[handiham-world] Handiham World Weekly E-Letter for the week of Wednesday, 25 November 2009
- From: "Patrick Tice" <wa0tda@xxxxxxxx>
- To: <handiham-world@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:20:04 -0600
This is a free weekly news & information update from Courage Center Handiham
System <http://handiham.org> . Please do not reply to this message. Use the
contact information at the end, or simply email handiham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You can also listen to the content online:
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_____
Welcome to Handiham World!
Handiham Headquarters will be closed for the United States Thanksgiving
holiday
Cornucopia showing bountiful harvest of fruit and a handheld radio
Handiham Headquarters will be closed for the United States Thanksgiving
holiday on Thursday and Friday, November 26-27, 2009. An audio lecture
notification will be sent out early, on Wednesday instead of Friday.
By the way, what do you have to be thankful for? Here is my list of ham
radio stuff, in no particular order:
I am thankful for...
* Antennas that stay up & keep working through the entire Minnesota
winter. (You haven't experienced real cold until you've handled aluminum
tubing or scaled a tower in January up here on the frozen tundra.)
* ARRL. I couldn't get along without my wa0tda@xxxxxxxx address and
monthly QST, but I can also rest easy knowing that the League is our
advocate on so many fronts.
* The way most ham radio gear keeps working year after year, reliably
delivering good service, when consumer-grade electronics have long since
given up the ghost.
* Repeater owners who welcome activity on their machines.
* Echolink, IRLP, and WIRES.
* The Internet and all of the ham radio applications it makes
possible.
* Hams who design circuits or write software for the rest of us.
* Elmers who help newbies and oldbies (Is that a real word?)
* Solar cycle 24. Better late than never.
* Nets. I love the way we can stay connected in our "virtual
communities" on the air.
* Our Handiham members, be they regular members, supporters, or
volunteers. Talk about communities - they are the best!
* Radio clubs. Sometimes you need to just meet other hams face to
face.
* The manufacturers and dealers who work so hard to make amateur radio
technology available to us.
* People who step up to the plate to teach ham radio classes. They are
responsible for keeping amateur radio healthy by training new operators.
* Anyone who funds, plans, or goes on a DXpedition. What these folks
do for amateur radio really pushes the limits, and if you don't believe me,
take a look at some of the DXpedition videos.
* Volunteer examiners and their VECs. Having had to travel long
distances to take most of my exams at FCC offices, I really appreciate the
volunteers who offer convenient, friendly, local exam sessions, giving
freely of their own time and talent to help others become hams for the first
time or to step up the ladder to General or Extra.
* Contest planners, QSL managers, people who serve on committees,
hamfest organizers, authors, publishers, and all of the others who work
behind the scenes to enrich our radio experiences.
* DSP. Good grief, how could we stand all of that noise we used to
endure before ClearSpeech speakers and the digital signal processing now
standard in every transceiver?
* Anyone brave and patient enough to be a net control station.
* My understanding family, including my XYL, Susie, who encourages me
to "get on the air" or "give that guy a call" when we hear someone calling
on a repeater as we travel in the car, my son Will, KC0LJL, who writes
software for me, and my dog Jasper, who keeps me company in the ham shack.
* And all of my ham radio friends! Without real people, ham radio
would just be a bunch of stuff. Now, don't get me wrong; I like all of the
equipment and gadgetry, but what really makes ham radio special for me is...
YOU!
For Handiham World, I'm...
Patrick Tice, wa0tda@xxxxxxxx , wishing all of our readers and listeners a
wonderful holiday week and a happy Thanksgiving.
_____
Short Wave America website revs up short-wave listening
By Dan, KC9NCF
ham station on Field Day table outdoors
Radio is virtually unnoticed by some these days, but yet it's alive with all
sorts of information useful to everyone. When you turn your radio on, where
do you tune? What holds your interest and makes your ears happy? What
challenges you to think? With so many sources of information telling us
where to tune to hear what we want, it has become difficult to pay attention
to only one source. Short-wave America covers your mix of Amateur Radio and
commercial short-wave topics. You'll never know what's there until you
visit! <http://www.shortwaveamerica.blogspot.com>
http://www.shortwaveamerica.blogspot.com
_____
Equipment donations should be sent to Camp Courage Address
<http://www.handiham.org/node/608> Camp Courage Map
The Courage Center Handiham System is now located at Camp Courage. Equipment
donations should be sent to the new address. Gifts of ham radio equipment to
the Handiham System are deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Our address is:
Handiham System
Camp Courage
8046 83rd St. NW
Maple Lake, MN 55358
Mail sent to the Golden Valley address will still reach us.
