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Here is the entire support ticket the guy opened: http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?attachments/hrd-software-inc-pdf.336462/.
It seems that they have in their TOS a line that says:

8. We reserve the right to refuse service and disable a customer’s key at any time for any reason

Also, they are lying in that it was just one employee that did this. From the ticket you can see an employee was answering the ticket at first, but then "Rick" took over, who appears to be "Rick Ruhl", a co-owner of HRD software, and throws gems like this to the stunned customer:

You are not buying software, you are buying your callsign's access to the software. ...
Again refer to section 8 of the TOS, which was written by our Attorney. ...
See you in court.

Unbelievable!

The print isn't even that fine. From the license agreement:

8. We reserve the right to refuse service and disable a customer’s key at any time for any reason

PDF of the support ticket emails (including license agreement) to and from grasping little HRD shitweasel:

https://forums.qrz.com/index.p...

There is an entire body of stealth antennas that have been developed for legally and space-constrained homes, such as flagpole antennas, magnetic loops, folded attic dipoles, and even tuned metal gutters! Yet these are all compromise antennas due to their limited height from the ground , proximity to metal objects and wiring, and size (for the 40m band on HF, you need at least a 10m/33ft vertical plus one or more counterpoises of that length on the ground). Some HOAs are even more draconian and allow nothing outside of a strict approved list of items per the HOA contract. This means that even a 1/4 wavelength vertical wire antenna that is barely visible to the eye is disallowed. Ironically, it's these same antennas that contribute to RFI issues for neighbors, increase RF exposure and worsen problems that would not be present with a properly deployed non-compromise antenna. HOA agreements have a disproportionate impact on hams who tend to be older and often use ham radio to communicate with their friends. Some of these are ex-military and civilian volunteers who are part of the Military Auxiliary Radio System or Civil Air Patrol, or participate in volunteer civil safety services such as Amateur Radio Emergency Service, Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service and Skywarn that use HF frequencies as well.

The HOAs have been vociferously opposed to this act as an infringement of civil liberties and have written both to the FCC and to congress opposing this. Yet there are already FCC-mandated requirements for such things as satellite antennas on HOA-governed properties that supersede any restrictions that may be contained in HOA contracts on spectrum which is technically regulated by the FCC. The intent is not to replicated a nearly 200' tall antenna tower with stacked Yagis, but to provide reasonable accommodation. A 1/4 wavelength vertical wire antenna barely visible to the eye can literally communicate with the entire world, yet somehow the HOA board fanatics claim that even these should be restricted. Even one of the trapped multiband vertical antennas in a back yard can make a big difference in getting out and participating in radio, but they again want no part of it.

There is bias against what we don't know or don't want to know. Heck, people think that there is an environmental impact to these antennas. I'm hopeful this will get passed and withstand scrutiny in the inevitable court battle that will ensue over it. But in a country turning its back on science for sports, maybe even the discussion with the non-ham folks might actually activate a few brain cells.

I spent two years in a mountain cabin living off grid, and working as a software consultant. I used Hughesnet for satellite service, but this was in a remote cabin at 10,000 feet, and a 12 mile snowmobile in. Hughesnet is laggy, but works for basic stuff that you need to do day to day. Solar is completely doable, but you have to not just connect a panel to your laptop and call it good. Then I got a girlfriend and moved back to the city (still keeping and visiting the cabin), so now I do lots of long weekend things. For that, I have a mobile hotspot with a cellphone extender and a yagi antenna I can put up on a pole if needed. Let's me spend a couple extra days out there, then take the weekend off and shut down. I use a solar panel permantly mounted on the truck, and two extra ones I can stand up on the ground. That charges two large 6v Trojan batteries in series to make 12v. I have 12v chargers for everything, and an inverter for those odd things you can't get 12v for. I have an ARB cooler that runs on 12v, so no ice required and cold for as long as you want. Also have ham radio equipment to send emails from those really remote places where all else fails. You can see pictures of my various setups as it relates to ham radio at: https://www.qrz.com/lookup/k7j... It is all very doable if you plan ahead and have big enough batteries to get you through the lulls in sun. I figure with my current setup I could stay out almost indefinitely, especially since I can take warm beer in bulk, and feed it into the cooler as I go since it is all electric and no ice.

There are better ways than censorship. Bomb detecting equipment. I always thought smoke detectors are the answer to someone yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Check the sensors instead of immediately panicking?

Technology doesn't cure everything.

