Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute Handiham World Weekly E-Letter for the week of Wednesday, 23 April 2014
Are you ready for a power outage? Be honest, now!
No? Me, neither.
The thing is, the grid in my town has been really reliable in recent years. Even though I "nominally" have made some preparations for an emergency power supply, thanks to everything running smoothly for several years I have not found it necessary to update or even maintain my backup systems. When I tripped a GFI with too much RF, I lost power to my main computer. That shouldn't have happened, because the computer is protected with an uninterruptable power supply, UPS for short. The battery in the UPS is supposed to supply instant power in the event of a power outage, but instead it let the computer die. I pulled the UPS out of the circuit, put it on the bench, and extracted the obviously dead gel cell. This battery is a lot smaller than the one we used on Field Day, but its chemistry is similar. These batteries can fail - as this one obviously did - and as long as the AC power stays on, I would never know the difference. Unfortunately, it took a power failure to alert me to the problem.
Read or listen to the entire newsletter here.
No? Me, neither.
The thing is, the grid in my town has been really reliable in recent years. Even though I "nominally" have made some preparations for an emergency power supply, thanks to everything running smoothly for several years I have not found it necessary to update or even maintain my backup systems. When I tripped a GFI with too much RF, I lost power to my main computer. That shouldn't have happened, because the computer is protected with an uninterruptable power supply, UPS for short. The battery in the UPS is supposed to supply instant power in the event of a power outage, but instead it let the computer die. I pulled the UPS out of the circuit, put it on the bench, and extracted the obviously dead gel cell. This battery is a lot smaller than the one we used on Field Day, but its chemistry is similar. These batteries can fail - as this one obviously did - and as long as the AC power stays on, I would never know the difference. Unfortunately, it took a power failure to alert me to the problem.
Read or listen to the entire newsletter here.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute Handiham World Weekly E-Letter for the week of Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Two new apps get our attention!
Let's start with the ARRL Repeater Directory App for Android.
This is a screenshot of the ARRL Repeater Directory app showing stations nearby the WA0TDA QTH. The "nearby" tab is selected and the app automatically displays the stations that I've filtered by band preference. The free version of the app only displays 220 MHz repeaters, but this screenshot shows the paid version displaying 2 meter and 70 cm repeaters near my home, along with the direction from me and the distance, in case I want to point a directional antenna.
Wednesday, April 09, 2014
Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute Handiham World Weekly E-Letter for the week of Wednesday, 09 April 2014
Tuesday, April 8 was the day support ended for Windows XP.
It's no surprise by now, since the end of XP support has been in the news for
months, and it's been discussed in ham radio magazines, internet groups, and
even on the air. It's been a topic on the Handiham nets, too. Well,
Tuesday came and went and the world didn't end for those of us who still have a
few old XP machines around the house.
Wednesday, April 02, 2014
Courage Kenny Handiham World Weekly E-Letter for the week of Wednesday, 02 April 2014
Welcome to Handiham World.
Listen to or read the entire edition here.The frustration of DAISY production
The DAISY digital
cartridges and mailers are a huge step forward in reading technology for
our blind Handiham members. I'm smiling in this photo with the digital
cartridge, but that's only because I'm not trying to create a DAISY
book at the moment.
Okay, I'll admit it. Sometimes I get a bit
overwhelmed by technology. It happens in ham radio, as those of us who
have tried to program several of the new crop of Chinese handheld radios
can certainly testify.
"So complicated it would make a nun swear", opined one commenter on eHam when describing the HT's programming procedure.
Listen to or read the entire edition here.
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