Please call for an appointment if you wish to visit. Our phone numbers are:
763-520-0512 - Main Office Extension, answered by Nancy Meydell. This number
may also be reached via our toll-free number, which is 1-866-426-3442, if
you are outside the Twin Cities calling area. If you are in the calling area
or have free long distance with your own calling plan, we ask you to please
call the 763-520-0512 number, as we have to pay extra for all of the calls
that come in on the toll-free member line. If you like, you can contact us
by email at hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
763-520-0511 - Handiham Manager Patrick Tice, WA0TDA. Pat can answer your
questions about technical topics and antennas. Pat also teaches the on line
courses in Technician, General, and Extra, and can answer questions from our
members who are enrolled in this courses. You may contact Pat by email at
patt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_____
On the air: Tech Talk Net
<http://www.handiham.org/node/266> On the air - Icom rig
Matt Arthur, KA0PQW, recommends that you listen for the Thursday evening
Tech Talk Net at 7:00 pm United States Central Time (0100 Fridays GMT). The
net manager is Lenny, K0SHF.
In the Twin Cities metro area, the net can be heard on several repeater
systems, including the N0BVE Repeater System on 145.450 MHz, negative
offset, no tone. The KA0PQW system also carries the Tech Talk net, and you
can check in via Echolink worldwide via nodes 89680 and 267582.
_____
ARISS antenna installed on Columbus module during space walk last Saturday
ARISS Logo
You think your tower is high in the air? How about this:
We have a note from Handiham Radio Club President Ken Silberman, KB3LLA,
that the ARISS antenna was to be installed on the Columbus module during a
space walk on Saturday, 21 November 2009. News on the RAC website states:
"On Saturday, November 21, the new ARISS VHF/UHF antenna as well as the
Automatic Identification System (AIS) VHF antenna was installed on the ISS
Columbus module during the second extravehicular activity (EVA) of the
STS-129 mission. ARISS plans to move an onboard radio to the Columbus module
to make use of its new antenna. The other antenna will be used to support
the AIS maritime experiment to help track the passage of ships across the
world's oceans."
ARISS stands for "Amateur Radio on the International Space Station".
Columbus is the laboratory built by the European Space Agency (ESA) and host
of two Amateur Radio stations on the International Space Station (ARISS)
antennas.
<http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm> More ARISS news from the RAC website
<https://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/11/12/11195/?nc=1> ARISS as
mentioned on the ARRL website in a recent update on the current shuttle
mission, STS-129.
Thanks to Ken, KB3LLA, and RAC for this update.
Ken can be reached at kb3lla@xxxxxxxxx
_____
Solar tsunamis are real!
Sometimes you really can believe your eyes. That's what NASA's STEREO (Solar
Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft are telling researchers about
a controversial phenomenon on the sun known as the "solar tsunami."
Read more, or better yet, listen to the audio report on the Science at NASA
website:
<http://tinyurl.com/yzyhdph> http://tinyurl.com/yzyhdph
_____
E-letter audio now heard on C Joy Internet Radio
The Handiham World is now available on Internet broadcaster C Joy Internet
Radio, thanks to Pastor Darryl Breffe, KB1EXZ. Check it out at:
<http://www.cjoyinternetradio.com>
http://www.cjoyinternetradio.com
_____
Mcount update
Mcount update
The Mcount is now the Mcount2 - same software but I got rid of the surface
mount parts.
The Mcount2 kit is $12 , plus
$3 flat rate shipping and handling per order in the USA.
The web page is:
<http://home.att.net/~jacksonharbor/mcount2.htm>
http://home.att.net/~jacksonharbor/mcount2.htm
Best Regards,
Chuck Olson, WB9KZY
Jackson Harbor Press
(Resources from the Jackson Harbor Press website (MP3 audio courtesy WB9KZY
site.)
_____
Don Hatlestad , AC7FA, has created a neat little foldable pocket sized (but
8 page) cheat <http://home.att.net/~jacksonharbor/McountPocketQuickRef.pdf>
sheet for the original Mcount in PDF Acrobat format based on the manual.
Much appreciated Don !
Tom Fowle, WA6IVG, has written a review
<http://www.handiham.org/article.php?sid=496> of the original Mcount for
the Handiham web site, thanks Tom !
Tom Fowle and David Vasquez of the Smith-Kettlewell
<http://www.ski.org/rerc> Eye Research Institute have recorded an audio
version of the original Mcount manual, thanks Tom and David ! If you would
like an audio CD of the manual please let me know prior to ordering the kit.
