Greetings from my work-at-home office and ham shack!
Photo: The K0LR remote base, site of Lyle's remote-controlled IC-756-PRO, which we will be able to control from Radio Camp in Cupertino, California next week. A snowy field sets the scene, with heavy frost sparkling in the sun and outlining the wire antennas against the clear Minnesota sky. (K0LR photo)
It's hard to believe it's that time of year already, but I am going to head out to California for Handiham Radio Camp at the end of this week. As you know from reading your weekly e-letter we will be operating station W0EQO and we will be on both HF and EchoLink. As Jerry, N0VOE, has mentioned several times on the daily net, we plan to be checking in on that net regularly and hopefully even be able to run the net from our Radio Camp operating skills station. In the past, many of you have asked me for times and frequencies so that you could have a better chance of contacting the Radio Camp station. The campers themselves always have their own ideas about when they will get on the air and what frequencies they will use, so I have pretty much given up as I end up being wrong every year. However, the Handiham daily net should be a pretty reliable place to find us.
As with every planned operation, we could run into some difficulties. For example, the repeater that we are planning to use out in the Bay Area has been intermittently out of service and has needed some maintenance. It is our understanding that that maintenance has been completed or will be completed before we arrive at camp. But you know how Murphy's Law can show up as an unwelcome visitor to any ham radio project! If the repeater is not working for some reason, we do have Internet access at Camp Costanoan and hopefully can use the Echolink application itself via computer to get on the daily net. Because the camp Internet connection runs through a router, using a proxy will be necessary. Lyle, K0LR, our volunteer radio camp engineer, has set up an Echolink proxy for our private use during the week. We also hope to be able to use Lyle's remote transceiver base to operate his ICOM 756-Pro transceiver via the Internet as part of our operating skills training. In case you are wondering, Lyle will not be at the camp itself, but will be helping us from his home QTH.
Now, I have to apologize for the podcast of last week's edition not working properly. Although the podcast audio was posted correctly, feed reader could not interpret my blogspot post because it contained too many hyperlinks. If that sentence doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it -- I have fixed the problem this week and the podcast should be on time. Remember, sometimes we don't know about problems unless our readers and listeners inform us that something is wrong. So please don't hesitate to let me know if something isn't working right. Good old Murphy sits right here beside me, applying Murphy's Law, when he is not busy attending Radio Camp or Field Day!
I hope to hear you on the air during the week of February 16-22, when we are at Radio Camp.
Patrick Tice
wa0tda@arrl.net
Handiham Manager
