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The Handiham World for 9 July 2008
This is a free weekly news & information update from Courage Center's Handiham System. Please do not reply to this message. Use the contact information below, or simply email handiham@courage.org. Contact us at: Courage Center - Handiham System Website: http://handiham.org Welcome to Handiham World! Hopefully everyone is getting their issue of Handiham World this week. We are offering a couple of alternatives for delivery. For a number of years, we have had a "handiham" group on Yahoo. Although this requires a Yahoo login, it is a good way to get delivery of our Wednesday newsletter. I have decided to make sure that we keep the Yahoo Groups mailer up-to-date each Wednesday. It is up to users to maintain and administer their own Yahoo Group settings. If any of you are interested in checking this out, here is a link: What you do is go to the URL above, find the search field, and type in the word handiham. You should find the list pretty quickly. Note that the name of the list is simply "handiham", not "handihamstudy". Not everyone will be interested in joining Yahoo in order to get the weekly newsletter. In that case, you will want to stick with our standard delivery system. Yes, I know... it has been a real mess over the past few weeks and technical support from our service provider has still not untangled the problem completely. That is why we are looking at moving the Mailer once again to a different provider, one that specializes in mailing lists and that has been used successfully by another amateur radio group, TIPSnet. The name of the service is Freelists.org, and we think it will provide consistent, reliable service while providing the ability of users to adjust their own settings. Believe me, I am certainly anxious to put all of these mailing lists problems behind me so that I can concentrate on providing better content for the newsletter as well as improving the quality of our Friday audio lecture series. I have a request in to the Freelists administrator. And speaking of the Friday audio lecture series, I was informed by a couple of members that some of the Technician class audio was actually missing! When I checked it, I found that beginning with lecture 47 all of the audio was missing from the server. This apparently occurred because our file transfer session when changing servers was interrupted. I have corrected this problem, thanks to alert handiham members who informed me.
We will bet that you have vintage QSL cards, too. If you can send a scan or photo of your vintage QSL cards, we will feature them here. What the heck - the HF bands are still pretty poor, so we might as well keep ourselves busy with vintage cards! Please send the images to wa0tda@arrl.net along with a few words, if you wish, explaining the card or perhaps recalling those days when you were sending lots of these out. We will also feature your comments and callsign in the story. Patrick Tice Field Day stories, anyone? Do you have a field day story to share with us? Let Avery know about your Field Day adventures (or misadventures), and let us know if it is okay to use your callsign and name if we print your story. You may e-mail Avery at avery.finn@courage.org. Avery's QTH: The days of soldering aren't gone quite yet.
We had a whole week off for the Fourth of July. Boy! in my younger years, I would have taken advantage of that to build up some ham equipment either from scratch or in kit form. If it was from scratch, it meant hunting around for parts with the correct values. So some were purchased new if really necessary but most were scrounged from either the "junk" box or from hamfests, trading parts with friends, or what have you. I remember a VFO I built to work with my then crystal-controlled transmitter. I took the diagram and parts list out of one of the popular ham radio magazines of the day. I proceeded to find some aluminum for a chassis and got my trusty drill and chassis punches to punch the holes for mounting the tube sockets. Some other holes were needed for some other parts too. I knew little about constructing the physical part of the metal chassis. Shielding and placement of parts was very important as I was about to find out. Anyway, I connected up all the parts and went about soldering them all together at their contact points. OH! the smell of solder and flux was not considered hazardous back then. The tin/lead ratio of 60/40 hollow core filed with resin flux was selling for about $3.35 a pound, so you could just melt a little to be sure the soldering iron was "tinned", or coated with solder, right before using it. Speaking of soldering irons, I had three. One big huge iron that would be used for PL-259 shells, a soldering gun, and a pencil iron which I used for the few smaller parts. Well, the VFO was soon completed, and hooked up to power from the transmitter. With the cable to the crystal switch in place, I was ready to turn it on. Well, it did work almost just fine on 40 meters where I was planning to use it. I could now tune around the phone & CW band and work stations I couldn't before. There was just one little catch. There was tremendous hand capacity effect, so bringing my hand near the VFO tuning knob would cause it to change frequency. after awhile I figured out how to compensate for that, but no matter what I did physically in attempts to resolve the problem, nothing seemed to help. So I ended up purchasing a fully-constructed one all ready to go. Yes! It was quite a learning experience for me, one I will never forget. If it was a kit I was building, all the parts were there and just had to be sorted out by values so they could be placed in the proper places at the correct time in the building process. In must cases the directions for kit building were quite good and the chassis was punched, drilled, and bent so nothing had to be done with it except for the minor assembly after the wiring was done. In most cases I would start after dinner, planning on working until my normal bedtime, but time would get away from me sometimes and first thing I knew the sun was coming up and I had worked right through the night. The kit building directions would take a person step by step right through until the end. I thought I was smarter than the instruction book a couple times so I hooked up parts and soldered them according to the picture diagrams but found I had outsmarted myself because (oops) another wire had to go there later on and be soldered at that time so I would have to unsolder the connection, feed the new wire on the terminal along with the wires already there, and then re-solder everything back on again. Most often the kit would work the first time, but if not there were directions on what to look for and what steps to take to get it working. If all else failed, you could send it back to the factory and they would go through the kit and fix whatever needed to be fixed, for a fee of course. Also, with the instructions there was a complete explanation of how and why things worked so that was quite a learning process building up that electronics kit. Today not so many people will build