And in many cases, what people here claim is censorship is merely an application of common sense and manners.

I don't see an ugly woman or man and feel compelled to rush up to them and tell them they are ugly.

You just cannot go to extremes in defense of free speech. It's like any other pure ideology, because you end up at a point where you expect your right to free speech trumps someone else's right to free speech.

Note: there was an exact case of this. An amateur radio operator some years ago was broadcasting opinions and other stuff on Amateur radio frequencies. He would intentionally interfere with others on what he considered "his" frequency. If you were near "his" frequency when he exercised his freedom of speech, He'd interrupt your communications and tell you to move. If you didn't, you'd be jammed.

http://www.fcc.gov/document/us...

http://ve7kfm.com/k1man.html

http://www.eham.net/articles/9...

http://forums.qrz.com/showthre...

So for as hypothetical as that whole pile of stupidity sounds, where your freedom trumps everyone else's freedom, it has happened.

The tl;dr summary is that This guy insisted upon his freedom to do several illegal things, at the same time purposely denying others their own right to do perfectly legal things.

It's the end game, where the only person allowed to speak is the biggest, loudest asshole in the room who then won't allow you to speak.

Slightly related, here are a few threads about radio-based baby monitors causing trouble in the ham bands:

http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=76680.0
http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?310670-Bad-Baby-Monitors-on-50-125-FM
http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showthread.php/23722-HAM-Radio-and-Eavesdropping!!!!-LONG-ONE!

The first and second one are about hams tracking down the problems. The second goes into great detail on how the user of the monitor was busted by the FCC. The third is from a user of a baby monitor going full-retard.

from http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?341809-The-sinking-of-the-Titanic/page2 (they're getting overloaded with T discussions) W1YW wrote, "You know the story at that point - the 'two Harolds' as heros; junior Marconi employee David Sarnoff claiming picking up the distress signal (legend but not true; he was one of several ops working the key in NYC). No pun intended, wireless equipped shipping became a legally required 'killer app' for Marconi. What ensued was a company that rocketed in 1912-1913, much like, say, Facebook today. There was even a MAJOR scandal in the UK over insider info and trading of Marconi stock, that is very famous in the UK, but unknown here."

There's ongoing discussion on QRZ (one claimed all kinds of laws were broken), http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?324759-Amateur-Radio-Balloon-crosses-the-Atlantic

When I tried to get a balloon launch group started in my local area, there were many Hams who denied in extremely strong terms the legality of launching these things.

I explained that it was perfectly legal, and outlined the process, Didn't matter one bit they still "knew" it wasn't legal.

UV is the showstopper as it is very intense above 100K, it was not expected to last more than a few hours in sunlight. They launched it (along with three others) late Sunday afternoon so most of eastward travel is done at night and figured the sun UV will deteriorate the latex following morning causing balloon to pop and land. Objective of two balloons (K6RPT-11 and -12) is distance. These were planned to be floaters (buoyant at 120K or so) but expect to only make it partway across the US, K6RPT-12 popped and landed in Indiana (some hams have tracked it down and will recover). But....... K6RPT-11 kept going throughout the day then crossed the coastline the next night and contact was lost over Atlantic. Then it was picked up the next morning from Azores, now hams on other side of pond got active on tracking this thing. It kept going, survived two days of UV but looks like it didn't survive the UV the third day.

There's ongoing discussion on QRZ (one claimed all kinds of laws were broken), http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?324759-Amateur-Radio-Balloon-crosses-the-Atlantic

You all has gots to admit this is one for the books!!!!!!!!!

Other two balloons K6RPT-12 and -13 were going for altitude record (CNSP achieved a record of 136,545 ft in Oct). These came down in west Nevada close to that shaded area of restricted airspace that has Tonopah Test Range and Groom Lake. Payload of K6RPT-13 is same as the record altitude setter from October and has signatures of CNSP members, I think they should have kept it and enshrined in a plexiglass pyramid. But I guess if it gets lost then may as well lose it in Area 51.

sure until some asshole decides to broadcast advocacy for terrorism from his ham radio

Obviously you've never listened to the idiots on 75 meters and 20 meter sideband

all of a sudden fit the description of a domestic terrorist due to information being available that would otherwise have required warrants to collect

Ham radio licenses are public record.

http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/searchAmateur.jsp

Also http://www.qrz.com/ and about a zillion other places.

