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     So, this afternoon I did something that happens fairly often in the summer - I combined ham radio, and gardening!  This isn't really as fancy as it sounds - basically, when our garden is in full-scale harvest mode, every few days we grab a box from the garage, go out and harvest whatever is ripe, pull a few weeds, etc.  Usually gardening time is family time, but once in a while I'm out there on my own.  In this case it was because future operator 1 was playing in her outside playhouse, and future operator 2 was in his pack-n-play next to the YL in the kitchen, who was in the process of making some fermented hot sauce (with Thai Chillies, Habanero Peppers, and Hinklehatz Peppers - this stuff will probably make my bald spot sweat - that's a good thing!)
​     When the rare occasion happens that I'm in the garden by myself, I often grab one of my cheap-o HT's and clip it to my harvesting box, and listen in, and sometimes chat on, my club's repeater while I'm out there.  There are several other gardeners in our radio club so sometimes we end up chatting about Kale, Rhubarb, Asparagus, and the sorry state of Tomatoes in Lancaster County this year.
     So, seeing my HT clipped to the box of beans I had just picked got me thinking - In our house we're on a quest to produce less trash, be more self-sustainable, eat real foods (not too much, mostly plants!)  We often re-watch a TED talk given by Ron Finley (you can watch it here, but warning if you are easily offended - some of the language is defineately not PG rated, but the message is AWESOME) in which he makes the statement that growing your own food is like printing money.  So how many pounds of food would I need to grow to "print" enough money to replace this cheap HT with something proper?

     Well, the haul today was 6 lbs and 1 oz of beans.  Luckily the YL keeps a journal of the garden, so I was able to peek back through things for this year.  Below are just 2 of the many pages she has written - I've seen logbooks with less detail!

 So far this year, everything that was journaled with a weight (sometimes she just writes things like "3 heads of cabbage") added up to 194 lbs.  With the stuff that she notes that we don't actually weigh, we're easily over the 200 lb mark.  I tried to do a generic Google search for "average cost of a pound of vegetables" but all the results I scanned through listed ​specific veggies.  Looking at those results, and for the sake of simplicity I'm going with $1 a pound.  That means we should have an extra $200 available for a decent HT from any of the big 3!  (Don't tell my YL...I'm going shopping!...or not.)
     So, it doesn't actually work that way, but you get the point. Part of our frugality just kind means we do this stuff - it doesn't actually mean we suddenly plan on spending more!
      So finally, here is the whole point - I propose that some enterprising ham, or ham radio club should start a "Vegetables for Radios" program.  The premise would be that kids from areas that are "Food Deserts" can join a day camp program where they garden for part of the day, and do radio stuff for part of the day.  A goofy premise maybe, but I know lots of hams that are also gardeners, so why not!

     On one of the podcasts I listen too, (I don't remember if it was the Ham Radio 360 guys or the Linux in the Ham Shack crew) they have talked about web SDR's a couple times.  Today I finally took a few minutes to play around - granted, it was a short few minutes, but it's something I'm glad I did.

     I checked with the Google machine, and it told me I should check out www.websdr.org for some web listening of the RF spectrum.  When you go to that site, you are presented with a list of receivers that you can access.  You can filter and search through them based on the bands they support, the region they are in, etc.  neato!
     Because I've also been slooooowly practicing morse code (strictly copying at this point - I haven't gotten up the nerve to try a QSO on the air yet) I decided to listen to the CW portion of 20 meters to see if there was anyone transmitting slow enough that I could copy (there wasn't - insert frowny face here.)  
     Anyway, most of the receivers have a similar interface, allowing you to tune around, choose modes, set filters, etc.  The 2 that I looked at also had a "logbook" function where you could enter callsigns of stations that you heard.

