Amateur Radio/Scanner & Linux blog

Just received the following frequencies to add to the list. 14:45 Local time.

171.0125 cw id and encrypted p 25

407.1875 p 25

406.975 p 25
167.750 encrypted p25

The following frequency list was sent to me by Jeff, N3TAY and have had activity on them today.


170.825 old type of scrambling heard

165.2875 p 25

170.5875 p 25

171.2625 p 25

172.6875 p 25

169.5875 p 25

413.875 heard 3p1294 to control for a radio check. not sure who this is

163.950 encrypted p 25

166.5125 encrypted p25

163.725 p 25

163.110 or maybe 163.1125 hearing aircraft calling for radio checks and various locations for video in p 25

170.815 encrypted p 25

170.880 encrypted p 25

164.400 came up as data and encrypted on my 396xt p25

168.4625 encrypted p25

406.3375 p 25 and some encrypted

407.775 p 25

407.7875 p 25
407.3875 p 25

One of the items we discussed on the weekly scanner net yesterday evening was the fact that Radio Shack has several scanner models on sale. If you are in the market for a new scanner there are some reasonable deals available especially for the south western Pennsylvania area where APCO 25 digital and trunking systems are not yet dominant.

Two items that are of particular interest at the PRO-163 hand held and the PRO-164 base scanners both with a number of attractive features. They are a complementarity pair with the same basic features and user interface. Both are computer programmable and I believe the same software package will work on both. They both have what I consider to be key features for use in Allegheny County now and that is alpha tagging for the channels and CTCSS/DCS tone decoding. The former because with the centralized dispatching and the large number of channels in use now and the latter because most of us use computers at home and tone squelch helps eliminate superfluous noise of the digital variety that might be floating around the radio room.

Both of these scanners have 1000 channel capacity and handle trunked as well as conventional systems. The only thing lacking is APCO 25 digital demodulation which at least at this time is not a big factor unless you live in or want to monitor Westmoreland County. So give them a look if you are in the market.

I picked this up from twitter and it is a nicely documented article on putting together a portable multi band dipole with simple materials. If you are into experimenting with antennas or if you are thinking of a neat antenna for upcoming field day this article will grab your attention. Follow this link for more information.

[The W3FF portable dipole antenna]

Labels: antennas portable dipole field day home brew

One of my pet peeves is that as far as I can tell none of the current crop of amateur VHF/UHF hand held or mobile radios has a scanning function that works the way you would expect it to.

When the major manufactures like Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu/Vertex started making their land mobile models available to the amateur market with different firmware which controlled frequency range, mostly for the transmitter, and made them field programmable and added a few bells and whistles that the commercial markets had no need for I thought it was a great move. For the most part I still feel that way but there is one glaring exception that just chaps my backside.

If you are active on the VHF/UHF bands in the FM mode I'm sure you know what I'm talking about before I explain. Since the early days of consumer grade public safety scanners channel one could be made a "priority" channel which when the function was activated would check that frequency every so many seconds and if it became active revert back to it for the duration that a signal was present. In the commercial world this also has long been a feature of mobile and portable radios. As far back as the Master series radios from GE, which were hybrid tube solid state units, one of the feature sets available was a control head that made what ever channel the selector switch was set on became the priority channel when scanning. This was important for public safety users because it allowed them to monitor other services and surrounding communities while not missing calls on their primary frequency.

Early radios especially the home scanners would miss anything from a syllable to a word as it performed this "jump back" operation to see if the priority channel was active. Over time this technology improved both on the digital and the RF side to the point that you could barely discern the fact that the priority option was active as the radio checked activity on channel one. Other improvements allowed any channel to be the priority channel with selection from the front panel of the radio. I think everyone would agree that these features were added because of good engineering by the manufacturers combined with consumer demand and competition between brands in the market place.

So having said all of that I can't understand why we get such a lame version of the priority channel on our ham rigs which I have pointed out are very similar to the companies land mobile offerings. Even if I could buy the commercial version for the same price as the ham rigs I wouldn't give up all the amenities of the amateur version just to get what I consider the proper operation of the priority channel. The commercial versions typically have a very limited number of memory channels compared to the ham rig. There also is usually no direct keyboard entry of frequency by the end user for obvious reasons. Also there is the fact that they typically cost several times there amateur counterparts. So the next time you have occasion to talk with a representative from one of the "big three" think about asking them who we should communicate our requests to at their respective companies. I'll get down off my soap box now. Thanks for reading.

