Japanese Sound Effects! More Images and Addresses!

I have a few sample giseigo and giongo images that I harvested last night, and what's more, here are a few more addresses which may offer the availability of additional publications on the subject of Japanese manga sound effects. Some of these websites may be presented in languages other than English, but if you take a few extra moments to carefully scan each page, you will be able to discern useful information even if you do not know the operative language.


http://www.virtualitesjaponaises.net/quotidienlivres.php

http://www.commecadujapon.com/dokuwiki/japonais/onomatopees

http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/illustrated-dictionary-of-japanese-onomatopoetic-expressions-~-nihongo-gitaigo-jiten

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-9g-49-en-70-198v.html
(related information)

http://www.howtojapanese.com/HtLang.html#lang_336
(related information)

http://www.trussel.com/jap/jbooks01.htm
(related information)

Get the Book! Kana de Manga: Japanese Sound Effects!

The paperback volume Kana de Manga: Japanese Sound FX is authored by Glen Kardy and illustrated by Chihiro Hattori and offers some interesting detail on the subject of Japanese manga sound effects.

The collective term for these Japanese sound effects is giseigo. There are categories: giongo for voiced sounds, gitaigo to display feelings and gijogo to reflect psychological conditions. With the exception of some graphic novels and comics published here in the United States, this form of visual onomatopoeia is more prevalent in Japanese manga and other print material. Japanese sound effects are composed in both hiragana and katakana. Deciding which to make use of is essentially an artistic judgment call. But as a rule, hiragana will be employed for soft,pleasant sounds and Japanese words while katagana comes in handy for harsh, loud sounds and foreign words.

This publication offers less in background detail but more on select sound effects across several chapters, including Animal Sounds, Human Sounds, Mechanical Sounds, Nature Sounds and other Miscellaneous Effects.

MNOAOS Zach is a big fan of Doctor Slump And Shaman King manga currently available at your hometown book stores but these are apparently recent English language reissues from the Japanese originals first published in the 1980's. Unfortunately, the unique printed sounds have been replaced with Romaji or English transliterations: largely just big silly words.

Addendum: Actually, not true! The big words are more in keeping with comics published in the USA in the sense that they are monster sounds. This Saturday Zach and I stopped by Borders Books and Music and picked up the latest copies of Shaman King. Like stateside comics, big, heavily fonted words like RAAAAAAH: crowd noise, WOOOOSH: wind, and SPLOOSH: water splashing are standard fare. There is the more enigmatic DOOM and SHEEN for sunlight. What is missing is the far more subtle print sounds for emotions and psychological mindsets, something that western audiences would have no reference for in such publications.

This book is available from Manga University at http://www.mangauniversity.com/ but I was able to obtain a copy right off the shelf at a Borders Books and Music here in little old Albany, New York.

E-Mail! We Get E-Mail! We want to hear from you!

Here, in no particular order, are a few recent e-mail requests for an Official This Week in Amateur Radio QSL Card. The more traditional pathway of writing a reception report and mailing it to: This Week in Amateur Radio Post Office Box 30, Sand Lake, New York 12153 has given way in recent years to an e-mail request sent to n2fnh@capital.net. So, whether you receive the program over your local VHF or UHF repeater, copy the show over WBCQ or download the latest weekly Internet Podcast, you can get your own TWIAR QSL Card by taking pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. either way works!

Hello,
I wanted to write & let you know that I've listened to each and every installment of TWiAR since first discovering the podcast back in late 2005. Thanks to iTunes, it's a snap to download the program & stuff it into my iPod (along with a multitude of other shows relating to ham radio, shortwave radio, pirate radio & just broadcasting in general). I take a three mile walk every day during my lunch hour & TWiAR goes with me one day per week. I really enjoy all of the regular features (particularly the Random Access Thought, The Ancient Amateur Archives, et al) & credit your podcast as being my the inspiration for purchasing my first MP3 player waaaay back when. Keep up the great service; it is appreciated!
Brian / KA6WSR
Riverside, CA USA
Oh yeah... I'd really like to receive one of those This Week in Amateur Radio QSL cards you mentioned in the last show if you'd be so kind. Thanks in advance!

---
My name is Simon, N7VTD, and I am listening to the show via podcast while at work in Portland, OR. Excellent show and very useful. I hope you keep it going for many years to come.
73
Simon
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Just wanted to drop you a line. I found the podcast of your show and really enjoyed it. I've never heard it on any of the local repeaters around my area. The show is informative & entertaining which I like.
Best regards,
Scott
KC9JRF
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Hello,
I listen to your POD CAST every week on the way to work. I drive about 42miles each way and love listening to the show because it keeps me interested and makes me enjoy the long drive. Without you I would prob be seeking new work closer to home! Love all the sound effects and of course love Random Access Thought of course the tick tock routine and most of all Technology Report with Leo! Please send me a QSL card so that I can hang it right on the wall.
Jeffrey Dubin - N9MXT
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Greetings!
I was listening to This Week In Amateur Radio #799 and heard a bit about getting a QSL card. So I would like to get my first one. ;) My name is Brendan Leber and my callsign is KD7LAH. I've been licensed since 2000 but upgraded to General earlier this year and am really getting into the hobby now. I live in Seattle and my address (if the FCC hasn't updated the database since my move) is:
Brendan Leber
Seattle, WA
I listen to the podcast while at work during the day. I subscribed in iTunes using the podcast link on the TWIAR website.
73 de Brendan
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Greetings from Louisville KY.
I am Larin, N9CTR and listen to TWIAR on my IPOD, getting the podcast though ITUNES. I really enjoy the show.
Thanks
Larin Vonnahme
---
We faithfully listen to the Full Version of TWIAR weekly using an MP3 download from your website played through Winamp into desktop speakers connected to our personal home computer using Windows XP operating system.
VE7BGJ Walter Hendrickson
VA7CHR Cheryl McDuff
Burnaby, B.C. CANADA
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Hi there, been listening to TWIAR for a couple years now...love it...and enjoy my listening on my HP Pocket PC while walking my dog Keddy. Keep up the great work.
73
Joe
VO1BQ
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Hello Bill,
I listen to TWIAR International each week via podcast on my Nokia N82 http://www.nseries.com/products/n82/ mobile phone, I download podcasts directly onto the device via my WiFi Internet connection. I especially enjoy your Ancient Amateur Archives, my favourite was "The Story of Reginald". I have been a Security Officer and Amateur Radio Operator most of my adult life and I have seen a few Reginald's during this time and your story really brought back memories. I live in Healesville, a town about 60km North East of Melbourne, Victoria Australia. I am a member of the local club, Yarra Valley Amateur Radio Group http://www.yarravalley.ar.org.au/ and we have a 2M Repeater VK3RYV on 146.725 MHz. Keep up the good work with the broadcast. The views I present are that of my own and NOT of any organisation I may belong to.
73 de Simon, VK3XEM.
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N9HDO listening on an Ipod in Indianapolis, IN. Couldn't quite make out your domain name in the 7/13/2008 message, but I found your juno addy on your blog. Oh, RATRAT . . . LOL. Len Cooley

The N2FNH Sound Effects Library! Part 3A: Sometimes it's better if you record it yourself!

Back in 2004, on the weekend of MNOAOS Zachary's birthday, we held a small party with some of our friends at the house. Late in the afternoon, while Zach was engaged with his new presents and old pals, fellow hams Bill W2XOY and Jeff WA2AIB offered up some extemporaneous content for the then-relatively new Random Access Thought. Bill documented his thoughts on something referred to as "The Communicator Citizen Band Radio" while Jeff reflected on how it was he got interested in medium wave AM radio DXing when he was a kid back in the early 1960's.