things up from scratch but many are still building kits. There are a few ham transceiver kits that many claim to be better than commercially manufactured transceivers. There are some very simple transmitters and receivers people have built into used tin cans which also work quite well. Some of these are QRP rigs and are nice and easy to carry when back packing. One kit is 200 watts if ordered with the extra parts. OH! you don't want to build the kit? well, there are companies and individuals who will build up the kit for you for a fee. Sure, you may make a mistake and the item you built may not work, but the real learning comes in figuring out why is isn't working and how to fix the problem. At the end of the instruction manual there are: Problem, cause, and how-to-fix sections that most often with will resolve the problem and guess what? You are learning just as I did with the VFO I attempted to build! How about the that feeling of going to Field Day or working a rare DX station with a rig you built yourself? So, until next time 73 & DX from K0HLA, Avery. You can reach me at: ARRL Atlantic Division offers webinars in July 
The ARRL Atlantic Division Web Site, http://www.atldiv.org/training.htm, offers several "webinars" during the month of July. The website states: The ARRL Atlantic Division leadership has learned of a need by division members for learning about various topics of interest to amateur radio operators and amateur radio clubs. Recognizing that amateur radios clubs are constantly looking for interesting meeting topics, looking for ways to spark more interest in their meetings, the division leadership felt that the first priorities should be topics that might be presented members of amateur radio clubs or amateur radio organizations such as local ARES or RACES groups. Special topics relating to club management would likewise be given importance for presentations to current club management or those wishing to learn more about those issues. What is covered in a webinar? Well, if you are interested in APRS, try this: Bob Bruninga WB4APR, developer of APRS will be presenting a multi-session presentation of APRS - Automated Packet Reporting System. This webinar/teleconference is for anyone interested in APRS. This is a free online presentation and teleconference. (The audio feed is available both by telephone and VOIP. VOIP will come through your computer speakers, however a telephone call to the conference center may be a toll call.) There will be a question and answer period after the presentation. Register at: 
Struck By Lightning.org is an organization promoting lightning safety and education. Based on Cape Cod, MA, it provides speakers on lightning safety and education and motivational topics. The founder's personal story is a remarkable feat of human survival that will inspire and teach the importance of lightning safety to everyone. Lightning safety should always be on the minds of ham radio operators, who work with antennas and participate in outdoor events where awareness and preparedness are vital to health and welfare. This week at Headquarters Daisy Project status: Extra Class Pool will be available, probably later this week. Beta testers are needed! As many of you already know, we have been working on an upgrade to the way we deliver accessible study materials and other ham radio related information to our members who cannot read regular print. The new Extra Class Pool will be our first offering as DAISY text and audio.
George, N0SBU, has modified the Extra Class pool to conform with our requirements for Daisy production. I will be placing this pool on the website shortly in text format, so that it will be available for our Friday audio lecture series. Grateful thanks to George for all of his hard work on this project. As most of you know, the Extra pool is again very large, and going through all of those questions takes quite a lot of time. You may be interested in the way the pool needs to be modified. As we took a look at the new pool and the way the questions have traditionally been presented, we decided that it would be easier for most people if the right answer would be stated following the question and all of the possible answers. The way the questions are currently structured in the original release is that you get a question number followed by a correct answer, then the relevant FCC part number. This tends to be quite confusing, especially to screen reader users. We decided that the FCC part number could be eliminated, thus preventing at least some confusion related to all of those numbers and letters. Anyone who needs the original FCC reference can go back to the original release of the pool and search by question number. We will have both versions available on the website, should this be necessary to anyone using our pools for their study. Another change is that we eliminated the correct answer that immediately followed the question number. Of course you need to know what the correct answer is, so we replaced just the letter of the correct answer with a more user-friendly phrase like, "the correct answer is D: 3 kHz below the upper band edge." We think that this system will provide a more understandable information flow whether the user is sighted or blind, studying with or without a screen reading program, or listening to a tape or Daisy book. *** July Events I hope that each of you who participated in Field Day this year had a great time. Our local club in North Carolina operated under the callsign, W4EZ. Perhaps you heard us. We endured very hot and humid days and, fortunately, did not receive any rain until after we had completed tear down and were already home. As we enter the lazy days of summer, perhaps you’ll find solace (and air conditioning) in your ham shack. Have a great July, and I hope you find some events this month that will inspire you to continue to Ride the Waves!! Regards, *** New in Manuals Section: Tutorials from Scott, N7ZIB, on the Motorola GP300 VHF or UHF HT. You can read reviews of this radio on eHam: http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/2635, or log in to members only and go to the manuals link, then the Motorola folder. You will also find Scott's first tutorial on the Motorola MaxTrac radio in the same folder. Scott is a frequent checker-inner on the Handiham Echolink net, and is located in Margie, MN, way up in far northern Minnesota, near the Canadian border, eh. *** There are still places open for campers at Minnesota Radio Camp! Handiham members who pass their Technician license exams at Radio Camp this summer will receive new handheld radios. If you know a person with a disability who would enjoy ham radio, please send them our way. We want to get those new hams on the air! Camp begins on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 and finishes on Wednesday, August 27. Both Wednesdays are travel days. *** Stay in touch! Be sure to send Nancy your change of address, phone number changes, or email address changes so that we can continue to stay in touch with you. You may either email Nancy at hamradio@courage.org or call her toll-free at 1-866-426-3442. Mornings are the best time to contact us.
