HAMRADIOSAFARI.COM

2011 Old Radio Calendar–Download Free

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:07:30 GMT

Check out this site – click here - and the link at the top of the site’s page. It is the website of WA1KPD and features his love of boatanchors. I downloaded his calendar from 2010 and this year’s as well. Cool site for old radios and a nice calendar from the author. I am still in Florida, trying to work out the details for a return to Africa. Hopefully soon.

Trunk Monkey–Are You Protected?

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:29:37 GMT

Trunk Monkey Chaperone
Uploaded by ZICARLOS. - Sitcom, sketch, and standup comedy videos.

Trouble in the Bush

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:27:59 GMT

You may have noticed that the wspr signal from 5X7JD is off the air. There are at least two unrelated problems.

First, the main electrical transformer supplying line power to our village is out. This has happened before when someone climbed the pole, drilled a hole in the bottom of the transformer and stole the oil. It didn’t take long for the transformer to burn out. Uganda Power has told us they will have power restored in two weeks. I am not optimistic. The last time this happened it was three months!!

Second, high winds are rare in Uganda but once in a very great while a storm will come in off Lake Victoria and wreak havoc. Such has happened and it blew down my antenna. It is, or was, a simple HyGain vertical but it is now in pieces. Tom, my associate in Uganda thinks it can be fixed and I am somewhat hopeful.

So, don’t expect a wspr signal anytime soon. We are experiencing technical difficulties.

Countdown to Independence

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:37:41 GMT

For those who might be interested, I have other blogs. Let me point to on where I am entering a new post every day on the theme “Countdown to Independence.'”

It is a day by day account of the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence in the US. If you’re interested, go to www.duniganreport.com.

The Club – Don’t Let A Stranger Drive

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:23:49 GMT

You’ve likely seen the ad. You might even own one. I have two of them, one for each vehicle. Put one on, keep the key in your pocket, and no stranger can drive your vehicle. Yes, there is a point to this. Please read on.

I want to thank the many supportive comments in response to my last post about how to screw up your radio club. I’ve not been back to that club and do not intend to, but the incident actually provoked my thinking about group dynamics.

I spent thirty years as a trainer and consultant in the non-profit sector addressing the inter-relationships of non-profit volunteer associations. I observed four phases in a group’s life.

First is the beginning, the initial days when enthusiasm and energy boils over everywhere and newcomers are chased after, sought out, and welcomed. The group’s outer edges remain flexible, open, and inviting.

Second, is the solidification stage when processes and procedures harden, systems and ways of doing things are explored, debated, and settled upon. The outer edges, the entry point for new people begin to solidify along with the rest of the group’s systems.

Third, is the ripening stage when the group has money in the bank, long-standing members who now curiously begin to resent new people and view them with suspicion. What had been an adventure has slipped into a comfort zone. New people disrupt the routine. They need attention, bring new enthusiasm when nearly everyone else is winding down (certainly settling down), and those new people have new ideas, want to know stuff, and want to push ahead. Ripe groups want to maintain, not expand.

The Club, pictured at the top of this entry, typifies the attitude. A few people hold the keys. Those people have put a lock on the club so no one can drive it except those proven and approved by the key holders. They mean well, but almost always fail to see the consequences of their attitude and behavior.

After ripening comes what? You guessed it. Rot? Decay is inevitable with only one exception. Like people, if a group is not growing it is shrinking. Life itself means and personifies modification and change. The final phase is death by decay.

Now the group can die along the way – internal conflict that causes division and destruction, social factors that cause too many of the group to move away from the area, moral/ethical/financial impropriety in key leaders that causes members to drop out, and other factors can kill a group. But most do not die this way.

Like people, they die a slow lingering death. What had once been vital, vibrant, vivacious, and victorious devolves into stagnation, retreat, ambivalence, and defeat. And it is not just radio clubs that experience this. I have had only two encounters with radio clubs (one really good, and the last one - really bad), but hundreds of encounters with civic groups, churches, car clubs, Chambers of Commerce, and more.

Any group, particularly those comprised of volunteers is susceptible and most likely will follow the five phases I listed above. This is why it is so difficult to break into an established group.

But it is not inevitable IF certain steps and attitudes are taken and promoted.

1. All office-holders must regularly be challenged with these above-mentioned dynamics. The leader must regularly and continually remind those who serve with them that a soft, living, growing outer edge can and should be cultivated.