For Jeff's feature, I needed two elements: a hollow wintry background wind, which I already had on hand, and the sound of an AM radio being tuned, which I did not already have on hand. So I spent about 20 minutes mining my existing stock libraries but could not find any interesting samples of AM radios being tuned. In fact, most of what was available were 1930's vintage floor consoles or just clips of squealing heterodynes. Out of minor annoyance, I grabbed a nearby Sangean SG-796 AM/FM/SW portable, held it up to the microphone, tuned the radio myself and recorded the sound.

This was the effect I wanted, but while listening to the playback, as short as the blips of radio voices were, I could hear comments concerning President George Bush and one or two other contemporary references. Since this was to a be more of an ambient effect, coupled with the fact that it was supposed to be the early 1960's...and given that I was too lazy to edit any further, I played the sound in reverse. The resultant effect was so pleasing that I have relied solely on this sound-played-backwards since then for any radio being tuned. Thus, if one of my characters, say Mother Radio, is tuning a shortwave radio, this is the recording you will hear. But this same sound has also been customized and mixed with heterodynes and other kinds of radio noises to make each use more unique.

Thunder recordings abound in commercially available sound effects libraries. There is really nothing more fun than using the original thunder sounds used in the 1931 Universal Pictures classic motion picture Frankenstein, but on occasion, you may want something a little different and while each library may offer a wide selection, usually they are very intense, explosive clips. Since summertime thunderstorms are a frequent occurrence here in little old Albany, it was easy to capture a few of my own using my cheap forty-nine dollar RadioShack analog cassette tape recorder.

Because of the audio characteristics associated with the C49DRSACTR, recordings of thunder will mix well with in-the-field audio recorded using the same device. For Field Day this year, Zach and I got together with the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association during which time, a few roving thunder boomers trenched on by, While I was able to capture the sound of the downpour, I was not able to get any thunder. Not a problem! I already had various samples recorded with the C49DRSACTR in my library which would then match in terms of overall
audio quality.

Speaking of rain, my best rain recording I made myself again with the C49DRSACTR. I stuck a microphone out a laundry room window to catch the loud ploppy droppy sounds of bloated globular raindrops impacting on mud and stones between two houses. I prefer this sound over any of the CD quality samples I have elsewhere.

Same deal with a car's electric window motor. I needed this sound for a TWIAR TWIARi QSL Promo but none of the samples on hand had what I wanted. So! Out the door with the C49DRSACTR to my 1996 Pontiac Grand Prix. The electric window motors are over ten years old so they already have that really cranky, buzzy, not-so-new sounding sound which is exactly what I wanted.

When it came to getting a good drag on a cigarette for Cigman Krasnov, the forty five year old fail-to-launch, stay at home big kid, whose world begins and ends with fast cars and hot chicks, it turned out there were no cigarette selections in any of my libraries. A quick trip to http://www.sounddogs.com/ produced several offerings of cigarette drags but they were dismal. SO! Since I do not smoke, I whipped out a handy-dandy Bic Pen, took a wet but really quite fake draw and blew out some imaginary smoke. The actual drag sounded better when played backwards so this became the final cut.

Designing sound effects is not always the same as recording music. In many cases, I can get away with a comparatively low-quality recording because the raw recording is going to be reconfigured anyway with the end product sounding remarkably better than the original item.

From the RAT FILES circa 2003: Entertainment by Proxy!

The following was originally composed as radio copy for THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO, first aired in May of 2003. Please click on http://www.twiar.org/ for additional information. This episode was first aired as a straight read but then later re-recorded using the usual appropriate sound effects. This is also one of my favorite shows so it may from time to time reappear over This Week in Amateur Radio and TWIARi!

When we were kids, we cruised the record stores for the latest and greatest 45 Revolution Per Minute(!) analog Top 40 singles and the 33 1/3 wax for the crummier but cool to have anyway album tracks. Our favorite chart busters were squeezed and flattened onto a roughly circular and often times physically warped chunk of black vinyl plastic which we used to call a RECORD, played on a Victrola(R).

Clever record producers schemed to get us to buy those same chart busters again and for more than twice the original vinyl cost by digitizing and compressing everything into a smaller, roughly circular chunk of plastic and tinfoil which we now call the AUDIO COMPACT DISC(R), played on a compact disc(R) player. The same is now happening to the video and the motion picture. Losers in the early BetaMax(R) wars had to re-up for the ubiquitous VHS(R) tape box but these days, the manufacturers of Digital Video Disc(R) a.k.a. the DVD(R) are maneuvering us to yank out the wallet and purchase the very same television shows and Hollywood films that we lifted for free off the cable TV (subscriptions starting at $39.50 a month).

I have one too many terminally sticky and faded red plastic milk crates tightly jammed with vinyl, one too many physically warped shelves and one too many partially crushed dollar store plastic boxes tightly crammed with CDs and old VHS. I have no more room for home entertainment. So here's my idea.

I have concluded that my fellow high-tech and very cutting-edge audio and video pals will buy my DVDs for me. They will house and store my DVDs for me at their residence and they will maintain my DVD player permanently mounted in their expensive home entertainment centers. Follow this idea carefully: These pals of mine have tastes in film and television, similar to me, lucky for me. Given that fact, I am now... suggesting, ummm subtly encouraging them to pre-select certain video titles so that I may enjoy them when I come over to the house - THEIR house. In essence, they buy and own the DVD player and associated acoustic accoutrement's.

Again: They BUY the DVDs. They OWN the DVDs. I come over to THEIR place to watch. And because I will have the much-desired GUEST STATUS: I will be offered the FREE Coca-Cola. I will be offered the FREE ice cream sandwiches. I will be offered the FREE Cheetos. When I go home, the machines and the disks and the empty cans and the depleted chip bags and the gooey wrappers STAY behind - AT THEIR HOUSE!

Any grandparent understands this. At the end of the day: THEY leave. The kids STAY behind. At the end of the day: I leave. The DVDs STAY behind. And I will have a lot of extra discretionary space on hand, most likely to be filled with more dumpster baby computers and old boat anchor radios. As a post script, unfortunately this theory ultimately failed once my Number One And Only Son Zachary was born. Soon, DVDs of cartoons like Thomas the Tank Engine and Pokemon became required personal library material. But it worked for a while!

The KLEE Case! Truth? Or...Hoax?

This week's edition of the Random Access Thought was produced back in March of this year and features Cigman and Marilyn Krasnov who get together with Mother Radio for the spooky tale of KLEE, a Houston,Texas television station received in Great Britain three years after the original transmission was made. This is the stuff of UFOs and flying saucers! In fact, the incident was documented in the classic Frank Edwards best seller "Flying Saucers - Serious Business", a book I read and re-read a thousand times when I was but a little pisher!

So download this week's This Week in Amateur Radio and This Week in Amateur Radio International, or even better connect to: http://www.twiar.org/n2fnh/RATParts
Look for file number RAT080311_KLEE.cab, right click and "Save Target As" to your hardddrive. Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the RAT audio WAV file inside!

More Peanuts!

I should receive a fee for all these free ads! Never collected baseball cards...at least, not yet.

Tom Kneitel: SK

From Larry Van Horn's Blog some sad news.

From the Orlando Sentinel newspaper :

Tom Kneitel, who loved radios from the time he was a kid, turned his hobby into a career, writing magazine articles and books for other radio buffs. Known by his CB handle "Tomcat," Kneitel was a storied figure in the world of CBs, shortwaves and scanners. His 1992 book Tune in on Telephone Calls - which told readers how to use inexpensive equipment to join the "popular pastime" of listening in on other people's cell-phone calls - earned him interviews by The New York Times and The Boston Globe.

