stephenrapley – Page 6 – VK2RH ham radio

webSDR

I’ve spent a little time playing with websdr over the last day or so. This is certainly one way to achieve the subliminal morse background mentioned a couple of posts ago! (Assuming of course the workload is low and the wifi is up!!). You can see even before you ‘tune in’ if a CW signal might be the right speed.

I’m impressed with the easy usability of the remote websdr enabled receivers.

It’s also fantastic to get a clear sense of the band conditions and activity in another part of the world like Reston, VA. No signs of an Australian based webSDR station yet. Bandwidth charges probably have something to do with that.

The only downside so far is that as the site depends on Java there’s no way of accessing it with the iPad. And the absence of Flash on that device means you can’t use it for the best source of morse ambience – lcwo.net.

Saturday 18th September 2010

Subliminal morse

Tim G4VXE posted an interesting ‘random’ thought about one suggestion he’d heard recently on air to raise your CW speed:

“one of the ways to improve your speed and competency is to listen to as much morse as you can – for example, have the rig running whilst your watching TV or reading. It’s almost as if the subconscious brain starts to process it and it becomes a ‘background process’.

This will help you if you want to be able to send/receive morse at the same time as doing something else.”

It can’t hurt – apart from driving all those around you crazy – and convincing them of all the doubts they already had about you! But maybe that’s what the headphones are for.

Monday 13th September 2010

Overland Telegraph – 140 years ago, yesterday!

An ABC News story today tells of the celebrations in Darwin this week marking the start of the Overland Telegraph on 20th June 1870 when the South Australian parliament voted to dedicate about half its annual budget to building the telegraph line!

Barrie Barnes of the SA & NT Morsecodians and others appear in the video accompanying the story explaining the history.

Monday 21st June 2010

CW resources

Via a link to a Facebook page I found two morse related applications (for Windows) here. This page is interesting not just for the RSS Morse and Morse Keyer programs, but also some handy morse related links.

I discovered a free pdf book ‘Zen and the Art of Radiotelegraphy’ by Carlo Consoli, IK0YGJ. Interestingly Carlo wrote the book in Italian, translated it into English himself and then got Ulrich Steinberg, N2DE to revise the book. Net result: Very readable! When you think about it the first thoughts behind the first morse signals to hit the ether would have been in Italian! Carlo also salutes craftsmen such as Piero Begali I2RTF, Salvatore Canzoneri IK1OJM and Alberto Frattini I1QOD.

There are also links to versions of The Art and Skill of Radiotelegraphy by William G. Pierpont N0HFF (3rd edition – 20 April 2002) and Using an Iambic Paddle by Chuck Adams, K7QO.

Also via a post to the CW email group a link to K6DBG’s page on ‘Some things I’ve discovered about learning and operating CW‘ and a link to a a cross-platform Morse program http://c2.com/morse/.

This site is the distributon site for current and historical versions of A Fully Automatic Morse Code Teaching Machine first described in a May 1977 QST article of the same name by Ward Cunningham.

Ward Cunningham of course is the ham who also developed one of the earliest wikis on the web at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki.

Friday 18th June 2010

USB morse key

Via Julian G3ILO news of an Arduino based project to build an inteface to enable direct input to a computer with a morse key. Lots of information can be found here.

It looks like a neat little project. I don’t get the feeling it’s going to be offered as a kit or anything. Most of what you’d need to know to make one is on the site including a schematic and the code that decodes the morse code!

This is similar – in concept at least – to those iPhone morse apps where you can tape the screen in the same way you would a straight key, and the app gives you feedback on your morse – at the most basic level by translating it back to what you hopefully intended to say.

What would be even more exciting would be an interface that could also handle paddle input to PCs … a bit like the $1.99 iPhone app iDitDahText by Marc Vaillant. You can only load this one on to jailbroken iPhones. It’s available via the Cydia Store. It enables you to enter text in all iPhone apps using the equivalent of an iambic keypad on the screen up to 50 wpm. Great party trick!

Or better still isn’t there a way to connect the output of the iPhone or even the iPad – electrical not audio – to control a keyer and a transmitter. Throw in PTT control while you’re at it!

Friday 28th May 2010

Handy K3 resource

Via the Elecraft email list a pointer to a comprehensive looking listing of settings for the K3 compiled by K8DD. There’s also a document detailing calibration procedures for the K3.

Tuesday 25th May 2010

B&W coils

I was surprised to see that one longtime brand I associate with my earliest days playing around with radio, Barker and Williamson, is still thriving – and even better, still providing the product I associate them most closely with, air wound coils, specifically the Miniductors.

There’s a list of the types they have available here. They’re not cheap, but they are convenient. They don’t appear to have a local Australian distributor. They do sell an attractive looking 13-42pF butterfly variable capacitor for US$25.

Tuesday 18th May 2010

Iambic keying: How to?

Stumbled across interesting YouTube video on “Iambic Keyer and Technique” attempting to teach how to use an Iambic keyer. It’s about 5 1/2 mins long. Another video from IK0YGJ simply shows the sender using a beautiful Begali Sculpture and sending at 50wpm.

While I’m at it I should include the link to the 9mins plus video explaining how to use iDitDahText on the iphone.

Friday 14th May 2010

Homebrew ladder line spacers

It never ceases to amaze me what wisdom is simmering away amongst those email discussion groups I read.

Out of the blue today – prompted by mention of a commercial solution on the Elecraft list – came a sequence of brilliant ideas about making effective and easy on the budget ladder line spacers.

The commercial spacers from K&S Ham Radio Parts look great, but the fact they’re made of nylon prompted concerns about their survival against UV. At 25 cents a piece I think they look fine!

In response there was a pointer to a YouTube video showing how to turn a box of ballpoints into very neat and secure spacers using black cable ties.

And then a pointer to another commercial solution from True Ladder Line, and a hint about how to replicate the effect at home using ‘drip sprinkler tubing’ which is the right size and and has just the right amount of rigidity for the job. And there’s Dave ZL1BJQ with his approach based on those plastic chopping boards you can buy at any $2 shop, cut into spacer pieces, notched then pushed on to wires and held in place with hot glue.

And then there’s this approach by VK2YE using plastic coat hangers, cut to length (5cms) and drilled to fit wire, and then glued to stay in place. In fact this is just one of 138 videos on his YouTube channel .

Thursday 13th May 2010

WSPR

Prompted by Julian G4ILO’s musings about the possibility of volcanic ash being responsible for propagation he observed a few days back, I’ve been looking deeper into WSPR, the application that produced the data that inspired the notion.

First stop was the main WSJT site where Princeton physicist Joe Taylor K1JT outlines the application along with other weak signal communications applications. The WSPR page points to the 20pp. User’s Guide (pdf).

There’s also some information at the WSPRnet site – especially the stunning map and the detailed database of recent spots.

Full circle – when I searched for a general introduction to the software and the mode it’s based on – sure enough I end up back with Julian, G4ILO. He’s published a very readable and comprehensive article which quite rightly comes up #4 on a WSPR google search. He describes how easy it is to become part of a global beacon network and contribute to the generation of up-to-the-minute propagation reports.

Right now, I’d really like to know how to interpret the colour and thickness of the lines tracing the transmission paths on the map.

Wednesday 12th May 2010