I've tried converting the CD audio to mp3 format and have posted the 10
parts here:
<http://home.att.net/~jacksonharbor/Mcount00.mp3> Mcount00.mp3 Narrators
Note and Main Title (82k)
Mcount01.mp3 Introduction <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount01.mp3> (50k)
Mcount02.mp3 General Notes on <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount02.mp3>
Building the Mcount (347k)
Mcount03.mp3 Building the <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount03.mp3> Mcount
kit (2539k)
Mcount04.mp3 Operation <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount04.mp3> (3647k)
Mcount05.mp3 Gotchas <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount05.mp3> (401k)
Mcount06.mp3 Modification <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount06.mp3> Ideas
(477k)
Mcount07.mp3 Email Closing <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount07.mp3>
Copyright (78k)
Mcount08.mp3 List of parts <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount08.mp3>
included with the Mcount kit (913k)
Mcount09.mp3 Items you need <http://wb9kzy.home.att.net/Mcount09.mp3> to
provide to complete the Mcount kit (307k)
_____
This week at Headquarters:
Speaking of social networking, we are on <http://www.handiham.org/node/476>
Twitter!
<http://www.handiham.org/sites/default/files/images/ham_mobile.jpg> We are
on Twitter!
Look for us on Twitter by searching for "handiham". We invite you to follow
us. Handiham web page posts are now "tweeted" automatically!
· Our phone numbers are working again! If you get voice mail,
please leave your call back number, the reason for the call, and the best
time for us to call you back.
· Handiham Headquarters will be closed for the Thanksgiving Holidays
November 26 and 27. Handiham Headquarters will reopen Monday, November 30.
We wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends.
The regular Handiham daily Echolink net will go on as scheduled.
· The regular Friday audio lectures will be released today,
Wednesday 25 November 2009.
· In Operating Skills:
o Pat, WA0TDA, reads the December 2009 QST audio digest for our blind
members.
o Volunteer reader Ken Padgitt, W9MJY, reads the December "Doctor is in"
column from QST for our blind members.
o Volunteer reader Bob Zeida, N1BLF, has completed the December
Worldradio digest.
o <http://handiham.org/user> Login to the member section of the Handiham
website and find the magazine digests in the Library.
o Volunteer George, N0SBU, has completed and mailed the November 4-track
cassette audio digest to our blind members. He is working on the December
mailing.
· Our Contact information is the same, but keep watching this space
for changes: Email addresses will not change.
Courage Center Handiham System
3915 Golden Valley Road
Golden Valley, MN 55422
763-520-0512 (Nancy)
763-520-0511 (Pat)
· Our email address (for Nancy's office) is
<mailto:hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
· Pat can be reached by email any time, including nights and
weekends, at <mailto:wa0tda@xxxxxxxx> wa0tda@xxxxxxxx or
<mailto:patt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> patt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
· The equipment loan program is on hold right now due to limited
staff hours.
o The Handiham equipment program still welcomes donations of good ham
radio equipment.
o We plan to distribute donated equipment to our radio campers at the
next Radio Camp session.
o Handiham members who already have equipment out on loan may continue to
borrow that equipment.
· Minnesota Radio Camp dates for 2010, Camp Courage:
Arrive Friday, May 21
Class days: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
VE Exam Day: Thursday
Depart Friday, May 28
· Camp Courage is west of Minneapolis. The address is 8046 83rd St
NW, Maple Lake, MN.
o The phone number of the Camp Courage office is (320) 963-3121.
o If you want to receive a Camp Courage summer camp schedule, you may
call for one. The camp schedule includes information about Handiham Radio
Camp. If you need specific information about the radio camp or want to be
on the radio camp mailing list, you may call Nancy in the Handiham office at
1-866-426-3442.
o Here is an interactive Google map showing Camp Courage:
<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=camp+courage+
maple+lake+mn&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=41.496446,93.076172&ie=UTF8&hq=cam
p+courage&hnear=Maple+Lake,+MN&ll=45.271066,-94.056286&spn=0.084565,0.145912
&z=12> View Google Map
· VOLLI is now in service. It stands for VOLunteer Log In, and is a
way for our Handiham volunteers to register and then enter their volunteer
hours without having to fool around with paper records. We encourage
volunteers to create a username and password, then submit their hours spent
recording audio, doing club presentations for us, and so on. Volunteer hours
are important, because United Way funding depends in part on volunteer
hours. If you are a volunteer and need a link to VOLLI, please email me at
wa0tda@xxxxxxxxx Our special thanks to my son Will, KC0LJL, who wrote the
Java code for VOLLI. He is studying in Tokyo this semester and sends a big
"hello" to our readers and listeners.