Kneitel, 75, died Friday. The DeLand man had been ill for more than a year, with a variety of health problems, said Judy Kneitel, his wife of 54 years. He began writing about radios in the 1950s. "My goodness, I'm having fun and they're paying me," he told his wife. His last job had been as editor of Popular Communications magazine, but he had also written for CB Horizons magazine, S9 magazine, Popular Electronics and TV Guide. He also wrote a number of other books.

Born in New York City, Kneitel spent part of his childhood in Florida. He was the grandson of Max Fleischer, the cartoonist who had a Miami animation studio that created Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons. His family moved back to New York when he was a teenager, and Kneitel spent most of his life there. In 2004, the Kneitels retired to DeLand. He was a funny man but also a workaholic who would "be at the typewriter 18 hours a day," Judy Kneitel said. "He never missed a deadline. He enjoyed writing."

Even as he was entering a hospice last year, "he turned out three more articles," she said. Most of his columns contained humor, plays on words and strong opinions. A Pennsylvania newsletter for radio buffs last year reprinted this retort by Kneitel, who'd been taken to task for his criticism of an old organization: "I don't care when it was founded, I just want to know when it will be losted."

Kneitel got his first radio from relatives after he contracted polio when he was 14 - and was hooked. Though he recovered from the disease, he always walked with a limp, his wife said, and about 15 years ago "post-polio syndrome" landed him in a wheelchair. He'd been suffering from heart disease and diabetes, among other problems, too.

In addition to his wife, Kneitel is survived by seven of his eight children and by 10 grandchildren. The family plans a private memorial service.

Such a Big Deal? Japanese Manga Sound Effects?

A few weeks back, while doing a random Google search on "sound effects", I came across references to "Japanese Sound Effects" and "Manga Sound Effects": the art of expressing sound through imagery within the panels of manga, or Japanese graphic novels. I was fortunate to discover that a local Border's Books and Music had a copy of KANA DE MANGA: JAPANESE SOUND FX!(created by Glenn Kardy) in stock. I will read and report in a few days. I have also discovered that a fair majority of web surfers stopping by here at The Random Access Thought are keenly interested in this subject!

Yeah, A Few More...Sorry, Like Eating Peanuts!

I got the "itis"! Pronounce that "eye-tis".

MNOAOS Zach says the "itis" is street talk for when you get sleepy after gobbling up a boatload of turkey. I say this word should also apply more widely. Saving silly stuff like this, it's the itis man!

QSL? YES! We QSL 100 Per Cent!

One of the most enjoyable aspects of being involved with This week in Amateur Radio is to answer requests for our official TWIAR QSL Card. We started issuing QSL cards back in 2005 and at the time, most of the reception reports originated from listeners to our TWIARi broadcastheard each week over WBCQ at 7415 KHz, currently Sundays at 4PM Eastern Time.

But over the years, there has been a shift from this more traditional reception to Internet podcast listening, so these days virtually all This Week in Amateur Radio requests come from podcast listeners. Jeffery Dubin of lake In The Hills, Illinois dropped an e-mail. Checking for his address at QRZ.com, I found his QSL card and a descriptive background.. Let us know you're out there. Drop an e-mail to: n2fnh@capital.net or send a classic reception report to: This Week in Amateur Radio Post Office Box 30, Sand Lake, New York, 12153.

Hello, my name is Jeffrey and living In Lake In The Hills, IL I am married to my beautiful wife Rachel who has a huge interest in Amateur Radio. Also, have a son Ethan who was born 11/12/05. Both of them are my two joys in life. I have been licensed since 1991. Since then I have upgraded to Extra class. I Obtained my Extra right before they got rid of the 20 wpm CW requirements "Figures!!". I enjoy Contesting and of course I love DX'ing. I have always been a DX chaser and to this day I am always looking for more DX stations to talk too, and more QSL cards to place on the wall. I started a local group in the McHenry Co area called McHenry Co Monitoring Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MHCMG/ or check out our website at http://www.mhcmg.com. We, meet once a month for a casual break-fest just to chit chat about Ham Radio stuff or scanners. I, just renewed my VE certification for the ARRL. So, hoping to be testing new members or anyone who's interested. Currently in search for 2 other VE's in the area to get a VE team started.

My station: TS-850S, Ameritron AL-811 Linear, Pentium 4 computer, Sony Viso Laptop which allows me to control the whole HF station, 10' roof-tower, CC A3S (3 ele tri-bander for 10,15,20M), and a Scantenna antenna for my scanners (Bearcat 996T Base and a Bearcat 796D Mobile) A Dual band vertical for my VHF/UHF base. Cushcraft A27010S for 2M/70CM. Also, just built a 800MHz Yagi for monitoring 800MHz trunking stuff. I run an EchoLink node #198432 on frequency 146.445 MHz with a PL of 173.8. Right now the computer that runs the node is DEAD so bare with me on putting the node back online soon. This spring is when I plan on getting busy with new antenna projects!!! You can check out my where-abouts at http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?N9MXT-9 This is a tracker in my vehicle! Current modes I run are D-Star with my IC91AD and APCO25 with my Motorola Astro Saber III. I monitor the N9OZB repeater in the shack all the time and also FISHFAR. Well I plan on getting a mobile Astro soon and a D-STAR mobile soon.

Well, hope to see and meet all of you someday!

The H WORD! Another Possible Origin of HAM!

There have been a number of theories and explanations as to where the slang phrase HAM or HAM RADIO originated. While reading a volume entitled The Victorian Internet, as authored by Tom Standage and available through Berkley Books, New York (ISBN: 0-425-17169-8), I came across this remarkable paragraph:

There was also a dark side to telegraphic interaction: the best operators often felt nothing but scorn toward the small-town, part-time operators they often encountered on-line, who were known as "plugs" or "hams" Speed was valued above all else; the fastest operators were known as bonus men, because a bonus was offered to operators who could exceed the normal quota for sending and receiving messages. So-called first-class operators could handle about sixty messages an hour-a rate of twenty-five to thirty words per minute-but the bonus men could handle even more without a loss in accuracy, sometimes reaching speeds of forty words per minute or more.

It appears from the book that the description relates to a time in the late 1880's or 1890's just prior to the automation of commercial telegraph stations and ultimately the telephone, when telegraph operators were highly skilled in their profession.

By the way, this is a fun read! The parallels between the Telegraph Era and our own Internet Age are amazing! You can find this volume at your local library if you wish to not make the twelve dollar investment.

From the RAT FILES circa 2003: More Retro Computing!

The following was originally composed as radio copy for THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO, first aired in May of 2003. Please click on http://www.twiar.org/ for additional information.

In out last episode, the Random Access File had just downloaded and then front loaded the critical components necessary to lift off your very own Internet DOS Box or Microsoft Windows 3.11 Retro-computer. And now, some very functional, albeit very Retro Internet Tools to expand your wireline horizons. First, these addresses:

http://www.simtel.net/

http://www.winsite.com/

http://www.oldversion.com/

Get the WS files. They are: WS_FTP, WS_PING, WS_FINGER All 16-bit. All work well. Especially WS_FTP. Very straightforward. Very small learning curve. Nice file transport protocol client. The WS stands for WINSOCK. A critical chunk of software needed for your Microsoft Internet experience. Two e-mail programs worth the free download considering their advanced age are: PEGASUS Version 3.10 and EUDORA Version 1.54.

