What Say, Old Man? QSL?

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!

------
Bill,

I download TWIAR every Sunday night or Monday morning and listen to it and Soldersmoke on my way to work. Both together last about three mornings and make my driving much more enjoyable. I have been licensed since 1960 with my original call K8WPE. No need to change as it rings well with CW. Finally made extra class about 1980. Mostly on HF with QRP with an assortment of kit built radios from Elecraft, Heath, Wilderness Radio, and the new PFR 3. Antennas are a dipole, long wire, G5RV, a Buddipole and a Black Widow fishing pole vertical. Do more listening than transmitting.

Thanks for all you do for the amateur community. Your program is like another ham radio magazine every week and I don't have to stop what I am doing to read it.

72,

Dave K8WPE
David J. Wilcox
3196 Zimmerman Road
Traverse City, MI 49684

A Radio in Every Room! OR! You Can't Have Too Many Radios!

.
The other day I dropped by a local RadioShack over in East Greenbush and picked up one of those new Grundig G6 Aviator portable AM/FM/SW/LW/AIR portable radios. This is the special Buzz Aldrin Edition. I wanted a small radio that I could listen to at the office. Prior the visit to RadioShack, Zach and I stopped at a Big Lots, one of the larger national dollar stores to see if there was something half way decent despite being cheap.
.
By way of momentary digression, dollar stores are remarkably fascinating places to visit every once in a while. Based on personal observation,the dollar store is the inevitable final whistle stop before a manufactured product is determined to be unsellable and is quietly but most assuredly unloaded into to some undisclosed landfill. Unlike the 5 and 10 cent stores of the 1940's, 50's and 60's, the stuff up for sale is pure junk. There was nothing at Big Lots that had a chance and so the pilgrimage to RadioShack.
.
I already have several multiband radios I could have brought to work but they already have their permanent assignments within the rooms they are stationed in. Working from the bedroom out, a now vintage Sony ICF-2010 is positioned on a night stand adjoining a diminutive shade lamp. This is the device that imports the latenight Coast To Coast AM and the ever fiery Michael Savage to mine ears. Also within the same environs, a Kaito KA1103 is available for the occasional flatside AM Broadcast DXing.
.
The bathroom plays host to another Kaito: the KA009, an odd little box that tunes the AM, the FM, the SW and the soon to be rendered useless TV audio. This gizmo plays on AA batteries, by hand-cranked dynamotor or if you expose the device to sunlight, a micro-sized solar panel.
.
Down the hall and perched high atop the refrigerator, a comparatively ancient Sangean SG-796 awaits my needs, it too offering AM/FM/SW. This receiver I purchased at the now defunct Comtech/Softron ham radio store across the Hudson in Rensselaer for fifty bucks. It still plays and every so often someone does a Google search on the model and comes to this blog since I've mentioned it in previous posts. In fact, I took the Sangean SG-796 and made an acoustic recording of it while tuning the dial. I use this clip whenever I need such an effect in my Random Access programs for This Week in Amateur Radio.
.
In the dining room, either an ICOM 725 or an ICOM M700 Marine Radiotelephone is parked on a table for casual monitoring of the HF. While the 725 is VFO controlled, the M700 is direct entry. Usually I keep a full bank of oceanic aviation channels on hand and all set to go when that transceiver is employed.
.
But there's more! Many moon ago I picked up two really neat receivers, both at original Deerfield Hamfest. First, a Sony ICF-SW1, a Viceroy cigarette pack sized little gray brick for AM/FM/SW. A few years back, I thought the radio tanked because at some untimely point, a very bad biting buzz replaced the desired audio. However, plugging in an external speaker solved what appeared to be a failed internal speaker.
.
Finally, there's the Pn310 CENEHA. This name is typed in English but the these characters come the closest to the Cyrillic letters in Russian. For fifteen dollars American, I walked away with a somewhat cheesy AM/SW/LW transistor radio. Although purchased in the early 80's, this is clearly an early 60's technology. The Pn310 is playing as I compose this post with The Savage Nation blistering out from the two and a half inch speaker. Four frequency ranges are offered here: Longwave 150-280 KHz, AM 550-1500 KHz (and 1500 KHz is at the dial stop) and SW. Two comparatively narrow ranges: 9500-9800 KHz and 11600KHz-12200 KHz. With regard to the shortwave provided, Bill W2XOY made the suggestion that these ranges were where most of Radio Moscow once transmitted in, resulting in even less DX within those bands to hear.
.
These gadgets I have collected over the years, not to mention the scanners, handi-talkies and video game consoles that somehow found safe harbor within the confines of the N2FNH Electronic Landfill. More on that detritus in a future blab. Detritus, by the way, is a five dollar word, used by science fiction writers and crossword puzzle authors everywhere.