2. Procedures and steps must be written into the clubs way of doing things so that new people, new ideas, new energy finds a hospitable welcome and ready channels for expression. There is tremendous enthusiasm and energy in new people. Do not be stupid and let that energy go to waste. Put new people to work.

3. No one wants to hear your struggling pioneer stories. New people have little interest in how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed to get the group to where it is today. The only martyr in history anyone cares about is Jesus and He has groups already.

4. Learn when to step aside and let new blood flow through the arteries of your group. The group can remain vital and dynamic for generations if you make it happen.

So, the local radio club here is probably doomed. Many of you wrote to relate similar experiences and all had the same valid prescription – detach yourself and move on. Speaking of Jesus, He had some good advice – having tried to find some life and energy in a particular place, and finding none, He suggested one should leave and shake the dust of the place off one’s feet. This was not an act of defiance. It was a statement of departure. Simply leave the residue of that experience behind and move on.

I have already connected with a dynamic and vibrant writer’s group here, one which is hospitable and enthusiastic despite having been founded in 1995. And I have made connection with the radio people in my own gated community plus there is a friend from the islands who moved to this area as well. We’re having dinner this week.

Life on the move is good and appealing. Life in hospice should be experienced only once. Life’s span is much too short to sit in hospice care month after month after month, slowly but certainly dying.

If you have any interest in leadership and management topics, I have another blog – www.thepracticalleader.com – which focuses on those areas. Please visit and sign up for free notification of new posts. Also in the sidebar is a free download – The 3 Absolutely Essential, Must Have, Never Fail, Always Present Skills of a Capable, Effective, Successful Leader. I promise – I am not selling anything, you will not get spam from me, and I do not give out my mailing lists to anyone for any reason.

How to Screw Up your Club and Insure Its Demise

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:22:17 GMT

I am back in the States from Uganda and will be here for a few months. Since this is hurricane season, and because I am a social person, I have tried to connect with the local amateur radio club. After five attempts I have given up.

Over a year ago, when we were planning a move to this area of Florida, I googled for clubs and found the website of the local assembly. There on the contact page I found the email of the club president and sent him a message that I was moving to the area and wanted to get connected.

A day later a "read receipt" showed up in my mail box meaning he had received and opened the message. His reply? Nothing. Not a word. No message of any kind.

Well, I went off to Uganda and worked there for about 8 months. About 6 weeks ago, when the date for our return to the US was certain, I tried again. I read the club's newsletter on-line and found an article about up-coming Field Day. The article said the organizer of Field Day was asking for help and provided his email address. I wrote offering to contribute anyway I could when I returned to the US.

The reply? Nothing! No answer at all. So, undaunted I surmised the email did not get through so I sent it again about a week later.

This time I did receive a reply. It was a curt and abrupt message saying "I guess I can find something for you to do," and giving me the time and date of a planning meeting.

When I got back here, I knew this local club has an informal lunch gathering every Thursday at a restaurant near my home. So I went. They were already gathered by the time I got there even though I arrived at the stated time. Did anyone welcome me, ask me to join them? No. Not one.

Undeterred I was determined to press on. I found a seat and tried to strike up a conversation with the man sitting across from me. You would think I was a police interrogator and he was a suspect. The conversation, such as it was, was awkward, forced, and cold.

I left after lunch just about ready to call it quits but, since the Field Day planning meeting was coming up, I decided to give it another week. I went to the lunch again a week later and this one was worse than the first. I might as well have been invisible.

But the Field Day Planning meeting killed it off. I arrived early and entered the room. I introduced myself around and endured eyes of suspicion. When I introduced myself to one man, he said "Yeah, ok," AND TURNED AWAY! He did not introduce himself, welcome me to the meeting, or anything. He just turned away. When the meeting formally began I discovered this was the man in charge of planning for Field Day and the man I had corresponded with.

Once again, I was completely invisible. No one, NO ONE, made any reference to me at any time. I hung around for a bit after the meeting and was again ignored. I was tired of forcing myself onto a group that obviously does not want any outsiders at all.

I drove away determined never to go back. Now I am not an unpleasant person. I have made a living for forty years interacting with the public and most people find me congenial and hospitable. But this was the worst group I have encountered in quite awhile. So here is how to screw up your club and guarantee its demise:

1. When someone makes an inquiry, ignore them. Do not reply to either emails or phone calls. Put your contact info out there, but make sure you don't actually answer anyone. This will put people off and limit your group to those already in it. "No message, no reply" is actually a message. It means "We can't be bothered with actually answering inquiries and responding to people we do not know so please go away and don't bother us again.