Both PEGASUS and EUDORA need no real learning curve at all and both are a minor pleasure to use. Both are small and both have nothing in common with that sixteen pound bowling ball otherwise known as Microsoft Outlook Express. In fact, use my suggestion and install Pegasus on your Win95 or Win98 machine and you'll be glad you did. I can not say at this time whether
Windows XP will accept these archaic 16-bit fragments.

Another worthwhile consideration is NETTERM. I used to make heavy use of NETTERM when I published a weekly packet radio newsletter billed as the TELNET NEWS. Should you not be so surprised to learn that even the most die hard Retro enthusiast would not only want the classic DOS and Microsoft Windows 3.11 features but also maybe something a little more hip and 21st century? A quick Internet search will reveal some truly unique freeware for your heretofore crappy little laptop or big crappy desk box. Try the keyword: CALMIRA on your next GOOGLE search and a flurry of Webpages will unfold committed to CALMIRA II. Calmira II is a combination desktop, task bar and start up menu that will effectively render your Microsoft Windows 3.11 screen face into one that looks exactly like a Microsoft Windows 95 or Win98 environment. You can minimize your 3.11 program manager, then generate your favorite icons and plaster them onto the facade. Only the fundamentalist will be privy into the fact that it's really a Retro-box. The significant webpage to peruse is http://www.calmira.org/. (no longer available)

Add to this, an unusual anti-virus package from F-PROT. F-PROT provides a COLORFUL DOS screen layout with virus definition updates made available on a fairly regular basis. http://www.f-prot.com/ is the place to go to secure your anti-virus package.

A good benchmark program listed as AIDA16 is also yours for nothing. Everything and anything you need to know about your crappy little laptop or big crappy desk box from your CPU to unseen BIOS specifications to detailed memory information can be gleaned from http://www.aida32.hu/aida16.php. (no longer available)

For those who still enjoy the lost art of telnetting, it had occurred to me that the absolute best telnet client for your 16-bit Retro box, even better than NETTERM, and especially if you do any Internet packeteering, would be the ever-popular G4IDE WinPack terminal program, currently logging in at Version 6.80. Unlike most telnet clients, WinPack was designed specifically for packet use and is by far, the most user friendly environment to work within. Point the browser to http://www.gb7fcr.plus.com/ for the latest plus documentation and additional plug-ins.

StratoVision! Television Transmissions from High Altitude Aircraft!

The Random Access File this week is once again hosted by Boleslav Krasnov who ventures back in time to the late 1940's and into the 1950's when, before the advent of television networking and program distribution via satellite, ambitious plans were set forth for wide area broadcast coverage using high altitude aircraft as transmission platforms.

Recorded back in February of this year, Mister Krasnov of Canarsie Wireless in Brooklyn makes use of his home brew temporal displacement device and positions himself on board an airborne TV studio in order to accurately relate the amazing story of StratoVision!

So download this week's TWIAR Ham Service and the TWIARi Broadcast version, or even better, connect to:http://twiar.org/n2fnh/RATParts/ Look for file number RAF080228_STRA.cab, right click and "Save Target As" to your hardddrive. Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the juicy audio WAV file inside!

A Few More of These...

Like Collecting Stamps or QSL Cards! More Visitors' ISP Logos!

Here are a few more Internet Service Provider Logos that I harvested while checking in with Sitemeter to see where visitors to these amazingly entertaining Random Access Pages are hailing from. In a way, each logo is akin to an Internet QSL card. Although I may have no way of knowing exactly who stopped by, I receive enough detail to know where each visitor is plugging in from. In short, it's a (micro-sized) hobby!

From the RAT FILES circa 2003: Retro Computing!

The following was originally composed as radio copy for THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO, first aired in April of 2003. Please click on http://www.twiar.org/ for additional information.

When we had last convened via these very same radio frequencies and telephone transmission wires, we had just concluded our detailed observation of the truly remarkable ARACHNE DOS based Web browser. Per that same elemental moment, I was also preparing to prep and Retro an antique Digital 486 433SX armed to the teeth with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and take it back to the Internetable status it once had.

Retroing any computer back to the late 20th century is on par to high tailing it over to the local Home Depot with a big wish list of parts to recover an old weather-worn ramshackle homestead. Here though, your Home Depot is the Web and maybe the collective junkboxs of your fellow computer pals and your parts will be the requisite software needed to complete the call as desired to be dialed.

The first three items I requisitioned from our esteemed technical director George Bowen - W2XBS - who had copies of Microsoft DOS Version 6.22, Windows Version 3.1 and the Windows for Workgroups upgrade. The Windows For Workgroups upgrade elevates Windows 3.1 to Windows 3.11 status and comes equipped with the rudimentary networking components necessary to help get the RetroBox online. Your DOS 6.22, Windows 3.1 and 3.11 upgrades can just as easily be found on the Internet, but it may be easier to consult locally first.

You will need the so-called Win-32S upgrade. Win-32S is a little link library of dynamics developed by Microsoft to allow your Windows 3.1 16-bit operating system to run some 32-bit applications. The required file is OLE-32S-13.exe. This package allows for object linking and embedding which is something your current generation Web browser has been doing already to commune with other network devices.

Go find a copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 3.03 for Windows for Workgroups. This is a cool thing because the software contains the browser designed exclusively for the 3.11 environment plus the bonus of an e-mailer, a self-contained Winsock dynamic link library, and most necessary, a built-in telephone dialer that speaks the PPP or Point-to-Point Protocol with your ISP or Internet Service Provider. There is also a 16-bit Internet Explorer Version 4 and a Version 5 available but I believe they are much larger and need more memory plus they are as-is with no e-mailer or dialer.

Secure a copy of Microsoft TCP-32B.exe. This optional executable provides some additional network devices that come standard in Windows 95 and 98, such as a simple telnet program, an FTP and a ping program. These are the elements needed to upgrade your old offline doorstop over to an old online doorstop.

I touched on the Winmodem thing a month back in our last Random Access File where I discussed Arachne DOS Web browser and its complete and total aversion to the Winmodem and its complete and total favoritism to real modems. Then, I did not know what a Winmodem is, but now I do!

Modems are supposed to translate data with compressed sequences of audio tones which are sent across a telephone network and they do! But not so long ago, they did so using a semiconductor chip dedicated to just that assignment. But now, the current buzzwords are: Host signal process, controllerless, host controlled, softmodem. In other words: a Winmodem.

A Winmodem is different from a real modem in that the signal processing is performed by the computer itself, making use of required vendor supplied software, usually Microsoft software or Microsoft compliant software. The Central Processing Unit does the data-to-audio-to-data bit. Thus, using a Winmodem limits your computer to using Windows. Other operating systems such as DOS and Linux require a real modem. But Winmodems are cheaper to make. Once armed with a really real modem with its dedicated data processor chipset, you may be ready to delve into yet another realm of network exploration, that of the deep, dark shadowy, monochromatic, two dimensional world of DOS Interneting where it's just you and the Disk Operating System and nothing else.

While coursing through voluminous volumes of "Cruising The Internet Using DOS" Web pages, I stumbled across an curious though inspiring quote. It read: The biggest disadvantage to DOS is that it's so primitive and the biggest advantage to DOS is that it's so primitive. Having read this, we discover there is an unseen underground armada of computer fans busily drilling deep into the ancient wireline sediment, mining and panning for little bits and bytes, network relics, one time big deal software items such as DOSLynx, Minuet and NetTamer, none of which can do any serious browsing by today's standards other than text with no image or sound at all.

