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Ham Radio is kind of hard to explain to people who have had no exposure to it, I think. They tend to lump it all in to one narrow (and not entirely accurate) analogy. In fact, it’s a very broad hobby with all sorts of niche interests. From working orbital stations, to morse code enthusiasts; from slow-scan television to digital radio networks; from casual voice chats with other licensed stations all over the world, to the fast and furious exchanges of contesting … it’s all very interesting, it’s all very different, and its all ham radio.

One facet of ham radio that I find to be fun is working special event stations.

Special event stations may operate via voice, or morse code, or digital/computer modes, etc, but in each case they are only on the air at special dates and times. This means only a limited number of stations will be able to work the special event station during the event. Other stations the world over go on the hunt for these rarer ‘special event’ stations in hopes of making contact.

It’s a lot of fun and pretty rewarding to work at getting such a contact and finally managing to log the rare station in your logbook. There’s often even a special reward in it for you if you mange the task … a special QSL card or certificate to commemorate the contact.

It’s also a lot of fun to BE the special event station … to actually operate AS the special event station that everyone else wants to log a contact with.

Indianapolis is blessed with both a number of special events and an active and friendly ham radio community. Thanks to each, I’ve had the great opportunity (and privilege) to work as an operator for the W9IMS special event Amateur Radio station here in Indianapolis.

W9IMS is only on the air for a small number of days each year – surrounding each of the three big races here in Indianapolis: the Indy 500, the Brickyard 400, and the MotoGP. Indianapolis area licensed Amateur Radio Operators (“Hams”) like myself gather and operate the W9IMS station during these special events, and other hams all over the world tune in and attempt to contact W9IMS. Some of those wishing to make contact with W9IMS are race fans, some are just hunting for special event stations, and some just want to take part in all the fun. When a station contacts W9IMS they qualify for a special QSL card. There’s a unique card for each of the races that W9IMS is on the air for, and if a station manages to contact W9IMS for ALL THREE races in a given year there’s a special certificate they can receive.

It’s all a whole lot of fun.

Last weekend while operating the W9IMS “Brickyard 400″ special event, I managed to take a few recordings and decided I’d toss together a quick video to share a bit of that experience here. (Thanks to N9GSU for the still shots)

The voice operator of W9IMS you hear in this video is me (N9LTQ), and the morse code operator you hear is Pat (N2DKB).

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For those of you who aren’t up to speed on your ham radio jargon, here’s a list of terms you may hear and need translation on:

• CQ = Radio shorthand for “Calling any station” – inviting any station to respond.
• “40“ (as in “CQ40″) or “40 meters” = The frequency ‘band’ in which I was operating.
• W9IMS = The callsign of the station I was operating.
• “Whisky Nine Indianapolis Motor Speedway” = A phonetic spelling of the station callsign (W9IMS). Radio contacts are often choppy, usually have some noise on top of them, and are known to fade in and out. You never know how well or how poorly you’re being received at any given moment … so giving phonetic spellings greatly assists receiving operators.
• 73 = Radio shorthand for “best wishes”.
• QRZ = Radio shorthand for “What station is calling?” – in the context used here, it’s an invitation for any additional stations who wish to contact me to call in now. (pronounced “Q-R-Zed”)
• QSL = Radio shorthand for “Do you copy me?” or “I copy you”. This is essentially “roger” or “acknowledged”
• “Delta Alpha Victor Echo” = Phonetic spelling of my name “Dave”.
• “5-5″, “5-6″, “5-9″, etc = These are signal reports in RST Format. “5-9″ is essentially a perfect reading.
• “+10” = A very strong signal report indicating reception at 10db over a 5-9 rating.
• “+20” = An extremely strong signal report indicating reception at 20db over a 5-9 rating.
• “30 over” = An extremely strong signal report indicating reception at 30db over a 5-9 rating.
• “fine business” = A commonly used phrase among ham radio operators that means “very good”.
• “hi hi” = A commonly used phrase among ham radio operators that indicates a joke. It’s essentially the radio slang version of a smilie face.

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Steve Jobs recently replied to an email from a customer about their concerns over the antenna issue with the new iPhone 4. (If you’ve not seen the issues yet, check out: link 1, link 2.) He said “Non issue. Just avoid holding it in that way.”

I’d like to offer this open letter response to that reply (which he certainly knew would be all over the internet once it was received).

