What is this “Twitter” stuff???

Now I actually know what “Twitter” is but… the use of it seems to spread really quick…

I had to sign up to receive the updates from the KC2TUA-8 balloon flight as they were using twitter for their updates…

I mention it here that I got info from Twitter and now people are following ???me !!!  And the funny thing is that its not only hams who are doing this… 

It seems like a good thing but as with many good things I do see a use for it but I’m also not sure if I have a use for it…

But for now at least the account will remain…  But then I did say the same thing about Facebook and that one lasted for about a month then I deleted the account…  And life went on….

In the meantime though rather than Twit it…  I’ll let you know what I’m doing anyway…   I’m currently sitting in the shack (now thats something different) and the FT847 is waiting for the start of the North West Ontario ARES Net on 3.750 which will start at 2015 Eastern and the FT897 is listening to local repeater VE2CRA (146.940 – 600 CTCSS 100.0) and awaiting the start of the Capitol City FM Net which will be starting in a few minutes at 2000 Eastern.

73bob

KC2TUA-8 RECOVERED IN VO1Land

A little bird told me (actually it “Twittered me“) and we now know that the payload has been found and in the process of being returned to Oswego NY which was the liftoff location…

As mentioned earlier you can follow the track of the payload here…

Congrats go out to the amateurs in Newfoundland who assisted with the unscheduled mission.  I do hope someone writes this up for an article that should go into the “TCA” Magazine…

73bob

KC2TUA-8 Lands in VO1Land

I’ll let the experts give you the rundown but heres one for the common folk like myself…

The balloon landed just a bit east of Gander NFLD.  The balloon landed just east of a large lake and just west of the Atlantic Ocean….  My unscientific description of the landing would be…

” one minute earlier and they would of been swimming to get the payload and 5 minutes later and they would of been swimming to get the payload!!!”

I was impressed by the use of TWITTER to keep those who needed to know or those who wanted to know… in the know…  This was my first exposure to TWITTER and I can see it having some great value expecially to the chase teams as one quick entry from Launch/Recovery Control and everyone gets the message on their view screen…  That view screen could be a Blackberry or just a simple cell phone that can recieve text messages  to a laptop or desktop computer… 

I see it as having a use in future public service events as a multi paging function for those who are not radio active (so to speak)…

Anyway back to the landing….They were able to find an amateur in Newfoundland who was able to contact the payload via HF and transmit the codes necessary to drop ballast and then abort the flight…I guess that ham will have a good story for the next radio club meeting….  I hope that this makes it into the TCA as well…

Getting back to the flight again….Here is the link( I hope ) to the TWITTER Stuff 

You should be able to get the rest of the info right from the horses mouth…

73bob

A good time to hook up APRS

Some times is funny how things work out…  Shortly after hooking up the VA3QV APRS home station I took a look at the stations heard list.  It was just like old times…  Lets see VE3WCC-1, VE3BSM, KC2TUA-8 all the old bunch…

 HOLD IT….KC2TUA-8????

Well after telling UI VIEW to track the station I find out that KC2TUA-8 is a balloon that is currently  heading North East towards Boston as a leisurely rate.  With its altitude I am recieveing the packets not direct but I am seeing them through a local digi…  Its pattern is kind of confusing as it appears to be coming back to earth but it sure is not in a hurry about it…  When I quit watching the screen the balloon was about 75 miles or so west of the Atlantic Ocean and heading east at about 12 mph or so… and it was slowly decending…

This morning there was no sign of it on my screen when I got to the shack but I decided to do the ARPS.FI  thing and sure enough there it was….  Still sitting around 10000 meters and now it was just east of Nova Scotia and so far no worse for wear for its oceanic flight…

CHECK ITS TRACK ON APRS.FI

and as you can see its now ( as of 1516 eastern) getting fairly close to VO1Land and should make landfall by sunset.  There still is an issue with getting it to drop the payload but it seems there was a radio failure as they tried to terminate the flight before it got over the ocean but the signals were not strong enough to do it…  Hopefully a Newfoundland Amateur will be able to transmit the code to terminate (burst or cut free) the balloon so the payload can safely return to earth…

With the costs of the tracking gear and other components of the payload it would be really nasty if the load came down in the drink…

73bob

 

APRS back on the air

Today I dusted off the APRS gear and got it back up and running.  One of the few times ever that it actually was “Plug and Play”…  All I had to do was hook up the rigblaster to the laptop…  attach the soundcard to the radio and the rigblaster and then connect the rigblaster to the radio and away we went…  No arguing with commports or setup files….  it just worked…

Anyway if you get bored take a look at the APRS.fi site for VA3QV and if things are still working you should see where I am…  Normally you would see VA3QV-9 as a mobile but as I am currently without wheels…  guess you won’t see me mobile…VA3QV-5 would be my portable station but its a bit cold to get out into the park with a laptop etc…. so that another you won’t see for a while…  Look for VA3QV   Bob at home…

73bob

Thursday was the OVMRC Meeting

Thats the way things go here in Ottawa…  Radio Club meetings…  And we have a few of them every month…

First Monday of the Month is the West Carleton Amateur Radio Club…

Second Wednesday of the Month is the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club…

Second Thursday of the Month is the Ottawa Valley QRP Society

Third Thursday of the Month is the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club…

