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 Previous: DXCC Legend Bob White, W1CW, SK |  Next: QRP Community: Holiday Gift List Suggestions for your Favorite QRPers |
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
November 23, 2002
This week, we celebrate the 100th installment of Surfin' by reviewing previous installments of our Web browsing.
 Happy 100th Birthday, Surfin'!!! |
Believe it or not, Ripley, but this is the 100th installment of Surfin'. I would like to celebrate the event by forwarding you all a slice of birthday cake, but the net is not yet broadbanded enough to handle that culinary delight. Instead of cake, I will have to eat some of my words from previous columns. Yes, I know it is a little early for our annual review, but I have a lot to tell you about last week's installment of Surfin'. So while I am at it, I might as well do a full-blown annual review.
Amazingly, none of the Web sites that appeared here in the previous 11 months has fallen off the face of the World Wide Web. A few have new URLs, but none are gone forever.
Back in the February 16 installment of Surfin' ("Locating DX"), I mentioned the Web site for downloading DX Telnet, which is a program that allows you to view DX spots in "real time" on the DX Summit Web site. The Web site for downloading DX Telnet has since moved.
In Surfin' for April 27 ("Tying Up Loose Ends"), I did a follow-up to the Mt. Washington column that appeared two weeks earlier. In that update, I mentioned a Web site where you can locate the highest named point in each county in each state in the United States. That Web site, the County Highpointers Association Home Page, is now located at http://www.cohp.org/.
June 1 featured a ham radio Web site for teenagers ("Teen Hams Surf Here!"). That Web site has a new URL.
More recently, in the November 9 installment ("A Lot About A Lot"), I discussed epanorama.net, which has a "mother lode of links that are of interest to the Amateur Radio operators and electronic hobbyists." The power supply link mentioned in that write-up is now http://www.epanorama.net/links/psu.html.
A few readers complained about the pop-up advertisements at that Web site (I've seen a lot worse). If popups are a bother, there is software available to alleviate the problem. I do not know how effective that software is, but it is often provided freely by ISPs, so it is worth a try.
Finally, last week's Surfin' described the Office of Engineering and Technology FCC ID Search Page, where you can download manuals and other information for any equipment that has an FCC ID number. Shortly after that column hit the Web, I began receiving e-mails from folks who were unable to obtain information from that Web site. Their attempts resulted in the following message: There are no attachments for public review associated with this application.
E-mail from Bob Mudra, AK9RM, explained why. It seems that when an applicant submits information to obtain an FCC ID number, the applicant may opt to pay an additional fee to suppress public viewing of the submitted data. As a result, some FCC ID numbers provide access to information, while others do not.
There is no consistency regarding the suppression option. The same applicant may choose to suppress information for one piece of equipment and not another. For example, Yaesu chose to suppress information regarding its FT-530, but not its VX-5R. Go figure!
A few folks e-mailed me to ask if I knew how to find the FCC ID number for a specific piece of equipment. Seems that they could not locate the FCC ID number label on their equipment or their equipment is so old that the FCC ID number is worn off. Sorry, but I do not know how to find the FCC ID number for a specific piece of equipment. The FCC ID number might be in the equipment manual, but I guess if you had the manual, you would not need the FCC ID number.
I also received an e-mail asking if military equipment manuals were available for downloading. I admit that I don't know, but I am aware of a Web site where military equipment manuals are available, ie, Bill's Ham Radio WWW Server, which I featured way back in the second installment of Surfin' in December 2000.
By the way, I received more e-mail with regards to last week's Surfin' than any other installment of the column so far. In general, Surfin' generates more correspondence than anything else I have written during my career as a writer of ham radio subject matter. I thank you for your e-mails, especially the corrections of past columns and the suggestions for future columns. Keep those e-mails comin' and keep on Surfin'.
Editor's note:
Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, resides in downtown Wolcott, Connecticut, and is a member
of the QQCC (QST quarter century club),
i.e., he has been a QST writer for 25
years. Since getting his ticket in 1969, Stan has sampled nearly every entrée
in the Amateur Radio menu (including a stint as Connecticut Section Manager),
but he keeps coming back to his favorite preoccupations: VHF and packet radio.
As a result, he runs a 2-meter APRS digipeater and weather station (WA1LOU-15)
from his mountaintop location in central Connecticut. Stan has been a long time
advocate of using computers with Amateur Radio and wrote programs to dupe
contests and calculate antenna bearings way back in 1978. Today, he is on the
board of directors of the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR) and uses his Mac
to surf the Internet searching for that perfect ham radio web page. To contact
Stan, send e-mail to wa1lou@arrl.net.
| Previous: DXCC Legend Bob White, W1CW, SK | Next: QRP Community: Holiday Gift List Suggestions for your Favorite QRPers |