Hardened Internet users dig this kind of world view, shunning the quite spectacular multimedia view of current Web browser technology. These petrified fossils do have value. Quite viable for other functions such as telnet, E-mail and FTP. Of these programs, NetTamer was still being updated as of 2000. NetTamer may still be useful for some of the visually impaired crowd as one easy means to access the Internet. But there are other, even more contemporary DOS network offerings to be unearthed as well. Do a Google search on Barebones E-mailer. The Barebones E-mailer is a scroungy little blister of DOS matter complete with dialer, packet driver and some itty-bitty initialization files, easily configured to dial out of the box and do some e-mail. If you are used to Microsoft Outlook Express, you may find it a little disconcerting to see a few slightly fuzzy grey colored status lines skitter across an otherwise onyx screen, doing the same job in just 1/10th the time.

Another interesting bit of DOS DNA: Referred to as LSPPP, this is a self-contained dialer and packet driver. All functions must be phrased as a command line text statement. No mouse clicks, drags or drops. Thus far, I have had little luck. LSPPP will dial out for me, talk to the local ISP in the PPP for me but then can't complete the network connect.

As we draw near to the conclusion of this month's continental drift into RetroComputerLand, I find myself imagining if there are still any stand alone dialup bulletin board systems in service given the billions and billions of pages scattered about the globe over the World Wide Web. So complete and totally compatible is the Web that onetime Internet hammers and screwdrivers such as Gopher, Archie and Veronica are no longer viable and are no longer employed. There are quite a few BBSs still in service which can be accessed through amateur packet radio and European citizen band packet radio networks and many of these same are also reachable over the Internet but this is not quite the same as the original dialup BBS of the Prodigy and FidoNet venue.

This is probably about as Retro as you could go, short of unearthing Cambrian Era rock deposits such as the Atari 400, Atari 800,the Commodore 64, the Radioshack TRS 80, the RadioShack Color Computer or the Osborne.

This is also where we came in just about five years back when this monthly rant was first billed as "Packet Radio's Best Kept Secrets". I recall discussing how to take telephone modem terminal programs such as ProComm Plus, Commo and HyperTerminal and adjust them for use with the packet radio terminal node controller. Now, I am imagining how cool it would be to take telephone modem terminal programs such as ProComm Plus, Commo and HyperTerminal to find a near extinct but still breathing dialup BBS to log on to. Maybe too, a point-to-point computer-to-computer connection with a subsequent ASCII text, X, Y or ZModem or Kermit session. None of which I got to do because I was something of a Billy-Come-Lately having spent the latter 1990'solely with packet radio.

- 30 -

High Technology Complaints and Curious Observations: Part 2!

This week's Random Access Thought continues the thread first introduced in Part 1. Recorded back in February of this year, Canarsie Wireless Senior Technician Boleslav Krasnov, along with Mother Radio(Mrs.Krasnov),Marilyn, Cigman, Commander JainPain and My number One And Only Son Zachary cover various topics including computer voices, analog-like sounds out of digital cash registers, making money change in the twenty-first century, and instantly obsolete personal entertainment devices. Included in this special edition, my own personal bigtime gripe: What has happened to school closings on the radio?

Download this week's TWIAR Ham Service or the TWIARi Broadcast version. Even better connect to: http://twiar.org/n2fnh/RATParts/

Look for file number RAT080202_TEK2.cab, right click and "Save Target As". Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the juicy audio WAV file inside!

WARNING WILL ROBINSON! IT AIN'T WATCHA THINK!

On occasion, I will perform Google searches on keywords associated with This Week in Amateur Radio, TWIAR, TWIARi, The Random Access Thought, The Ancient Amateur Archives, along with other significant key phrases. Because some of us involved with the production of TWIAR now have these amazingly entertaining blogs to share with you, I also perform random blog searches as well. In the last week, I have made the observation that there are other blogs or web sites arranging things such that when you blog search: TWIAR (as an example), the following listing will be retrieved:

Likewise, a listing such as this:

While I have noticed that there are a few other blogs within the blogspot environment that legitimately reference This week in Amateur Radio, there are others that borrow keywords and phrases and tie them to their website which, should you key on them, will produce subject matter inconsistent with amateur radio. In fact, the content will be p#rn#graphic.

The important considerations in connecting to these sites are: Will visiting a parasitic p#rnblog result in increased and unwanted junk p#rn e-mail in my inbox? By connecting to these pages, do I increase the risk of virus infection, and invite installation of hidden programs on my computer which will redirect my computer's activities?

Chances are, if p#rn is your scene, you have already located such sites elsewhere, but if you're just looking for amateur radio related information, then take the time to carefully check the website address and read the listing descriptive. P.S. - George, I know it's really "Danger Will Robinson!"

Japanese Manga Sound Effects! Not Sound...Pictures!

Here's a web page I came across last night. One could imagine George Takei a.k.a. Star Trek's Mister Sulu dulcetly (such a word?) enunciating these verbally onomatopoeiac (such a word?) effects.

The link is http://www.oop-ack.com/manga/soundfx.html and is part of a larger page apparently devoted to Manga which, as My Number One And Only Son Zachary will advise, are Japanese comic books, jammed pack full of these Original Batman-like print effects. Not your Silver Age Green Lantern or Aquaman stuff of the 1960's...

In fact, this is bigger than I thought! Here are a few other locations that expand further on this topic:

http://www.angelfire.com/geek/tetrisnomiko/sfx.html

http://www.jbox.com/PRODUCT/KDM002

http://www.reimeika.ca/aku/gunnmlastorder/Kana.html

http://www.reimeika.ca/aku/gunnmlastorder/kana4.html

Sitemeter! Get the Door! It might be YOU!

Attention: The following is not a paid endorsement!

A few weeks back, while trolling around the Internet and scoping out other blogs, I made the observation that a quite a few had an icon attached for something identified as Sitemeter. Sitemeter is a specialty website that can provide basic diagnostic information regarding your presence on the Web. Basic service is offered free of charge, along with a lot of adverts, and of course there is an upgrade available for the professional version which begins at $6.95. But for free, you get a boatload of statistical detail!

While you may be not know specifically who is visiting your blog at any given time, you will be advised of Internet Service Provider, city state and country, date and time of day, plus factual background on the visitor's operating system, type of browser, monitor resolution, color depth, country, continent, time zone and more.

To me, the most useful metric is "referral". Here you can see exactly what brought a fellow Internaut to you. Here at the Random Access Thought, since so much noise is made about sound, many trollers stop in by way of Google with significant "sound" keywords while others plug in with nothing more than"n2fnh".

One of the fun things you can do is to key on the observed ISP address. Not all ISPs may offer a home page, but many do and in the case of ISPs in countries outside the USA, it can be visually appealing to see how creatively those pages are decked out, especially if they carry an ethnic subtext to the design. And of course, you can poke around and probe for additional content or pathways too.

So! Got a blog? Get a Sitemeter! Free! Factual! Fun!

From the RAT FILES circa 2003: Arachne!

The following copy was originally composed as radio copy for THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO which first aired in March of 2003. Please click on http://www.twiar.org/ for additional information on this amateur radio audio news service.

This is no real shocking news. But. I have too much electronic junk lying around the house. Plastic irregular dollar-store storage containers bulging with mostly slightly vintage electronic junk. Not quite truly vintage. Only just slightly vintage. But not even really EBAYable yet either. Yes, I know. You got the same crap.

Your distinctive selection of the crap and the physical distribution and the ultimate disposition of the crap may vary somewhat from mine, but in the end, it's really going to be the same mess of wires, the same mass of cables, the same concoction of connectors, plus old radios, maybe many old radios, maybe some not-so-old radios, a couple of new radios and certainly a few computers.

Maybe a late 90's Christmastime 486.
A dusty musty mid-90's 386.
A rusty crusty early 90's 286.
Or perhaps a truly eroded if not totally corroded Dawn Of Man 8086.

