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Posted on Sun, Jun. 01, 2008 A boy's passport to the world Six-year-old Cameron Hasson's world just got a little larger. The amateur radio license he recently earned puts him in touch with folks from all over. He's a bona fide “ham” – probably the youngest in North Carolina and maybe the U.S., according to his instructor, Joe Hullender with the Gastonia Area Amateur Radio Club. All that talk going on out in radio land – endless conversations about the weather and gas prices and whatever – Cameron takes it all in. The world has opened up. He feels more...

The practice of political correctness may soon be tallying another casualty: the pig. Increasingly, as America and the rest of the Western world continue accommodating Muslim religious demands, pork food products are being singled out for removal from dining tables and pig-related trinkets banished from the desks of office workers. If this continues, good ol’ American food, such as barbeque replete with hot dogs and ribs and the typical American breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausage, might be seen as the equivalent of political poison. Could outright censorship of pig depictions in drawings, pig references in literary works and pig...

Any Dxer's Or HAMS out there interested in opening a Dxer Forum? I'm new to this stuff and could use some FRiends to surf the waves with.

Drawing a parallel to the publication of cartoons of Mohammed, a spokesman for Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, denounced use of the candidate’s middle name—Hussein—as “dirty politics.” “Inserting Senator Obama’s middle name into public discourse is just as wrong as it would be to publish an image of the Prophet Mohammed (may peace be upon him),” said Fetid Miasma, deputy chairman of Obama’s Texas campaign. “It’s mocking his heritage at a time when we should all be coming together as one.” “We’re not going around saying Hillary RODHAM Clinton,” Miasma pointed out, noting that, “We are above the pettiness of...

Romney "Disses" Amateur Radio In Televised Town Meeting Posted on Wednesday 16 November 2005 @ 15:48:10 Governor Mitt Romney dismissed the role of Amateur Radio operators in emergency communications during a televised "town meeting" program last night on WCVB's "When Disaster Strikes: Segment Two." The program featured public safety and volunteer organization officials from across Massachusetts among its audience. Host and moderator Natalie Jacobson asked an increasingly-agitated Governor Romney questions about communications interoperability, and communication without commercial power. Romney was next asked by Jacobson, "...so does it come down to ham radio?..." The Governor replied in a disgusted tone, "No,...

As Judith Europa described how the father of her children shot and killed three people in a Woodbridge house, she clung to one positive: She and others were alive yesterday because two men were as intent on protecting those they loved as the gunman was on destroying them. Europa said she was lying with four children on the floor of her sister's bedroom Sunday when Anastacio Sanchez-Miranda, 39, slipped into the Grandview Avenue house unnoticed, his jealousy seething. She and the children watched as her sister, Rosario Europa, 24, and brother-in-law, Juan Manuel Guevara, 28, were gunned down. Guevara had...

A posh food store in New York's Greenwich Village has found itself red faced after offering hams for sale with the slogan "Delicious for Hanukkah," the current Jewish religious holiday. The non-kosher labelling was spotted at the weekend by Manhattan novelist Nancy Kay Shapiro, 46, who decided instead of alerting management to take a picture of the unorthodox sign and post it on the Internet. "I just thought it was funny," Shapiro, who described herself as an unobservant Jew, told the New York Post. "I wasn't offended in any way. I just thought, here's somebody who knows nothing about what...

A thoughtless adolescent joke is being investigated by local police as a hate crime. If you need proof that hate crimes and state-run schools are two government projects that should never mix, look no further than Lewiston, Maine. According to the Maine Sun Journal, "On April 11, a white student placed a ham steak in a bag on a lunch table where Somali students were eating." The Somali students were Muslim and believe pork to be unclean. The offender, who is now being investigated as the perpetrator of a hate crime — albeit a calloused and thoughtless one — was...

