April 2009
Articles from the
April 2009
issue
of CQ posted on our
website include:
The April issue of CQ opens with the latest in our series of CQ interviews. This time we introduce you to someone a little different from our previous interview subjects. Mark Stenning, AA1AC, doesn’t have a technical or government job. He’s Chief Executive Officer of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, as well as an active DXer and DXpeditioner. He says there are many points of convergence between the worlds of amateur radio and professional tennis.
Packet radio, with its 1200-baud and 9600-baud data rates, may seem obsolete in today’s broadband world … until that world goes away. Like ham radio itself, packet works when nothing else does. And with more emergency service agencies asking hams to provide backups for e-mail and file transfers in an emergency, many public service groups are finding that “old-fashioned” packet works just fine. In this issue, John Blowsky, KB2SCS, describes software he has written to make messaging as easy as standard e-mail, as well as a program for setting up on-the-fly gateways between the packet network and the internet. His “EcomScs and GatewayScs” article describes what the software does and how it works. Plus, Digital Editor Don Rotolo, N2IRZ, offers an introduction to “Sound-Card Packet” for those who want to get active on the mode without having to invest in a standalone terminal node controller (TNC).
Hunting for hidden transmitters, popularly known as “foxhunting,” continues to grow in popularity. In “Bring Radio Foxhunting to Your Town,” CQ World Wide Foxhunting Weekend director Joe Moell, K0OV, provides tips on starting up a hunt in your town in preparation for this year’s Foxhunting Weekend (May 9-10), or even as training for the Amateur Radio Direction-Finding USA Championships on June 6-7.
Professor Emil Heisseluft makes his annual appearance in our April issue, enlightening us this time on “The Use of Invisibility Shields to Hide Entire Contest Station Antenna Farms.” It was a dozen years ago, by the way, that the good professor predicted the type of collision we have recently seen between two satellites in orbit. Speaking of orbits, Bob Hopkins, WB2UDC, joins us this month with his report on a youth-run contact last summer with the International Space Station, in “ ‘Believe in Your Dreams’ – Anatomy of an ARISS Contact.”
If your operating is seriously compromised by lack of space for low-band antennas, Contributing Editor Gordon West, WB6NOA, has what might be a solution for you in his CQ review of the TAK-tenna Mini HF Dipole.
Among April’s columns, Math’s Notes editor Irwin Math, WA2NDM, starts us out with a column on “Free Power,” and QRP Editor Dave Ingram, K4TWJ looks at “Dinking with Alternative Energy. Public Service Editor Bob Josuweit, WA3PZO, reports on hams’ responses to several emergencies during the early part of the year, and “World of Ideas” editor K4TWJ, begins his annual “Keys” series with a look at the “Return of the Cooties.”
In “The Weekender” this month, guest columnist Jack Werthman, KO0T, shows you how to “Modernize Your Old Heath HM-102 Wattmeter” by adding a peak-reading circuit to make it useful for single sideband; “Magic in the Sky” editor Jeff Reinhardt, AA6JR, entertains us with some of his past April Fool’s pranks; and “What’s New” columnist Anthony Luscre, K8ZT, looks at a new HF power amplifier, an online parts source and an outboard RF speech processor, among other items. Beginner’s Editor Wayne Yoshida, KH6WZ, talks about opportunities to get on the air even if you don’t have your own station yet by guest operating at other peoples’ stations (with their permission, of course).
VHF-Plus Editor Joe Lynch, N6CL, reports on February’s widely publicized collision between two satellites in orbit, and the potential impact of the resulting debris field on amateur satellites in neighboring orbits. Awards Editor and USA-CA Award Manager Ted Melinosky, K1BV, discusses county-hunting and eQSL, now that CQ is accepting certain eQSL contacts for award credit, as well as series of Russian awards named after fictional adventurer Robinson Crusoe.
DX Editor Carl Smith, N4AA, reports on the passing of noted DXer and DXpeditioner Jim Smith, VK9NS, as well as his own plans to go on his first-ever DXpedition; Contesting Editor John Dorr, K1AR, looks at “Contesting for the ‘Normal Ham’;” and Propagation Editor Tomas Hood, NW7US, reports on observations of a slow rise in solar activity.
That's a brief look at what's coming up in the April issue of CQ magazine, which should be on newsstands and in subscribers' mailboxes by late March. For information on becoming a CQ subscriber, click the "Click Here to Subscribe" button at the top of this page.
A Change in the Wind?
On The Cover
Mike Davidson, N5MT, of
Houston, Texas, tracks down a “fox,” or hidden transmitter during a radio
“foxhunt.” (Cover photo by Larry Mulvehill, WB2ZPI)