I recently moved..again, this time back to little old upstate Albany, New York many miles from my beautiful lakeside shanty at rustic Sand Lake, home of course to This Week In Amateur Radio, North America's premier audio news service devoted exclusively to the fine art of ham radio and related subject matter. I remain as always, your humble servant, Bill Baran - N2FNH - with more chozzerai, more audio chachkes from the Random Access Files, at one time referred to as Packet radio's Best Kept Secrets. I still do packet but it's really Internet packet. The local radio networks in this area have fallen into disrepair, largely forgotten and now virtually unusable beyond the local horizon. My original interest in packet has however resulted in the amassing of an amazing stellar array of beige colored Dumpster Babies. Dumpster Babies are those abandoned and orphaned computers that nobody else wants.

But me.

A case in point: a friend of a friend had a gorgeous like-new Hewlett Packard 486 that about five years ago he wanted to sell to me for 250 dollars. Now five years later, this friend of a friend says: "Please! Just take it already!" An hour later, the HP, complete with CD-ROM, 1X, maybe 2X if I'm lucky, a 3 and 1/2 inch floppy - AND - a 5 1/4 inch floppy, is rigged and plugged in. As the box boots up, my heart sinks as I observe the BIOS screen summarily summarize in steely cold black and white frosty font that there is only 7.136 Megs of extended memory in the box. The machine came equipped with an internal modem, a sound card and a scanner card, which was nice. This friend of a friend has some visual impairment so the scanner for him was a necessity.

The HP came with Windows 95, still usable but no candle to a Windows XP. Imagine my further surprised when I discover that this Win95 is version 4.00. 950, most likely one of the very first if not the very first retail version of 95 to hit the market. So archaic is this copy that there is no Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser, no Microscoft Outlook Express e-mailer and no Microsoft DUN, that's your Dial Up Networking software. Just the alphabet soup modem Hyperterminal program on board. Even worse, the harddrive is only 162 Megs in size! What a heart failure! There would not be any space left at all if I wiped the drive clean and installed a more recent and more viable copy of Win95 so forget about Win98. Still, it was a FREEbie.

Now, I could go through the bother of installing a better harddrive and maybe scrounge some extra memory but this would be work and maybe I will do it someday, but not today. I decided to keep the computer in Retro mode and preserve the primordial Win95 in its virginal state but Iwould make this lead weight Internetable using not the monopolistic, pan-global Microsoft Windows but a fascinating operating environment called... Arachne.

Have you heard about this? Arachne, and the current version is at 1.70 at press time, is a full-featured FREEWARE Internet HTML browser which you can get from the good folks at http://www.arachne.cz that comes with a built- in PPP or Point-to-Point protocol dialer and the option of several TCPIP and multimedia plug-ins to make the program completely Internetable and completely entertainable. Arachne is designed to run over most versions of Disk Operating System - or - DOS as well as Linux and is very much reminiscent of Windows 3.1 or Win95 but it is not a Windows thing at all. Arachne is built to run on any PC from pristine Pentiums down to eroded 8088s. What's more, the executable is under a Meg in virtual size before installation which means it can be physically transported on just one 3 and a 1/2 floppy disk.

Installation is straightforward and the prospective user is prompted along the way to set up the dialer and e-mail configurations and also too, various miscellaneous user customization parameters. Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the Arachne program is its auto-modem detect feature. The help files stress that Arachne does not like Winmodems. A Winmodem? Since I really do not know, I am guessing that Winmodems are designed to work within the Windows environment and to function using Windows drivers that are inconsistent with the DOS world. (See a future Random Rant where the Winmodem is better defined and clearly hated by many Retro people!)

It would appear almost all current generation modems are Winmodems so don't be surprised if the auto-detect does does not find it and the manual setup format produces no result. The modems that did work here were a US Robotics 28.8 external modem and an Intel 14.4 FAX modem designed for use with early 21st century laptops. Curiously, the internal Reveal 28.8 modem that came with the Hewlett Packard load was well-liked by Arachne.

How does Arachne compare to Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape or Opera? In terms of shear performance, these advanced browsers easily outpace the Arachne product but then again you can't install an Explorer or Netscape on a 286 or an 8086. Arachne does strange things too, like convert incoming JPEGs to Bitmap images. We are advised JPEGs are slow to decompress so this scheme expedites conversion time. The result is images on a 16 color screen look a lot like 18th century pastel oil paintings sketched by shower-needy and badly unshaven psychotic (scribble in this space the name of your most disliked European country and not just France - JUST KIDDING!) painters.

Since this process may take a little time, Arachne is user friendly enough to ask if you would like to have some coffee while it processes. If it sounds like I am software bashing, please forgive me. I beg your pardon. I am not. Only because these appear to be the most objectionable aspects of the program so far. The learning curve associated with Arachne is fairly shallow so you can learn most if not all its functions within maybe an hours' time and still have a fun time the same night you install it. Some of the FREE plug-ins are truly eclectic, like a speaker WAV thing that lets you play WAV files through your teeny tiny insignificant little computer speaker, that one that goes beep or possibly boop or maybe bammp on boot up. The audio quality is synonymous with the kind of sound that squeeks out of stuffed animal toys embedded with cheap cruddy chips. But you can also download DOSAMP. DOSAMP is the non-graphical version of the NullSoft WINAMP product which can be used to play MP3 audio.

Any compressed download material from the Arachne website is expanded by the system's Automatic Package Manager, a device similar to WinZIP. Without prompting, the APM explodes Arachne plug-ins and also publishes a report summarizing success or failure plus a user synopsis. I just installed Arachne on all my Dumpster Babies but where this package really shines is on my somewhat Silver Age Toshiba Satellite crappy little laptop and of course, my equally almost-ancient Hewlett Packard 486 and this is where we came in. My completely shameless almost-infomercial-like testimonial is now... Over.

Thus, if you have old PCs concealed in closets, clustered in cellars, archived in attics, banished in basements or languishing in lavatories, get your children to drag them out because they are too heavy for you to drag out and prepare to revitalize. Hey, if we hams can refurbish old Hallicrafters, Hammarlunds and Heathkits, we can do the same with our Dells, HPs and IBMs. Remember, the site to check out is http://www.arachne.cz/

And now, as I sit here now topping off the install of an original Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.03 (designed exclusively) for Windows For Workgroups 3.11 in that same crappy little Toshiba laptop, already loaded with Arachne, I bid you a fondue with a promise, a mandate even, to return with more curiously idiosyncratic and highly decentralized thought to your radio speaker in just one month's time. Let's face, a little goes a long way! Hey! Didn't I just say that about Arachne? More later!
-30-

Amateur Radio Repeater IDs! Even More than Ever Before!

For the week ending August 9th, PacketMan and Mother Radio return to the Random Access Thought with more Amateur Radio Repeater IDs! Even more than ever before! In this Star-Spangled episode, our almost forgotten digital dude PacketMan not only has more to offer from his personal MP3 player but he is now in conversation, making use of standard English language contractions, thanks largely to a Linguistic Vernacular Firmware Upgrade!

The focus is on classic digital male voice IDs, analog female voice IDs and "Repeaterisms", hosted by professional voice-over artist Bill Hamilton of the Musicol Studios, in Columbus, Ohio. In addition, there are also custom WA4TEM IDs included in this RAT which were kindly provided by Greg Williams K4HSM, our official TWIAR Webmaster. I thank Greg again for those cool clips which made for some fun editing when this feature was produced back in February of 2006!