Don't confuse government sharing, which is nearly total, and govt publicity which is also pretty wide open, with this new idea of advertiser sharing.

Yea, if only it was that easy. You have to try and resolve it yourself... and good luck dealing with the soccer moms. You might have the law on your side, but it takes a long time to go about it that way.

There are sooo many balloon launches, that on the same weekend there was a separate successful launch in Illinois, the iHAB2 launch.

http://www.w0otm.com/iHAB/iHAB-2/MissionControl.php

http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?p=2055228

The iHAB had a cooler "science pack" including all kinds of radio gear, in addition to the seemingly obligatory cell phone.

What they're doing is cool, but make no mistake, they are neither pioneers, nor working alone.

...getting most of their information from Television station WA2Z?

I doubt that Albert Lee runs an Amateur Radio television station, and that the town of Woodside, NY gets most of its information from it.

It's not like CB radio. We don't just pick a "handle" and use it. We study, take exams, get a licence, and with it, an assigned callsign.
Here's one, for instance: I believe she's the one that dropped the bag.. And here's another you might know

It's not like CB radio. We don't just pick a "handle" and use it. We study, take exams, get a licence, and with it, an assigned callsign.
Here's one, for instance: I believe she's the one that dropped the bag.. And here's another you might know

visit http://www.arrl.org/, they have some introductory books available there.

even better do a search on "Clubs" and find one or more close to you and
attend some meetings. hams are always happy to recruit new people into the hobby.

if you want to dig deeper check out: http://www.eham.net/ and http://www.qrz.com/ - visit the forums on both sites for all kinds of info.

Link to the club page at qrz.com, and their homepage.

Kinda makes me ashamed to be a ham.

I picked a good year to get licensed for ham radio. I sure get sick of hearing about how you can work Australia on a wet noodle during high Sunspot years. At least the low bands are reliable, but then again those bands require ginormous antennas. So as a consequence my house looks like some sort of martian communications test zone. I think my neighbors fear me enough not to seriously ask what's going on.

I'm just hoping he spends lots of time on the Amateur Radio on the ISS, racking up lots of contacts with eager hams on the earth. Like me.

Why ?!? It seems to me that at least one of the guys involved has a regular ham radio license What is disappoining is the smugness demonstrated by some slashdotters about what the canadian guys actually did. If you read the story and their blog, they had to understand how the whole thing works, to built antennas, to learn how to track the bird and to operate. It isn't rocket science, but it is not easy to do. After all, this can be the beginning of a career, just like it happened to me about twenty years ago, when through ham radio I got involved into science and signal processing. I am now a senior scientist for a Fortune100 company, but I am no more involved into ham radio: just a few years after my graduation I stared smelling into ham radio this kind of smugness that appears in some of the answers to this story, and I quitted. I had nothing more to learn, and people I met through the hobby were too proud of themselves to be interested in learning something new from me. Maybe the fault is not with young people, isn't it ?!?

Who needs adblockers anyway?

Anyone who views this site -- http://www.qrz.com/ [qrz.com]

• Elmer101
    a tutorial on radio theory with practical experiments. Think of it as a grown-up's version (you are a grown-up, right?) of the 500-in-1 manual. It's based on an existing design, a transceiver kit from Small Wonder Labs, and so you can read it and do experiements with with your own parts or with the kit. [A ham license to use these kits no longer requires a morse code test, just a 35-question written Technician exam.]
• QRPKits.com. This site runs the gamut for easy radio kits from simple transmitters to software-defined radio.
• Nuts and Volts magazine, a great resource, with a good coverage of general electronics, radio, robotics, microprocessors.
• Circuit Cellar magazine, descended from Steve's Circuit Cellar column in the old Byte magazine. Slightly more in depth articles, but fewer areas of coverage.

Don't forget RF as an introduction to electronics. If you want to know about series and parallel circuits and light bulbs, stick with DC and batteries. You mentioned capacitors and other components...understanding the behavior of RF circuits is part and parcel of understanding what a capacitor is for. Even digital designers need to know about RF circuits, so starting there can complement the understanding you probably already have of digital logic from programming.

Of course, I think the best way to learn about RF is through ham radio. Many hams are currently active in QRP (low-power or simple radio) operation, including design and construction. The circuits are small enough that you can breadboard them, and the people who design them often take great care to describe how things work, and how to hack them.

In fact, a formal course with a book written by Prof. David Rutledge of Cal Tech ("The Electronics of Radio") uses a simple ham radio transceiver as the basis for its introduction. The book at the kit are both still available.

