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Bart_KJ6BWB

Joined: Fri, Aug 28th 2009, 08:43 Roles: N/A Moderates: N/A

Latest Topics

Topic Created Posts Views Last Activity
Would you chip some money in to keep the Air Force Space Surveillance System going? Sep 5th 2013, 19:51 1 11,623 on 5/9/13
What radio would best let me use HF and these work frequencies? Jul 5th 2013, 04:06 3 6,443 on 6/7/13
Tom Wheeler, new FCC Chairman, good idea or bad? May 3rd 2013, 06:05 3 8,554 on 17/5/13
Radio wiki Apr 12th 2013, 21:48 3 11,526 on 5/9/13
Going "portable" in the woods, on mountains Mar 1st 2013, 20:10 5 12,256 on 14/3/13
Why there isn't more activity on these forums Feb 16th 2013, 03:35 30 14,605 on 31/7/13
GMRS license, going away? Feb 15th 2013, 16:54 1 8,225 on 15/2/13
My license, printed one is ok? Feb 15th 2013, 16:49 3 7,730 on 14/3/13

Latest Posts

Topic Author Posted On
Radio wiki Bart_KJ6BWB on 5/9/13
Yes, thanks. I passed my General test and now that the summer is over and I'm back to regular work, it's time to go in and finish things up. :)
Would you chip some money in to keep the Air Force Space Surveillance System going? Bart_KJ6BWB on 5/9/13
The Air Force Space Surveillance System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Space_Surveillance_System was just defunded. From the recent 05 Sep 2013 ARRL newsletter, it sounds like the Air Force is planning on just walking away from at least the antenna in Texas.

Is there any interest in licensed amateur radio operators chipping in to keep it going? Something as amazing as that is surely just too awesome to let it rust away.

I did a Google search for "Air Force contact", went to contact.airforce.com and asked in the live chat there, but apparently the recruiters there have no idea how to go about contacting the Air Force for general questions. I said that when I worked telephone support, I at least knew how to tell a person where to go to find more information, that I know it wasn't the person's policy, but the company's policy, and that I was just amazed that the Air Force would set things up like that. So, perhaps the Air Force is fragmented enough that there's absolutely nothing that any of us could do to keep the antenna operational. But, if there was, who'd be interested?

The one in Texas which has just been shut down was (according to Wikipedia), "the most powerful continuous wave (CW) station in the world, at 768 kW radiated power on 216.97927 MHz."

I'm not asking that the Air Force set it back up again -- they're planning on building a bigger better system using high frequency wavelengths instead, but if there's any way that the system could be taken over by a group of amateurs. Perhaps it could be part of MARS, run and financed by amateur volunteers? If it was run and maintained by volunteers, I'm sure it would greatly decrease the operating cost.
What radio would best let me use HF and these work frequencies? Bart_KJ6BWB on 5/7/13
I'm looking for a portable radio that would let me use my General class license to a greater extent, and that would also let me communicate on specific work frequencies: http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/licenseFreqSum.jsp?pageNumToReturn=1&licKey=2968611
Any suggestions?
Tom Wheeler, new FCC Chairman, good idea or bad? Bart_KJ6BWB on 3/5/13
http://www.arrl.org/news/president-obama-nominates-financier-and-former-telecom-executive-tom-wheeler-as-fcc-chairman So, I don't know anything about Tom Wheeler. What do you all think, is this going to be a good or bad or neutral thing for amateur radio or is it too soon to tell? Has Tom Wheeler said or done anything about amateur radio in the past?
Radio wiki Bart_KJ6BWB on 12/4/13
I'm studying for my General test. I wanted a website with all the test questions and the answers laid out for easier memorization and I wanted an explanation for every question saying why each answer was correct and how to calculate things that needed to be calculated. I couldn't find one, so I started making my own.

http://radio.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

I've added the questions for the Technician test, which you can see at http://radio.wikia.com/wiki/Technician_test and I also added the questions for the General test, which you can see at http://radio.wikia.com/wiki/Technician_test I added some brief explanations for a couple questions (you can see the explanations by clicking on the title for each question). For instance, here's a question with some math explanation: http://radio.wikia.com/wiki/T1B07 And here's a diagram question which doesn't have an explanation yet, but does have the diagram: http://radio.wikia.com/wiki/G7A09

Feel free to edit it yourself. If you want to more easily track your contributions and have others respond to you, create an account, but anyone can edit it at this point.

As I have time, I'll be adding the Amateur Extra questions, then going through and writing reasons for every question, why the answer is what it is and how do to any necessary math. Again, feel free to jump in and perhaps someday nobody else will wonder, "Seriously, the only way to learn about this is to buy a new book for each test, nobody's put together a website with this information yet?"

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