Catch the Random Access Thought, along with all the latest news over the official This Week in Amateur Radio Podcast. Look for TWIARi Edition #185 and TWIAR Edition #800. To get the Random Access Thought separately and to hear other RAT, RAF, QSL and BLOG clips go to:

http://twiar.org/n2fnh/RATParts

Look under file: RAT060205_BCQ.cab and RAT060205_HAM.cab. Right click on each file and "Save Target As". Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the files.

Producing the Random Access Thought: The 5 Stages!

The creation and completion of a typical Random Access Thought, sometimes also known as a Random Access File, for This Week in Amateur Radio is essentially a process laid out in five stages which if carefully crafted, will produce a viable result. Here are those stages:

1) THIMK:
Before production can embark in earnest, a subject is required. Although the focus will be lodged somewhere deep within the expansive electromagnetic domain, the very nature of this feature will be a random selection. Therefore, topics can range from amateur radio repeater IDs and long wave non-directional aircraft radio beacons to business band radio bootleggers and onward to the history of the Internet Tubes.

At this point, thought will also given into what sort of environment the episode is to be presented. Thus, if the subject is Stratovision - an experiment in the 1950s for wide range distribution of television programs by high flying airplanes, then the setting will be on board a post WW2 commercial Douglas DC-6, which brings us to stage 2:

2) SOURCING SOUND:
Prior to writing the script, voice clips, primary sound effects and environmental backtracks or music will be sourced from the N2FNH Sound Effects Library. For a recent feature on Business Band Radio Pirates, I recorded individual voice and radio sound clips direct to harddrive from a Uniden BCD-396T scanning receiver. These recordings have been preserved and may show again in extremely modified form in future releases.

For the same episode, I decided to go with an indoor radio room environment, which in this instance resulted from a merge of two previously designed tracks. The first was a background consisting of radio scanners in a room mixed with the sound of birds coming through an open window. The other was made up of additional scanners with distant muted city traffic. The two separate tracks were carefully balanced to provide the right environmental flavor. On many
occasions, a custom mini-library of specialty effects will also be designed. When the subject was the infamous Network of Internet Tubes, audio was composed to simulate what it might actually sound like being inside one of these alleged tubular worlds.

Likewise, a voice must be assigned. For a number of years, I hosted each week's performance but as weekly production became increasing more complex, other actors were recruited. My Number One And Only Son Zachary was drafted into service at the age of ten to handle announcing chores in the RAT and RAF promos that proceed the feature. Bill Continelli W2XOY has on occasion hosted a Random Access Thought with material he has written that falls beyond the realm of his popular Ancient Amateur Archives, also heard on This Week in Amateur Radio. Recent entries from Bill included "CQ MARS!" and "The Story of Reggie".

Some of the characters who appear in the RAT, BLOG and QSL promos have also been employed as hosts. Mother Radio, Cigman, Marilyn and Boleslav Krasnov have appeared as RAT emcees. During this phase, certain sounds and music components may be processed (compressed, equalized or filtered) to work better against the primary voices.

3) WRITING:

This is the hardest part. My procedure is to first research the topic either through text literature currently on hand or by trolling via the Internet. Using my trusty text editor, the Norton Commander, significant facts, keywords, and phrases are collected and digitally jotted down. Then, copy is composed and arranged around these core elements. From keyword insertion to final draft, the copy may be rewritten five times or more over a three day period, while at the same time assembling the voice clips, the effects tracks and anything else I need.

I can sometimes escape extensive writing if the content is taped in the field using my cheap, inexpensive, forty nine dollar RadioShack cassette analog tape recorder. In covering the local Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association Field Day this past June, most of the RAT consisted of field recordings of club members with commentary scripted around each clip.

4) RECORDING:

Recording the final document is easy if one of the virtual characters reads. Very little clean up is needed plus the virtual voices read exactly as I tell them. "Clean up" is defined here as unwanted, extraneous noise that detracts from the quality of the presentation. When analog voices are used, there may be more "tone" and incidental noise. Likewise, breaths and other peculiar artifacts are also deleted.

5) FINAL MIX:

At this time, the TWIARi RAT, BLOG and QSL promos are mixed down to two tracks while the Random Access Thought is configured as a single track. I say "two track" because they are not stereo or binaural recordings but the result is a stereo effect. Voices and primary sounds will be assigned a "position in space". For example, Zach may be positioned 38 per cent left of center while Mother Radio is located 63 per cent right of center. This is sometimes referred to as ping-ponging but the payoff is that Zach is to your left and closer to center while MR is stage right but somewhat farther away. In some cases, environmental backtracks and ambiances may have actually been recorded in full stereo which further enhances the "two track as stereo" effect.

In the end, it's a labor of love. It's just a part of my amateur radio hobby that keeps me out of trouble.

From the RAT FILES circa 2003: Abandonware!

Back in the days when I would make the monthly trek to the George Bowen palatial estate in fashionable Poestenkill, New York, I would sit within the NASA control room that is the W2XBS production center with nothing more than a print copy of my feature and a microphone. At the same time, the RAT played over This Week, I published a text copy for my newsletter THE TELNET NEWS...

The following copy was originally composed as radio copy for THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO, which first aired in February of 2003. Please click on http://www.twiar.org/ for additional information on this amateur radio audio news service.

................

I think maybe this whole thing got started with those sometimes cute and sometimes annoying little computer screen mates or screen buddies that I found a bunch of one day on the Web. These are those little animated chunks of digital detritus that do not do much more than dance or scamper or skate or skitter or jump or whatever it is they do across your monitor screen, doing not much else accept maybe tapping off a few extra kilobytes of your memory resources as you perform your most significant and important daily computer tasks and duties. Little flecks of 1's 0's like NEKO, the mouse chasing virtual cat http://odourz.freeservers.com/screenmates.html and ESHEEP http://www.is.lt/viking/index.html , the fat little pixelated virtual puff of fluff first born and delivered onto the primordial desktops of Windows 3.1 machines many years ago, maybe ten. These same early evolutionary if not quite revolutionary bits and bytes eventually wandered onto my own little hard drives and thus stirred the smoldering embers of a slowly but steadily developing curiosity in things of a vintage flavour.

That is to say old, outdated junk software. But it turns out the official label for stuff like this is ABANDONWARE and there is much ABANDONWARE to be found and equally as much that is very hard to find because certain software authors, developers and vendors like Microsoft make it their business to curb the download traffic so that their all-but-forgotten ware, sometimes called WAREZ and you would spell that W-A-R-E-Z should not be had for free even though almost nobody is attempting to use the stuff anymore except for a few freaks, myself included!

And by the way, myself is Bill Baran - N2FNH - with the Random Access File, the usual monthly or sometimes not feature heard exclusively over This Week In Amateur Radio.

So, what's out there ABANDONWARE-wise these days? The answer is: "Quite a bit". But before you go totally ABANDONWARE, first you should page yourself over to http://www.oldversion.com/ to find recently outdated software. Earlier versions of RealAudio, Netscape and Adobe are harbored at this location. Here's a good case-in-point: I still use the original and remarkably still-free-for-the-accessing JUNO e-mail service. Wanting to install JUNO on additional dumpster-baby boxes and having momentarily misplaced the original floppy I got from George W2XBS, how easy was it to scroll over to OLDVERSION and grab a fresh old copy of JUNO that I couldn't even pay money for from JUNO if I even asked nicely!

