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I just found out that the world wide preppers network, which is supposed to be a group of people who are preparing for the end of the financial system, the ecoomy, infrastructure, etc are really just marxists.  Yes that is right, they think the definition of libertarianism has nothing to do with smaller governments but rather with ending banking.

I had a long and unfruitful chat where someone got pissy and the rest joined in because I did not believe that bankers secretly rule the world and if governments do not do their bidding then they would force other countries to invade and kill everyone.  They think that iraq and afganistan are this very thing.  Bankers were upset that iraq and afganistan were not paying them what they felt they were owed, so they ordered the US to invade and kill people.

Seriously. But wait there is more.

I bought a butternut HF9v from Bencher and the Ground radial kit and tilt base from DX Engineering and am installing them.  This is not a trivial project, it seemed like it would be a little easier than it actually turned out to be.

I got my APRN button today, it was created by Dave W4DMH.  APRN is the American Preppers Radio Network, which is a ham radio net dedicated to helping people prepare for emergencies, whether natural causes, war, terrorism, econimic collapse, or zombie invasions.

kc2dwq aprn button

If you have a thin antenna like the Comet SMA-24 or SMA-503 you may be worried that it will snap off.  Mine look like they will, and a friends did.  Fortunately for my friend it was as he was signing in at a ham fest, so he was able to get a replacement, but he was not happy.

If you are in the field and your antenna breaks you may find that your radio is little more than a paper weight.  By adding a little heat shrink  around the base of the antenna you can dramatically improve its lifespan.

Tying an antenna is an important part of using the antenna. If you have a wire antenna, whether a roll up dipole or a random wire antenna or some other type of wire antenna you will want to get the antenna off the ground. How you mount it will influence how it operates, as well as how safe it is to use the antenna.

Many hand held radio antennas are only half of an antenna. They have the whip part, but nothing for a ground plane. Since hand held radios are small devices they usually do not have a good counterpoise to act as a ground plane.  This causes the radios to under perform.  A tiger tail can correct this problem.

This concept can be applied to mobile/base antennas increasing their performance, although most mobile antennas use the vehicle as the counterpoise, the missing half of the antenna, and while on a vehicle you may not see any benefit to using it on those antennas.  This will almost always be required if you mount a mobile antenna on a tripod for portable use or on a balcony or other home structure.  If you attach it to a mobile/base antenna you would do this at the base of the antenna and not at the feedpoint from the radio.

You will need about 10 minutes to make this tiger tail, and it only takes the most basic skills. It is an easy project suitable for people of all ages.

I finally got my CT-M11 cable today, and started trying to build a data cable for it.  I discovered that cloning does indeed go over the RS-232 data pins.  This means that I will be writing a tool to load the memory the way that RT systems does it (although I will give the software away for free

Additionally I pulled out the multimeter and decided to try to map the 5 pins the GPS uses.  It appears that one of the 5 is never used, without pulling apart the GPS I will not be able to easily see why it is even there.  It *might* be used if you have the hand mic that takes the GPS, as I do not have one of those I cannot say for sure.

Out of sheer boredom I created a morse code training application in FreeSWITCH.  You call 218-339-8073 and  it will ask you how fast you want the symbols sent (1-50 wpm) and how many symbols in a group.

It will then play morse symbols, selected at random, and then a human equivalent using a TTS generated voice to read the phonetic alphabet equivalent to you.  This way you can verify your decoding accuracy.

Now when you are waiting for the bus/train to take you to work, you can use some of those unlimited mobile phone minutes and learn morse code, or just brush up on it.

I finished the initial version of my  perl script that will link FreeSWITCH to a radio device.  While I am primarily doing this with amateur radio in mind, you could use this to connect a FRS, GMRS, or other similar type of radio.

Using the FT-897 PTT control circuit, you can control PTT by connecting the various connectors to virtually any radio.  Some will not be compatible, some will require hardware modification (removal of the mic/speaker and replacing them with headphone wires and connecting the PTT button to the serial port).  I will not be discussing how to do that here.  If you can’t figure that out you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

An in depth installation and configuration guide can be found on the FreeSWITCH wiki.

In my never ending quest to rule the galaxy, I have gotten the pinout information for the VX-8r radio.  While it is pin compatible with the FTM-10 radio, it is not identical.  Minor differences do exist.

Using the CT-M11 cable you can interface this to anything you may need.  I will modify my FT-897 PTT control circuit for this radio as well as future exploration into the radio’s capabilities in terms of cloning the radio, and seeing if there are any secret commands to control the radio similar to the CAT interface.  Getting this pinout was only the first step.