QRZ! Ham Radio 3/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 3.iso/digests/infoham/931396.txt

Internet Message Format | 1994-06-04 | 13KB

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 93 04:30:01 PST
From: Info-Hams Mailing List and Newsgroup <[e-mail]>
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Subject: Info-Hams Digest V93 #1396
To: Info-Hams


Info-Hams Digest            Sun, 28 Nov 93       Volume 93 : Issue 1396

Today's Topics:
                           Chicken Fat Ops
                           commercial exams
                        CONELRAD-what was it?
                         Fun with Radio Shack
                        Packet Repeater Info?

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We trust that readers are intelligent enough to realize that all text
herein consists of personal comments and does not represent the official
policies or positions of any party.  Your mileage may vary.  So there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 28 Nov 93 07:20:46 GMT
From: amiserv!vpnet![e-mail]
Subject: Chicken Fat Ops
To: [e-mail]

Regarding question on how to get involved with the high speed CW group
known as "chicken fat ops" or CFO:

Yes, you should be conversant at 40 WPM or more by ear, since everyone
sort of bounces in and out of the QSO on very fast QSK and are not
necessarily zero beat with one another, which is a factor that prohibits
the use of a CW reader type system.  Most of us use keyboards or keyers
for sending.

In order to get involved, just show up and join in a CFO QSO on 7033 KHz
on 40 Meters, and during the winter months sometimes on 80 Meters at
3533 KHz.  There is also an SSB gathering on 40 at 7233 KHz on the
weekends, but I haven't checked into that for several years so I can't
remember if it is held on Saturday morning or Sunday morning.

After chatting with the people on 7033 for a few months, like about 4 to
6 months if I can recall, you can then send a modest fee, like $20 or
something to the treasurer and become a member.  The people on the frequency
will tell you who the current treasurer is and the amount of dues, etc.
You'll then be assigned a CFO number and be entitled to receive the
CFO publication, 'Key Clucks' from time to time.  CFO'ers also get
together at hamfests like Dayton and so on.

It's a group of really decent people with a leaning toward technical
stuff, but anyone is welcome.  Hope this helps.

Mark, kc9x
--
Mark Pecen : [e-mail] || [e-mail]

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Date: Sat, 27 Nov 93 21:35:08 GMT
From: mnemosyne.cs.du.edu!nyx![e-mail]
Subject: commercial exams
To: [e-mail]

De K1XA
As you know, the FCC recently privatized commercial radio
exams along the lines of the ham VEC program.
I have been appointed the Hartford, CT, test center manager
for commercial exams by one of the private-sector organizations,
National Radio Examiners.
The Hartford Test Center will conduct its first exam
session shortly. Due to the holiday season, the specific
date has not entirely crystallized, but it will be on
an upcoming Saturday either prior to Christmas or
shortly after the first of the year. Any potential
applicant should feel free to contact me for further
details about taking the General Radiotelephone
Operator License or the Marine Radio Operator Permit
(apparently the most popular) or the other licenses/
permits in this program. I can be reached directly
via e-mail at either [e-mail] or
[e-mail] in addition to NYX.
There appears to be significant interest in the
ham community about these commercial exams, hence
this posting. Thanks/73.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 05:34:34 GMT
From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!overload.lbl.gov!agate!spool.mu.edu!torn!nott!cunews!freenet.carleton.ca!Freenet.carleton.ca![e-mail]
Subject: CONELRAD-what was it?
To: [e-mail]

I have an early 50s bc reciever with triangular symbols at 640 and 1240 khz.
I have been told that these were for CONELRAD.  Are there any old timers
out there who can fill me in on this?  TNX.

--
GEORGE ATTALLAH-"THE LAST SURVIVOR OF THE GROUP OF ONE"

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Date: Sun, 21 Nov 93 19:51:00 -0500
From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!channel1![e-mail]
Subject: Fun with Radio Shack
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail]  typed this about Re: Fun with Radio Shack


R>A catalog is a form of advertising. Its purpose is to make people
R>aware of your products and boost sales.  If you make people
R>pay for it, far fewer people will have one.  That defeats its
R>purpose.  Tandy might as well start making people pay for the monthly
R>sales flyers instead of asking us for our address, so they
R>can send it to us.

Also many people have not realized that this whole 'event' was a
publicity stunt. It got more curious people to walk into their local
Radio Shack than ever before.

With all the discussion about this lately....it seems that they have
succeeded in doing exactly what they planned.


Ken

                   Internet: [e-mail]
               AX.25 Packet: AA1DR @ K1UGM.MA.USA.NA

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  CmpQwk #UNREG  UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY

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Date: Sun, 21 Nov 93 19:47:00 -0500
From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!channel1![e-mail]
Subject: Packet Repeater Info?
To: [e-mail]

I would like to hear from people who have set up packet repeaters.
I am talking about full duplex repeaters, like most of us use on 2 meter
FM.

