Knoxville Hamfest roundup: HT's and a little good fortune...and a purse?

I debated a couple weeks back whether or not to go to the Knoxville Hamfest. I wasn't sure if the family would go, or if I would even have the money to spend.

I decided to go after all, and after scraping up a few bucks, took the family to the hamfest. I put up a couple of unused radios up for sale thanks to my friend Tim (KE4OTZ) who loaned me some tailgate space.

Lauren had a good time (playing her Nintendo DS), and even got lucky at the prize booth, having been selected for the first hourly prize. She won 4 PL-259 connectors. I'm sure I will...err...she will make good use of them...

I sold two radios. One was my Yaesu FT-50R (not the 90, like I originally posted before) and an out-of-order FT-5100 I had bought off eBay a few years ago. I'd always wanted the 5100 (or its sister, the 5200 with detachable faceplate) but when I picked up this radio, I had trouble from the start. It apparently had been modified to transmit and receive out of band, but the radio needed a sequence of buttons pressed in order to enable the radio to work in the modified state. To make matters more complicated, the onboard battery was dead, so if I shut the power off, it would reset into its original state, and the sequence would need to be repeated. This, among other things (like accidentally dropping it while trying to troubleshoot it, leading some of the buttons needed to enable to mod to be stuck), led me to sell it "for parts".

But it wasn't a complete sell-off, as I took the money made on the two radios and bought my second Wouxun KG-UV2D. I sold the FT-50R and bought the Wouxun instead for Lauren to use as her radio for a couple of reasons. One is that it was easier for her to use than the Yaesu, and also I could clone the two radios with the same memories and settings so that I can show her how to use the radio and to make it easier to find frequencies to talk on.

I also scored a killing on some old ICOM radios. I was told by Tim that a tailgater was selling some ICOM 220 radios for $10 so naturally I had to check it out. I went over across from Tim's table in the "boneyard" and the guy said he had not one, not two, but three IC-2AT's (2m HTs) and an IC-3AT (the 220 HT) for sale, along with a drop-in charger, and a couple of battery packs for $15. The catch: He hadn't used them in YEARS and didn't know if they still worked. I figured for $15 I'd take a chance.

But I think it was Amber who got away with the item of the day. One vendor was selling, of all things...purses. So naturally Amber HAD to have one...but these were not just any purse. They had interchangeable "skins" so that she can mix and match! The price was not that bad...for a purse. And it took some wrangling with mom and dad, along with promise after promise to take care of the animals, water the plants, clean the room, etc. But Jes and I had to reward her good grades in school, so we fell for it. I must say, over the last two weeks, she's been using it. And she's promised Lauren she'd have her time with it as well.

After getting home from the hamfest I decided to put the ICOM HTs to the test, so I plugged in the drop-in charger and the battery packs and waited...and waited...and waited...

I started with the IC-3AT. After all, it was the big prize in the stack. As soon as I turned on the radio, the sound of static crackled the radio back from it's long slumber. It works! On receive at least...

I quickly reacquainted myself with the settings of the "brick" and scoured for a repeater to key up. I anxiously spun the thumbwheels of the VFO at the top of the radio and keyed up. NOTHING. No kerchunk, no morse code ID of the repeater...just silence. I looked on the back of the radio near the belt clip and the damned thing was still on SIMPLEX. A quick flick of the switch over to "duplex" and and quick key of the mic, and I hear "daaah dit dit......dit......." as the repeater ID'ed over the transistor-radio-style speaker of my newly-found treasure.

The 2-meter IC-2AT's were not as fortunate. While they all power on and receive, they do not transmit, except one, but it was so scratchy and noisy, I gather it's not going to last much longer. Still, for $15, I snap up at least one gem out of the bunch!

Now, unlike these ridiculous "pickers" shows that are now infesting basic cable, I did not think about turning around and running a ridiculous profit and then bragging about it to ever-increasing audiences, and yes, before I hear about it, I've watched a few episodes. I knew my friend Jason (KF4VDX) was in need of a 220 radio and couldn't afford one, not even the Wouxun dual-bander I just bought. He was a recently appointed SKYWARN coordinator, and I knew he'd need one, since the National Weather Service office in Morristown was using 220 to coordinate with several of the regional net control stations.

So last Saturday, as we got together to prepare to go to a Field Day site, I brought the ICOMs out to him. He's been working odd jobs to repair radio equipment so I figured he might be able to make use of the "receive-only" 2 meters bricks, and he'd get a 220 radio to tinker with and hopefully get some mileage out of it. The least I could do, and the IC-3AT would get used rather than collect more dust in my house. To me, it was money well spent.

