The "Hot Spicy Mustard" Files

My new ham radio "bling"

2013-05-02T00:03:00.003-04:00

After my unexpected, less-than-friendly departure from the Pigeon Forge Titanic Special Event because of a lack of having my license upon my person, I made a photocopy and laminated it for my wallet (which soooooo many hams were soooooo polite to inform me of what a wallet-sized ham license looks like) so that this issue, should it ever occur again, will not prevent me from operating. But I

How to lose friends and influence righteous indignation

2013-04-14T19:32:00.000-04:00

I've been a ham going on 20 years. Back when I got my license, there was no "internet" as we know it today. We did not surf the web, e-mail, blog, or Google. And cell phones? If you were a celebrity or a doctor, you got the privilege of owning one, which might have been a 20 pound battery with a handset strapped to the top of it. & frget txt msging LOL :) Remember these things? We also

Man accused of threatening amateur radio club members

2013-02-19T00:44:00.000-05:00

John David Watkins III Via KSAT San Antonio, TX: Northeast Bexar County resident John Watkins III is accused of making death threats to members of an amateur radio club. Watkins was arrested on two counts of making a terroristic threat, and booked into jail Saturday. Records show he has been released after posting $4,000 bond. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, radio club

So this qualifies as a "Civil Defense Message"...

2013-02-13T02:33:00.000-05:00

Some people watching KRTV in Great Falls, Montana got a startling message on their TV screens last Monday, as an Emergency Alert System, or EAS alert came on their TV screens and then a deep-sounding voiceover cautioned that "Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves." The message advised listeners to tune in to "920AM" and that the

Tesla over Edison

2012-12-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

The Oatmeal had this comic strip back some time back about Nikola Tesla, one of my personal favorite inventors who was generations ahead of his time. Without Tesla, a lot of technologies would not be possible, from AC current electricity to RADAR and even X-ray technology. I've never been too enamored with Edison to begin with, and the more I read about him, the less I like him. Edison was a

Geminids meteor shower pretty active

2012-12-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

I went outside Thursday night in the chilly weather around midnight and the Geminids meteor shower was in full swing. I witnessed a few dozen before having to go to bed. I'm still trying to find a frequency I can listen to in order to "hear" the meteors as they come into Earth's atmosphere. I posted about my search some time ago and still haven't gotten any success in locating a good

Tom Ogle, KE4WFJ, SK

2012-12-03T22:28:00.000-05:00

It's with great sadness I report that one of my closest friends, Tom Ogle, KE4WFJ passed away this morning after a brief fight with cancer. He was 52.He is known to many in the Knoxville ham community, from APRS, chasing high-altitude balloons, DFing QRMers on some repeaters, bike tours, Field Days, and as an NCS for SKYWARN. Tom (right) with me at Field Day in 2010 I hadn't been in touch

SKYWARN Recognition Day this weekend!

2012-11-28T13:00:00.000-05:00

Once again I'll be participating in SKYWARN Recognition Day, Starting officially at midnight UTC 12/1 until midnight UTC 12/2. I'll be at station WX4MRX in Morristown TN during the "graveyard shift". I'm not sure how long I'll be there, as I have to be back home by sunrise. I've participated in several of these from "MRX" and have enjoyed them thoroughly. Usually I end up all by my

433 MHz Tape Measure Antenna

2012-11-05T09:31:00.000-05:00

Stan. Swan (ZL2APS) has an instructional project for building a UHF tape measure antenna (and yours truly makes a special appearance with my VHF-designed antenna) based on the design by Joe Leggio (WB2HOL). Here are the opening paragraphs of his Instructables project: This Instructable relates to the design & evaluation of a simple tape measure based 433 MHz 3 element Yagi antenna. An

Ham Radio business in...TMNT?

2012-10-20T16:30:00.000-04:00

Remember the 1990 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? The comic book martial arts quartet hit the big screen at a peak in their popularity and the world was introduced to reptilian combat as the four turtles (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael, named after famous Italian inventors and renaissance artists, not MPLM modules shipped to the ISS!) battled gangs of ninja thieves plaguing

Stanford Ovshinsky, inventor of the NiMH battery, dies at 89

2012-10-20T03:40:00.001-04:00

Stanford Ovshinsky, who may not be a household name but was the inventor of the nickel-metal hydride battery, passed away Wednesday night at the age of 89 after battling cancer. Throughout Ovshinsky’s 50-year career, he received over 400 US patents that cover a range of different technologies, including NiMH batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and thin-film solar cells. More on

Now THIS is a porcupine

2012-10-08T02:21:00.001-04:00

Every now and then when I go to a hamfest I'll see a plethora of vehicles in the parking lot that look straight out of science fiction, what with antennae all over the trunk, the hood, the top, or somewhere in between. They are affectionately called "porcupines" in many circles. Then there's this guy... Sometimes I'll catch a porcupine on a web site or two, here's one from People of

Nothing much going on

2012-09-10T00:57:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to drop a quick post to keep things busy around here. Not much happening on the amateur radio front these days. There was the Tennessee QSO Party last weekend but I didn't participate, which sucks because I like that event. It used to be the weekend of my wedding anniversary, but a certain someone wasn't enthused about me participating on that particular weekend. Now that it's

Troubleshooting WiFi can be tricky...