     So, while it's neat, what use would most ham's have for this?  After all, couldn't you just turn on your radio and accomplish the same thing?  Maybe....but here are my quick thoughts on what is useful (and FUN!) about these web receivers:

• Not sure if you're getting out?  Pick a receiver in some remote location, or DX land, to see if you can hear your own transmitted signal from somewhere else!
• Don't trust someone else's ears/S-Meter to your A/B antenna comparison?  Do the same as above, to see if there is a difference between 2 of your antenna's.
• Is your QTH noisy with RFI?  Use these to cheat when you want to call CQ for a friendly rag chew! - use a nearby web receiver that is in a location with a lower noise floor to see if you can hear answers to your call that you can't hear with your transceiver
• I travel for work - this is a great way to at least listen in on the bands when I'm traveling and don't have radio equipment with me for some reason.
• Set up a computer with some speakers or a headset at your field day site, for the public to use.  Choose a Web SDR with a simple interface, and type up some basic directions to leave next to the computer.  Visitors to your field day can tune around and listen in on the the bands anywhere they please, not just to your operation!

     Of course, if you just want a Software designed receiver at your own station, there are a number of options, from the inexpensive to the insane.  Quite a few of these can even be set up if you want to run your own SDR server!  If you're interested in that, check out www.websdr.org and click on Frequently asked questions - their are some guidelines if you are interested in setting up your own webSDR server.

     There was recently a fairly large thread that ran through the National Parks on the Air Facebook Group, because apparently a fellow ham, with more enthusiasm than couth caused problems with one of the Parks that Sean Kutzko, (KX9X - the driving force behind NPOTA at the ARRL) had to clean up.  
     Rather than throw my 2 cents into a rather long thread, that was already starting to go down some ratholes, I figured I'd share my thoughts on planning activations and what I have done, to make sure that my operations would go smoothly, follow the rules, and be fun all around.  

     My NPOTA activations are usually tacked onto work trips, so the planning is challenging, because I can't always plan for exact dates and times of activations.  I do generally know however, that I'll be in the area of a park on a certain date range.  By way of example, I knew that I would be passing very close by the Martin van Buren site on my travels today.

     When I know I am going to be near a park, the first thing I do is visit that park's web-site, and check their hours.  I don't want to be the guy poking around somewhere at a time I shouldn't be.  Luckily, many of the national parks have one set of hours for the actual buildings (visitor center's etc.) which are usually somewhat standard 9-5 type stuff.  They often then have a separate set of hours for their grounds - often times dawn-dusk, or depending on the type of park, 24 hours.
     Once I know the hours, I look at the type of park - if it is a park that is a large recreation area, where people would bring all kinds of equipment by the nature of what is in the park (camping, fishing, boating, photography, etc.) I just go, because I know my little activation with my small equipment won't really be any different than any of these other things going on.  If I see (using Google maps) that the park has large parking areas where I could just operate from my car unnoticed, I pretty much do the same thing.
     However, for parks that are small, if I know ahead of time when I'm going, I just e-mail the superintendent and ask.  So far I've only been told no once - I passed that info along through the proper channels on the ARRL site, and I picked another place to go - that simple!  If the park I'm near is a small one, and I have any doubt, I just don't activate!
     Tonight was a good example though, of a case that wasn't clear.  The hours on the park web site looked to me like they were hours for a visitor center, but looking on Google maps, I could see that there was a lot of ground, and even a trailhead parking lot away from the main buildings.  I figured I'd stop and scope it out.  There were no signs posted at the lot when I pulled up, but there was a sign, that had some map / flyer holders, so I grabbed one, and found what I was looking for:
​

     So, according to the flyer, the trail area closes at dusk.  At the time of day I got there, it was after dusk.  There wasn't anyone around, so maybe I would have gotten away with activating anyway, but I didn't - I got back in my car and continued on my journey - sometimes being a good NPOTA activator means you don't activate.  Just learn what you need to learn, and try again another time, or pass along the info to another activator.  In this case, if anyone want to activate this park, there is a nice little trailhead parking area across the road from the visitor center, that would make a perfect place to sit and play radio - just get there before dusk!

