Courage Center Handiham System

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released its beta website tool for consumers who wish to test their internet connection speeds. Service providers are not shy about making speed claims, and this tool should provide an easy way for any broadband customer to find out what their internet connection is really delivering.

According to Spaceweather.com, sunspot group 1054 is growing and could pose a threat for C-class solar flares. This sounds ominous, but actually C-class flares are the least likely to cause disruptive interference on Earth. The news of continuing sunspot activity (spot group 1055 is also Earth-facing today) is good news for amateur radio HF enthusiasts who are looking forward to better short-wave communication worldwide with increasing sunspot counts.

Submitted by k9hi on Wed, 03/10/2010 - 21:33

Members of the Waltham Amateur Radio Association recently embarked upon a project to benefit the Courage Center Handiham program, and to honor the memory of long-time member and Silent Key, Laurie Cote, KC1BN.

A Cote family member contacted Handiham in November, 2009 to inform them that KC1BN had left a sizeable amount of ham equipment from his estate to the non-profit organization based in Golden Valley, Minnesota. Handiham's Manager, Pat Tice, WA0TDA reached out to Eastern MA Handiham volunteer instructor Phil Temples, K9HI.

The Handiham Remote Base station W0EQO is out of service. The wire antenna has fallen down and we are trying to round up a repair crew. We will post news here when repairs have been completed. In the meantime, the station has been taken offline and will not be available on Echolink, even for receive.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Patrick Tice, WA0TDA
Handiham Manager
wa0tda@arrl.net

Courage Center Handiham World Weekly E-Letter for the week of Wednesday, 10 March 2010

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Welcome to Handiham World!

Recently I had a nice visit with another operator, and what do you think we talked about?

That's right - we talked about our stations!  The conversation took a turn to receiver performance, and he mentioned that one of his radios has a much more sensitive but quieter receiver than the other. I wondered how he knew that, and he said that he had performed an "A-B" test.  That's what today's essay is about - not receiver performance. 

When we compare two pieces of equipment, we want to know which one performs the best. How many times have you heard someone make a claim on the air for one rig's superiority over another one? Or that one antenna works better than another? Whenever I hear such claims, I wonder if they are really backed up by testing.  I know that most of us will never have a test lab full of instrumentation to run tests the way they are done at the ARRL  product review lab, but that doesn't mean that we have no way to perform simple, but more meaningful testing.  

I will be putting on a one day class for the Technician Class Amateur Radio License. The class will be in Elk River, Minnesota on Saturday, April 24 from 8 to 4 followed by the VE testing session. This class has been very successful.

If anyone knows anyone who is interested in getting their ham radio license in one day, they can contact me at K0MJS@ARRL.net for more information.

Thanks,

Mike

K0MJS