2012-08-21T23:32:00.000-04:00

Don't you hate it when your interwebs goes down? It's been happening to me a lot lately where I would lose all connectivity, yet my cable modem and router both say everything's fine, and I've been racking my brain trying to figure out the source of the problem. Like many, my first reaction was to call tech support. When I called, I asked if there was an outage in the area, since it seemed as

Curiosity "UFO" ID'ed?

2012-08-11T00:31:00.001-04:00

The very first picture from Curiosity on the Martian surface turned the internet upside-down because of an object that looked like an odd formation of some sort. However, the image was just a thumbnail, or a smaller sized image of the original to give viewers a glimpse of the original image, and the resolution was not very good due to the thumbnail's small size. Because time was critical due

Incredible videos from Curiosity's descent

2012-08-09T00:50:00.000-04:00

NASA All eyes are on Mars this week as Curiosity made it's landing in one of the most complex maneuvers ever attempted on the red planet. As curiosity descended it took video of its landing via the Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI. The video is grainy as the rover is currently sending thumbnail images (the high-res images will come in eventually, albeit slowly since they are so large and so

NASA gets interactive for Curiosity mission

2012-07-17T22:30:00.000-04:00

The Mars Science Laboratory, AKA "Curiosity" is slated to land on Mars August 5. In preparation for the landing, NASA's come up with a slick interactive game for the Xbox 360 game console. Using the Kinect controller, you guide the Curiosity thru EDL (Entry, Descent, and Landing) as the rover makes its way to the Red Planet. I downloaded it tonight and ot to play a few rounds. The more

Flat TV antenna steals the show

2012-07-12T03:01:00.000-04:00

Via Boston.com: FlatWave digital flat TV antenna by Winegard Co. $39.90 at flatwave.tv Cable television costs a small fortune these days. No wonder more and more Americans are sticking with free over-the-air TV broadcasts. All you need is a TV and a good antenna, like this one. Forget the old-school rabbit ears. The FlatWave is made of translucent plastic about a quarter-inch thick.

The monster continues her reign of terror

2012-07-11T12:01:00.000-04:00

Here's Amber making a contact with W1BIM during Field Day last month. She had so much fun at the Titanic event in April that Field Day was a natural progression. If I can tear her away from Karate lessons and cartoons, I might have her licensed before her 11th birthday!

San Jacinto QRMer arrested again

2012-07-05T21:31:00.001-04:00

via KABC Los Angeles She's at it again! Irene Levy, KJ6CEY, of San Jacinto, CA was arrested by authorities after shining a laser pointer at the driver of a fire truck en route to a call and on the return trip. She gained notoriety in 2010 when she used a ham radio to illegally transmit across the fire and police frequencies, including making bomb threats and other erroneous

California pirate pays extra for not answering door

2012-07-02T23:44:00.003-04:00

Sometimes it's best to just fess up to the crime and take your medicine, otherwise it'll be a lot worse later. Once California ham radio operator who was illegally broadcasting a pirate radio station on the Broadcast FM band tacked an additional $7k to his FCC fine because he didn't answer the door when inspectors came to check his equipment. An amateur radio licensee who should have

How to blow $6 billion on a tech project

2012-06-21T00:27:00.001-04:00

Military Intelligence...an oxymoron if ever there was one... Via Ars Technica: In 1997, the Defense Department began its quest for the perfect family of radios: software-defined radios that, like computers, could be reprogrammed for different missions and could communicate with everything the US military used. Digital signal processing could adaptively use available radio spectrum based on

Earhart's radio transmissions likely were NOT fake

2012-06-13T20:42:00.002-04:00

For decades, pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart was said to have “disappeared” over the Pacific on her quest to circle the globe along a 29,000-mile equatorial route. Now, new information gives a clearer picture of what happened 75 years ago to Ms. Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, where they came down and how they likely survived – for a while, at least – as castaways on a remote

Tornado Tracks

2012-06-05T10:00:00.000-04:00

56 years of tornado tracks compiled into the below image: Click here for more information on the graph.

Where are they now?

2012-06-03T12:30:00.000-04:00

My first QSO on ham radio should be hitting Altair riiiight about............NOW! Where the signals are... (click to embiggen!!!) And just think, the first Marconi signals are even farther out than these!