APCO Honors 2 Communications Centers (6/1/09)
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International announced the inaugural winners of its Horizon Award. The Horizon Award acknowledges the efforts of communications centers that have proactively assessed and met the technological and operational needs of their center, employees and service population and is presented to one large center and one small center.

The 2009 Horizon Award for a Large Center is being presented to Fairfax County (Va.) Department of Public Safety Communications. The 2009 Horizon Award for a Small Center is being presented to Cambria (Pa.) 9-1-1. The awards will be presented at the APCO International 75th Annual Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas on August 18.

For further information follow this link.

Association of Public Safety Communications Officials

I have been watching the Net Book market and as the prices fall they become more desirable all the time. My initial wariness of units with only solid state drives has subsided and I would even consider one of those even though most are 16 gigs of disk space or less. In any case I found this latest review interesting and thought I would pass it along.


Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Cyber Cynic

Reports of the Linux netbook's death at the hands of Microsoft have been greatly exaggerated. A flood of Linux netbook news will be made next week at the Computex trade show in Taiwan, but, after Intel announced the beta of Moblin 2, HP has decided not to wait and made an important Linux netbook announcement this week.

HP announced that it was releasing a new netbook, the HP Mini 110, that runs Ubuntu Linux 8.04 with HP's easy to use Mi (Mobile internet) desktop interface. It will also be available with XP Home, but, for once, the Linux powered model looks to be the more compelling buy even if you don't care for Linux.

Follow THIS LINK for the full story.

Labels: Linux netbook HP

I was just listening to a conversation on the local 147.090 repeater between what I assume was a long time ham and a newcomer. I was multi tasking at the time trying to answer questions about new software that Linda bought for our Wii and listen to a podcast at the same time. Because of that I missed both guys names and calls but I got the gist of their conversation.

The newcomer was asking about the Breeze Shooters Hamfest wanting to know if there would be any dealers there. He is planning on buying an HF rig and wanted a first hand look and get to twirl the knobs before plunking down his hard earned cash. Pretty wise for a newcomer.

The gentlemen that made up the other half of the QSO informed him that yes indeed there would be dealers at Breeze Shooters and that he recommended KJI Electronics. He said that he had bought several items from them and has been very satisfied with the service. He also mentioned that they not only come to the Breeze Shooters ham fest each year but that they support the club and the ham fest.

I also have purchased equipment from KJI having acquired my dual mobile Yaesu FT-7800 from them the last time I went looking for a new rig for the car. I believe in spending your dollars either at home or with those that go out of the way to provide good service and or support your club. They should get your consideration when you decide to open your wallet, in my opinion even if they are a dollar or two more than their competitors. KJI has always made an effort to match or beat the price of other dealers in addition to being a friend of the club and the ham fest. So keep this in mind when you are ready to buy.

KJI Electronics of New Jersey

Here is an interesting article from Wired Magazine's web site.

You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.

Here is a link to the FULL STORY.

Six meters can be a very interesting band to work. With many of the new rigs now including six meters in their basic configuration hams are starting to look at six in a new light. Not the mention that the transition digital television is going to eliminate the old bug a boo of TVI that everyone feared and which kept many operators off six meters. So check out this antenna design and think about joining in on the fun of six meters.

SIMPLE SIX METER DIPOLE

If you are in the market for a new scanner Radio Shack currently had a sale on that you might find of interest. If you don't need APCO25 I like the deal on the PRO-163 with 1000 channels, alpha numeric display and PL/DPL decoding capabilities. Follow this link below to check them out.

Radio Shack Scanners On Sale

I have upgraded all but one of my systems to Ubuntu version 9.04 using the Gnome desktop environment. The one remaining box to be done at this time is the main system in the ham shack which is currently using version 8.04 and I can't wait to get it up to speed with the new version. I need to make some changes to my home network or I would have it done already.

