DB0ANF APRS web site (Germany)
Updated July 28, 2007
Welcome to my web page -- a casual collection of ham radio information that I find useful. There's a chance that some of this information may be useful to you so I've posted it here.
I'm a fairly new ham as of this writing. I was licensed in July 2001 (technician) and received my upgrade to a general license in March 2002 and upgraded to Amateur Extra in April 2002. I'm in Oakton, Virginia in grid square FM18iv at latitude 38 degrees 53 minutes North, longitude 77 degrees 19 minutes West.
My principal station consists of a Yaesu FT-847 with a dual-band 2m/440 diamond antenna (17 foot whip) up 20 feet which consists of three stacked 5/8ths wave antennas at 2-meters and 8 stacked 5/8ths wave antennas on 440. This antenna is supposed to give over 8 db of gain on 2-meters, and over 11 db of gain on 440. I also have a GAP Challenger multiband vertical in the back yard (click here for PDF manual for the antenna). For mobile and portable operations, I operate a Kenwood TM-D700A mobile and a Yaesu VX-5R portable. I have a Yaesu FT-817 that I've been playing with when out of town as well.
Other radios include the Yaesu FT-90R miniature mobile radio, an Icom 706 Mk IIG, and a Kenwood TH-D7A. I'm currently keeping an eye on the Icom 756 Pro II and 746 Pro with some hopes of bringing one home sometime in the future.
What follows are a number of links to ham-related Internet features which I've found interesting and tidbits of other information that I've collected. If any of this is interesting to you I'd like to hear from you. My email address is at the bottom of this page.
I was able to acquire a second hand tower. Here are my Photos of the move.
As of April 2003, I still don't have the tower installed. I'm calling it my horizontally polarized tower. I have long to-do list of things I need to get done before I get it installed. First, I need a group of strong people to help me move it into a position where I can paint it. Then I want to replace the cabling used to crank the tower up and to fold it over, and I'm thinking about rebuilding the rotor. Next I need to dig a hole for the tower base (5' deep, about 14" across) and then place the tower in the hole, hold it vertical, and fill and pack the hole. Next, I need a good system for getting the feed and control lines from the house to the base of the tower. I'm currently thinking of using 4 or 6 inch pipe to make running multiple cables easy. Lastly, I need to work out the grounding and lightning arresting system for the tower itself and the feedlines and control lines. Other than that, I'm all ready to put it up.
Radio Mobile web site Thanks to VE2DBE amateur radio operators have a wonderful tool in the form of the RadioMobile software package. This package calculates radio propagation, taking into account local terrain. Using free topographic data available for the entire United States, this program will produce a map of signal strengths. It will even let you overlay MapQuest maps on top of the signal coverage map. It's a wonderful tool and completely free. (5/4/2002)
ARRL Audio News contains highlights taken from the League's weekly publication, The ARRL Letter. ARRL Audio News is available Via telephone for one week following publication at 1-860-594-0384 or Via the Internet for two weeks following publication in MP3 format, playable using Windows Media Player, RealPlayer or your favorite MP3 player.
Each week, an amateur radio news bulletin is prepared by the good folks at Amateur Radio Newsline. You can receive the transcript of the entire program by email, you can listen to it as an MP3 file, or you can tune into a local repeater which carries the program.
Here in the Washington DC area, the program can be heard on 147.225 at 8:00 PM on Saturdays and Sundays.
Another interesting "radio program" is the Rain Report. RAIN (Radio Amateur Information Network) was founded in March, 1988 by Hap Holly, KC9RP, to: (1) Produce and disseminate audio programming to the U.S. Amateur Radio Service; (2) Produce and distribute audio educational materials to promote Amateur Radio to the disabled community; and (3) Develop new and assist currently-operating over the air/telephone ham radio bulletin services. RAIN is essentially a 1-man operation with a lot of help from a handful of volunteer readers, and from Bohnhoff MediaCasting/M. Bohnhoff, Inc.
This is a list of Washington DC area repeaters I've collected from listening on the air.
Vienna Wireless Society An organization dedicated to the enjoyment of Amateur Radio. The Vienna Wireless Society is based in Vienna, Virginia. VWS also maintains a mailing lists for members at: http://www.viennawireless.org/lists.php
NVFMA The Northern Virginia FM Association, Providing Superior FM Repeater service to Amateur Radio operators in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area since 1971.
I've done a little playing with Amateur TV (ATV) and hope to relate some of the things I've learned here. So far, I've purchased a tiny ATV transmitter and a small color CCD video camera. Both are powered by 9V batteries. The transmitter sends a .05 to .10 watt signal on 434 MHz (cable channel 59). My son and I have strapped it to his RC truck and gone driving around with it. In the future, I'm hoping we can get it aloft on a balloon, kite, or RC airplane. I'll have more details (and hopefully some pictures as well) here in the future.
I've been playing with APRS in the car, and have bought a small HT with integrated TNC to play with APRS on foot and on the bike. With APRS, your position can be reported to other amateurs in the area via packet radio, and to others not in the area via APRS-IS (APRS Internet Stream). There are two wonderful web sites devoted to APRS-IS: Findu.com and APRS World.
Good information on APRS is available at: http://info.aprs.net/wikka.php?wakka=APRS
See: APRS World Map
As of 2002, I am a member of the board of directors of the Vienna Wireless Society. My term runs through 2007. I also serve as the club treasurer.
Assorted tidbits and trivia are here.
Here's a clever morse code chart from A. G. Reinhold.
Additions, Deletions, Comments, Constructive Criticism welcome:
Display a breadcrumb trail of locations: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/breadcrumb.cgi?call=kg4ojt-1
Positions overlaid on a radar weather image: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/radar-find.cgi?call=kg4ojt*&radar=lwx&zoom=1
Stations near KG4OJT-1: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/map-near.cgi?call=kg4ojt-1
Current weather conditions near KG4OJT-1: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxcurrent.cgi?call=kg4ojt-1
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/mapurl.cgi?call=kg4ojt-1&xsize=300&ysize=300&refresh=180&scale=200000Track: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/track1.cgi?call=kg4ojt-1
Similar to map.findu.com/kg4ojt-1, but has radar map for wide area: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=kg4ojt-1&radar=***
Radar weather image with kg4ojt-1 marked as "Pete". http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/line.cgi?call=kg4ojt-1!Pete:0:255:100&geo=rad_lwx.geo&start=100
aprsworld has a lot of fun APRS maps, etc: aprsworld.net