Benign and seemingly harmless to many, above we see the "ham sandwich" from hell. Unless your name is Mama Cass or you happen to be a Muslim, then you have nothing to worry about. The "ham sandwich" is the natural predator of devout Muslims around the globe. While it might seem to be nothing more than an innoculous organic compound to some, or perhaps a tasty lunch menu item to others, the "ham sandwich" inflicts fear and terror into the hearts and minds of Muslims, and possesses the the capacity to devour the very soul of a Muslim should they...

good source for used ham radios?

Where Will Ham Radio Be in 50 Years? What will it be like? Or will it even exist?

Morse code is in need of some serious SOS. The language of dots and dashes, first used during the infancy of electronic communication in the mid-1800s, is going the way of Latin. Beginning today, amateur or "ham" radio operators in the United States won't be tested in Morse code – also known as Continuous Wave – in order to be licensed by the federal government. In an effort to advance the hobby, the Federal Communications Commission in December agreed to eliminate the five-words-per-minute Morse code requirement for people seeking their upper-level class licenses.

A citizens' group in Berlin turned out this week for a candlelight vigil to protest plans for a new mosque in their neighborhood. It will be the first to be built in the former East Berlin, where almost no Muslims live but no one can quite explain why it shouldn't be there. The community has just won approval for a new mosque in an eastern district of the German capital. At the end of a rundown suburban street lined with bare trees and flaking apartment facades, a small group of people hold candles or colored Glo-sticks. A few hold signs...

The Mayor of London has condemned what he said was greater publicity given to Muslim extremists over and above non-Islamic groups. Ken Livingstone told BBC radio too much emphasis was placed on Muslim extremism while the vast majority of faiths wanted to live together in harmony. He said a situation had been reached where any comment by politicians on Muslims had "front page coverage". His claims were endorsed by a spokesman from the London Muslim Centre. The Mayor told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "There's a small - we're talking about a couple of hundred, no more than that...

Mary Katherine Ham of Town Hall.com, Michelle Malkin, the "boss" of Hotair.com, Kirsten Powers of Fox News Channel fame, and La Shawn Barber, a black conservative who has her own blog discuss the never-ending Foley matter.

MoHAMmed http://www.norbert26.com/midi_2/index.html MIDI - WHO PUT THE BOMP I have always wondered...who named the guy Because it brings to mind one Porky Pig Who put the ham in the Mo-mo-ham-ham-ed Who put the grease in the soup he had last night Who put the bacon inside the prophet's omelette Who put the spare ribs on top his new koran There is a prankster who'll soon have big regrets Where is that man? I think I'd like to shake his hand 'Cause it is really so funny to me They wander around...out on the sand where it's hot as h*ll...

MIDI - WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN - Credence He is their great prophet...that is what they say What would he be driving, were he alive today Some have said Mohammed would buy a Dodge Ram In his name, will someone tell me, who put the ham? Did he have a slogan followers had heard Maybe it was brilliant or maybe it was absurd Some have said Mohammed might have liked "Hot damn!" In his name, will someone tell me, who put the ham? There have been some stories followers suppress He lusted for girls who wore a frilly white...

LEWISTON — A 33-year-old man was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly threw a severed pig's head into a Lewiston mosque while a group of Muslim men were praying. The frozen pig's head was rolled into the Lewiston Auburn Islamic Center on Lisbon Street about 10:15 p.m. Monday, witnesses told the Sun Journal of Lewiston. About 40 men were bowed down as part of their prayer ritual when the incident occurred. They got up and ran outside but were unable to locate anyone. None of the men was hit by the animal head. Brent Matthews of Lewiston went to the police...

May 12, Gleaner News (KY) Severe weather drill highlights the importance of ham radios. In a severe weather drill Thursday, May 11, negative temperatures, freezing rain and sleet turned Henderson, KY, and its surrounding counties into a veritable ice kingdom. The objective of this drill: For emergency responders within the seven counties of the Green River Area Development District to share information regarding disaster preparedness. The event comprised three hospitals and seven counties −− Henderson, Union, Webster, Daviess, Hancock, McLean and Ohio −− and each county had to communicate with each other. Some problems involved written communications between the agencies...