    I apologize in advance if this post isn't "radio-ey" enough, but part of ham radio is rag chewing (for the non-hams: rag chewing is the radio slang we use for a casual, on-air conversation), so consider this post my half of our rag-chew!  If you're looking for more radio-specific stuff, check out the categories menu - there's all kinds of stuff there!
     As I write this post I'm sitting in the corner of the new bedroom in the addition we put on our house - the work in this section of the house is what I've been busy with when I've had time for home projects, which is why I haven't made much progress on the shack in the basement yet - but the end is in sight, so I'm hoping to get some time with my tools in the basement, so that all of you can start to see the things that are in my head manifesting themselves in lumber, sheetrock, wire, and radio-goodness!
     I'm also standing by for the start of my club's (W3RRR) weekly on-air net which will be in progress before I finish writing this.  I haven't gotten to participate many meetings or nets because of my new job.  When I'm not out of town on a Wednesday night, I'm spending it with my YL and two little future operators.  This evening however, was a rare one in that daughter-future-operator fell asleep promptly after her bedtime story, son-future-operator is all snug in his crib, and the YL is enjoying a quiet evening bath - that leaves me with my 9-o'clock hour completely free, so I get to listen to the net, and check in, with the sounds of little ones quietly snoozing in the background.
     The hot topic this time of year (and which of course is being discussed on the Net) is always field day.  Last year I was going to be running our club's GOTA (Get on the Air) station to help any non-ham visitors get a turn operating some radio equipment to see what the fun is all about!  Field day last year is what prompted me to get myself in gear to finish building my "Porta-Station"  that I have discussed in previous posts.

      I did finish building it in time for field day last year, but then it rained like nothing else, and with the threat of lightning, our club's field day got cancelled.  I ended up operating from my garage / driveway and made enough contacts to not be in last place in the 1B category (although I was pretty close to the bottom of the list - good thing for me it's more about the fun of it than winning!)
     For this year's field day my goal was to finish my "secret project" in time for field day.  While that is still a goal [ed. Field day is now here, and I didn't meet this goal, but stay tuned to my new posts, because I am making progress and will do the formal announcement and sharing when its done!], because we now have a baby in the house again, I couldn't commit to being away for the whole weekend, so I won't be running the GOTA station. I'm still hoping to have my project done so that I can show it off during the time that I will be at field day to participate!  
​     With that thought, I did get to spend about an hour and half working on the secret project this afternoon.  Stay tuned, because once the project is done (or at least mostly done!) I'll start posting a daily series on the evolution of that project (The first 2 parts are written already!)
     Hope to hear you on the air on Field Day 2016 - stop by the Lancaster County Visitor's Center to meet me and my club members!

     Hey, that was mostly about radio after all!  What can I say...I'm a ham, I end up talking about radio stuff even when I think I'm not going to be talking about radio stuff!

     Oh no!  there are spies trying to listen in on the phone calls at my hotel!

     I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so when I saw this thing in my hotel room connected to the phone I figured there was a legitimate reason, but I know some people would probably freak out!

     So what does the secret black box in a New Jersey hotel room have to do with Ham Radio?  Well - Like any other good ham, when I saw what I supposed was an electronic device connected to a communication device, I took it apart!  What do you think it was?

     Ta-da!  RF Choke!

     Now that we know what it is, we don't have to panic - the foreign spies apparently aren't interested in land line conversations from a hotel in NJ after all - we can breathe a sigh of relief.  With that being said, I guess most normal people wouldn't have done this, they probably would have just looked at the sticker on the front of the device and Googled it - but that's no fun!

     Based on the frequencies it says it is for, I would have to assume that there are some strong AM broadcast signals in the area that were causing problems in the audio for the phone handsets, because these were on both the phones in my hotel room, and the phones in the lobby, etc. that I could see.  I didn't notice anything on the ham bands as I was driving into the area, but then again, the only ham band that falls in the range of this device is 160 meters, which I don't have capabilities for in my car.  Maybe a ham from Secaucus will stumble onto this blog entry and let us know if there are some strong AM signals in the area that could be behind all this business.
     What would you do if you saw a funny black box connected to the phone in your hotel room?  Leave a comment and let me know!