This Spewed Out of the Internet #15

It’s time to do one of those miscellaneous collections of drivel that spews forth from the interwebnet pipes. Some of this might even be important!

Some upcoming events: ARRL June VHF QSO Party and the Colorado FM Sprint, on the weekend of June 12th. The FM Sprint runs concurrently with the ARRL contest but only on Sunday afternoon. This is a good chance to get on the air with very basic equipment and have some fun.

The ARRL Field Day is coming up on June 26th and 27th. This is arguably the biggest on-the-air amateur radio event in North America.

I was playing around with setting up an SMS text messaging system for callsign lookup. The idea is that you send a text message (containing an amateur call sign) with your mobile phone and get the FCC or QRZ info back. In the meantime, I found that this problem has been solved by Callsign By Text. Very nice, check it out.

Female radio amateurs should check out Chick Factor International. It looks like a fun group.

I picked up a DV Access Point (DVAP) for D-STAR. This is a neat little device that provides flea-powered D-STAR access on 2 Meters by plugging it into a PC with internet connection. The South Yorkshire Repeater Group has a good description of the product. So far, this thing works really well.

By the way, the South Yorkshire group has a really good web site…interesting and timely information. Although they are in the UK, I find it relevant to US ham radio activity, too.

The Technician Class License question pool will be updated as of July 1, 2010. Our next Tech Class in Monument will be in October, so we’ll be updating the classroom material before teaching that class. It is clear that more technical content is being added to the question pool, which I think is a good thing. See KB6NU’s posting on the topic.

From The Complete Waste of Time Department, the FCC once again dismissed a petition from K9STH to change the amateur radio station identification requirements. Look, the FCC doesn’t see a problem here (and neither do I) so save yourself the trouble.

The FCC is seeking comments on the proposed new rules concerning emergency communications.  I took the time to file a short comment, basically saying that the FCC is on the right track but they should remove the reference to “government-sponsored drills”. Any legitimate emergency communications drill should be included, regardless of who sponsors it. The ARRL made similar but more detailed comments.

– 73, Bob K0NR