Letters Hello Everyone, We all would appreciate anything that anybody does to help. Please keep an eye open for the items on the list and if you spot anything, please call the Hammond, Indiana Police Department. The Hammond police report number for this incident is 08-50293. Their number is (219) 852-2906. George, N0SBU, spotted a neat story in his local newspaper: "Storm Spotting A Lifelong Dream For Hugo Man - Volunteers Are Eyes And Ears Of Weather Service". Best of all, you can read it online at the following link: http://www.yourneighborhoodnews.net/Archive/HugoEdition/25Jun08/StormSpotting.html The story is about a young fellow who is interested in storm spotting and who has not let cystic fibrosis deter him from reaching his goal. Of course he had to get his amateur radio license, so we know that he is well on his way to a lifetime of amateur radio fun and service to his community. You know what? I think we could use more good stories like this in amateur radio, don't you? Thanks to George, N0SBU, "good news spotter", for this story!  RekkyTec Links Resources: GW Micro Script Central GW Micro Script Central is a place to find and post scripts for the screenreading software Window-Eyes, which is manufactured by GW Micro. As of early July, there was no script listed for the popular ham radio VoIP application EchoLink. However, we did find scripts for SKYPE, a VoIP audio and video application used by many ham radio operators around the world. At Handiham headquarters, SKYPE is used to port audio from the K0LR remote receiver. Check out "Script Central" here: Radio Shack power supply recall 
RadioShack Recalls Power Supplies Due to Electrocution and Fire Hazards In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), RadioShack Corp., of Fort Worth, Texas, is voluntarily recalling about 160,000 13.8V DC Power Supplies. The recalled power supplies are wired incorrectly, posing electrocution and fire hazards.
Innovative Research Technology (IRTI), producer of eClipseWriter: Neospeech voices, used in many accessibility products (and other products) where very clear, easy to understand computer speech is needed: QCWA, the Quarter Century Wireless Association, open to those who have been licensed at least 25 years: Free screenreader via the web: KNFB Reader:
You can write to Elmer with your questions:
Image: Meet our new dues collection agent! A huge alligator grabs Pat, WA0TDA. "Sure wish I'd renewed my Handiham dues sooner." For years Handiham membership renewals were done each July. This year, we are going to a monthly system. If you renew in March, your membership goes until the following March, for example. You will have several choices when you renew:
Please return your renewal form as soon as possible. There is a postage paid envelope provided, and you won't get a visit from you-know-who. Your support is critical! Please help. The Courage Handiham System depends on the support of people like you, who want to share the fun and friendship of ham radio with others. Please help us provide services to people with disabilities. We would really appreciate it if you would remember us in your estate plans. If you need a planning kit, please call. If you are wondering whether a gift of stock can be given to Handihams, the answer is yes! Please call Nancy at: 1-866-426-3442 or email: Ask for a free DVD about the Handiham System. It’s perfect for your club program, too! The video tells your club about how we got started, the Radio Camps, and working with hams who have disabilities. Call 1-866-426-3442 toll-free. DONATE USED HAM GEAR 1-866-426-3442 toll-free Help us get new hams on the air. FREE! Get the Handiham E-Letter by email every Wednesday, and stay up-to-date with ham radio news.
Handiham members with disabilities can take an online audio course at www.handiham.org: • Beginner
That's it for this week. Pat, WA0TDA
ARRL is the premier organization supporting amateur radio worldwide. Please contact Handihams for help joining the ARRL. We will be happy to help you fill out the paperwork! The weekly e-letter is a compilation of software tips, operating information, and Handiham news. It is published on Wednesdays, and is available to everyone free of charge. Please email wa0tda@arrl.net for changes of address, unsubscribes, etc. Include your old email address and your new address.
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Now, back to our vintage QSL card series. Today we have a card from Rusty, NM1K. Guess what? I'll bet you can still get one of these cards from Rusty, who sends out many NTS birthday messages to handiham members and friends. Work Rusty on the air and QSL to get one of these beauties. Thanks, of course, to Rusty for all of his good work with NTS, the National Traffic System.
Welcome once again to my humble QTH:
Reminder: Handiham renewals are now on a monthly schedule - Please renew or join, as we need you to keep our program strong!
