It’s over again…

by Jurgen

Last weekend I visited the Ham-Radio in Friedrichshafen for the 14th year in a row.

I can still remember the first time I went there in 1994 (time flies…) when I was a very ‘new’ radioamateur. Things were quite different back then, the ‘weirdo’ level was higher, with some people really dressed as HAMs, wearing (military) transceivers on their backs or hard hats with an antenna. Almost noone would dare to come into the ‘Messe’ if he/she wasn’t proudly wearing his callsign(s) somewhere on his hat or clothing. The parking lot was an assembly of porcupines, every car had at least 2 antennas, the bigger the better. At night you couldn’t find a free frequency on any repeater anywhere around Friedrichshafen. Kenwood, Yaesu and some others were competing to have the biggest booth and to present at least one new world class rig (see also Death of a Radio Company). Wimo was already there but didn’t have a booth 1/3 the size of the hall. (Wimo keeps growing and taking over the smaller companies, and whether this is always good for us the customers is another question…).

Does this mean we were disappointed in this Ham-Radio? No, of course not, we (ON4KB, ON5HC, ON7KZ and I) had lots of fun and we met a lot of old friends and acquaintances. One of them was Sean EI4GK with whom I was at Little Saltee (EU103) in 2004. Sean is one of the Officers of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society which had a booth at the Ham-Radio for the first time. We missed Lulu and Ingvar from Sweden this time though…

Some things haven’t changed over the years though… It has happened several times in those 14 years and again the welcome at the UBA-booth was disappointing… This seems to depend on the people who are at the booth at the moment we arrive. We don’t want any hugs or kisses and we don’t even want any free drinks but hey guys, when we approach the booth of OUR association, you could at least say hello to us.

As I have written here before I have gotten into building kits since last year and my main goal for this rally was to try and find one or more new kits to purchase. But it seems that noone is building those anymore, I did not find one kit (for HF) on the whole rally… I guess I’ll have to look for some new toys via the internet again.

This was the cheapest Friedrichshafen in my HAM-carreer, as I didn’t really find what I wanted I couldn’t spend the budget I had. (In the meanwhile the budget is spent, I ordered some accessories for my K2 directly from Elecraft but that will be for an other article.)

Now the question: will we go to Friedrichshafen again next year (for the fifteenth time)? Of course, this is our annual pilgrimage… and maybe we could have a little party for this anniversary? Moreover we can’t live without the ‘Bratwurst mit Brötchen’ and the ‘Hefeweizen’.

Will I ever go to the Dayton Hamvention instead? I don’t think so, at least not as long as all foreigners wanting to visit the US are treated as criminals… If things go on like this, sooner or later we will all need to have a microchip behind the ear like the dogs here in Belgium before we can enter the US. Sorry but Big Brother is watching us enough already.

Technology

by Jurgen

I usually don’t refer to any non-ham companies here on my site but because this is also about communications and the technique used seemed so amazing to me that I do have to mention this here.

A few weeks ago I was invited to the DIY-shop of one of my colleagues for a demonstration of his new computer system and, connected to it, the new shelf labeling system.
At first I could hardly believe it but their labels are updated by modulating the light of their (existing) fluorescent lights! So no need to install any infrared transmitters or to pollute our RF-spectrum with another radio signal! More info can be found at: http://www.ilid.com.au/

(Just to be clear I am in no way affiliated to Ilid! But if they offered me a rountrip plane ticket to go and visit their premises I wouldn’t refuse it [hint][hint])

by Jurgen

I finally did it… After throwing my TV out of the shack a few months ago, I recently decided to even cancel my cable TV subscription. I just came back from the post office after sending a letter via registered mail to the cable TV company. Cancelling is not as easy as getting a subscription though. It took me 3 phone calls to even get the correct snail mail address to send my letter to [sigh]. Why do all those big companies tend to hide behind their websites? Do they really think they can discourage me this way so I’ll not cancel my subscription

So please guys, don’t ask me anymore if I have seen this or that program on TV last night. I haven’t and I’m proud of it!!!!