Fourth Tuedsay of the Month is the Manotick Amateur Radio Group…

So you can see that the active amateur in the city is busy at least 5 days a month.  Include in that some executive meetings and perhaps the occasional social event, a flea market or portable operation not even counting the nets we have available in the Ottawa Area and you can be a very active amateur if you want to be…

But getting back to the OVMRC Meeting…  Tonights meeting was held at the Science Museum (home of VE3JW) and if I counted the crowd there was about 25 or so amateurs in attendance.  The guest speaker was Harold VA3UNK who looks after the communications needs of the Canadian Ski Marathon (which is held on the 2nd weekend in Feburary).  Harold gave us a very interesting Powerpoint show on how and why the Marathon does things the way they do .  This event uses about 60-75 amateur radio operators in the event and amateur radio does play a vital role as where we play the cell phones don’t work…

If you follow this blog then you also know VA3STL Alan quite well.  Tonight was also “Home Brew Night” and Alan brought 3 items that he had constructed.  Rather than duplicate things (like his description of the creations) I suggest you head over and check out his blog…after looking over mine of course…  I will say that the QRSS Beacon I found interesting and perhaps in the future….IF I can find the time….  I would like to look at this a bit more…  This is bringing QRP to a new (low) level and is worth looking into…

The meeting ran just over 2 hours in duration and I can’t speak for everyone but I had a good time….

Rumor has it that ELKEL from Trois Rivieres QC  will be at the April Meeting showing off some new products….

73bob

I suggest you visit this site…

Hope everyone has recoved from St. Patricks Day and the assorted celebrations associated with the Irish…  Maybe it was just me but I did not hear any Irish Stations calling CQ DX yesterday on 20m but I did hear some European Stations out there…

Any back to the blog….

While surfing around I found a link to a really fantastic website and although it is an “Emergency Site” (ARES and RACES) its information I find to be very informative and can be useful to the portable operator (like Survivorham) or the fixed station operator (like VA3QV).

THE LINK IS HERE

This would be “highly recommended reading”

73bob

Worked W3FF on 20m

This is a posting that I’m not really sure where it should go…  If the weather was warmer then it would be most likely posted on Survivorham but then again if I had been out in the field I would of missed the posting on HF Now telling me that W3FF (Budd of the Buddipole fame), WG0AT (Steve of the Rooster and Peanut Fame AKA Goathiker) and W0RW (Paul of HF Pack) were all out having a chat on 14.342.5

I quickly QSY’ed to 14.342.5 and listened carefully and finally hear “QRZ?? Whiskey 3 Fox Fox”  I went back to Budd and got a respectable 5 and 4 for a signal report (in a contest it would of been 5/9) and I gave him an honest 5/6 back.  Unfortunately my noise was at s7 so I was unable to hear Paul who was operating PM (pedestrian mobile) or Steve who was operating QRP Mobile at the time… 

But at least I hear the west coast of the USA and had two contacts (15 min apart) with Budd…

Not rare DX but fun DX….

73bob

More on the End Fed antenna

My plans for this morning were changed due to some minor issues with my health.  This is not a crisis (don’t send flowers) just was not feeling good enough to head out to Vincent Massey Park with the boys… 

Instead I stayed in and built the end fed antenna I had been talking about earlier in the blog.  I finally got the proper dimensnions and so it was easily built:

It only took about an hour to build and then of course I had to head outside (feeling as bad as I was) and test it out…

I headed over to the local park (not Hutton Park but Alda Burt Park) as its only a 5 min walk from my front door and set up.

You can see the video and a good description of how things went on my Survivorham  site.

I was able to make a daytime contact on 80m but the antenna did load up on all bands (10-80).

I am suitably impressed and I am planning to build another W3EDP antenna and try it out at home.  This could take a few days to find the stronger parts such as heavier gauge wire as I don’t want another problem with antennas, trees and heavy wind…

Although the weekend started on a downside (not feeling the best) it has been getting increasingly good since then…

73bob

Wed nites Ottawa Amateur Radio Club meeting

As mentioned yesterday I attended the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club meeting as a guest last evening…  The meeting started at 1930 local and had an excellent turnout…

The first speaker was Gord VE3FRB who talked on behalf of the Ottawa Bicycle Clubs “Rideau Lakes Tour”.  This tour goes from Ottawa to Kingston on the Saturday and then returns on the Sunday.  There has been a request from the Tour for Amateur Radio Support for their logistical and emergency/safety communications.  This will be done with the assistance of three amateur groups.  The first is a group of Ottawa Amateurs with no real club affiliation.  The 2nd leg of the tour would be looked after by the Perth ARES group with Kingston ARES looking after the last leg.  Reverse the order and you know how they will be doing the return on Sunday.

The other speakers were Grey VE3YTZ, Bryan VE3QN and Ying VA3YH who talked about the NUE PSK Digital Modem.

Below is QSL Card I received to confirm a PSK 31 contact and you can see what the equipment looks like when its all together as a portable station

 

In addition to the excellent presentation I had the chance to meet up and chat with some old friends over coffee during the social part of the meeting as well as meet up with two amateurs who follow my blogs and website and have a chat with one about some portable operations (Survivorham) and with the other about the Yaesu VX8-r. 

All in all it was a great evening and the OARC puts on one “heck” of a good meeting…

73bob