WA2HOM

We Scored 100%!

Not to toot my own horn—at least not too much—but yesterday we scored 100%! That is to say that everyone in our latest One-Day Tech Class at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum passed the test. 17 people attended the class and took the test, including one 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl.

To be honest, I was concerned about the two teenagers. Kids don’t seem to do well in the one-day class, and neither of them had done much pre-study. The girl, however, only got two questions wrong; I’m not sure what score the boy had.

Several of the students were the sons of amateur radio operators. One of them, Ryan, came all the way from Alma (about two hours away), with his girlfriend, Kathena, to take the class. I just received an e-mail from Ryan:

Just wanted to give a big thanks for offering the class. You definitely helped Kathena and I learn all the technical aspects of ham radio. You definitely helped me feel more confident about passing the test. I have been trying to get around and take it for ten years now. Kathena has only been around ham radio for a week and she loves it!

Mel, the executive director of the museum, his wife, and his father-in-law, were also part of the class. Since they all passed, two of the museum’s staff now have amateur radio licenses.

Thanks to my co-teachers and especially to VEs who administered the test. This was quite a large group, but they were able to handle the group speedily and efficiently.

Operating Notes: New Year’s Day Weekend; Sat., January 9

New Year’s Day weekend was pretty busy down at the museum:

Friday: I did a bunch of housekeeping. I logged in our recently-received QSL cards and replenished our brochure supply.
Saturday: Quentin, KD8IPF, and I figured out how to use the SSTV feature of Ham Radio Deluxe. This was surprisingly confusing. We expected to find SSTV as one of the items in the drop-down menu of the DM780 program, along with PSK, Olivia, and the other digital modes. Instead, to receive SSTV, you have to click on a separate menu item.
Quentin and I didn’t make any SSTV contacts as band conditions were really poor, but we did receive a couple of pictures. Next, we have to set up a couple of our own templates and then actually make a contact.
Sunday: Jim, K8ELR, and I were there, ostensibly to operate Kid’s Day. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many people at the museum, nor could we find any other stations on the air working this event. So, we ended up not making any Kid’s Day QSOs.

On Saturday, January 9, Les, W8LDS, and I met for breakfast before heading over to the museum. There, we met Jim, K8ELR. After turning on the rig, we heard Tom, K5IRH, Shreveport, LA calling CQ on 40m CW and quickly established our first contact. When we mentioned that we were at a local science museum, he quickly told us about Sci-Port, a science museum there in Shreveport. I told him that every science museum should have a ham radio station and have e-mailed him information on our operations.

Emboldened by our success with SSTV the previous week, Jim and I decided to give RTTY a whack. Fortunately, there was an RTTY contest last weekend–the Mongolian RTTY DX Contest, no less! Again, band conditions weren’t the best on 20m, but we managed one contact apiece. Mine was with P4OYL in Aruba, Jim’s with EA5FL in Spain.

After that, we decided to pad our QSO statistics a bit, so made a bunch of CW contacts in the North American QSO Party. That was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, so we quit pretty quickly and wrapped up ops at about 1:30 pm.

Display Debuts at AAHOM

Part of the $10,000 grant we got from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers was to go towards “several tabletop displays.” The first of these has recently made its debut.

This first display is simply a microphone connected to an oscilloscope (see below). Talk into the horn, and the oscilloscope displays the waveform of your voice. It’s simple, but effective. Kids and adults were sitting down to see their voice all day today.

Talk into the horn, and the oscilloscope displays the waveform of your voice.

The scope itself is rather remarkable. It’s one of the new scopes that use an LCD display rather than a CRT. That means it’s less than a foot deep, which is a lot smaller than the CRT-based scopes that most hams have in their shacks (if they have a scope, anyway).

The “see your voice on the oscilloscope” is the first of three displays that will go on this table. As you can see in the photo at right, there are spaces for two more displays. One of them will be a Morse Code display; the second will be a crystal radio set display.

The display sits just outside the station, and the colors match those of the station. Come on down and see it sometime.

A Year Ago, We Contacted the Space Station

On Saturday, December 27, 2008, we contacted the Space Station from the Hands-On Museum. This is not news, but we didn’t have this website up and running then. To view the six-minute video, click on the image at right.

What’s not shown in this video are the number of calls made before the contact was made. We must have called a dozen times, and it didn’t look it was going to happen. Then, all of a sudden, the ISS came booming in!

First Pack of DX QSLs Received from Buro

Yesterday, WA2HOM received its first packet of QSLs from the W2 incoming bureau. There was one card from the Bahamas (C6AGU), one from Spain (EE5E), and two from Germany (DL7ON, DL3YM). EE5E claims to have the “shortest CW callsign in the world!”

Activity Report—12/26/09

Today, Jim, K8ELR; Ovide, K8EV, and I were at the museum.

The first thing I did today was to upgrade the firmware in the TenTec Omni VII. I thought this was going to be a lot more difficult than it turned out to be. All I had to do was download the package and run it. Worked like a charm.