Overall it was a worthwhile hamfest. I got rid of a couple of radios I didn't need, bought one Lauren could use, and gave a good friend of mine some much-needed equipment for his hamshack.

Glad I went.

Wisconsin ham allegedly murdered by wife of employee he planned to dismiss

John Aegerter, WA9GAR, who ran a communications business in Brookfield, WI, was found brutally murdered June 22.

One of the suspects, Lynn M. Hajny, is the wife of a fellow ham (Albert, WB9LIV) who was reportedly going to lose his job at the business (Air Page, Corp) due to cutbacks. Albert is not a suspect in the slaying as he was unaware of his impending unemployment.

Hajny and a boyfriend, Tommy V. Douyette are charged in the attack.

According to the article:

Aegerter was found face down in the garage, his ankles and neck bound with electrical cords, his face duct-taped and several plastic grocery bags over his head, the reports said. Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Lough said he had broken ribs, a broken nose and "there might have been a knife involved."

Acoording to reports, both suspects have given statements basically confessing to the crime.

He reportedly did not marry or have any kids.

To go or not to go...

This Saturday is the Knoxville Hamfest, sponsored by the local radio club.

If I go, I'm only after one thing, the Wouxun 2m/220 radio like the one I bought this past January.

I'm going to talk to Lauren and see if she wants to give up the Yaesu FT-90 I got for her and give her the Wouxun so that we both have the same radio. She just returned from a trip to Washington DC this past weekend and the only times I've seen her was after she got home from the trip on Monday and spent the evening telling us all about the trip before passing out as soon as she got home, and today she returned home late from swimming in this god-forsaken heat and once again passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow.

So hopefully I'll talk to her today. I'm certain she'd be open to getting another HT (she's not really spent any time with the Yaesu), but if she isn't, I really don't have a reason for attending this year. I'm pretty sure that Wouxun radios will be sold, and I would be looking for a copy of the SERA journal (I need to resubscribe) but that's really my only purpose.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Looks like I might take the whole family to this one...and get a Wouxun if I can snap one up!!!

UPDATE #2: Just realized I had the radio model wrong, it's an FT-50 (dual-band 2m/440, not the FT-90)

Endeavour's final re-entry shown over the Yucatan

When Space Shuttle Endeavour returned home for the final time last week, it flew over the Yucatan Peninsula in southern Mexico before crossing the Florida Peninsula and landing at Kennedy Space Center on June 1.

It was captured and posted to Youtube. Video below or catch the full version here.

Radio Shack wants your input

If ever there was a better opportunity to give Radio Shack your opinion of what products they should be carrying, now is the time.

They're looking for input on what would make them a better company, and this is an opportunity for hams to give them input on bringing more products back to "the Shack"

I gave them my opinion. Click here to give them yours.

Oh, how I miss Hamvention

12 years ago I attended my last Dayton Hamvention. Every year since then I keep saying I'm going to go back, but something always prevents me from attending.

The 1999 Hamvention was exciting as usual. But 2000 brought me the birth of my daughter Lauren (K4LRN), 2001 was spent preparing for my other daughter's arrival in October. 2002 and 2003 was spent mourning the loss of several member of my family, and the next few years have been spent putting family first, as it should.

But always, the itch was there to return.

Every year I say the same thing, "maybe next year", so maybe, in 2012, I'll once again grace the hallowed halls of Hara Arena. I want to take Lauren so that she can attend the Youth Forum and I might be in the market for another HF rig.

I just hope the sewers don't back up like they did yesterday...

How's this for a prime viewing spot of a shuttle launch?

With only two opportunities left to catch a space shuttle launch, getting the perfect spot to view the launch is probably not easy to do. It really isn't easy for ANY launch, but as the shuttle program sunsets, people want to catch one last glimpse of a shuttle launch while they can.

How about this shot:

Taken from an altitude of 64,000 (about twice the height of a passenger jet), this student-launched high-altitude balloon flight caught Endeavour streaking towards space on its final trek to the International Space Station.

As if that wasn't cool enough, speaking of passenger jets, one was en route to Florida and passed by the Cape at the same time Endeavour took off, and a passenger captured this amazing shot:

And there's a video as well...

Atlantis wraps up the space shuttle era in early July, so make plans now if you can!

Wouxun Mobile not quite ready

Just when you think the Wouxun (pronounced "O-shing", close to the word "ocean") KV-UV920R dual-band mobile is ready for the big time, the Chinese-built radio has apparently been delayed by the need for further testing.

There was speculation hope that it would be debuted at the Dayton Hamvention (which is next week, by the way) but that does not look to be happening...at least not if the latest update from the Wouxun web site is any indication:

May 1, 2011 Update - Wouxun has not stated a Price or Release Date for this radio. The only information China will pass along right now is "engineers are still testing".

