Another week of amateur radio has expired. Expired Ham, get it? 🙂
Welcome to another issue of Expired Ham, a weekly newsletter where I discuss the ways I participated in the amateur radio hobby this week.
While the weather has warmed, it has also gotten wet. I worked a bit of air time in from home, but finishing up the FT-891 mobile install and running it through some POTA activations will have to wait yet another week at least.
What do you know about APRS? If you had asked me that same question a few weeks ago, I’d have said “nothing at all” or “I know what APRS stands for” at best. Today, though, I can proudly say that I still don’t know much about APRS. However, my Yaesu FT3D has GPS and APRS capabilities and so I was curious about whether the mode is useful for anything. Apart from spending a few hours perusing the data shown on aprs.fi‘s APRS map, I searched for a reason why APRS is a mode that I should learn more about and use. I understand the purpose of having a method of tracking something like a ship at sea, or perhaps using APRS to track contestants in a road race so that their location is known to race officials. This was the only purpose of APRS that I knew about previously. Apparently, though, there are other use cases such as delivering real-time weather information via connected weather stations in your local and surrounding area. It’s even possible to share messages with other APRS users. If you’re a newbie to APRS, you might be about to ask “don’t we already have all of this capability in our cell phones?”. That’s exactly where I am currently. I’ve yet to find an appealing use case for APRS. I’m just going to have to do more research.
If you recall, I set a goal for 2026 to read through all of my back issues of QST print magazine that I have stuffed away in a box. I have every issue from late 2014 until they stopped sending out print copies unless you paid extra for them. I’m hoping to read through the lot of them by the end of the year. Today starts the 11th week of the year and I’m about 13 issues in so far, so I’m on track to complete the task I think. Anyway, I’m finding some very interesting articles that are giving me some ideas for ham projects that I’d like to build. For example, in the March 2015 issue, Andrew Woodfield, ZL2PD, gives detailed instructions about how to build a “Talking Frequency Counter” based on an Atmel ATtiny85 microcontroller. Even though I don’t have an immediate need for a frequency counter, the project seems like it would be a fun one and I’m sure I could make use of the finished product in some way. In the November 2015 issue, Mike Aiello, N2HTT, discusses an Arduino-based “Digital Fist Recorder” that he built which allows the user to record their CW fist and play it back, either aloud or as input to a transceiver. Now that I’m a CW operator, this is a project that appeals to me. There’s not much of a fist to be had when using an electronic keyer and a pair of paddles, but I’ve been dabbling in the dark arts of straight keys lately also, so maybe a “fist” will develop over time if I stick with that. It has also been neat to see radios that we would consider “old” today being introduced as new in some of these older issues. I had forgotten how much of each QST issue was just advertising.
I sent a friend of mine my old Yaesu FT-70D recently. He expressed some interest in digital voice modes and as the radio had been gifted to me, I passed on the goodwill to someone else. I then talked him into buying a ZUMspot and this week, we got together to set that up. All of that got me a bit more involved in my pi-star hotspot that I’ve had now for a bit over a year. I am not the most talkative ham out here, but I find the DV modes to be interesting enough to have available. I did take some time to configure my hotspot to provide cross-mode capability to the NXDN and P25 networks. I’m not familiar with either and have no idea how to find the popular watering holes on those two. If you’re more of a pro than I am with C4FM, DMR, NXDN, or P25 and have any tips that I can use to make better use of this equipment, let me know. As it stands, the hotspot is typically always connected to AmericaLink on YSF and occasionally, I’ll connect to DMR TG91 or TG93 and just listen. I know on Echolink, you can often find a lot of regular nets happening. Are there similar activities going on here on C4FM and DMR?
We are just one week away from the Vienna Wireless Society’s WINTERFEST hamfest. You still have time to buy raffle tickets that might win you a brand new ICOM IC-7300 MKII or a Yaesu FTM-510DR. More details can be found on the club’s website. Raffle tickets are $10 each or 5 for $40. The raffle is open to everyone everywhere and you do not have to present to win. Raffle tickets are available for purchase until March 14th. Get ’em while they’re hot, folks! You can also click the banner below to go to the club’s website.
Thanks for joining me this week.
Best 73s,
Matthew, K2MAS
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