A gift from VE7FET

By ve7wnk on March 18, 2014

Lee showed up with a toy for me to play with. There is not much to share or say about this other than it worked like a charm and is a great learning tool.

In the video I look at NOAA weather radio on 162.550…

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RTL SDR, Ham It UP!, and more

By ve7wnk on March 15, 2014

A quick video I put together at BCIT of me messing with my new “Ham It UP!” upconverter for HF signals.

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BCWARN Update at VE7BFC

By ve7wnk on February 2, 2014

The BCIT ARC is back on BCWARN with a new 5.8ghz data link. This new radio replaces the previous VINE radio which operated at 2.4ghz.

BCWARN is a network of EOC (Emergency Operations Centers) and radio clubs which support emergency communications. The BCWARN network is based on high-elevation sites which act as hub-nodes for the network. These nodes are often multi-homed with other sites, forming a partial-mesh or ring topology. The current network map shows a ring between UBC (main internet gateway and server host), SFU (busiest RF site), and Mount Seymour (Highest elevation location), as well as a ring between SFU, UBC, and a high rise in Burnaby known as “The Boot”. These multiple rings allow for sites to fail without sever impact to other sites in the network.

BCIT is a single homed site as SFU is the only site which BCIT can see reliably. A path to Mount Seymour is not possible due to tree cover, even though the mountain is prominent to the north.

Check out the installation photos, and a time-lapse below:

A special thanks goes out to Jeremy (VA7NSA) and Ian (VE7HHS) who did the tower work. Ground support was provided by Duncan (VE7NEO) and Patrick (VE7SDI) while I “supervised” the stationary camera.

Cheers, VE7WNK

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3710 Audio tests from BCIT

By ve7wnk on January 12, 2014

Recordings from the BCIT ARC. Many hams were chatting on 3710kc about their audio quality after a station ended up with some RF (maybe) on their signal.

The following is audio captured at 44100hz mono on BCIT’s IC7600 with filters set to 3.6kHz. I have opted NOT to encode this to MP3 as it will ruin the fidelity, so it’s in 16PCM audio.

Link 1: 3710_1908PDT.wav (61MB)

Link 2: 3710_1937PDT.wav (107MB)

Note: There is white space (silence) in the audio, that is due to me transmitting and I have the monitor circuit disabled. Thanks to the BCIT ARC (VE7BFC).

Here is the LIVE audio (well, about 15seconds behind).

Cheers,

– VE7WNK

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VE7WNK Remote from a meeting room

By ve7wnk on October 21, 2013

Bored in a meeting? Stuck waiting on people to show up? Yup! I dialed into my remote HF setup and listened to some DX on 10meters this morning from a meeting room.

Click me, you know you want to

VE7WNK Remote HF

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