2. If someone actually tries to get into the group, make sure they are kept away by not engaging them in conversation.

3. If someone tries to help, lock them out. After all, you have a routine and don't want the system fouled up by new people coming in with more equipment and expertise.

4. Be rude. If someone shows up, look through them but not at them. Do not acknowledge them, engage them, or, gasp!!, invite them to anything your club does. After all, they might actually show up.

Your club won't die right away. It will, however, die a slow and pitiful death, strangled from within by cliquishness and selfishness. One by one you will pass from the scene, your attendance will diminish, your club treasury will shrink, and you will sit around, shake your head, and opine that amateur radio just doesn't appeal to the public anymore.

Signs and signals

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Mon, 03 May 2010 06:15:46 GMT

We were on our way up country a few days ago when we came upon this taxi. The word “taxi” does not mean a car with a meter in it that will take passengers where they want to go. There are those types of vehicles but they are most often called “private hire.” A taxi is a mini van with bench seats licensed to carry 15 passengers who wedge themselves in and for a few shillings get on and off along a predetermined route, much like municipal or intercity bus service.

This one was loaded down and I thought had had an encounter with a tree thus the branches hanging over the rear lights. I learned that those branches were a sign to the traffic police that says “Yes I know I am overloaded carrying more than the licensed number of passengers but this is a family are on their way to a burial. Please allow us to travel unhindered.”

It is a sad fact of life here that there are too many burials. The average life expectancy in Uganda for man is 52 years, for women 53. Someone who has reached my age is considered quite an exception and I am but 59. My gray hair engenders respect and accommodation. School children automatically stand when I enter the room.

There are too few of us here. Disease and war have robbed the country of an entire demographic. There are many families who care for 20 or more children, the sons and daughters of brothers or sisters who have passed.

The people in this taxi were on their way to a village somewhere to pay their respects to someone no longer with us. The branches are a sign to us on the road to grant them passage unhindered. We do.

Codes? We Don’t Need No Stinking Codes!

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:41:47 GMT

We (the dog and I) are back from our walk this morning. On the main street one block up from our flat, we came across this electrical line hookup. This is on the main road, on a major sidewalk (pavement as they call it in the UK). That’s Chumley the dog’s head in the lower right corner. We have passed this way many times in the past months and not work is being done on this installation. Now, having come from a land of codes and litigation, an electrical installation of this type on a street in the US would never happen. It would most certainly not be left this way wherein anyone at anytime could access it. There are, as I see it two ways to assess this:

First, it is laxity on the part of the utility company to not button up this installation before leaving the site. This certainly speaks of a failure to adhere to minimal safety procedures.

Second, it implies a lack of litigation in the system here. Indeed, no one actually sues anyone, most certainly not the government or a public utility. There are few inspectors and those that exist function well on a crony system or can be encouraged with the right sort of gift. What’s more, there is an underlying assumption that the public is not stupid and understands danger when they see it. Warning barriers and signs are unnecessary because common sense would tell a passerby to avoid touching bare wires and connections.

So there it its just as it has for several months, perhaps years. High Voltage connections uncovered and open. And no one has been injured. Granted, it is not the busiest street in Kampala for foot traffic. But it is not an isolated avenue either. It enjoys constant traffic every weekday. (I shot these photos early Sunday morning.)

While I do not advocate dangerous installations of this sort, I do acknowledge the mindset of the culture that allows it to continue. If one were to suggest to the powers that be that such installations are an invitation to a lawsuit, they would laugh at you. It seems that the American system has given rise to litigation prompted by spilling hot coffee on oneself and blaming the seller for it. Or burglars suing owners of burgled property for injuries they, the burglar, sustained while criminally invading that property. We have entire industries now warning people of the obvious. All of this is a vain and foolish pursuit of risk-free living. We want to shift the responsibility, and thus the blame, on someone, indeed anyone else when what is required is simple common sense. If the coffee is hot (and it usually is) wouldn’t common sense warn your not to drive while holding it between your knees. Perhaps I am being ungrateful for the advances of a developed society. Here, in the Third World, there are few consumer protections. I fear the day when this society becomes so advanced as to find lawsuits everywhere.

Wake Island and

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:36:24 GMT

Our QRP beacon continues to reach way out there. In the past 24 hours we’ve been picked up by WA2YUN, Colin Bradley’s station on Wake Island. That is 9116 miles from here. These long distances always amaze me. It is doubtless the sophistication of the equipment, transmitting and receiving, that make them possible.