I get about 100 emails per day, which I try to answer as quickly as I can. PLEASE do not send an email asking me when this radio will be ready or what it will cost, I DO NOT KNOW.

If you place your name on the reserve list, you will be notified immediately by email of any news I receive on this radio.

To put your name on the mailing list for updates on when the radio will be made available and the price, click here.

The need for SKYWARN

Last month I was heading home and ran into an interesting cloud formation as a powerful wind storm approached Knoxville. Fortunately it was not a tornado, but it was part of a wind storm that did a lot of damage around the area.

Two days later...

The storms that roared through Alabama were some of the largest outbreaks in recent history, with more deaths associated than the famous 1974 "Super Outbreak" in the Ohio Valley.

Check out this video from Tuscaloosa:

The tornado that blew through Tuscaloosa was rated EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Here's the path of that tornado:

Credit Brian Tang and NCAR.

While Tennessee was fortunate to have missed the brunt of this massive tornado, we were no less spared from the tremendous damage inflicted by the storm. 35 people died in Tennessee and 52 tornadoes were confirmed.

I helped man our area SKYWARN net for the first time in many years on a consistent basis. Without going in to too much detail, politics and an ungrateful power-mongering individual with a vendetta on me got in the way of my participating in SKYWARN for 4+ years. However, fate and karma brought me back in (along with many others he alienated) and it has been one heck of a season so far.

Just prior to this outbreak, Knoxville was hammered with flooding and another tornadic storm in recent weeks, the April 27th outbreak was going to put many skills (and nerves) to the ultimate test.

I arrived home Wednesday afternoon and flipped on the Weather Channel to see the monster tornado raging through Birmingham live. Here's the video off of YouTube.

I'd been keeping a mindful eye on the weather most of the day as best I could while at work. When I got home, and saw what was going on in Alabama, I knew we were in for a long night. As I was watching the storms develop, my weather radio went off with one of many warnings to occur that evening. I counted a total of 49 tornado warnings issued by the Morristown National Weather Service for Knoxville and surrounding counties alone.

While Knoxville didn't get tornadoes, we did get hail. Lots of it. Quarter sized hail bombarded parts of west Knoxville and the SKYWARN net I was running at the time was hammered with repeated reports from there. I finally had to tell everyone on the net to stop with the reports from the same area and give me reports from areas east of there so I could tell where the line was...and prepare for the storm to hit my house, mere minutes away. I passed the net control "baton" to another ham and got ready.

My ham station was in the lower part of my house, so I got the kids and animals downstairs and waited for the inevitable. Within 5 minutes of hearing that the quarter-sized hail was in west Knoxville, it was at my home.

Fortunately the brunt of the hail passed south of me, and I only got nickel-sized hail. But it made the tension no less extreme as the storm progressed towards the northeast. The storm would drop an EF-4 tornado down in nearby Greeneville, killing 7 there.

As the night wore on, more and more reports of damage, high winds, hail, wall clouds, and funnel clouds came in. Several tornadoes touched down all over the area, including a bad one in the Chattanooga area.

The Alabama tornadoes, especially Tuscaloosa, overshadowed the death and destruction elsewhere, but the one constant through all of this was the use of SKYWARN spotters all across the southeast.

One of the many great assets of ham radio is the cooperation that the National Weather Service has with ham radio SKYWARN spotters. While anyone can be a SKYWARN spotter (first responders, police, fire, medical, etc) ham radio is typically the only service that has a station (and a volunteer) on site at the weather service.

The more eyes on the storm, the better. The more eyes that become hams, then the communities are a little more safe.

WWV discontinuing solar activity alerts

Via the ARRL:

Beginning Tuesday, September 6, the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) will cease broadcasting its geophysical alert message on WWV and WWVH. These messages inform listeners of the solar flux, the mid-latitude A and K indices and space weather storms, both current and predicted. Currently, the message is heard on minute 18 from WWV and minute 45 from WWVH. The information will still be available on the SWPC website. If you care to comment on this, or if you have any questions, the SPWC -- part of the National Weather Service (NWS) -- would like to hear from you.

Stormchase 4/25/11

On my way home tonight I ran into a severe thunderstorm moving in from the south. As I continued to watch it develop the winds really kicked up and I observed the formation in the video below (WARNING - turn volume down, the wind was blasting the mic of my cell phone):



The formation did not rotate, but it did have an updraft (you might see it in the closeup at the 31 second mark) which made it very hard to judge what I was watching for a few moments.

It was a few tense moments, but it did not turn cyclonic.

Just after I stopped filming the hail started, fortunately no bigger than pea-sized.