I am interested in hearing about any problems with this and also any
reports on the throughput improvement using a packet repeater.


Ken

                   Internet: [e-mail]

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  CmpQwk #UNREG  UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY

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Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1993 13:33:51 GMT
From: ucsnews!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!kd4nc!ke4zv![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
Reply-To : [e-mail] (Gary Coffman)
Subject : Re: CONELRAD-what was it?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Joel B Levin) writes:
>Some time back (I'm talking about 20+ years ago, the last time I
>actually signed onto a broadcast station's operating or transmitter
>log), the signal was actually a single tone (I think) transmitted for
>15 seconds, with a five second period of carrier off in the middle (so
>it sounded like tone-silence-tone, except the silence was actually
>no-carrier).  I don't believe we generated the signal; it was recorded
>on the EBS test tape.  We ran the test once a week and logged it once
>a week from the station we monitored.  The envelopes with the secret
>authorization codes were kept in the picture frame holding the station
>license (this was in the control room) and changed monthly (I think).

Yes, that was the old way. We don't drop carrier anymore. The signal
is now a very specific tone pair, so tight that we can't play a tape
of it, too much flutter and wow, we have to actually trigger the tone
generator. We use a GPI pulse recorded on the test tape to start and
stop the alert tone generator. If we ever get into the 1990s and go
to a digital audio library, we won't need to do this, but the old
Spotmasters just won't cut it. The alert generator is directly in
the line to the transmitter and automatically overrides normal
programming when activated.

For real emergencies, we have a direct UHF link to the State EMA
center, or we can put our Primary, WSB-FM, directly on the air via
our EBS receiver. I think Atlanta may be unique in having an FM station
as the regional Primary station. Everywhere else I've been, it's been
an AM station. We had to build our own EBS receiver because the manufacturers
only offer AM.

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          | Where my job's going,  | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems | I don't know. It might | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             | wind up in Mexico.     | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |          -NAFTA Blues  |

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1993 19:44:02 GMT
From: news.Hawaii.Edu!uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
Subject : Re: Miss Manners in the Novice Sub-bands? G's silliness.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>
>>The best way to see if something is a language, is do an MRI on a fellow,
>>and see if Brocha's (or is it Wernicke's...) and other speech processing
>>areas of the brain are active at the time of hearing the code.  I would
>>believe that they are.
>
>You could verbally *spell* the words to the person and their language centers
>would be active too, but that doesn't mean that spelling is a language.
>It's the natural language *words* being spelled that are units of language
>(when coupled with grammatical structure). Stepping back one level further
>to an aural encoding of the alphabet used to spell words, Morse is certainly
>even further divorced from language.
>

Only because your code speed is slow; at faster speeds one hears not the
individual letters but entire words, and no mental translation into English
is necessary. When I hear  _  ....  .   I hear one unit of sound, not 3
or 6, and I don't think ``the'' - it's an article in its own right. And
no writing is necessary - the process is the same as if I were listening
to someone talk - there's nothing mechanical about it.

You've got to get out of the straightjacket-type thinking you've locked
yourself into. Your hostility towards code makes you say some weird stuff.

Jeff NH6IL

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 1993 15:42:56 GMT
From: ucsnews!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!avdms8.msfc.nasa.gov!news.larc.nasa.gov!grissom.larc.nasa.gov![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>arc.nasa
Subject : Re: CONELRAD-what was it?

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>Yes, that was the old way. We don't drop carrier anymore. The signal
>is now a very specific tone pair, so tight that we can't play a tape
>of it, too much flutter and wow, we have to actually trigger the tone
>generator. We use a GPI pulse recorded on the test tape to start and
>stop the alert tone generator. If we ever get into the 1990s and go
>to a digital audio library, we won't need to do this, but the old
>Spotmasters just won't cut it. The alert generator is directly in
>the line to the transmitter and automatically overrides normal
>programming when activated.

Actually, the signal always was a very specific frequency (once a single
tone, now a tone pair to prevent falsing), and playing the tone off of
a cart was _never_ legal, even back in the CONELRAD days.  That's not
that a lot of stations didn't do it.... I know of one station right now
that plays their EBS tone with a Tapecaster, and I can hear audible
frequency shifts on the thing.  Sure hope they don't get inspected...

>For real emergencies, we have a direct UHF link to the State EMA
>center, or we can put our Primary, WSB-FM, directly on the air via
>our EBS receiver. I think Atlanta may be unique in having an FM station
>as the regional Primary station. Everywhere else I've been, it's been
>an AM station. We had to build our own EBS receiver because the manufacturers
>only offer AM.

That's odd!  WSB-FM is the primary, and not WSB-AM?  I used to work at
WREK as a student, and I believe that we triggered off of WGST, which
was probably fairly high up in the heirarchy....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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End of Info-Hams Digest V93 #1396
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