Other simpler Kits and projects are available at
http://qrpkits.com/
http://www.njqrp.org/ (try their CD ROM of back issues of HomeBrewer magazine)
http://www.norcalqrp.org/ (which is having an informal meeting this Saturday in Sunnyvale, CA if you're in Silicon Valley)
http://4sqrp.com/

For online peer groups, you might try reading the archives of some of th Yahoo groups; there are about 4500 on amateur radio. Or try these:
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/qrp-l
http://qrp-l.org/

Getting a ham radio license can be an entre to a group of people who do this kind of thing and are used to helping each other. Now that the morse code requirement is lifted, you may find it easier to get a license. If you've gone through Forrest M Mimms III's books, you probably know about half of what you need already. See here for some roadmap info, or here for practice versions of the real tests, or here for a tutorial approach to the tests.

http://www.qrz.com/p/testing.pl has a nice online test so you can see how "easy" it is to get an amateur radio license.

I think that many computer applications, and to some extent certain kind of programming, are a little too much like watching TV, and harm your brain rather than enhancing it. Of what's going on today, I think the Make-magazine stuff is probably the most exciting and most likely to provoke actual thought... Kids doing robotics is pretty close to what kids doing ham radio was when I was young. Below is a meandering story of how I got from a 5 year old ham to today, back into ham radio, and reading Slashdot too.

In kindergarten, I remember bringing electrician's hot-side testing screwdrivers to show-and-tell ("Now you just stick this screwdriver into the electric socket and the neon bulb will light if it's the hot side"), and rigging up telephone networks with old handsets and batteries. After having learned morse code at age 5 and gotten on the air under my father's call (he got his license in response to my interest), I finally learned enough to read the whole test and got my license at age 7. Now my kids are about the same age, and found learning morse code to be fun; they talk to each other, and recently had a poster accepted at a peer-reviewed conference, comparing speed and errors in Morse code and typing! (Ok, it was the 2nd grade science fair.)

Soon I got interested in computers, but there weren't any actual ones to distract me; well, there was one in town, and it used punched cards. It was a Honeywell Special 200, the first IBM Clone, though it was a clone of an IBM 1401... Then there were the PDP-8's that were connected to Stanford via phone line for one of the first "computer-aided instruction" projects. I met the guys who maintained the Model 28 teletypes for them and they got their ham licenses after my father and I got ours...

When two-meter FM became popular, I helped establish the first local repeater, probably the only one within 100 miles. We had to do HAAT testing and I learned about altimeters, topographic maps, and government forms... By the time I graduated from high school and went to MIT, I found other pursuits -- PDP-10's, Lisp, classes... I pretty much got off the air. But ham radio gave me an entre into an entire world that wasn't available when I was growing up.

After a few years spent exploring 4x5" photography, I started doing some wireless mobile device work, and poor signal strength led me to get up on the roof and install a 1.9Ghz repeater. I felt a strange familiar feeling, and when my wife said, "I don't care how many antennas you put on the roof," I filed the fact away. When a co-worker shows up with a Yaesu VX-2 two-meter and 70cm handitalki that receives DC-to-daylight and said it was $120, I went ahead and bought it. I'd kept my ham license renewed, and used it once or twice in the intervening 20 years, but I had to re-learn lots of stuff. I wore the HT on my belt (along with two calculators and a slide rule, a hiptop, and a blinking LED pen) for the Halloween party at PARC and won what can best be described as the five-sigma prize...

A bit of web surfing led me to QRZ.com, EHam.net, and of course ARRL, and I found out about a local club meeting taking place that night. So I went with the co-worker, and found a bunch of pleasant nerds, schoolteachers and librarians, firefighters, electronics designers, computer scientists, and other random people.

At the club meeting, a satellite communications engineer told me about recent developments in DSP-based communications that used a PC sound card to modulate and demodulate; my extensive 20-year stint in programming made me think this might be interesting, so I bought a

I received my tech license back in 2001. (kc9aae) My friend and I both took the test together and passed, it was alot of fun. We studied for the test using online resources like: http://www.qrz.com/p/testing.pl
I enjoy all the different things you can do, like building antennas, aprs, weather stations, etc. Fun hobby, but it can get expensive.

Geeks are more hams every day with their antenna farms.

Try reading about tower review, or join in on Tower Talk.

Better yet, get a ham license. The technician test isn't even that hard.

