I just added and updated my Software, so head over and take a look. The offerings are a little meager at the moment, but I’ll be adding more in the future!
It seems like the frequencies have been getting much busier lately. I don’t know if it’s because of the weather, the time of year, or what. It’s been fun listening to the chatter on my walks to and from work each day. Now that I’m working a normal shift, I’m actually able to tune in to the nets that occur in the evening, too.
I’ve been in contact with several organizations lately, and I’m working to become more involved in radio. One organization I think I’ll join is the Johnson County Radio Amateurs Club. I’m also checking to see if I can get more involved with local ECS activities.
I’ve been browsing around at all of the great radio-related software out there the last couple of days. I can’t necessarily use much of it at the moment since all I have is my little handheld, but it’s interesting to look at the possibilities.
One of the more interesting finds is something I’m sure many of the old-timers are familiar with, but it’s new to me: Ham Radio Deluxe.
I’m primarily a Mac guy, but I’m not so tied to the platform that I can’t see the value in a good piece of non-Mac software. In fact, I have Windows 7 installed as dual boot on my MacBook, and I have a dedicated XP machine at home (which is actually sharing a partitioned disk with Ubuntu, but since this isn’t a computer blog, I won’t bore you with too many details). There are some really nice things about HRD: it’s mature, it’s got a ton of capabilities, version 5 has a web-based logging tool that’s available, and best of all—it’s free!
I’d encourage anyone to take a look at all of the radio-related software out there. There are loggers, antenna design apps, radio controllers… you name it! I’ll see if I can start building a list of interesting stuff here on my site. It’s been done before, but it seems to me that a lot of the software lists out there are fairly out of date.
After a busy summer and a change in my job, I’m finding a little more time to spend on my hobbies. My son and I built a crystal radio, which hasn’t worked yet, but it was still fun to build. I’ve also acquired a Tiny Trak 3, which I thought might be fun to use for APRS. I purchased the kit, so I have yet to build it. Hopefully I’ll have more success than I had with the crystal radio.
I’ve also found a really cool mix of two interests that I have—radio, of course, and meteorology. Apparently, it’s possible to build a satellite weather station of your own, which is described really well on this site. This is definitely something I’m interested in trying, just to see if I can get it done.
One last thing–I’m going to see if I can use EchoLink to get in touch with friends that I can’t reach on 2m or 70cm. Apparently, there’s an EchoLink repeater in a nearby town that I should be able to hit with my little Yaesu. We’ll have to see what happens!