FIGHTING MAD: Rape victim Kathleen Ham was livid when Sheldon Silver tried to slip a provision into a bill that would remove the criminal statute of limitations from rape cases. EXCLUSIVE Three decades ago, Kathleen Ham was raped and shamed into silence. Now, she is nail-spittingly furious at a man she says will do anything to help violent attackers get away with it. "Sheldon Silver is the rapist's best friend!" Ham said to me unflinchingly. "He's still living in this '60s mode," Ham said of Silver, the powerful state Assembly speaker. "He thinks the rapist is the victim! It makes...

Collin County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) Skywarn Spotters were on the job last night when storms went through the Northern cities of Anna and Westminster that produced two tornadoes. At 8:30pm last evening the National Weather Service in Fort Worth alerted our appointed severe weather Assistant Emergency Coordinator (AEC)Ted Best, KD5JEO, of the severe weather potential for Collin County and asked that we activate our spotters. David Patrick, W7DAV, did a outstanding job as our Net Control Station (NCS) for this particular spotter activation. As is usually the case, a separate frequency was used to provide support from our...

Undelivered mail from 1956 comes back to DeLand DELAND -- It's been a long, mysterious journey for one little postcard. In 1956, George Hitz dropped a postcard into his Stetson Avenue mailbox, hoping a fellow HAM radio operator in Riverside, Calif., would soon get it. No one knows whether the postcard completed its cross-country journey, but it was returned to its starting place this week bearing a 1956 DeLand postmark and a "return to sender" stamp. George Hitz as a teenager at his HAM radio shack on Stetson Avenue in DeLand, from where he sent the card to California. Hitz,...

Radio Buffs Lobby to Make Historic 500 kHz a 'Memorial Frequency'For almost a century, 500 kHz was a lifeline for ships worldwide. Better known as 500 kilocycles, it was the spectrum reserved for ships and the shore stations that communicated with them in Morse Code (sometimes referred to as CW, for continuous wave). If you're a real radio old-timer, you might refer to the frequency as 600 meters. "To ensure that SOS calls were always heard, all ship and shore stations were required to monitor 500 kHz at all times," said Richard Dillman, secretary and chief CW operator of the...

"Why don't you take a picture of our antenna up there above that Rising Sun?" Larry asked. "A kamikaze plane hit the Lex right there in 1942." The decal on the superstructure of the USS Lexington shows the location of a kamikaze aircraft hit during an engagement in World War II. To the right and above it is the ship's ham station Hustler 5BTV antenna. Larry Boudreau, W5LDB, was the host during my operation in the 2004 Texas QSO Party aboard the USS Lexington. We were standing on the busy gangway leading up from the beach to the entrance...

CQ CQ CQ - Doctor Raoul has kindly asked if I would ping the Ham List in the hopes that a technically skilled Freeper may be able to assist with repairs to PA systems to be used in Freeps. Excerpts from his Freepmail appear below: ========================================================= I have a number of Amplivox portable PAs. It may be that I'm not aligning the prongs on the battery case or perhaps corrosion. Have a schematic on bottom of case. Need them checked out and then we can send them to people doing counter-protests. I think it's possible to wire them up to...

Last month, a briefly worded press release went nearly unnoticed. It simply read: "Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging Services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage." After 155 years, and millions of telegrams and Telex messages, a major part of American history quietly slipped into obscurity. For more than 100 years, Socorro was part of that history. With today's telephones, cell phones and e-mail, we can contact almost anyone we wish immediately and cheaply. This wasn't always the case. In Socorro's early days,...