I haven't really posted much on the blog about Linux but I have become a huge fan of the operating system and despite the fact the you are somewhat limited for radio programming software I'm very happy without Windows in the shack. I don't worry about if the anti virus program up to date, as a matter of fact even though anti virus software is available for Linux I have never felt the need to use one and never had any problems as a result of that action.

If you have never tried Linux you should get one of the "live" CDs that will let you try out the operating system without modifying your existing Windows system. It is a little sluggish running it that way but it will give you an idea of what it looks and feels like. If you are looking for something new to try out in the ham shack give Linux a try. I think you will be surprised how much better this operating system is.

Labels: Linux ham shack Ubuntu

APD prepares for communications breakdown
Source: Anchorage Police Department
Updated: 05/12/2009 11:51:41 AM AKDT

When a city looses its electronic infrastructure through natural disaster or cyber attack, the 911 services, cell phones, land-line phones, DSL internet and private networks, fire and burglar alarm systems, hospital computer systems, and credit card systems can all cease to operate.

Morgan Hill, California experienced this in the wee hours of March 9, 2009. Cyber attackers entered 4 manholes and cut cables completely paralyzing the electronic infrastructure for miles around.

Only one system didn't go down, the ham radio network. Amateur radio personnel sprung into action to assist in the Morgan Hill incident.

Fortunately local hams are ready to do the same here in Anchorage. Thirty-two APD officers and dispatchers have received training from the Anchorage Amateur Radio Club (AARC). Using a grant obtained by the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), all have been licensed as ham operators.

SEE THE ENTIRE STORY HERE

Hey gang. Sorry it has taken so long to get to this but I have been somewhat busy lately and need to find several more of those "tuit" devices.

As I am sure many of you are already aware, there are a number of great resources out there on the Internet for the radio hobbyist. Being a "radio" oriented person I have a tendency to be drawn to media involving the spoken word. This brings me to the subject of Pod Casts or if your prefer Net Casts of which there are far more than you might suspect. Here is a short list of those that I have discovered in the past few weeks. If you find additional entires for the list please email them to me and I will share them with the group.

Amateur Radio Newsline

This Week In Amateur Radio

Ted Randall's QSO Radio Show

Practical Amateur Radio Podcast

Resonant Frequency

Linux in the Ham Shack

Ham Radio Pod Class

Hambrief TV


These are just a small sample of what is out there on the net and there are a lot more that would be of great interest to amateur radio operators but are not directly related to ham radio. I will post some additional links as I continue to gather information.

Labels: podcast netcast ham radio amateur radio

I'm sure you have all uttered the words or had them uttered to you at some point in time. RTFM or "read the fine manual". Now I have to say that I have heard other nouns and adjectives with different levels of frustration used in place of these four letters as I'm sure you have also. For the moments though we will stick with my current definition.

I am coming to understand that there is really some value in the words and following their suggestion. I own a Yaesu FT-60 hand held transceiver have been using it for about a eight or nine months now and enjoying it very much. Now I have to tell you being a geek and somewhat of a gadget nut one of my litmus test for how well a piece of equipment is designed is if can I take it out of the box and get all of the basic functions it has working without looking at the manual.

The problem with this attitude is that I have started in my old age to let the process end there and just use what I can figure out by playing with a new radio PDA phone or whatever. Add to this the fact that now days most new radio equipment has a computer interface that will let you program it with a GUI interface and that lessens the need to know what all those key combination are to get a particular feature enabled and the brain starts to atrophy. The next thing you know you find yourself out there in the field with no idea how to turn that darn beeping off that happens every time you push the PTT button. Or worse how to turn on or set the tone encoder so that you can access a repeater in a new location that you have just wandered into.

My point here is that after the new and shiny wears off you should take a little time to sit with the manual and figure out all of the little intricacies of your new toy. More and more manufactures are making it easy because the manuals are available in PDF format so that you can search for what that button does really fast. If your experience is like mine I think you will find yourself enjoying your equipment even more than you already do. I have found some neat features with my FT-60 that I didn't realize were there. Give it a try and see if you get the same results.

Labels: RTFM manuals equipment