Rummaging Though My Old Papers, I Found These Old Letters!

In addition to the extensive audio recordings and sound effects libraries housed deep within the vaults of the N2FNH Media Center is an equally extensive archive of simple ASCII text. The vast majority of the files are actual screen saves of complete packet radio sessions documented between 1996 through 2004. You might say I was a unique species of packet radio maven, not so much concerned with the technical aspects but to more to do with the actual deployment, like a spider analog, plucking my way across local and regional AX25 and NETROM networks, hunting for,targeting and finally snaring the elusive Packet Radio/Internet Gateway.
.
And some of these Gateways I put to use as mail drops. To me, it was at the time the ultimate cool to have some fellow ham e-mail me from the Internet to any one of a number of e-mail accounts I held around the world. One I used extensively was AVGATE:AB6QV-3 in Southern California. Each evening, I would manually connect out and North via the amateur packet radio network, connect to either KA2TCQ at SUNY Plattsburgh or to K2CC at Clarkson University and the telnet out to AVGATE for that evening's mail.
.
Rummaging through the N2FNH Text Library resulted in a few e-mails concerning This Week in Amateur Radio, a handful of which are reproduced below for historical perspective. Take note of the dates, the Internet Service Providers and the descriptions of the Internet environment of the time. Addresses listed will most likely not work. But then again, I didn't check.

.

.
AVGATE:AB6QV-3 >
Message #1
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 16:24:08 -0500 (EST)
From: SANDERMAN@delphi.com
Subject: This Week in Amateur Radio #199
To: n2fnh@gw.ab6qv.ampr.org
Message-Id: 01IED53P9VV69
_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
_/ his _/ _/ _/ eek _/ n _/_/_/_/ mateur _/_/_/_/ adio
_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/
-
Here is a summary of news items covered on edition #199 of
"This Week in Amateur Radio", North America's satellite-delivered
audio bulletin service, for the week ending 24-Jan:
-

1. Little LEOs Seek Status as "Emergency Adjunct", Threat Remains
2. Heard Island DXpedition Works 12,000 Stations in First 2 Days
3. Computer Problems Again Delay Issuance of Vanity Calls by FCC
4. MIR Ham-Astronauts Switch Places, KC5HBR Operations Uncertain
5. ARRL Resumes License Renewal Notices to League Members
6. "Tower Safety" - NEW FEATURE with Greg Stoddard, KF9MP
7. "This Week in Amateur Radio" Announces Internet Availability
8. Special Event Station Calendar
9. W3USS to Be in Operation during Presidential Inauguration
10.Jim Talens, N3JT, Leaves FCC for Private Practice
11."Gateway 160 Meter Net Report" with Vern Jackson, WA0RCR
12.Weekly Propagation Forecast
13."The RAIN Dial-up" from Chicago
14.AMSAT-Qatar Joins Family of Amateur Satellite Enthusiasts
15.RS-16 Configuration Announced, Russian Bird Launch Next Month
16.Ken Cornell, W2IMB, SK, Renowned "Lowfer" and Author