Yesterday morning I was working in my office with the radio on, scanning through 20 meters when I heard a station in Australia. I paused the scan and responded to his CQ. VK3MO, Ian Williams came back from 80 kms northwest of Melbourne.

Now QSO’s in Australia are not that unusual from here. My rather crude dipole antenna seems to work well off the ends on 20 meters. Since the antenna is aligned east and west, I get fantastic propagation those directions, not very good north and south.

VK3MO was using a very sophisticated antenna as you can see in the photo. His 20 element Yagi on a 200 foot tower has tremendous range as evidence by our QSO. He was beaming long path to me, shooting across the pacific, across North America, across the Atlantic, across Africa to my little station.

Now it is possible he was picking me up from the back end of his antenna. Given the clarity and strength of our signals, this might have been the case. He was 59 here in Uganda, He gave me a signal report of 59+10. Anyway you slice it, it was a great contact.

Kampala’s Radio Row

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:25:59 GMT

Most of us have heard of New York City’s famous and now gone Radio Row.The electronics bazaar sat on thirteen acres of lower Manhattan now occupied by the site of the world trade center, this hodge-podge of family businesses held a treasure of old radios and old radio parts. It’s gone now, a victim of changing times and progressive development projects.

There aren’t many purely electronic supply stores left anywhere. When I was a teenager I worked in my father’s TV and radio repair business in San Bernardino, California. Every day after school I made a parts run in the company truck to Hurley’s Electronic Supply. It was much like an auto parts store and always busy.

I don’t know if it is still in business. Then there was Radio Shack, the victim now of completely inept corporate leadership that thinks a 400 square foot store front can compete with big box stores selling flat screen TV's, entertainment systems, computers, cd’s and DVD's. The last time I visited a Radio Shack, excuse me, The Shack, wanting to buy some parts for some components I was building, I discovered that there was almost nothing left. The wide shallow drawers of switches, fuses, capacitors, and everything else had been reduced by closeout sales to nothing else.

There is the internet, of course. Guys like Dan’s Small Parts has a lot of stuff. There’s a place in south Phoenix that carries a large selection of vacuum tubes, but you can’t really browse through shelves and stacks of goodies. You have to give your request to a clerk who disappears into a warehouse and comes out with the stuff.

I am putting together a battery/battery charger combination to keep a QRP beacon on the air in my absence. This is the radio supplied by Gernot Frauscher I wrote about in a previous post. I told my driver I needed to go to Modern Electronics or Master Electronics on Bomba Road in Kampala. The traffic was typically chaotic and he, my driver, never did find a parking place. He deposited me on the street in front of the two stores and in I went.

It is the closest I have found to the classic radio supply shop. There are no used items, all new stuff and most of it from China. But they have thousands and thousands of pieces. It was a hoot. Up and down the street are dozens more shops selling electrical supplies, appliances, computers, computer supplies, and telephones. It is the type of place you either love or hate. The businesses are chaotic and pandemonium rules. Mostly owned by Pakistanis and Indians, they know their stuff.

There are no microprocessors for sale, no pieces to make PCB’s, but there’s just about everything else. Uganda, and probably most of Africa still have TV and radio repair shops. There are few left in the US, but here you can still take in your set for repair. There are two reasons why televisions, CD and DVD players are still repaired here rather than replaced. One is the initial relatively high cost. In the US, a new unit is usually a small portion of a person’s income. Here it is a significant portion and just buying another is often out of the question. One would have saved a very long time to get enough money to buy one to begin with. This reason gives rise to the next reason. Labor charges are very cheap here. Materials will cost a good deal more than the labor to repair something and even then it is comparatively low. Someone will work on a TV all day and the labor charge will be under $20. Not so in the US. Repair costs there will easily exceed the price of a new unit. Here, repair is much cheaper. So places like Masters and Modern Electronics stock lots of parts.

These are the only two electronics parts stores I know of. Up and down Bomba Road are dozens of computer stores and electrical supply stores as well. If it is powered by electricity, chances are good you will find it or parts for it on Bomba Road. I tell you, if you come to Kampala, go to our Radio Row.

The Cuban Connection

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 05:38:24 GMT

Sunday night, 1940 UTC, 20 meter band, I answered a CQ call from CO6LC. I did not immediately recognize the prefix but was thrilled to learn it was from Cuba! It was my first ever QSO in Cuba. The caller’s QTH is Santa Clara, a city about 50 kms or so east of Havana. I have been through there a few times. Some time ago I made a few trips to Cuba working as a journalist and had the opportunity to travel from Pinar Del Rio on the far west to Santiago de Cuba on the far eastern end of the island.

