The Milliwatt June 2005

June, 2005

CW Ops Whip Whippersnapper Text Messengers on National Television

It might have been Friday the Thirteenth, but it was a lucky day for Morse code--and particularly for veteran CW contest ops Chip Margelli, K7JA, and Ken Miller, K6CTW. During a May 13 appearance on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the pair was able to pass a message using good old fashioned Morse code more rapidly than a pair of teenaged text messengers equipped with modern cell phones. The victory, which replicated a similar challenge that took place recently in Australia, has provided immense encouragement to Amateur Radio's community of CW operators, who've been ballyhooing the achievement all over the Internet. The text messaging team consisted of world text-messaging champ Ben Cook of Utah and his friend Jason. Miller said afterward in a reflector posting that the CW team won fairly handily. (Web Extra)

ARRL to Sign Memorandum of Understanding with Civil Air Patrol

The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and ARRL will sign a Memorandum of Agreement during Dayton Hamvention® May 20-22, where CAP plans to field a major presence. The agreement will spell out guidelines for CAP— the US Air Force Auxiliary, and ARRL--the national association for Amateur Radio, to better use and i integrate their resources during communication exercises and emergencies.

PropNET^31: APRS + PSK31 Innovation:

Ev Tupis (W2EV)

"If the band is open and no one is active, does anybody hear it?"
PropNET is the name of a system that employs software to computer-control your transceiver to periodically self-ID ("Here I am!") and decode other's ID to a map ("The band is open AND there you are!"). Each ID includes station call sign, power output level, antenna gain and station location information. The system even includes a keyboard-to-keyboard RF-QSO tool! As a background function, participants with Internet access can allow their PropNET stations to send their "catches" to a central Internet hub (called LiveXchange, or LiveX for short). With a central point of collection, the possibilities for using the data become boundless. This has caught the imagination of findU.com, where K4HG has developed a mapping system that shows Internet- reporting PropNET stations who have both "catched" and "not catched" anything (knowing that someone is listening, but not hearing anything is an interesting thing, too). Visit http://PropNET.findU.com. PropNET^31 (based on PSK31) is most popular on the 10 meter Amateur band at 28.131 MHz USB (transceiver frequency). North American participants use a PSK31 stream frequency of +1500 hz. Each global region has been assigned a different "slice" of the waterfall. The software, called PropNetPSK, will scan the entire waterfall, looking for signals to decode and display. There appears to be a growing interest in placing PropNET^31 activity at 50.291 MHz + 1500 hz (placing PropNETers in the upper portion of the waterfall that is already used by 6 meter PSK31 enthusiasts). Best of all, this is an Ad Hoc network of Amateur Radio AND shortwave listener enthusiasts (yes, there is a lurker-only mode...perfect for school clubs and pre-licensees!) who have worked collaboratively to push the state-of-the-art in communication technology. The public beta of PropNetPSK is available from a hyperlink on the PropNET website: http://www.PropNET.org . Join in on the fun!

AMSAT-NA dues to increase

The AMSAT Board of Directors has voted to increase AMSAT membership dues from $39 to $44, effective June 1. The 12-percent increase follows a $3 dues hike that took effect January 1, 2004. AMSAT Life Membership will rise to $880 (20 times annual membership). Family membership will continue to be one-half the cost of regular membership or $22 per family member (family membership requires that a regular or life member reside in the same household). Members or prospective members can join or renew before June 1 at current rates.

June, 2005

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