-
Funding for the program's transmission and production expense was provided this week by a grant from the Columbiana County Amateur Radio Club, which carries "This Week in Amateur Radio" on the KD8XB repeater in Lisbon, Ohio, serving East Palestine, East Liverpool, East Rochester, and East Central Ohio on 146.805 MHz. Presentation of "The RAIN Dial-up" has been made possible by a grant from Therese Cheney, N0YNQ, of Mounds View, Minnesota.
-
"This Week in Amateur Radio" is a weekly amateur voice bulletin service, produced by Community Video Associates, Inc., a New York State not-for-profit corporation based in Albany, NY. The program is heard on the "W0KIE Satellite Network" each Saturday at 9:00 PM (EST) on the Hughes Communications SBS-6 commercial communications satellite, transponder 13B upper, located at 74 degrees west longitude in equatorial geosynchronous orbit. The transponder center frequency is 12.019 GHz; tune up in frequency to 12.031 GHz. Program audio is on the 6.2 MHz analog subcarrier and carried on VHF/UHF repeaters throughout North America and on 160 meters at 1860 kHz. Contact your local amateur radio club or repeater operator if "This Week in Amateur Radio" is not being heard in your area.
-
Production and transmission expenses are underwritten by donations from repeater operators, amateur radio clubs, and individuals. Further information is available from George Bowen, N2LQS, at 518/283-3665 (email kxkvi@delphi.com) or Stephan Anderman, WA3RKB, at 518/664-6809 (email sanderman@delphi.com). You may also reach them @ WA2UMX.FN32AW.ENY.NY.USA.NA via amateur packet.
AVGATE:AB6QV-3 >
.
Message #2
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 20:52:39 -0500 (EST)
From: SANDERMAN@delphi.com
Subject: "This Week in Amateur Radio" Audio Now on Internet
To: n2fnh@gw.ab6qv.ampr.org
Message-Id: 01IEESRLH12A9
.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO" AUDIO AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET
.
Producers of Albany, NY-based "This Week in Amateur Radio", the activity's only satellite-delivered news and information service, in conjunction with the Blue Ridge Video and Digital Society of Roanoke, VA, are pleased to announce that "This Week" program audio is now available on the Internet. The service, carried on VHF/UHF repeaters throughout the United States and Canada and on 1860 kHz via WA0RCR, had previously been available only via satellite.
.
According to "This Week" Technical Director, George Bowen, N2LQS, "This was a big step for us. We're still using 8088s and 286s for all of our internet and data communications and have large piles of coal to shovel into this equipment daily. This was and still is the reason that we, on our own, never offered 'This Week' on the net." The service carries the latest ARRL bulletins and other amateur radio news, the "RAIN Dial-up", contest and convention updates, special events, propagation forecasts, and features from their exclusive staff of "voice columnists".
.
Blue Ridge's John Campbell, KC4LWI, records the program audio from the bird each Saturday and converts it into an 8 bit wave file sampled at 11.025 kHz. The file is the posted each Sunday on the group's Web site in zipped and unzipped form. Approximate file sizes for the entire 50 minute program are 24 megabytes zipped and 33 megs unzipped. The address for "This W¥ek in Amateur Radio" audio on the internet in .WAV file format is: http://www.intrlink.com/~sparky/wb4qoj/wb4qoj.htm. The file name is TWIAR (the 3-digit program number) dot ZIP or dot WAV, i.e., TWIAR199.ZIP or TWIAR199.WAV.
.
Adds Bowen, "Please note that the program is not, and will not be available in any streaming audio format until we are able to upgrade our computer hardware. In the meantime, we have taken this interim step to place our bulletin service on the net. You can download each week's program on Sunday, the day after our satellite feed. The site will also offer the program from the previous week, and well as our first 10 minutes of 'headline news.'" The program continues to be delivered via satellite, through transponder time and uplink equipment provided by Mike Reynolds, W0KIE, of Tulsa, OK, as a service to the amateur radio community. "This Week in Amateur Radio" airs each Saturday at 9:00 PM (ET) on the SBS-6 Ku-band satellite (74 degrees W), transponder 13B upper, 6.2 MHz analog audio.
.
For answers to technical questions regarding the Web page or if you would like to have the audio file e-mailed to you each week, please contact KC4LWI at sparky@intrlink.com. Community Video Associates, Inc., which produces "This Week in Amateur Radio", is grateful for the time and effort put into this project by KC4LWI, Lee McDaniel, WB4QOJ, and the Blue Ridge Video and Digital Society.
.
For further information on "This Week in Amateur Radio" or to become an affiliate, contact Stephan Anderman, WA3RKB, the program's executive producer, at 518/664-6809 (e-mail sanderman@delphi.com) or George Bowen, N2LQS, at 518/283-3665, (e-mai kxkvi@delphi.com). Both can also be reached via packet @ WA2UMX.FN32AW.NY.USA.NA.
.
AVGATE:AB6QV-3 >
Message #3
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 21:55:00 -0500 (EST)
From: SANDERMAN@delphi.com
Subject: An Invitation...!
To: n2fnh@gw.ab6qv.ampr.org
Message-Id: 01IEEUYASGPU9
.
As you can see, "This Week in Amateur Radio" audio is now available via the Internet. Let me take this opportunity to invite those of you who were lost in the shuffle during several satellite changes and our transition to Ku-band satellite delivery several months ago and have internet audio capability to access the Website listed and try it out!
.
A special thanks goes to John Campbell, KC4LWI, Lee McDaniel, WB4QOJ, and the guys at Blue Ridge Video and Digital Society who have poured a lot of sweat equity into this effort. So when you sign onto their Website, please let them know how much you too appreciate their work!
.
I have also sent you the updated affiliates list. Please let me know if there are any additions or corrections to be made to it. George and I would both love to be able to get that list back up to a bona fide 100 affiliates again, like we had back in the old C-band days. And we're hoping that this first step into internet audio will entice some of you back into the fold. We have already returned two affiliatgh we realize the size of the audio files is quite large and may take a considerable amount of time to download, it is a necessary first step for us. Due to financial considerations (both personal and with regard to program funding), we have been unable to secure computer hardware that would allow us to use a "streaming audio" format. Without minimizing the offers we have had from some of you to provide us with a Website that would afford us this capability, our inability to locally maintain and control it would be a severe detriment to integrity of the service. At such point as we acquire computer equipment that would allow both George and myself to perform these tasks, I can assure you that we will broaden the Internet presence of "This Week in Amateur Radio". We are most assuredly open to any equipment donation offer that could accellerate this evolutionary process. But I must stress that we are still very strongly committed to satellite delivery of "This Week in Amateur Radio". Those of you who have continued to ask for a C-band outlet for the service are not being ignored, but we all are aware of how rare affordable 4 GHz subcarriers have become. Our current arrangement with Mike Reynolds, W0KIE, has proven to be very satisfactory for all parties and we are pleased with the level of reliability of these services. And I think you'll agree that the "leaner and meaner" 50 minute program is tighter, more entertaining, and more journalistically relevant than ever before. It is our belief that internet distribution of "This Week in Amateur Radio" is another path; one which has been less travelled, at least by us. For you, we hope it makes a difference! We will continue to take whatever steps are necessary and financially prudent to ensure that "amateur radio's most up-to-the-minute news and informatiob service" remains so. We feel we have done a whole lot with a very little ("we, the unwilling", etc.) and are proud of the position we hold within our amateur radio "community". On behalf of my good friend and program techno-guru, George Bowen, N2LQS; Vern Jackson, WA0RCR; Ed Barnat, N2RKA; Bill Continelli, W2XOY; Greg Stoddard, KF9MP; and the growing staff (which now also includes Lee McDaniel, WB4QOJ, and John Campbell, KC4LWI) that helps make "This Week in Amateur Radio" happen each week, belated wishes for a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 1997.
Stephan M. Anderman, WA3RKB
Executive Producer - "This Week in Amateur Radio"
.
AVGATE:AB6QV-3 >

