Outstanding 3885 nite

[W1IA]

It started out with WA1HZK and myself and the group grew very quickly.
All the local signals went into the bucket, but the upper midwest was hopping including a surprise visit from Warren W1GUD in FL. and Roger K1MBX in NC.
The following: W2JBL, N8ECR, WB0AAC, N8DQU, W8TGR, AB9PD, K9ACT, KA2QFX, W8SF Paul (ticketed in 1937!), K8JK, KE4LRL, and KA8ZMZ.

What a blast...W8TGR Tom broke in on sideband and was welcomed as a new General class license holder by 2 months and had many questions about A.M.  AB9PD Bud, with a new hombrew pair of 3-500's and new to A.M.

We had many low-power stations and with patience all were heard and many happy people who might not normally key-up had a great time.

I think we have a couple of budding A.M. operators in the future!

Thanks to all that joined in and listen up for the small pistols.
 

Brent W1IA

[WA3VJB]

W8SF Paul (ticketed in 1937!),

WOW in the hobby for 70 years !
W8SF Paul was born in 1920 and is a retired professor from Ohio State.
Pulled from his callbook bio:

Sure hope I get a chance to talk with him, I bet he has some stories for us.

[W4RON]

I'll second that, 3885 was really nice this morning.
I just had a good QSO with Ken W2DTC, I was surprised
that he could copy my not quite "strapping"
QRP Icom 706 running about 40 watts AM.

I'm going to have to get busy and get the Viking 2 station on the
air.

Looks like the conditions are really going to be nice not that it's
cooling off.

73, W4RON

[k4kyv]

A few nights ago I listened on 3885, but didn't transmit.  There was an AM QSO  going on, sometime about 0320 GMT.  I noted strong QRM from a bunch of slops up on 3889, but the AM guys either couldn't hear them or exercised the good judgement to ignore them.

After the AM group signed off, I kept on listening for a few minutes, and most members of the 3889 group sounded like reasonable minded hams, but the ring leader was clearly trying to instigate hostility against AM operation on 3885.  He was boasting that whenever he turns on his amplifier, "the AM'ers scoot from 3885 and move down to 3880", and was urging other members of the group to "get their linear going".  I don't remember their calls, but the group consisted of stations all along the east coast from Florida to New York, and they mentioned something about their "net" meeting every evening from 11PM to midnight.

[WA3VJB]

was urging other members of the group to "get their linear going"

Don, did you make a recording of this to send to Riley ?

It's getting to be tired rap to post it on here unless you're urging us to 'get our recorders going' and document this crap. (consider this such a call)

A documented complaint can be done out of view of this page. A subsequent phone call or email to the perpetrators from Riley will show them weeks later that their behavior prompted an enforcement review.

Easy and fun, and any number can play.

[k4kyv]

Does anyone these days sell a simple, not-too-expensive audio recorder that uses flash memory, will record at least 1/2 hour, with medium to high fidelity?  Mono would be ok.

My cassette machines have all pretty much all crapped out.  I was looking in one of the local computer/electronics/hi-fi stores not too long ago, and they did not have any kind of small portable audio recorder, except for those little hand-held dictaphones with built-in microphone and no input jack to patch in external audio from a receiver.  They did have some large, expensive rack mounted dual-deck cassette tape recorders, but I'm not interested in one of those.

And does Riley accept audio recordings sent as sound files by e-mail attachment? 

[Ed-VA3ES]

Don, you want one of those hand-held digital recorders radio news people use.  Good for a couple of hours recording , and they make mp3's.   
Portable digital recorders:
http://www.bswusa.com/searchresult.asp?searchType=category&subcat=digita-por

[ka2zni]

Damn... With those prices I'll stick with my 'ole cassette recorder...

[k4kyv]

They have cheaper ones at the local electronics emporium, but none of them have an external audio input jack.  Portable, with battery capability would be ideal, but I wouldn't even bother with the speaker-to-microphone method of audio coupling.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

The conditions continued later, too. Around midnight I was able to work Rod W5CZ in Indian Hills, CO on 3885 along with Kent KX5KW near Austin AR, O.J. W5OJO in Little Rock, Jim K5WLQ in Richardson TX and a few other 5 Landers Saturday night. Had been talking with G, Johnny Novice, and Uncle Willy down on 3720 earlier, but the band went out somewhere around 8PM, very early and very fast! Seems to be the rule as of late?

The band is still a little flaky, but will only get better as the winter conditions set in. Looking forward to it!