BRITAIN - Muslim prisoners at a Midland jail are boycotting meals after a rogue kitchen worker was caught filling their halal curries with unholy ham. Prisoners at HMP Blakenhurst received a written apology from the Prison Service after the discovery and Imams were on hand to console distraught Muslims. Wasim Zafar, aged 19, from Alum Rock, spoke out after visiting his relative in the Howell Drive Category B prison. "He was very depressed and had lost a lot of weight because he has not been eating much since he found out what had happened with the curries," he said. "He...

When another disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina comes along, the League will be able to deploy "ham gear ready to go," thanks to manufacturers' donations of Amateur Radio gear, ARRL members' generous monetary contributions and a federal grant. The ARRL Ham Aid-sponsored "Go Kits" now being assembled at League Headquarters are the third leg of a program that's already reimbursed certain out-of-pocket expenses for ham radio hurricane zone volunteers and helped restore Amateur Radio backbone infrastructure along the US Gulf Coast. "To me, this is a first step in ramping up ARRL's ability to support Amateur Radio volunteers...

A century-old hobby filled with dots and dashes is embroiled in a debate about its future and what level of training should be expected of those called on to help during local and national emergencies. Morse code, a slowly dying language, has become radio's equivalent of Latin: historically important, but increasingly irrelevant in a world of cell phones, computers and instant messaging. With mariners and the military having moved to other technologies long ago, ham radio operators are virtually the sole practitioners of a technique that made national and international communication possible with the telegraph.

The Maritime Radio Historical Society, in cooperation with the Marconi Conference Center, will return historic Morse code radio station KPH to the air from its original Marin county, CA location on Sunday, 26 February. KPH, once called the "wireless giant of the Pacific", arrived in Marin county in the early 1920s. With its receiving station at Marshall, CA and transmitters at Bolinas, CA, KPH provided telegram service to ships at sea via Morse code. Operation at Marshall continued until the beginning of WWII when KPH was shut down for the duration. After the war the receiving station was moved to...

LINCOLN, Neb. - Eight workers at a Nebraska meat processing plant claimed the record $365 million Powerball jackpot Wednesday, giving each about $15.5 million after taxes. The seven men and one woman all work at a ConAgra ham processing plant near the U-Stop convenience store where they bought the winning ticket last week for Saturday’s lottery. They ended up with the biggest jackpot in U.S. lottery history.

When World War II veteran Rear Adm Barry K. Atkins was interred in Arlington National Cemetery January 30, Amateur Radio enabled coordinated rifle salutes at the cemetery and in Hartford, Connecticut. Atkins was a longtime resident of Connecticut, and Alex Parley of Windsor--a member of Atkins' US Navy crew during World War II--requested the special honor. "Their destroyer, the USS Melvin, sank the Japanese battleship Fuso in the battle of Surigao Strait--the only destroyer known to have sunk a battleship," explains Mac Harper, W1FYM, of Glastonbury, Connecticut. Through a series of communications that began when Parley requested help from ARRL...

It was the fourth night after Hurricane Katrina, and something like a thousand patients, doctors and staff were trapped at Medical Center Louisiana in downtown New Orleans, surrounded by floodwaters. Outside, reports were grim. People were drowning in their attics. Inside the hospital, there was no running water, no power, no phones and no Internet. Cell phones didn’t work. Each day the authorities said evacuations were about to begin, but nothing happened. The staff thought they’d seen everything the disaster could bring. Then, in the middle of the night, a pregnant woman dragged herself out of the foul, dark water...

KENT -- Scarcely a day passes that George DeVilbiss isn't at his workbench, repairing, improving or otherwise tinkering with his ham radio equipment. Scarcely a day passes that he doesn't talk with other hams across the nation or around the world. It's a pursuit that for 75 years has been more than a hobby for DeVilbiss, now 91. "It's really a way of life," he said. A short, lively man whose accent still carries traces of a small-town Texas boyhood, DeVilbiss recently began writing an account of his life in radio. That life began, he said last week, because he...