I don’t recall what version we were running, but I can say that the new version does make the rig work differently. What’s most noticeable is that the filtering seems sharper. The TenTec website has a complete list of all the modifications they’ve made to the firmware, and it’s quite extensive. It makes me wonder how much better my IC-746PRO would be if its firmware was upgradeable.

Ovide then arrived and we were able to put a couple of kids on the air. Jeff, W2FFQ, was gracious enough to allow us to put junior operator Eve on the air. Eve, as it turns out, was in junior kindergarten, and Jeff has a daughter who is also in kindergarten. He got her to come into the shack and the two kids talked to one another. That was cool.

Finally, we tried installing EasyPAL on our computer so that we could try some SSTV. I say “tried” because the anti-virus software said that it detected something and wouldn’t let the install proceed. Consulting the EasyPAL website, it said that this sometimes happens and to disable the anti-virus software during the install. We did that, and it looked like the software was installed, but the program never got copied to the disk. We tried this a couple of times with the same result. By that time, we both were ready to close up shop, so we just gave up on that for now.

Activity Report—12/19/09

Saturday was a busy day down at the museum Michelle, KD8GWX; Ovid, K8EV; and me. We were able to get six kids on the radio today. One of our first QSOs was with Al, K3YUB and he chatted with Carl.

Then, we connected with Bill, AA2YV. Bill is a history professor at a college in Rochester, NY, and was just great with the kids. We managed to keep him on the line long enough to talk to Marion, Celeste, Henry, Quinn, and Cameron.

After that, we made a bunch of Canadian contacts with stations working the RAC contest.

Next One-Day Tech Class: January 16, 2010

Boy, it’s hard to believe that it’s 2010 already, isn’t it?

That not withstanding, we’re going to be conducting the next One-Day Tech Class here at the Hands-On Museum on Saturday, January 16, 2010. The class will run from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. At 3:00 pm, the volunteer examiners will show up to administer the test.

There is no charge for the class, but we do suggest that you donate $10 to the museum. There is a $15 fee to take the test.

If you would like to take this class, please send an e-mail to Dan, KB6NU, cwgeek@kb6nu.com. We do ask people to pre-register to make sure that we have enough seats for people. The volunteer examiners also like to how many are going to be taking the test.

Can you really do this in one day? Well, the answer is yes and no. Although the class is only six hours, we do suggest that students prepare for the test by reading through the study guide a couple of times. This study guide is available for free by going to http://www.kb6nu.com/tech-manual.

Operating Notes – Saturday, 12/12/09

This Saturday, three of us showed up on Saturday:

Jack, WT8N
Ovide, K8EV
yours truly, KB6NU

Ari, KD8MJV, the Museum Store’s Manager was on duty Saturday, so I guess you could say that there were four of us in the building. He was one of the graduates from our most recent One-Day Tech Class on November 14.

One of the first things we did was to get Ari on the air for the first time. I brought along two hand-helds, and right after Jack took off his coat, I sent him downstairs with one. Not only were we able to give Ari his first QSO, but also his first QSL card!

After pinning up some QSL cards, I sat down to see what could be worked on 40m. Fortunately, we made contact with Lance, KB0RGS. His signal was 58 – 59, and when I gave Ovide the “thumbs up,” he was off to find some kids to talk to Lance.

We were doubly lucky in that Lance is a retired elementary school teacher and was just perfect with the kids. Our contact with Lance lasted long enough for him to speak to two sets of kids.

This afternoon, I popped down to the museum for a bit and had a great contact with George, K2HRS. He told me a great story about his high school days and the amateur radio club at his high school in New York City. The QSL card at right is the club’s QSL card. The club consisted of George and his friend, Joe, K2QPR. They became such good friends that they maintained a regular schedule for more than 50 years! Joe passed away a couple of years ago, unfortunately.

Other News
The museum’s exhibit folks have set up a new display near the ham radio station. This display lets kids (and adults, for that matter) speak into a horn and see what their voice looks like on an oscilloscope. The table on which this display sits will also hold a crystal radio display and a Morse Code display. The money for these displays came from the $10,000 grant that the IEEE awarded to the museum.

We’ve also been discussing ways to improve the station and make it more accessible to museum visitors. What will probably happen is that another table will be installed so that the operating positions will be shifted 90 degrees and face the ramp. There’s also talk of installing an elevated floor so that we’re not so far down. I think these changes will make the station not only more accessible to visitors, but also to the hams who come down to take part in our activities.

Welcome to WA2HOM

WA2HOM is the amateur radio station at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.

In August 2008, we were awarded a $10,000 grant from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Part of this money is for the station and its equipment, part for a couple of “hands on” exhibits for the museum. This was followed by a $3,000 grant from the ARRL to put up a tower and beam on the museum’s roof.

We have set up a Yahoo Groups mailing list for those who are interested in and are currently working on the project. To subscribe to the list, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HamRadioattheHandsOnMuseum/.

If you’re in the area, and would like to help us operate the station, please drop by. We’re there most Saturdays and some Sundays. If you have any questions, please contact Dan KB6NU (kb6nu@w8pgw.org).