunspot signaled the start of a new sunspot cycle. It just hasn’t come back very fast. Given the fact that I have a great vertical — with half the signal going into the side of the hill from my QTH — I need a bit more than hope out [...]

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