Why spend that much ($350+), when you can order a dirt-cheap shortwave radio for maybe $40 and just use a simple 455 kHz to 12 kHz adaptor?

SDR is a broad topic. Wide-band digital modes such as the 12KHz wide DRM or even narrow ones such as HamDream are a simple example.

SDR involves a variety of techniques, but the basic idea is using an A/D at an early stage, and performing operations traditionally done with RF components with DSP software instead.

In its extreme, an SDR has a broadband RF amplifier and a DSP.

Some systems use a tuned RF filter before the RF amplifier to improve dynamic range and reduce overload, and others put the DSP after the first analog mixer. Ham equipment that uses IF DSP does this, such as many of the ICOM radios.

Then there are devices that then mix down to somewhere around the audio range, at least to the 0-96KHz or 0-48KHz range handled by many popular PC sound cards. The RF signal is detected by a an I-Q detector, which produces two signals In Phase and Quadrature (90 degrees out of phase). You might notice that this is a decomposition of a periodic wave into real and complex parts, given v=cos(omega)+j sin(omega). Thus, DSP techniques such as FFT can be applied in the complex domain. If you're seriously interested in this math, look up the Hilbert transform. It lets you modulate or demodulate directly in the DSP, and as a result the transmit and receive software and hardware are very similar. (And wouldn't the Professor on Gilligan's Island like to know that you can make a receiver into a transmitter without using coconuts!)

Anyway, once you get the I-Q signals into the two channels of the sound card, you get a view of the RF spectrum all at once, up to the bandwidth of your sound card sampling. So, if you have a 48KHz sound card you get 48KHz of band scanned simultaneously, and can pick and choose what frequency you want to demodulate, and how you want to demodulate it in software (AM, Single-Side Band, FM, various digital modes such as the aforementioned DRM=digital radio mondial). See here and here.

The SoftRock 40 and its replacement, the SRv5, surface mount kits costing in the $30 range, do this. They're an excellent introduction to SDR techniques, without requiring DSP chip programming. People are doing fun things with them. It's not a transmitter yet, but it will be soon with another board and a ham license).

For software, among others, there is Gnuradio, and also SDRadio, a Windows app. And there's DTTSP, a SourceForge project that runs in Linux and also releases a DLL used by the FlexRadio people. DTTSP has a number of front ends in development, in Java and other languages.

A step up is the FlexRadio SDR-1000, alluded to above. It's a 100W transceiver that does the same thing that the SoftRock does, but does a better job, and also use a VFO that allows it to pick what frequency range it operates on, rather than being limited to a particular crystal-controlled band as the stock SoftRock does. It also costs quite a bit more, and they use a 96KHz sound card to get good quality.

You do know that the license exam is -- for anyone with a basic understanding of electricity -- pretty simple these days. In fact it's probably somewhat easier than the one you studied for in the past, especially if you spent a lot of time practicing the Morse code. You'd just need to memorize the band plan and you'd probably be able to go down and take the test. You could do it in a weekend, quite easily.

I'm very surprised that more geeks don't go and take the test, if you're even moderately interested in messing around with radio or wifi stuff. At the very least, you can legally boost the power on your 802.11b setup (on certain channels).

Although I'm not sure if it's totally up to date, here is a site where you can take sample tests:
http://www.qrz.com/testing.html

The question pools aren't that big, so if you take it a few times over you can basically exhaust all the available questions for any given test (or at least you'll start seeing repeats or very similar questions).

...Five years ago this week, the International Space Station Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut and Expedition 1 Commander William ''Shep'' Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, became the first humans to live aboard the ISS.

The initial Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) station gear was already aboard the space station by the time the first crew launched. Later in the month, the Expedition 1 team installed and activated the VHF gear on FM voice and packet under the US call sign NA1SS and the Russian call sign RS0ISS.

Each of the 12 crews that have lived on the ISS to conduct assembly and research activities has included at least one US radio amateur. The Expedition 12 crew Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will remain on the ISS until next April. Over the years, crew members have conducted nearly 200 ARISS school group contacts and numerous casual QSOs.

...Five years ago this week, the International Space Station Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut and Expedition 1 Commander William ''Shep'' Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, became the first humans to live aboard the ISS.

The initial Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) station gear was already aboard the space station by the time the first crew launched. Later in the month, the Expedition 1 team installed and activated the VHF gear on FM voice and packet under the US call sign NA1SS and the Russian call sign RS0ISS.

