Stuff to get young people interested in radio

Here is a nice website with some great simple projects to get some youg people interested in radio and electronics. Included as projects are:

■A quick and simple radio
■Building a radio in 10 minutes
■A radio out of household items
■A simple AM transmitter
■The Three-Penny Radio
■A Portable Crystal Radio
 
These projects are very interesting. I like the 3 penny radio, it would make a big impression on a youngster.
 
Check it out here:
 
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/radio/radio.html

New GNU Codec2

David Rowe, VK5DGR has released Codec2 V0.1 alpha for communication quality speech. This has been released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), which makes it open source. This is what Ham Radio is about, not the proprietary stuff that is out there. Because D-Star is proprietary it is not compatable with Codec2. Check it out for more detailed information. I think we are heading in the right direction with this. This should lead to a less expensive way for digital voice.

Rowetel.com/blog

New version of Airlink Express v.2.1.5.378

There has been a new version of Airlink Express v.2.1.5.378 released. It now includes among other enhancements PSKReporter, Automatic Propagation Reporter, and ARQ, Automatic Repeat Request, for sending and receiving of text and binary files. I will have to test this and see if it may work better for sending ARQ messages than some other software does.



http://www.airlinkexpress.org/index.html

See where your PSK signal is heard

Check this web sight out. It is a place you can see where your digital signal is heard. You must use the pattern "de callsign callsign" for the software to hear you. This is a must play with website, get your bragging rights using your 5 watts QRP station.


http://www.pskreporter.info/
http://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html

BPQ32 up and running

I now have BPQ32 up and running. It was a very intersesting ordeal, but I am very pleased with the outcome. The site now has a node, BBS Mail and Chat, and Winlink RMS. I must thank Jeff WA4ZKO for his time and help in making this happen. This node is now connected to a node in Owensboro and Dry Ridge. Now it is time to build on this system and add users.

New Narrow band weak signal mode for LF/MF

There is a new narrow band weak signal mode for LF/MF by ZL2AFP. This mode is like PSK but not exactly like it. ZL2AFP CMSK  advances or retards the frequency to get a 180 degree phase shift in one bit period. The program window and waterfall remind me of The FLdigi program, only a little simpler.  I have not tried this mode yet but it looks interesting. For more information:   

http://www.qsl.net/zl1bpu/CMSK/cmsk.htm
http://www.qsl.net/zl1bpu/CMSK/cmskhelp.htm

Some History of Digital Communications

Here is an example of how digital communications used to be. You can see how much technology has advanced.  Enjoy the video.

A Homebrew 2.4Ghz VSWR Meter

Here is a very good example of a Ham building a piece of test equipment. This would be very handy for testing HSMM radios. PE2ER did a great job showing the construction of this meter. Check it out.

http://pe2er.nl/wifiswr/index.htm

BPQ32 for BBS and Winlink 2000

I have been looking into BPQ32 latley. I already have a Winlink RMS running and would like to have a BBS also runnig. BPQ32 looks like the right program for the job. This program is from John Wiseman G8BPQ/GM8BPQ. BPQ32 is an AX.25 NET/ROM compatible node software for Windows. This program will work with AGWPE software. This compatability is an asset for sound card based Winlink/BBS technology. This program does have a learning curve but there is plenty of documintation for it. I have been playing with it on my test computer and when I am comfortible with its operation I will start using it on the RMS gateway KC4BQK-10.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPQ32/

I found the end of the Internet

To see the last website on the web, look at this site:

http://www.wwwdotcom.com/

This proves the Internet is flat!