[Ed-VA3ES]

Don,  all the one's I referenced have auxiliary audio in jacks: mic in and line in, in  3.5mm (1/8th ") jacks.  I know  a few local reporters and have examined their recorders.   Very neat devices.    They usually carry  1/8th " to XLR adapters so they can plug in to the news mult boxes at press conferences.

They have cheaper ones at the local electronics emporium, but none of them have an external audio input jack.  Portable, with battery capability would be ideal, but I wouldn't even bother with the speaker-to-microphone method of audio coupling.

[WB2EMS]

Don,

The Olympus VN-4100 seems to meet the bill. At the office depot site it shows as having an external mic input jack, although the Radio Shack site for the same item doesn't mention that feature. Runs on AAA cells and records 144 hours on internal memory and can upload via usb to your computer.

I'm going to have to check one out at RS next time I'm at the mall.

http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=645955&cm_ven=360i&Ntt=audio%20recorder&cm_ite=audio_recorder&cm_pla=Office_Machines-Audio_Recorders&cm_cat=google&uniqueSearchFlag=true&An=text

[k4kyv]

I'll check and see if they have one in stock at the local Office Depot.  I'd rather deal with them than Radio Shack.

Interestingly, they show several other models as well.  They all are more expensive but have less memory and less recording time.

It doesn't say anything about it being stereo, so I'll assume it is mono - which is fine for me.

Thanks for the info.

[WB2EMS]

Hi Don,

In further research last night I discovered that there are two versions of the 4100, the straight 4100 and the 4100 PC. Only the PC version has the USB upload capability to the PC. Apparently at amazon, if you order the 4100 PC a lot of folks are being mistakenly shipped the non PC version. I find amazon is a good place to find a bunch of reviews on the equipment as well, if not always the best place to buy.

Another possibility is that many MP3 players have both built in mic capability for voice recording, and line inputs. That tends to be a feature that got dropped in the new units (probably because the RIAA wouldn't like it, and/or to reduce the size by getting rid of the jacks), but is available on a lot of the older, less expensive units. I have an Iriver IFP-890 that does a very nice job from either mic or line in, and can record stereo or mono at varying quality, some of it very good. You may already have an MP3 player with these capabilities or perhaps someone you know who has upgraded might have one available.

Many of these, including the olympus use a special program to upload and convert to .wav or mp3 file. This is ok, but it's even better to find one that just looks like a USB 'thumb drive' to the PC and can be accessed like any other drive when it's plugged in without any special software.

[k4kyv]

When I go to town today I am going to look at the 4100PC if they have one in stock.

I'm not interested it the physically smallest size available.  In fact, I would rather have a less compact one.  If I obtained one the size of a thumb drive, I would give it less than a month before it would disappear, sucked up by the black hole that haunts my house and shack.

[Mike/W8BAC]

Don,

You have, at your fingertips, the best recording and editing tool you'll ever need. Think of using your PC and I'll supply a copy of Cool Edit free. Make CD hard copies of your chosen content.

As stated above you had your fingers free since you didn't join the QSO so clicking record  and editing it later is simple. CD's are cheep and the right recording format will produce a usable disc that can be played on any CD player. You can even record and play back recordings of your friends easily.

It's up to you but I'd save the money.

Mike

[k4kyv]

It looks like there are two varieties of portable flash memory recorders available.  Inexpensive "voice recorders" have about 256 mb of memory, and are capable of holding up to 24 hours of recorded monaural audio.  The frequency response goes up to about 7000~, but according to the specs, the low end is limited to about 300~.  They cost anywhere from $30 to $150, depending on whether or not they have extra features such as a USB port to allow transfer of files to a computer.

The other variety is the "professional" recorder.  These run stereo audio, and have wider frequency response, but the cost is anywhere from $500 to several thousand dollars.

I did a web search but could not find anything in between the two extremes, like a monaural unit with  50-10K frequency response and medium fidelity audio, @ about $150.

I'm not sure if the 300~ rolloff is inherent to the recorders, or if the response is limited by the built-in microphone and minuscule speaker.  Most units have external mic and headphone jacks, so it would be possible to use higher quality ones than what is built into the unit.

[John Holotko]

Damn... With those prices I'll stick with my 'ole cassette recorder...

I still enjoy my old reel to reel machines. But I never send reel to reel tape to anyone these days as most
people lack the equipment on which to play it.

Speaking of which I need to track down a few "new" reels of tape.