Growing up during the Depression, Ray Bintliff still remembers listening to the adventures of The Shadow and Little Orphan Annie on his parents’ Philco console radio. The 83-year-old Acton resident comes from a generation of Americans who heard history coming into their living rooms. On radios made by Zenith, RCA and Sparton, they heard Orson Welles announce a Martian invasion and FDR pronounce a "Day of Infamy." They heard about the D-Day invasion at Normandy and the antics of Fibber McGee and Molly. Many, like Thomas Romano of Grafton and John V. Terrey of Carlisle, followed a boyhood passion for...

Ham Radio Operators "True Heroes," Rep Mike Ross, WD5DVR, Says in "Salute" NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 9, 2006--US Rep Mike Ross, WD5DVR (D-AR), this week offered "A Salute to Ham Radio Operators" (on the floor of the US House. Ross, one of two Amateur Radio licensees in the House of Representatives (the other is Rep Greg Walden, W7EQI, R-OR), addressed his colleagues February 8 to recognize the contributions of the Amateur Radio community in the wake of last year's devastating hurricane season. "Citizens throughout America dedicated to this hobby--a hobby that some people consider old fashioned or obsolete--were true heroes in...

Rooted in the 1920s, the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) began as a way for amateur radio operators to train soldiers to use the latest radio equipment. By the begin-ning of the Korean conflict, MARS also became a way for troops and their families to communicate faster than ever. As a newly enlisted Marine, Bert Ponsock worked as a radio tech at the operations center in Itami, Japan, from 1952 to 1954. The site was a popular stop for American servicemen on R&R. Every morning, Ponsock took stacks of service members’ written notes to the ham shack. “The Lieutenant had...

I found it rather ironic that, on the very day of President Bush's State of the Union address, in which he said that the US is "addicted to oil", we learned that US government international broadcasts are cutting about 90,000 transmitter hours per year. High-powered international broadcast transmitters need a lot of fuel, and in most cases it's oil. The two are not directly connected, of course, but it's a coincidence that reminds us just how energy-inefficient broadcasting, and especially international broadcasting, can be. I was a shortwave listener and DXer for many years before coming to work at Radio...

Did you ever want to participate in a International Space Station mission? Starting Friday, February 3rd, you may get your chance. An old, used Russian spacesuit has been transformed into a most unusual earth orbit satellite. Just add one Kenwood TH-K2AT handi-talkie transceiver, a battery pack, a sensor for temperature readings, a compact voice synthesizer and telemetry device and a small helmet-mounted antenna and you are good to go. The modified spacesuit will be thrust out of the space station into orbit and will begin broadcasting voice messages and slow scan television on 145.990 MHz FM in the two-meter amateur...

Satellites on a Budget - High Altitude Balloons Balloon photograph taken from 25km. Image credit: Paul Verhage. Click to enlarge. Paul Verhage has some pictures that you'd swear were taken from space. And they were. But Verhage is not an astronaut, nor does he work for NASA or any company that has satellites orbiting Earth. He is a teacher in the Boise, Idaho school district. His hobby, however, is out of this world. Verhage is one of about 200 people across the United States who launch and recover what have been called a "poor man's satellite." Amateur Radio High...

Tue 17 Jan 2006 Far-right 'charity' that leaves Muslims hungry SUSAN BELLIN PARIS FAR-right groups in France are distributing ham sandwiches and pork soup to homeless people in an attempt to discriminate against Muslims and Jews, forbidden to eat pork products. Food hand-outs, which have already taken place in Paris, Nice and Nantes, and in Brussels and Charleroi in Belgium, have now spread to the eastern French city of Strasboug. At the weekend, Strasbourg's prefect banned the extreme right association Solidarité Alsacienne from distributing its soupe au cochon (pig soup) to poor and homeless people in the city centre....