Each of the 12 crews that have lived on the ISS to conduct assembly and research activities has included at least one US radio amateur. The Expedition 12 crew Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will remain on the ISS until next April. Over the years, crew members have conducted nearly 200 ARISS school group contacts and numerous casual QSOs.

...Five years ago this week, the International Space Station Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut and Expedition 1 Commander William ''Shep'' Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, became the first humans to live aboard the ISS.

The initial Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) station gear was already aboard the space station by the time the first crew launched. Later in the month, the Expedition 1 team installed and activated the VHF gear on FM voice and packet under the US call sign NA1SS and the Russian call sign RS0ISS.

Each of the 12 crews that have lived on the ISS to conduct assembly and research activities has included at least one US radio amateur. The Expedition 12 crew Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will remain on the ISS until next April. Over the years, crew members have conducted nearly 200 ARISS school group contacts and numerous casual QSOs.

...Five years ago this week, the International Space Station Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut and Expedition 1 Commander William ''Shep'' Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, became the first humans to live aboard the ISS.

The initial Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) station gear was already aboard the space station by the time the first crew launched. Later in the month, the Expedition 1 team installed and activated the VHF gear on FM voice and packet under the US call sign NA1SS and the Russian call sign RS0ISS.

Each of the 12 crews that have lived on the ISS to conduct assembly and research activities has included at least one US radio amateur. The Expedition 12 crew Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will remain on the ISS until next April. Over the years, crew members have conducted nearly 200 ARISS school group contacts and numerous casual QSOs.

...Five years ago this week, the International Space Station Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut and Expedition 1 Commander William ''Shep'' Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, became the first humans to live aboard the ISS.

The initial Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) station gear was already aboard the space station by the time the first crew launched. Later in the month, the Expedition 1 team installed and activated the VHF gear on FM voice and packet under the US call sign NA1SS and the Russian call sign RS0ISS.

Each of the 12 crews that have lived on the ISS to conduct assembly and research activities has included at least one US radio amateur. The Expedition 12 crew Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will remain on the ISS until next April. Over the years, crew members have conducted nearly 200 ARISS school group contacts and numerous casual QSOs.

Onboard the Soyuz transporter will be Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev and space tourist Greg Olsen, KC2ONX, of Princeton, New Jersey. ... While in space, Olsen plans to conduct Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group QSOs with two schools in New Jersey and one in New York. Following joint crew operations, Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips, KE5DRY, and Olsen are scheduled to return to Earth October 10 in the Soyuz vehicle now docked at the ISS.

Onboard the Soyuz transporter will be Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev and space tourist Greg Olsen, KC2ONX, of Princeton, New Jersey. ... While in space, Olsen plans to conduct Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group QSOs with two schools in New Jersey and one in New York. Following joint crew operations, Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips, KE5DRY, and Olsen are scheduled to return to Earth October 10 in the Soyuz vehicle now docked at the ISS.

Onboard the Soyuz transporter will be Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev and space tourist Greg Olsen, KC2ONX, of Princeton, New Jersey. ... While in space, Olsen plans to conduct Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group QSOs with two schools in New Jersey and one in New York. Following joint crew operations, Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips, KE5DRY, and Olsen are scheduled to return to Earth October 10 in the Soyuz vehicle now docked at the ISS.

Onboard the Soyuz transporter will be Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev and space tourist Greg Olsen, KC2ONX, of Princeton, New Jersey. ... While in space, Olsen plans to conduct Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group QSOs with two schools in New Jersey and one in New York. Following joint crew operations, Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips, KE5DRY, and Olsen are scheduled to return to Earth October 10 in the Soyuz vehicle now docked at the ISS.

Go to qrz.com and take the practice tests. They're fun to do, you probably remember more than you realize, and with some study of current rules & regs you'll be ready to show up at your nearest club's VE session.

Well, the FCC has made a NPRM saying that "Yes, Code is Going Away." Odds are, it'll be fact in about 3-6 months, tops. I've already passed my General exam, but I'm not sure whether I just want to be lazy, or go ahead and get my code out of the way...

Anyways, you're basically looking at 300 milliwatts for cell phones.

N0ZES is still reserved for you, assuming you're Michael Schwarz =) The FCC seems to be unaware that your father is now a silent key; apologies.