Moreover, this now gives me approximately Euro 160/year more to spend on my different hobbies. (not nearly enough for a K3 though…)

The only thing left to do is find a new use for the old television set. Any suggestions?

by Jurgen
  • Thanks to all for your worries about my health and safety. I got something new to go biking:bullet proof vest
    (no not the girl, you perverts, the vest, the vest!). But now that I have lost some weight myself I have to wear 20 kilos of body armour to ride my bike? Give me a break.
  • A few days after the remark on the (now defunct) blog of Jan ON4KB, I couldn’t stand it any more and so, a few minutes ago I installed Thunderbird version 2.0.0.0. I still have to look deeper into it but it looks promising! I have found a bug though! In the settings you can tell THB what to do when downloading certain files. Changes can be done without problem but when you try to erase one line all lines are gone. As soon as I finish this post on on5mf.be I’ll write a small email to the developers.
  • As some of you may have noticed, the utility to see who’s linking to my site was removed. A few days ago there was some bug in it which messed up my entire layout. And, of course, the Bartman and Jan were the first to notice it and to make a lot of fun about it…
  • Finally one more thing. Frank ON4KZ (sorry, no link, he prefers to criticise other guys’ sites instead of making his own…) made the remark that the picture of my shack still shows ‘censored’ after many months. Don’t worry Frank, I’ll be back on the air very soon now. First I need to get the tower back up and then I’ll get the shack up and running again. Still need some guys to do the climbing, I’m sure you’ll come over to do that for me, won’t you Frank?
by Jurgen

Not even 12 hrs after my last post I already got the following comment through the form (left hand side of this page):

   Being shot at????
   Attacked by a dog???
   Details please!!!
   Plenty stuff to update your site :-))

Yes I’m fine, thanks for asking 😉

So here’s the story, a few weeks ago I bought a new MTB (with the black frame), and, of course, like all children with new toys, now I go riding frequently.
Last week, while riding on one of the official MTB-routes near my home, a Jack Russell came and bit me repeatedly in the back of the leg. As the dog ran faster than I can ride (I still need lots of practice), I stopped my bike and defended myself. The dog came back something like 3 or 4 times and every time I kicked it. Finally the dog gave up… I don’t think it’s gonna make puppies in the first few days 🙂

Now for the shooting thing… last sunday I was riding my bike on a public (paved) road when, from my left hand side, I heard someone firing a shotgun. A few fractions of a second later I heard the lead shot whistle a few meters over my head. Apparently the shooter missed because almost immediately he pulled the trigger again. And this time he didn’t miss (me). Some of the pellets hit my helmet and 2 or 3 hit me in the arm. Luckily the distance was big enough so they didn’t break my skin but they left me with a nice little bruise.

As you can guess I was not really happy so I turned the bike and went to look for the shooter(s). I found the 2 hunters at the other side of the small hill and they weren’t even aware they hit me. As I expected they didn’t believe me when I told them until I showed them the bruise. I guess their teacher never explained any ballistics to them during their hunting course. As far as I know, even when you shoot up, your bullet or shot shell comes back to the earth sooner or later…

During the discussion they even said I shouldn’t go riding on that (public) road on a nice sunny day [sigh]. Finally after I threatened to call the police they started apologizing and decided to try and hit the pigeons they were after in a safer direction.

Lesson learned from the previous post: if you want comments about your website, write something about shooting on it 🙂

Criticism

by Jurgen

Tonight I received some remarks via the tamtam from people that are not happy with my site:

  • the color is to green… [sigh]
    OK, so I got work to do, keep an eye on the site, maybe I’ll allow my
    honorable visitors to choose their background color.
  • it is not updated regularly enough… [sigh]
    What do you guys want? When I put some non-significant things on the site you’re not happy. When I don’t put anything on the site you’re not happy.
    For the last few days my spare time was filled by being sick (bad cold) and the days before that I was riding my new bike (remember the Polar Bear Challenge), being shot at and attacked by a dog.

I still appreciate your constructive criticism!

MIT

by Jurgen


MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is putting its course material online as OCW (Open CourseWare).

This a great source of knowledge for all of us interested in technology!

Yet another reason not to miss my TV…

Some interesting links: