Welcome to Handiham World!
WA0TDA: A short news day
Darned if I didn't have to spend most of today in meetings. Well, guess what? You can't get the weekly e-letter and podcast done while you are sitting in a meeting. If you try to record even the teensiest bit of podcast audio about some ham radio topic, your fellow meeting-goers tend to look at you like you're an odd duck.
So this is a very short edition this week. I plan to be back on track with a regular edition next Wednesday.
Last week we invited you you to use EchoLink to log on to the remote base in receive only mode. I'm going to give you directions again, in case you missed last week's edition, and because I left something important out: You have to log in from a computer as a regular callsign user. Some of our readers and listeners were flummoxed last week, because they were trying to log on via a node using RF, or from a -L or -R callsign. Only regular users are allowed, up to five at a time. Look for the station callsign, W0EQO-L, node number 261171. Connect to the remote base, and you will turn the radio on automatically, and the audio stream will begin. If you happen to do this while the radio is in use, you may hear stations on frequency immediately. If the radio is in use through the W4MQ software, there may be periods while the control operator is transmitting where you do not hear anything, but upon receive you will hear the other signals. If there is no control operator logged in via the W4MQ interface, you can use the EchoLink text feature to control the radio's frequency. Simply enter a number like 5 into the text box and press enter. The radio will respond by changing the VFO to 5 MHz, and you will hear WWV if conditions are favorable. If you want to listen to PICONET on 3.925 MHz, enter 3925 and press enter. The system does not require you to enter the decimal point. If the radio is in the wrong mode, simply sending a U will change the mode to USB, L to LSB, C to CW, A to AM, and so on. When you log on via EchoLink, there is a possibility that there will be other users logged on already, and they may be listening to a frequency they chose. Be respectful of others and don't change the frequency unless you think the other station might be finished. On the other hand, don't hog the station when someone else wants to use it. Up to five users can listen at once. Oh, and one more thing: Since our TS-480 is equipped with blind-friendly speech frequency output, you will hear the radio tell you what frequency it is on as soon as you make a change. Please give the Handiham Remote Base a try and let me know what happens, and I will share your comments with our engineering team, and possibly even with our e-letter readers and podcast listeners!
For your Handiham World, I'm...
Patrick Tice, WA0TDA
Courage Center Handiham Manager
patt@couragecenter.org
