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Amateur Radio: The Ultimate STEM Activity

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External display output on the IC-7610 makes instruction easy.

How time does fly. It seems like just last week I made a post about my Field Day adventures in and around the Atlanta area. I explored the concept of Field Day as Amateur Radio’s open house and spending time with several different groups to learn what makes Field Day special for them. In truth, of course, it’s been a full 12 months and yet another Field Day is in the log. This year, I took Field Day on the road and spent the weekend with a marvelous group of young men and women up in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Read More...

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Is Your Digital Repeater Ham Friendly?

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Digital technology continues to flood our repeater frequencies, leaving many questions about standardization. If you are one of those who are holding out, or have been sucked into the bandwagon of the latest craze of the repeater gods, take a few steps back and ask yourself: do we have a ham friendly repeater?

Many of the advances over the last 35 years for amateur repeaters have come from the land mobile or commercial radio world. For instance, the use of tone and tone squelch to allow repeater frequencies to be reused across a geographical area that previously was not possible. This was a great advancement and allowed more people to have their “own” repeater. However, I feel that the latest phase in digital has brought in a dangerous trend that few understand, and as a result, there are several fundamental freedoms that ham radio operators are unknowingly giving up! Read More...

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Dayton Hamvention® 2017 — Change for the Better

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They say that change is inevitable, but I was beginning to have my doubts about Hamvention®. I should not have.

The Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA) started the event in 1952 with 600 in attendance, and moved to HARA Arena in 1964, where attendance climbed to near 30 thousand.

Now they have moved to the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia, Ohio. What a fantastic venue and what a great job by DARA in getting this huge event up and running.

Hams to Japan – #H2JA

We’re really excited to hold the Hams to Japan Sweepstakes and wanted to incorporate it into the mix at the Hamvention® booth this year.  A kiosk was placed at the from of our booth, allowing visitors to sign up while at Hamvention®. We have had great participation so far and only expect more until our final drawing. The grand prize drawing, a trip for two to  2017 Tokyo Hamfair or an IC-7300, will announce the second week of July. Read More...

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D-STAR Live 2017 — All About D-STAR from A to Z

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It has been a while since my blog post titled “D-STAR — It’s not just for the kids.” I was thinking about that this past weekend during D-STAR Live. It isn’t just for the kids, but it is easy enough for anyone to get engaged. Plus, there are so many different aspects to explore and they were all on display during this four-hour information packed session.

View the Recording

I’ll provide a quick summary here. But, you can find the recording at the bottom of this blog. It’s divided into four segments to cover the full four hours. Read More...

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Wrap it up: Top Dayton Hamvention® 2016 Amateur Radio Community Highlights

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#IcomEverywhere turned out to be just that — absolutely everywhere. It was a true whirlwind of activities from one end of HARA Arena to the other. And, it also took in Contest University, the DX Dinner, Contest Dinner, and D-Star InfoCon.

Icom Booth

Icom America Amateur Radio tradeshow booth setup, personnel, and crew

The Icom America booth personnel

Each year we plan and focus on putting together a really fun experience for everyone who attends Hamvention®. It’s a massive effort and thanks to everyone on our staff and many, many others that helped out.

13227781_1233539586656388_721549799711453973_oAs part of our #IcomEverywhere campaign, we also showed off our extensive range of land mobile equipment as well as a sprinkling of marine and avionics products to engage with a broad range of radio enthusiasts at the show. Read More...

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#IcomEverywhere — Dayton Hamvention® 2016

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Last year I wrote all about the preparation for the Hamvention® in Welcome to the Big Show – complete with circus theme. I even spoke about trying to limit our activities to just three rings.

Well, this year we’re actually setting up the three rings: our main booth, the D-STAR booth, and new for 2016 our Land Mobile booth, where I’ll be spending some time.

We’re even bringing our own circus animal in Max, the Icom America mascot, star of the Zack and Max comic book adventures.

#IcomEverywhere — IC-7300 Front and Center Read More...

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Emergency Communications – Amateur Radio’s Role

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We typically think about cell phone service closing down either because of downed towers or massive overload during a disaster or an emergency. Broadcast stations as well as police and emergency services can also shutdown for similar reasons.

POWER OF COMMUNICATION OPTIONS

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ID-5100A

Those services are typically tied to a single approach for communication, however, amateur radio isn’t limited. Sure, on VHF/UHF a repeater might go down but that just means we need to go simplex. Or, amateur operators can readily set up a portable repeater system to get things going once more. Read More...

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8N23WSJ On the Air from the World Jamboree in Japan

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Despite two typhoons in the past few weeks, the World Scout Jamboree is up and running in Kirara-hama, Yamaguchi, Japan. More than 30,000 Scouts and leaders from 161 countries around the world are engaging in two weeks of activities and adventure, from July 28 to August 8.

8N23WSJ

11011738_10153408120368898_4283413518783042832_nAlong with all the Scouting activities, including a JOTA-JOTI Plaza (Jamboree on the Air and Jamboree on the Internet) in the Science Program Area, the amateur radio station 8N23WSJ is on the air!

The 8 is the designation for a special event call sign and the N stands for Nippon, which means Japan. Since this is the 23rd World Scout Jamboree, the last letters in the call sign are 23WSJ.  Have fun with the Eight November Twenty Three World Scouting Jamboree special event station! Read More...

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D-STAR – It’s not just for the kids

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dstar-poweredThere are currently over 750 D-STAR repeaters in the US. During the 2014 D-STAR QSO Party (held in September each year) over 1,000 hams were on the air from 36 countries. The ten winners received an ID-51 50th Anniversary Edition HT.

This gives you a flavor for the broad reach of D-STAR here in the US and around the world. What I like about it is being able to talk with anyone throughout the world without being at the mercy of the latest sunspot count.

For example, when I was on a DX-pedition to Mozambique a few years ago I was also able to use D-STAR to talk with many Scouts who were on that weekend for Jamboree on the Air. We had reliable clear communication without the pileups and QSB/QRM etc. And, what a blast to talk with Scouts about amateur radio, their current campout, local weather, etc. Read More...