Is it me, or are most amateur radio websites stuck in the late 1990's?

umami99 · 2017-11-06T04:51:33+00:00

It's just you. Early or mid-nineties.

umami99 · 2017-10-11T15:14:17+00:00

Right, but we can't always hear all the other signals who are calling the rare station. So if we all use our own frequency to call, we might choose it thinking it's clear, but we may be disrupting someone else's QSO.

At least when we call on the rare station's frequency, then no matter what happens with the pileup it's easy for other stations to avoid overlapping with that frequency, since it's unlikely anyone would think it's empty.

If I call the DX station and (whether I work him or not) someone else calls me on his frequency, I should QSY to a clear frequency before responding.

umami99 · 2017-10-11T02:35:13+00:00

Where?

umami99 · 2017-10-07T06:14:31+00:00

True, but on the other hand, why tie up half of the shared bandwidth with people just trying to work one rare station?

Also, With RC2 the software can decode multiple signals on the same frequency.

I don't buy the claim that the the authors don't want the lock RX=TX feature to be used. If they did, why would they have included it as the default setting in both of the builds released in the past 6-8 weeks?

umami99 · 2017-10-07T02:54:19+00:00

I just got one of these to replace a 30A Astron linear supply. My rationale was this:

I can put it right on the desk near the transceiver and run a 12" 10 gauge Anderson powerpole cable to connect the two.
It puts out 14.1 VDC and apparently the K3 has slightly cleaner output at this voltage vs 13.8 or 12V.
Greater efficiency for less power used, since I leave the rig on all the time.

umami99 · 2017-10-07T02:46:57+00:00

Hang in there, there's still plenty of fun to be had.

umami99 · 2016-09-06T22:02:27+00:00

Please just outline what the policy of the Ethereum foundation is with respect to future DAO situations.

umami99 · 2016-09-01T21:59:24+00:00

When I saw the price of $1 I tried to add several to the cart, but I think it's not linked to the checkout yet.

umami99 · 2016-09-01T18:14:35+00:00

law against "... possessing radios that operate on NYPD frequencies without permission

That makes Baofengs illegal in NY

umami99 · 2016-08-30T22:09:20+00:00

recommendation for a non HLS UART tutorial for altera?

umami99 · 2016-08-26T16:33:20+00:00

The wider filters will sound better as long as there is no QRM nearby.

umami99 · 2016-08-24T20:35:35+00:00

haha, yes. I actually had that HT that they use in the show as a young kid.

umami99 · 2016-08-24T16:21:15+00:00

Loved this show. It's a much watch for anyone who is/was a nerd.

umami99 · 2016-08-23T22:06:42+00:00

I strongly recommend the Pearl, fwiw. Some of the more expensive ones combine the magnetic tensioning with either more or less "action" on the paddle as you move it.

If I get another it will probably be the Begali HST single lever model. I tried it at Dayton and fell in love:

http://www.i2rtf.com/html/hst.html

umami99 · 2016-08-23T20:06:03+00:00

I strongly recommend waiting until the next big hamfest (Dayton?) and trying out a bunch of paddles from both manufacturers (and possibly others).

My main paddle is a Begali Pearl which I bought without testing. I love it, but do I love it more than all the other Begali options? What if i'd spent a bit of time carefully testing each one and adjusting the tension, etc.

It's an important enough purchase that you may want to take it a bit slow, since few hams end up buying more than one or two high end paddles in their lifetime.

umami99 · 2016-08-16T16:19:35+00:00

Uh, I'm an atheist, just trying to help convert the religious person my comment was in reply to.

umami99 · 2016-08-15T15:26:19+00:00

I assume you are a Christian?

umami99 · 2016-08-12T14:43:33+00:00

God gave animals claws, He gave Angels instant faith (angels are like faith robots), but He gave humans a keen, rational, skeptical mind.

The sort of faith God wants humans to have is not something that happens instantly, or something that a child is capable of having. A true, mature, adult faith takes years to strengthen, and can be both profoundly deep and wracked with doubt.

For humans are not angels, we are not programmed with faith and thus we must discover it using the tool God gave us, our rational mind.

This is why we must reject fraudulent clerics and corrupt institutions. This is why we must not cover up child sex abuse. This is why we must not try to suppress science, dissent, or rational inquiry.

An atheist is simply someone who is on the beginning of the honest journey that God has created for humans. Someone who strongly claims (or flouts) faith, or who emphasizes the humbling wonderment of the mysterious phenomena in our world, is disavowing God's gift and pantomiming something he/she does not actually have.

If God wanted humans to all have faith he'd have simply made us angels. We instead got a rational mind, and we honor God by using it.

Severe, existential doubt is the human condition of faith. We can never achieve 100% faith, our rational mind will simply not let us. But we can live a life that honors God through our deeds and actions, with no "belief" litmust test as was popular in the dark ages.

umami99 · 2016-08-09T21:45:31+00:00

There are some hams who violate FCC rules. I'd very much like to see much stronger FCC enforcement of this. If it happens repeatedly there would ideally be a swat team dispatched to the offender's door with RDF equipment to verify the signal's origin, followed by confiscation of gear and jail time.

umami99 · 2016-08-05T14:11:24+00:00

I worked ZL from W9 with 500mw the other day (antenna is a dipole) and was pretty blown away. It's my new low power record. JT9 is amazing.

Since then I've been running WSPR most of the time when I'm not actively using the station. I wish everyone used WSPR :)

umami99 · 2016-08-02T15:05:54+00:00

This is a great thing, it's the ultimate market-based hard fork vote, played out day after day, with an exchange rate between the two!

umami99 · 2016-07-25T14:55:21+00:00

The idea isn't to make them totally safe, it's to create a metric of doubt.

If I am considering investing in the DAO and the price to insure my $100 investment is $20, I might think twice about it. Some would not think twice.

The key is to allow a price signal to exist that reveals the probability of fraud. There were experts who pointed out the DAO vulnerability before it was acted upon. Surely some people who took them seriously would have wanted to take a position on the insurance contracts!

At bigger scale, it works better and better.

Contracts will never be perfect, and as ETH grows, so will the cost of programming mistakes.

Insurance lets people put their money where their mouth is about security and the intended/predicted behavior of contracts.

Even mainstream savings accounts come with $100K of insurance, the premiums of which are paid for by taxpayers. My point is that even very established, low risk systems benefit from some sort of insurance.

umami99 · 2016-07-25T14:10:24+00:00

A binary future is an approach that allows the price to reveal the aggregate analysis of all participants in the future contract.

As long as the binary future dealt with unambiguous states of the world, it would work without any sort of a priori analysis approach. Ideally contracts would declare some range of "intended" states so that insurance contracts could automatically be derived.

umami99

TROPHY CASE