Another Time...Another World...

In addition to the extensive audio recordings and sound effects libraries housed deep within the vaults of the N2FNH Media Center is an equally extensive archive of simple ASCII text. The vast majority of the files are actual screen saves of complete packet radio sessions documented between 1996 through 2004. You might say I was a unique species of packet radio maven, not so much concerned with the technical aspect but to more to do with the actual deployment, like a spider analog, plucking my way across local and regional AX25 and NETROM networks, hunting for,targeting and finally snaring the elusive Packet Radio/Internet Gateway.
.
Depending on particular system rules, I was able to use my packet station to access hundreds of gateways worldwide, and then on to bulletin boards, nodes and DX packet clusters. But there was more! Accessing the World Wide Web via packet (not as visually exciting but interesting just the same) and on occasion showing up at the front door of US Government computers, by accident of course. There are those who claim I even managed to completely scan a regional MARS packet gateway before it dawned on the SysOp that his VHF two meter amateur radio ports were fully wide open and totally not secure.
.
But on each digital adventure, I would stop and collect interesting little items along the way and what follows is just one of many of those curious two dimensional textual curios:
.

.
INFORMATION PLEASE
.
When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.
.
Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person - her name was Information Please and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply any body's number and the correct time.
.
My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway - The telephone! Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. "Information Please", I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
.
A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information". "I hurt my finger. . ." I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. "Isn't your mother home?" came the question. "Nobody's home but me." I blubbered. "Are you bleeding?" "No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts." "Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger."
.
After that I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts. And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary died. I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage? She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better.
.
Another day I was on the telephone. "Information Please." "Information," said the now familiar voice. "How do you spell fix?" I asked. All this took place in a small town in the pacific Northwest. Then when I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table.
.
Yet as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy. A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between plane, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said,"Information Please". Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice I knew so well, "Information". I hadn't planned this but I heard myself saying, "Could you tell me please how-to spell fix?" There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess that your finger must have healed by now.
.
I laughed, "So it's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time." "I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls." I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. "Please do, just ask for Sally."
.
Just three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered Information and I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" "Yes, a very old friend." "Then I'm sorry to have to tell you. Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago." But before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?" "Yes." "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is. I'll read it 'Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean.'" I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant.

.
AMGATE:KA2TCQ