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Mr. Jobs,

> “Non issue”

It’s a PHONE which will, if you pick it up, drop the call! That’s an issue. Pretty big issue. (NOT just lose bars but keep working … drop the call. – Gigantic issue.)

> “Just avoid holding it in that way.”

This coming from the champion of “technology should be intuitive, and just work”!? Why do you think we loved the previous iPhones?

The statement that essentially says “all phones suffer this sort of issue” that apple is putting out is disingenuous and you know it. I can hold my 3GS naturally and it does NOT go to “no service”. You know perfectly well this issue isn’t just something that happens with all phones. It doesn’t – not even previous models of iPhones with the same OS standing in the same location. This problem is unique to the iPhone4 HARDWARE. My 3GS NEVER does this (which has the exact same software version) regardless of how I hold it.

But yet, you tell us that for this version of the iPhone to be able to make calls or access wifi (for more than a few seconds), we can’t hold it in the most natural and intuitive way? The way I can with any other cell phone out there (even any other version of iPhone). The way I (and just about everyone else) has always held a phone since … ever? The same way you held it on stage at the media event? (you knew there’d be photos of you holding it right?) … One wonders if it was really the bloggers and their wifi that caused you the networking issues you suffered on stage.

I dunno, Steve … this is all sounds like textbook “issue” to me.

I’m certainly not going to be upgrading to a new version of the iPhone … that can’t make calls if I so much as HOLD IT!

- Dave

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I’m thinking that this weekend I’m going to re-do my friends and followers list on twitter … and perhaps protect my feed.

First of all there’s a bit of noise … followers/friends that I cannot for the life of me remember how/why we know each other. Secondly I have some followers who, while I like them very much, I may not want following my status day to day. Lastly (and most importantly), the previous point has made me consider that there may be a small number of people I follow that for whatever reason I have now mentally put into the “didn’t really have a fair opt-in choice” as to my following them.

So, while I may unfollow some accounts I’m not interested in … be aware that If I unfollow you, this may not be the reason. I may simply have decided that you deserve a new ‘opt-in’ choice around me following your status day to day.

If I remove you as a follower please don’t take this personally and simply re-follow me if you are interested or shoot me a “WTF” email and I’ll (probably) re-add/un-block you.

Most importantly, if I stop following you – please don’t take this personally either – shoot me a “WTF” email and I’ll re-follow. And lastly, If I do un-follow you and then later send a new follow request – you are free to decline/ignore it.

Anyway, I may or may not get this done this weekend, but its a safe bet I’ll be doing some list pruning in the future. If these actions leaving you thinking “WTF”, just shoot me an email and it’ll all be made well again.

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Yeah, that’ll happen. Maybe they should change that vowel to “disembowel”.

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I found this photo on Flickr (I dont know the photographer), which includes me at the icom booth at the 2010 Dayton Hamvention.

Other than a few blurry cell phone camera shots, I neglected to take any photos at all while there … so it’s nice to see that there’s some proof I attended out there somewhere.

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I was talking with a fellow ham today (I’m not sure how he feels about being named in random blog posts so I wont mention his callsign, but trust me he’s real ), and we were discussing emergency communications on behalf of other stations.

I found the following video on YouTube that I thought he might like. It’s a great old 1940′s news reel style film about Short Wave Radio operators (aka “hams”). The stories told within are presumably true of course … but done in that awesome cheesiness that was 1940-ish news reels.

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Well I did it, i broke down (on day one) and got an iPad. I’ve not had a whole lot of time with it yet, and haven’t been been able to install the two apps I most looked forward to (Stanza and Pagaes), but still I have to admit that I already love it.

I’m writing this post on my iPad as a matter of fact (while my desktop iTunes finally gets the latest updates applied). Blogging from my iPhone never really worked for me despite there being ‘an app for that’. Typing on the iPad however is indeed very nice. In landscape mode the keyboard is very very usable. I can totally see myself using this to blog, and work on longer documents.

This was one of the main reasons I wanted to go with the iPad over other readers I was considering. (I was already in the ereader market, but having one that could also let me work on word docs and blog etc was a killer feature for me)

Oooh my Mac is ready to sync up with the iPad and send my ebooks over to it – gotta run. I’ll blog more about this later.

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As some of you may have picked up on from various tweets or Facebook updates, I’ve been packing lately. That’s right … I’m moving.