Looks like $8 to renew your old call sign. Check out the link: http://www.qrz.com/detail/W0VDI

Do it! and, if you do, welcome back =)

73 de KI4IIB (a 19 year old, no-code tech, with a CSCE for General...just waitin' for code to go away... =) )

"These innovations [DSS] were designed to ... increase the effective range of the phone (e.g. spreading the transmission in 360-degrees so there were no dead spots)"

Not only does it transmit a theoretical 30 Mbps over a distance of 15 miles, but it also uses a sparing 1 watt of power (e.g. 30 watts for WiMax). And because of its unique energy-saving modulation technique its power-footprint is essentially undetectable and therefore the FCC is unable to regulate it (unless of course, they rewrite their own rules).

1. I'll wait for the actual 30Mbps, theoretical Mbps's are useless to me.
2. Is that 1 Watt of power transmitting that theoretical 30Mbps EIRP, or the power at the transmitter? What antennas are specified? 1 Watt into a 30 dBi antenna is the same as 1 kW into a 0 dBi antenna.
3. Excuse me? The FCC can't detect it? Huh? Even with 'normal' DSS, it's detectable. If your 'power-footprint' is so impressive, how can your receivers detect it?
4. The FCC can't regulate it? Double huh? If it's between 9 kHz and 300 GHz, it's already regulated. It may not require a license, but it is regulated.

Well, it's an international limited resource with a minimal competence and rules examination you have to pass first. The tests are online at QRZ.com (click on practice exam) and you can have your license in a few weeks. It's actually fairly similar to certification exams for IT professionals, for MS developers, or DBAs.

As for low tech, far from it. I just finished building a PIC-based microprocessor controled module for my radio; it's actually quite similar to the kind of experimentation that people do now with home robotics, only when radio signals instead of stepper motors.

So, go check out QRZ.com for the Technician (no morse code required) test, looka t Arrow Antennas for a $75 antenna, and you can get a $150 hand-held radio or two and start sending data and voice directly through satellites and the ISS. I think that hardly qualifies as low-tech either.

I've been watching the shuttle mission on the K6BEN amateur TV repeater near San Jose, which is on 421.25Mhz, the same as cable (not broadcast) channel 57, through my VCR and with a Yagi I made from a magazine article. The NASA Ames Amateur Radio Club is providing the feed with a 1.2GHz uplink to the repeater. They also have shuttle audio on two meters, and I can receive that with my VX-2R HT.

Interested in microwave experimentation and RF hacking?
Get a ham license and gain legal, high-power access to 900Mhz, 1.2 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.4Ghz, 3.4 GHz, 5.6 GHz, 10 GHz, 24 Ghz, 47 GHz, 75 GHz, 120 GHz, 142 GHZ, 241 GHz, and 300 Ghz and up. A guy nearby managed to be the first person to bounce a 24 GHz signal off the moon! Or check out one of the various local organizations (I randomly chose San Bernadino Microwave Society) for more info.

No morse code test required, and see Technician Test for practice test online.

And note that
Eileen Collins KD5EDS, Charles Camarda KC5ZSY, James Kelley KC5ZSW, Wendy Lawrence KC5KII, Soichi Noguchi KD5TVP, and Andrew Thomas KD5CHF are all licensed amateur radio operators.

And note that
Eileen Collins KD5EDS, Charles Camarda KC5ZSY, James Kelley KC5ZSW, Wendy Lawrence KC5KII, Soichi Noguchi KD5TVP, and Andrew Thomas KD5CHF are all licensed amateur radio operators.

And note that
Eileen Collins KD5EDS, Charles Camarda KC5ZSY, James Kelley KC5ZSW, Wendy Lawrence KC5KII, Soichi Noguchi KD5TVP, and Andrew Thomas KD5CHF are all licensed amateur radio operators.

And note that
Eileen Collins KD5EDS, Charles Camarda KC5ZSY, James Kelley KC5ZSW, Wendy Lawrence KC5KII, Soichi Noguchi KD5TVP, and Andrew Thomas KD5CHF are all licensed amateur radio operators.

And note that
Eileen Collins KD5EDS, Charles Camarda KC5ZSY, James Kelley KC5ZSW, Wendy Lawrence KC5KII, Soichi Noguchi KD5TVP, and Andrew Thomas KD5CHF are all licensed amateur radio operators.

And note that
Eileen Collins KD5EDS, Charles Camarda KC5ZSY, James Kelley KC5ZSW, Wendy Lawrence KC5KII, Soichi Noguchi KD5TVP, and Andrew Thomas KD5CHF are all licensed amateur radio operators.