Now, prepare yourself for a journey back in time and zip over to http://www.winsite.com/ and click on the link for Windows 3.1 stuff and MY OH MY! what stuff there is! A lot of clever little Cleavers cut their byte teeth on 3.1 programs back in early 90's and a lot of unique if not
completely interesting or possibly useless material is archived here. Things like a virtual slide rule and who remembers what one of those things is anymore. Few do. And OY VEY! a Hebrew Calendar, good through the early 2000's is available if you still need it, complete with Jewish calendars and official sunset times for your Shabbat observance. Also, an endless array of games, puzzles, screen savers plus a really cool program called SKYMAP which you should right now as I speak go over and get immediately if astronomy is your scene.

But this is nothing compared to the "gold" that I tapped into at the 1994 level. The first ingot of "gold" was something called CELLO. CELLO was one of the original fledgling browser programs developed for use on the Internet as a means of decoding documentation composed in the then brand-new HTML format. In 1993, the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University in
central New York published and released a one-time only freeware version 1.01a for all interested parties to make use of. So, does CELLO still work after all these years? Yes, well yes, sort of. HTML has gone through a lot a changes over the decade so a lot of source code can not be read but then again some web pages, mostly very simply composed pages still play. When the frames and the JAVA scripting and other newer components of the protocol arrive at the browser, it may commit one of those ILLEGAL operations or lock the machine up completely. Still, it's like finding that old 1939 Buick in a barn somewhere and trying give it a go one more time.

During the course of this ongoing ABANDONWARE archeological excavation, I also unearthed a copy of NCSA MOSAIC version 2. NCSA MOSAIC was an ambitious project underwritten by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The project ran from 1993 through 1996. Downloadable flavors of NCSA MOSAIC from version 0.6 through version 3, the final version are still available at http://browsers.evolt.org/ . Officially identified as an Internet navigation and data retrieval tool, NCSA MOSAIC remains as the template for both the Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Netscape Navigator. Although no longer supported by its creators, the program lives on in these various evolutionary manifestations.

So, does NCSA MOSAIC version 3, the final frontier still play after all these years. Yes, well yes, sort of. Better than CELLO plays. Earlier versions like 0.6, just barely. Any version of NCSA MOSAIC can still crack up the PC. But this should not surprise you. After all, this is Windows we
are talking about here.

Finally, what's the point of all this? Well, if nothing else, I found the searching for and digging up of old stuff a lot of fun, a real gas, like digging through some one's attic or basement in search of...what? Who knows? It's remarkable what's out there. Like finding a copy of Microsoft Windows 1.01 or the Norton Commander version 1.00. The Norton Commander is, still-in-the-year 2003, a fantastically popular DOS shell with legions of Commander devotees, like Moonies and who remembers who Moonies were. And I learned that such shells, both DOS and Windows- related, are officially referred to by their composers and users as "Orthodox File Managers".

Here's another thing I learned and I alluded to this at the start of this monologue. When you do your Google searches, you may find that stateside web pages will offer downloads of copyrighted software but you can't download them. So many pages were like this that I began to suspect corporate thumb-nailing. Sites are there. Downloads are not. SO! Go to your Google and start paging deep. If Google says there are 15 pages of listings, start in the middle at page 7 and scan the European and Asian content very closely. You don't need to read German to figure out where Windows 1.01 is archived. Take the time to mine and the results will be worth it.

Apparently, the love-my-software-and-pay-for-it fascists have not been able to clip the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese. By the way, if you have issues concerning the downloading of copyrighted materials, please turn off your radio and go buy some software at CompUSA. You will feel better for yourself. Maybe I'll study the copyright issue for a future Random Access File so stay tuned! Anyway, this is Bill Baran - N2FNH for This Week In Amateur Radio.

Bootleggers on the VHF Business Band!

Bootleggers on the business band! That's the subject of the next Random Access Thought coming up for the week ending August 2nd. In a relatively rare appearance, it is I who will host this edition. Download TWIARi #184, TWIAR #799 or get the individual Random Access Thought by going to: http://www.twiar.org/n2fnh/RATParts

Look under file number RAT080731_1584_BCQ.cab or RAT080731_1584_HAM.cab. Right click on the file name and "save target as...". Use your WinZip or IZAarc to extract the segment. In the meantime, what follows is the text copy written for this week's episode:

Oh hello there!
When you think of Pirate Radio, you may consider the activities often heard over international shortwave radio. Publications such as Monitoring Times and Popular Communications offer extensive monthly detail on how and where such pirates may be received across the high frequency spectrum. In-the-field stations such as WBNY or Kracker Radio International continue to pump out their unique program formats for any listener to hear.

Pirate Radio may also bring to mind the crazy taxi cab drivers in New York City whizzing around the five boroughs, belting out their foreign language transmissions that can be copied worldwide in the basement of the ten meter amateur band. Frequencies legally reserved for us hams light up with Russian, Arabic and Farsi where Dits and Dahs would normally show.

And to be sure, there have been pirates on both AM and FM radio dials since the birth of broadcasting and these too are heavily documented in the hobby media. But recently, I came across what appears to be another sort of radio pirate, a specimen not so commonly heard. For the sake of a little melodrama, let's title this episode: "The Mystery at 158 point 4".

It turns out that 158 point 4 Megahertz is just one of a fleet of VHF channels assigned by the Federal Communications Commission for local business use. Plug this frequency into your scanner and you may indeed intercept business radio activity in your hometown. I have a Motorola XTN VHF business band handheld which I got at Sam's Club. Like all of Sam's Club stuff, the radio came cheap. I discovered that both Sam's Club and WalMart use these radios in all their stores. The radio is fairly rugged, a one channel, 27 frequency device, which at various times I would program, then park on the dining room table and listen.

When I punched in 158 point 4 Megahertz, I soon heard this: (FX1)
And I heard this: (FX2)
Also...this: (FX3)
In addition to all these ring-a-ding signals, there was also a voice repeater
to boot. (FX4)
Here was a channel banging and clanging with all sorts of radiophonic sound effects, so of course I immediately recorded them and stored them away. I soon realized that I heard no identification of any sort: no CW IDs. The population on the repeater used unit numbers and first names only. No legal IDs verbally given either. The transmissions copied were mostly small talk. Street names were heard from time to time but places like 2nd Avenue or 3rd Street could match several localities. No city names were ever mentioned. They knew where they were, but I did not. And...there were often technical issues with the repeater, but the "Alert Zone 1" guy, the "Blip Blip Blips" and the Radio Shack "Ding-Dong" doorbell played on through out the day into the late evening. I could only guess that these signals might be some sort of proximity alarm
system.

At some point, the entire operation ceased communication. The frequency went dead. No Alerts. No Ding-Dongs. No repeaters. I checked online at http://www.nf2g.com/ Dave Stark runs an excellent web page dedicated to scanner activities for New York State. Sure enough, the latest reports showed the bang-clang circus had shifted down range to 158.385 MHz. Dave had documented the station as an unknown illegal and unlicensed repeater which was now causing interference to another legal user in nearby Greene county.

And then, at some point, the entire operation ceased communication. The frequency went dead. I wondered...Did the FCC respond to complaints? Had the FCC shut down the repeater and pulled the plug on its alarming alarm system as well? I asked Dave if he knew, but unfortunately there was no additional information.

It appeared the business band pirates had finally made the fade. In the meantime, their sonic footprints had been carefully preserved and filed away deep within the vaults of the N2FNH Sound Effects Library. These simple sound bites have already been morphed from this: (FX5) into this: (FX6).

But, in the end...it may just be...that the bootleggers on 158.4 have returned. As I was preparing this edition of the Random Access Thought, a "Ding Dong Doorbell", a "Blip Blip Blip" and an "Alert Zone One" suddenly materialized on channel. Not as often as before...once or twice in the morning hours, maybe once or twice at night. No one's talking, (FX7) at least not yet.