It is technically not illegal for Americans to visit Cuba. Under the terms of the Economic Embargo Act it is illegal, however, for Americans to spend any money in Cuba. Only certain visitors are granted licenses from the US Treasury Department to breech that rule. I had, actually still have, such a license.

The Cuban people are warm, friendly, and hospitable. Theirs is a very difficult life. (If you want to know the real picture of medical care under the Castro regime, do not believe Michael Moore’s film, ask me. I have investigated it first hand. It is not encouraging when Fidel Castro commends the US for passing health care legislation). Under different political circumstances I would even consider a home in Cuba – great climate, warm, family oriented-culture, and terrific music. (If you haven’t done so, and if you have a propensity for Latin music, check out Omara Portuondo and The Buena Vista Social Club. I think you can get their music downloads on ITunes or Amazon.)

Ernest Hemingway had a home there. I’ve visited the place, now a tourist attraction after Hemingway’s widow “donated” it to the Revolution (donated is a euphemism for “they took it”) when Texaco Oil and United Fruit donated their many holdings to the Revolution at the same time. I do not know the conditions under which Cuban hams are granted licenses but I can guess. I would love to know what kind of gear my contact is using. There was a pile-up and no time to just rag chew. Perhaps another time. My QSL card goes out to him today.

Let Me Tell You About My Doctor

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:25:07 GMT

The following is from the April edition of the Del Tura Country Club HOA newsletter:

One patient came in and said. “Doctor, I have a serious memory problem.” The doctor asked, when did it start?” The man replied, when did what start?”

I remember one time I told my doctor I had ringing in my ears. His advice: Don’t answer it.

My doctor sure has his share of nut cases. One said to him, “Doctor, I think I’m a bell.” The doctor gave him some pills and said, “Here, take these if they don’t
work, give me a ring.”

Another guy told the doctor that he thought he was a deck of cards. The doctor simply said, “Go sit over there. I’ll deal with you later.”

When I told my doctor I broke my leg in two places, he told me to stop going to those places.

But doctors can be so frustrating. You wait a month and a half for an appointment he says, I wish you had come to me sooner.

“What will you now use it for? Emergencies?”

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:47:18 GMT

That question popped up in my email box a few hours after I posted a notice of the QRP transmitter going on line from here in Uganda. My Facebook post began with the preface “To all you techies out there.” It was of course inevitable that even non-techies would read it.

To the uninitiated, ham radio activities and terminology is esoteric. Asking what would be the purpose of a QRP beacon is both logical and understandable.

Here was my reply:

There is an informal network (meaning non-governmental, privately funded) of beacons on every continent. There are also grabbers, sensitive receivers on every continent as well who monitor the performance of the transmitters like mine.

High power transmitters get signals through by sheer force. Low power transmitters (in amateur parlance called QRP transmitters) get signals through because propagation is right.

We study the effectiveness of QRP transmissions to gain deeper understanding to the conditions - atmospheric, solar, magnetic, and the like - that permit long-distance radio communication. And, radio operators monitor propagation through grabbers to determine which ranges of frequencies (called bands) are working best so as to know where to aim broadcasts.

This is an oversimplified explanation but it gets the idea across. Amateur radio rules specify that only enough power shall be used that is necessary to get a signal through. QRP aficionados

like myself see "how low can you go" and still get a signal through. There is a QRP transmitter in Rome using 200 milliwatts,that is 1/5 of a watt.

So here are my questions to you. Was my answer correct? Did I supply enough information for the uninitiated to gain a basic understanding of QRP beacons? What more should I have added?

WSPR QRP Transmitter Installed and On The Air at 5X7JD

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 08:02:49 GMT

Friday, April 2, 2010, I installed the QRP Transmitter developed and funded by Gernot Frauscher, OE1IFM, of Vienna, Austria.

The system has 1W output and cycles through 80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10m, so one can hear the WSPR signal returning every 16 minutes. I hooked it up to my HyGain AV18VS vertical antenna.

The beacon hardware is an embedded system based on a PIC 18F2455 MCU, an Analog AD9851 DDS chip and a MOSFET PA with selectable filters. Time and location information are derived from an attached GPS receiver.

