Vegas rolls out free Wi-Fi ...
McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas will roll out Tuesday what it says is the country's
largest airport-wide free Wi-Fi service. The network, which will cover about 1.7 million square
feet, will go live just ahead of an influx of tech-savvy passengers for the International Consumer
Electronics Show. McCarran partnered with Aruba Wireless Networks of California to develop the network.
"This is a little bit uncharacteristic for us, providing something for free," Randall Walker,
director of aviation for Nevada's Clark County, tells eWeek, but he doesn't rule out fees in the future.
And so does Raleigh-Durham for a fee:
Raleigh-Durham International Airport and partner Cingular Wireless have installed high-speed Internet service
throughout the airport. For $9.99, customers can connect to the Wi-Fi network as often as they would like
within a 24-hour period.
Biz travelers struggle with their weight
Laptops, games, music players -- travelers would be hard-pressed to get by without electric gadgets. But
while many may view those items as necessities, they can really weigh down even the most nimble frequent
flier. "I feel like a third or more of what I have to carry on a typical trip is electronics hardware," Katie Hall, a
civil engineering consultant, tells The New York Times . She keeps a box packed with travel hardware,
including power cords, a phone cable, a portable scanner and a mouse. Electronics manufacturers, it seems,
are simultaneously correcting and compounding the problem by producing smaller and lighter gadgets, but
ever more of them. One product that cuts some of the weight is a $60 DC/AC converter made by American
Power Conversion Corp., which allows a laptop to run off a variety of outlets on some aircraft, as well as a
car cigarette lighter. This eliminates the need for the range of brick-sized adapters many carry on the road.
Another space-saving gadget is the iGo Juice universal adapter, which can charge multiple devices using
aircraft, auto or regular wall outlets.
Morse Code Ringtones on Cellular Phones
Peter Dougherty (W2IRT)
I always chuckle when some teeny-bopper's mobile phone sends the letters SMS in Morse when a text
message arrives (though I'd bet the significance is lost on just about all of them). This got me to wondering
how I can customize the ringer on my own mobile to send Morse Code ringtones for more than just SMS.
I have a relatively-new LG mobile that allows customized polyphonic ringtones for either every call in general
or specific to each number that caller-ID matches to a number in my phonebook. After a little homework I
found the easiest way to do this requires a data connection from my PC to the phone and three pieces of
software. Firstwas the Susteen Data Pilot software that came bundled with the phone's USB cable; this
allows the phone to communicate with the PC. This is the medium through which everything is loaded, but
you don't actually DO anything with it. Next, I needed to generate sound files of the various Morse words or
phrases that I wanted. I used a freeware program called WinMorse 2 to generate these WAV files, which I
then converted to MP3 format (you can use any standard audio conversion program readily available on the
web). Finally, I uploaded the MP3 files to the phone using BitPim version 0.7.23 (use whichever version is
the most recent), another free piece of software which happens to communicate with my phone. You need
to ensure compatibility between your phone and this software, or else use software specific to your phone.
Once this was accomplished, I went into the phone's menu and associated these new Morse tones with
individual numbers and a general "CQ CQ DE W2IRT" for any unknown or unmatched number.
All of these were recorded at a nice 25 wpm speed at 800 Hz and are loud enough to be annoying--er--be
heard in noisy environments (yeah, that's it). It's also unique enough that when it goes off a dozen people
won't all be reaching for their own phones at the same time. I don't know if there's a way to do this with Midi
files or for phones that don't have so-called polyphonic ringers, but I'm sure it's possible (though maybe a
little harder to do). Give it a try and see if you can spot another ham in the room! (eham.net)
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