I moved to Indianapolis just over two years ago now (time flies), and have since been living in a nice little apartment complex conveniently located close to both Fry’s Electronics and family. Next week, however, I’m scheduled to close on a house – and I’ve been packing in preparation for the move! It’s a nice little house with a nice little back yard – and perhaps most importantly, it remains … conveniently located close to both Fry’s Electronics and family.

The whole house-buying process has been (and continues to be) an interesting experience. I’m excited for the big day, but my mind is also swimming with all the many many things I have to do prior to and then just after closing. There’s all sorts of little logistical things to be done around the final paperwork and contractual milestones, not to mention working with my apartment complex to break my lease early (that’s gonna hurt). Then of course there’s all the change of address stuff that will have to be done, and more urgent matters like getting High-Speed-Internets ASAFP. Then of course all the fun stuff like painting and making the house “mine” begins.

And of course … there’s the packing. I hate packing. I also hate clutter (which is strange because I always seem to be surrounded by heaping chaotic piles of it wherever I go). So, in an effort to lessen both of these things in my life, I’ve been trying to “80/20 my life” while I pack for the move. To “80/20″ one’s life involves getting rid of the 80% of the ‘stuff’ one has but seldom uses (or even sees), and only keeping (and thus in my case packing) the 20% of ‘stuff’ that is actually relevant or meaningful to the person.

I have, through this process, confirmed my suspicion that I … have a sh**-ton of ‘stuff’ I should have just thrown away ages ago. I’m not kidding … the other day I opened a box that I’d just stored when I moved to Indianapolis (two years ago). As I opened it (having long since forgotten what was inside), I wondered how much of it I’d be willing to just toss out. I mean after all, I’d not even looked in this box for two years and I clearly wasn’t missing whatever it was that was inside. When I opened the box I realized … this wasn’t a box I packed when I moved from Chicago to Indianapolis. It was a box I’d packed when I moved in to my last Chicago apartment! I’d been carting around a box to be stored from one apartment to the next for YEARS … even though clearly I did not have any need or desire for whatever it was was inside. So I tossed it all.

I have been relentless but judicious in tossing things out. I’m amazed at how much I’ve just gotten rid of rather than packed up for the move. I wonder how long it will take me to re-clutter my life? (I’m putting the over/under at 3months)

Anyway … if all continues to go to plan, I’m moving at the end of the month. Once it’s all done and official like, I’ll post photos so stay tuned.

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So, its been … a long long long time since I’ve posted.

I offer no excuses.  I’ll provide no reasons.  I have plenty of reasons of course (I wont be so bold as to consider them ‘excuses’), but in the end they’re not important.  Those of you who have followed me over the years know that I go through periods where I just don’t want to blog … such is life as David Meade, I suppose.  Although this has been somewhat bothersome to me from time to time (in the ‘ah man, I gotta get back to blogging’ sense),  I never let it bother me too much – after all, it is in line with my usual stance that (on davidmeade.com anyway) blogging for the sake of blogging usually just does a disservice to everyone involved.

When I had something worth posting, I thought, that would inspire me to post again … and until then I’d spare everyone – myself included – the ‘words for words sake’ in their RSS feeds that arbitrary posting schedules can otherwise inspire.

That being said, this past drought has been particularly long … really long.

So long , as a matter of fact that when I finally got inspired to revamp my site design and move to a better hosting company I couldn’t stand seeing posts SO old on my new shiny site.  So I’ve altered the front page of DavidMeade.com to only show posts from the current … *ahem* … year, and relegated all the older stuff purely to the archives.

Don’t worry, (cause I know you would have), all the old stuff is still here, it’s just not on the front page anymore.  Use the Archive links and the search feature to find those old posts and videos you love oh so much.  If you can’t find something you’re looking for drop me a line and I’ll send you a link.

So here we are on a new shiny DavidMeade.com with one sparkling post on the front page.  Does this mean I’m back to posting regularly … perhaps … perhaps not.  All I can tell you right now, is I’ve felt more engaged in blogging and other ‘new media’ lately than I have been in a while.  Not quite back to the degree I was at when I was traveling the country to attend this conference, or that get-together … but that’s ok.  It is what it is.

Also, I’ve been researching various (unrelated) things lately that have increasingly commanded my interest over the past few years and that may inspire a blog post here or there … or it may not.

In any case, I thought it was about time I blew the dust of the mic, and gave a shout out on the interwebs again … it’s been a long long time.

It’s good to be back.

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