· Volunteers, get your November hours in through VOLLI - I'll be
checking them soon! You may also submit volunteer hours to Nancy at
<mailto:hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
· The Remote Base at Courage North is in service. Please feel free
to use this wonderful member resource.
· Stay in touch! Be sure to send Nancy your change of address,
phone number changes, or email address changes so that we can continue to
stay in touch with you. You may either email Nancy at
hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or call her toll-free at 1-866-426-3442. Mornings
are the best time to contact us.
_____
Wednesday Evening EchoLink Net
Wednesday Evening EchoLink Net happy guy with headset
Wednesday evenings the Handiham EchoLink net will be on the air. Please join
us and check in or simply listen in, as you see fit:
When:
Wednesday evenings at 19:30 hours Minnesota time (7:30 PM)
GMT: Thursday morning at 01:30 Z.
Where:
145.450 MHz N0BVE repeater (Minneapolis-St. Paul)
Node 89680 (EchoLink worldwide)
IRLP node 9008 (Vancouver BC reflector)
WIRES system number 1427
Everyone is welcome. You do not need to be a member, and the net is relaxed,
friendly, and informal.
By the way, our Net Manager Howard, KE7KNN, reminds us that we need net
control stations for the Wednesday evening net and for the Monday through
Saturday morning net. If you are in the Twin Cities, all you need is a radio
that can get on the 145.45 N0BVE repeater, and if you live outside the RF
area, you can still be net control via EchoLink, IRLP, or WIRES.
_____
Reminder: Handiham renewals are on a monthly schedule - Please renew or
join, as we need you to keep our program strong!
You will have several choices when you renew:
· Join at the usual $10 annual dues level for one year. Your
renewal date is the anniversary of your last renewal, so your membership
extends for one year.
· Join for three years at $30.
· Lifetime membership is $100.
· If you can't afford the dues, request a sponsored membership for
the year.
· Donate an extra amount of your choice to help support our
activities.
· Discontinue your membership.
Please return your renewal form as soon as possible.
Your support is critical! Please help.
The Courage Handiham System depends on the support of people like you, who
want to share the fun and friendship of ham radio with others. Please help
us provide services to people with disabilities. We would really appreciate
it if you would remember us in your estate plans. If you need a planning
kit, please call. If you are wondering whether a gift of stock can be given
to Handihams, the answer is yes! Please call Nancy at: 1-866-426-3442 or
email: <mailto:hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ask for a free DVD about the Handiham System. It’s perfect for your club
program, too! The video tells your club about how we got started, the Radio
Camps, and working with hams who have disabilities. Call 1-866-426-3442
toll-free.
1-866-426-3442 toll-free -- Help us get new hams on the air.
Free! Get the Handiham E-Letter by email every Wednesday, and stay
up-to-date with ham radio news.
· You may listen in audio to the E-Letter at www.handiham.org
<http://www.handiham.org/> .
Email us to subscribe: <mailto:hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Handiham members with disabilities can take an online audio course at
www.handiham.org <http://www.handiham.org/> :
• Beginner
• General
• Extra
• Operating Skills
_____
That's it for this week. 73 from all of us at the Courage Handiham System!
Pat, WA0TDA
Manager, Courage Handiham System
Reach me by email at: <mailto:patt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
patt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
· Nancy, Handiham Secretary: hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
· Pat, WA0TDA, Manager, patt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
· Radio Camp email: radiocamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ARRL diamond logo
ARRL is the premier organization supporting amateur radio worldwide. Please
contact Handihams for help joining the ARRL. We will be happy to help you
fill out the paperwork!
The weekly e-letter is a compilation of software tips, operating
information, and Handiham news. It is published on Wednesdays, and is
available to everyone free of charge. Please email wa0tda@xxxxxxxx for
changes of address, unsubscribes, etc. Include your old email address and
your new address.
· By wa0tda at 11/25/2009 - 17:07
· Login
<http://www.handiham.org/user/login?destination=comment/reply/623%2523commen
t-form> to post comments
· Printer-friendly <http://www.handiham.org/print/623> version
· Send <http://www.handiham.org/printmail/623> to friend
_____
Courage Center Handiham System
3915 Golden Valley Road
Golden Valley, MN 55422
E-Mail: hamradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Toll-Free telephone: 1-866-HANDIHAM (1-866-426-3442)
FAX:(763) 520-0577 Be sure to put "Handihams" in the FAX address!
We look forward to hearing from you soon.
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