vk2rh: a blog about ham radio
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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FT-817 resources online
There’s a wealth of digested experience on this particular radio online. ka7oei has a detailed site which has pages devoted to the following topics: Other FT-817 related sites include: One of G4ILO’s ‘Radio topics’ pages is devoted to the FT-817. His document points to 817-Mem, a program to manage memories on the radio.
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It is, ah, not raining here also!
A pointer to the classic Hancock episode, ‘The Radio Ham’. Painfully hilarious!