Janee's Traveltales - Summer 2000

Our Trip to W1AW, the other Ham Radio Mecca!

Janee sending a WIN-APRS message to folks back home at W1AW

June 28 we left Madison CT and went north the short distance to Newington Connecticut, the home of ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League, one of the main organizations of ham radio in the USA) Headquarters. We got a tour of the offices and then a tour of the "shack" and then we were able to operate the radios there, making contacts as guest operators of W1AW. What a treat! We had a pileup right away!

Michael was impressed with how neat and clean and well-organized everything was, and with the friendliness of the people there. He said that it felt like he had come home. I was excited to see the graphic designers at work on their computers designing covers and stuff for the ARRL publications. I also was impressed to see Hiram Maxim's ARRL pin "which he wore proudly till his death in 1933"). We got to see THE ACTUAL wouffhoung. We bought a couple of books and a field day pin and took a bunch of pictures.

Field Day! June 24 and 25,2000 was Field Day for Amateur Radio operators in the US and Canada. It runs for 24 straight hours with the goal of contacting and documenting as many other stations as possible. The purpose is to practice and demonstrate our emergency preparedness and also to showcase our hobby to the community at large.

Michael and I participated this year in our own RV "shack". We were running 100 watts with the TenTech Omni VI with the Outbacker antenna that Michael installed. The radio station was completely battery powered.

We made a total of 255 contacts on 10 meter, 20 meter, and 40 meter bands. We talked to people from nearly all over the country! We made contact with a station in Hawaii, several in Colorado, one in Oregon, one in western Washington, and several Canadian stations. We contacted 55 of the 77 ARRL sections in the US and Canada.

Where are we, exactly?
The details about APRS* and GPS

APRS*, or automatic Position Reporting System, is a software package that enables us to display our exact position as it is determined by GPS and transmitted by packet radio.

Packet radio is a digital form of amateur radio communication that uses airwaves to transmit packets of digital information to other other amateur radio packet stations. Some packet stations serve as gateways to the internet, allowing us to display our current position on specific websites. The position links that I offer here are links to one such website!

*APRS is a software package and a registered trademark owned by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR.

Ham Radio Contacts

7/3/00 Michael got on 20M and talked with Randy on Hatteras Island, Victor in Louisiana, Grig, in Brest, Transylvania, and Nick in the Ukraine. He broke through pileups for each of these on his first attempt! We are feeling like quite the DX'ers!

7/5 Michael worked a Russian station and a station in Prague Czechoslovakia. Tried to find Millard but were unsuccessful. I got on a 2M YL net.

Computer Art

I am going to have to be content, for this month, to have Microsoft Image Composer on Michael's laptop. No Photoshop! Well I guess, then, that I can say that I AM roughing it! I'm doing a bit of photo editing for this using Microsoft Image Composer, the software that I used for all my editing and art between last June and January when I got my new computer with PhotoDraw. I didn't get Photoshop till April, but I'm starting to wonder how I SURVIVED without it! The dog photo is an example of my retouching with MS Image composer.

Computer Games

If you know me at all, you know how addicted I am to computer games. I brought along my disk versions of Hoyle Word Games (including WordYacht) and Hoyle Board Games. Also I have Boggle and FreeCell and Minesweeper. I even got online a couple of days ago at Cherry Hill and played Wordox with some people. (I missed you, Playmaker!) I enjoyed playing WordYacht and Boggle with Auntie Dots during our visit.

Website work

Using FrontPage in Michael's laptop, I am keeping this site updated, uploading changes whenever I can get a modem hookup.

Photography

Travel provides lots of unique opportunities for photos! Go HERE to see my gallery of nature photos from this vacation. Be sure to look at Woodlands and Flowers both.

Reading

So far, our stack of unread magazines remains pristine. We have mainly read how-to manuals for the Kenwood radio (the one that is running APRS, see above), and Triple A tour books.

In Pursuit of Fitness

So far, our fitness pursuits have been limited to bran cereal, a bit of walking, climbing up to adjust the Outbacker antenna, and the upper-body exercising from opening and closing our vents.