By TREVOR PADDENBURG 18dec05 A WA hospital has scrubbed baked ham from its Christmas menu, fearing Muslim patients could be offended. It has also overhauled its entire menu so that all meals are now halal – containing only meat and other food prepared according to Muslim customs. But Port Hedland Regional Hospital staff and many non-Muslim patients are outraged, saying it is a case of political correctness gone mad. Kitchen staff are so angry that they have organised a petition demanding ham be put back on the Christmas menu. Other WA hospitals are also introducing halal dining, though the Health...

ARRL President Jim Haynie, W5JBP, this week called on the Amateur Radio community to exercise patience as the Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans flooding relief and recovery efforts move into high gear. "I know many people would like to move now," Haynie said. "Please don't. I know many of you want to enter the fray, come to the coast and get involved. Please, not yet." Haynie instead advised hams eager to assist to make sure they're prepared, refresh their skills and knowledge of protocols and procedures. The ARRL now is seeking experienced Amateur Radio emergency volunteers to help supplement communication...

Sriharikota, (Andhra Pradesh) May 2 : India has a gift for HAM radio operators worldwide - an exclusive satellite to be launched Thursday that they can access for free. The 42.5 kg micro-satellite is one of two that will be sent aloft from this launchpad that day. Today, there is no HAMSAT in the skies, the last one having died two years ago. That was the American AMSAT. The Indian HAMSAT was originally scheduled to go up in 2003 but got delayed. Once it is up, it will be the only satellite of its kind in orbit. "The amateur radio...

Amateur radio operators will take part in a scavenger hunt this weekend, seeking information rather than hub caps or cowboy hats, in an exercise designed to get them acquainted with Southeastern Connecticut before a major emergency drill next month. Wayne Gronlund, who is coordinating the event, said he is trying to put together at least 50 amateur radio enthusiasts for TOPFF, a weeklong exercise that will include simulated terrorist attacks on ports in New London, New Jersey, Canada and the United Kingdom. “We know we're not going to have enough amateur radio resources in New London County to provide all...

Editor's note: Typically, only ARRL members get to read the "It Seems to Us ..." editorials that run each month in QST. We're posting this editorial that appears in the March, 2005 issue of QST in the hope that both ARRL members and nonmembers might appreciate it and find it informative. Threats to radio amateurs' access to the radio spectrum come in several forms. We can lose allocations, either at the international or the domestic level. The ARRL and the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) devote a lot of resources to the protection and expansion of our international allocations through...

Unheard by most of us is a constant conversation over the airwaves in the di-da tones of Morse code, the crackling of static and staccato voices keying in and out: Ham radio operators who broadcast from garrets and garages, tents and trucks, homes and businesses. Saturday's Radio Fest 2005 offered a glimpse into this world at Fort Ord's Stilwell Community Center, sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School Amateur Radio Club, the Monterey Bay subsection of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Amateur Radio Relay League. Radio Fest looked like nothing so much as an electronics garage sale,...

FREDERICK, Md. - A new radio system at Fort Detrick will improve communication with the Pentagon. The downside: some people may have to open their garage doors the old-fashioned way. The Land Mobile Radio system will allow Fort Detrick and 10 other Army installations in the Washington region to communicate with the Pentagon and civilian emergency personnel by hand-held radios. In a suburban sacrifice to emergency preparedness, Frederick residents could experience a rash of dead door openers in coming days, as the Army's Fort Detrick begins using a new radio system linking local and federal government emergency personnel. The new...

NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 25, 2005--At the urging of the ARRL, Rep Michael Bilirakis (R-FL) has introduced The Amateur Radio Spectrum Act of 2005 into the US House of Representatives. The bill, designated HR 691 , has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee where Bilirakis serves as vice chairman. Like previous versions of the proposal, the current measure would require the FCC to provide "equivalent replacement spectrum" to the Amateur Radio and Amateur-Satellite services in the event of reallocation to other services of primary amateur spectrum or the diminution of secondary amateur spectrum. The bill also would cover...