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2003 Amateur Radio Field Day

Posted by michael on from the dit-dah-dit dept.

plcurechax writes "The 2003 ARRL Field Day is this weekend, June 28-29. Beginning 1800 UTC Saturday and ending at 2100 UTC Sunday. Originally started in 1933 as a test of portable amateur radio operating, it has become an annual event that is a mix of contest, emergency prepareness, and a public relations activity. Any geeks interested in learning more about amateur (ham) radio, should find out if there is a local club (in Canada)that will be particulating. Most clubs in USA and Canada will have a station on the air. Visitors welcome."

4 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Ham Radio by brilinux · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ham Radio is actually one of the origional
    forms of electronics hacking. It is a great
    way for geeks to get involved in the community
    and use some of their own expertice in a great
    service. All you have to do to get a license
    is pass a 35 question test, and you will get a
    callsign from the FCC. If you are not already
    involved, take a look!

    73, DE KG4QXK

    1. Re:Ham Radio by poptones · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just hasn't been the same since they started selling pre-made capacitors. Hell, you can hardly find galena and cat's whiskers anymore! Why, in my day we didn't even have coaxial cable; you licked your fingers and stuck'em in the spark gap to make an antenna, and that's the way we liked it!

  2. HAM is fun by swimfastom · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ham radio can be a good time. I will be using my ICOM 28H this weekend in Youngstown, OH. If you are in the area my call sign is KC8UFF. I can always find a nearby repeater when my cell phone can't reach a tower!

    Many people have also used their ham radio's to contact the police when a tornado or other disaster wipes out other means of communication.

    --
    http://tomgould.com/
  3. Open Source and Ham Radio. Two Great Tastes... by robdeadtech · · Score: 5, Informative
    There are some really great open source/LINUX projects going on in ham radio. Also, there are a LOT of Ham Radio antenna designers/suppliers with great prices on some pretty awesome 802.11x gear. Some sites worth checking out.

    CQiNet - Open Source implementation of Voice over IP (VoIP) software specifically for Ham Radio. Currently there are three popular VoIP packages used by Ham Radio operators, IRLP, ILink and EchoLink. Since none of these packages are open source it is difficult to contribute to the their development and learn from them by studying their source code. Let's face it for many of us Ham Radio is more about playing with technology than it is about yacking on the radio or Internet. (Hmmm... maybe some folks on Slashdot could learn something....)

    Hamsoft - A great HAM/Linux database. (not to be confused with GNU/Linux)

    TAPR! - These geeks will whoop yer ass in a second! A lot of them are commited to open source. They actually help fund HARDWARE projects (we could learn something). Check out their LINUX sig.

    Flex-Radio - An open source software defined radio!

    GnuRadio - Signal Processing in oepn source software

    --
    Heil Sig! -Rob