Gernot supplied cables and connectors having sent the radio and accessories down with Alexander Wuerflinger who came down for advance work for a group coming later this summer to install a computer network at a college in Mbarara, a city about 2 hours on farther west of us. Alexander dropped off the box with the radio and accessories at the Aidchild site in Masaka a few days ago. Aidchild is a project with homes, clinics, and academies for orphans who are abandoned and living with AIDS. (Donations greatly appreciated.)

I visited a solar energy supply shop here in Kampala to get a deep cycle gel battery and then to a terrific electronics supply store on Bomba Road to get a charger/adapter for the unit. (I will post an entry on Kampala’s Radio Row in a few days.)

On Friday, I installed the parts and hooked up the antenna. The GPS mouse Gernot sent along has a magnetic base so it attaches nicely to the metal roof of my office.

When I plugged everything in the mouse found a satellite fix in just a few minutes and began transmissions. In the first few minutes of operation we were picked up by grabbers in Japan, Italy, Russia, and Germany. You can check out the propagation here. When you click on this link, type in my call sign – 5X7JD – then click “UPDATE” to see who is picking us up.

Gernot has designed and built an outstanding unit, one I highly recommend. He is considering marketing the unit as a kit and is looking for interesting places to set up beacons. Last year he set one up in Namibia. Check out his website for some of the engineering details. If you are interested in a kit of this radio, send him an email and encourage him to put it on the market.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know beacons are a favored project and I had hoped to get one on the air from our site. When Gernot first approached me some months ago I leapt at the opportunity to have his unit be the cornerstone of my beacon ambitions. Thank you, Gernot!

The Ugliest Birds in Uganda

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 06:41:13 GMT

They’re called Marabou Storks, left-overs from pre-history. Quite large, they stand over a meter tall, some over a meter and a half with a wingspan exceeding 3 meters. Here is Uganda they are a protected species not because their existence is threatened, but because they are so essential to Ugandan life.

Scavengers of the most intense sort, Marabou storks, Leptoptilos crumeniferus, are found throughout sub-Saharan African. But in Uganda they have achieved official status. Locals call them the Ugandan garbage collection system. Anyone killing one can go to jail, so important they are to keeping the countryside and city streets cleaned up.

Now there is plenty of litter here and no one thinks twice about tossing trash out the window of their car. But these birds feed on garbage. So toxic is their physiology that when one of them dies, no other scavengers will disturb their corpse. Not even flies! They just lie there at the place of eternal repose and decay into the soil. Read more about then here.

This photo was taken on the wall of a trash collection bin behind a building in Kampala.

Dipole Goes Up, Vertical Antenna Reassigned to QRP Beacon Duty

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:13:15 GMT

Sunday started out rainy. A steady downpour for nearly two hours meant cool weather and a delay in my plans. I had intended to hang a dipole antenna between two trees on the property, but had to postpone the project while it rained.

My vertical has been working just fine. Pile-ups are the order of the day whenever I get on the air and propagation is anywhere nearly cooperative. But the vertical is about to become permanently connected to Gernot Frauscher’s very sophisticated QRP beacon transmitter. I wrote about this project in an earlier post.

I have Gernot’s transmitter in my possession and will get it installed and running very shortly. Stand by. But, since I am losing the vertical, I need some antenna to operate phone from my Icom.

When I moved here from the Caribbean, I brought with me a partial spool of THHN 12 AWG solid copper wire, a leftover from flipping a house in St. Croix. Since I had the wire and was paying for an extra bag full of radio gear, I decided to bring it along for a dipole antenna. I also brought a WA1FFL Ladder-Loc antenna connector and a spool of ladder line. So Sunday, I got the parts together and waited out the rain.

By 830, the rain was over, but the clouds remained. This was good. It meant the weather stayed cool, the sun not hot. Being right on the equator, the sun is hotter and more intense here than the northern latitudes. I am grateful for shade provided by Mother Nature herself. So, I gathered up a bag full of parts – wire, connector, rope, string, a few tools and headed outdoors.

I tied one end of the spool of wire to the fence and uncoiled it. I ran it all the way out then doubled back. Returning once again to the fence I tied the other end, found the center point, and cut the wire in half. I was not concerned about the length, only that both lengths were the same. I then dragged the two center ends near an electrical outlet. I prepared the ladder line to fit in the connector, stripping back enough to make a solder joint at the end of each leg of the dipole. Out came the soldering iron and solder. In a few minutes the joints were made and the connector assembled. My radio shack at this location is on the second floor. I returned to the shack, opened a window, tied a piece of light cord to a security bar, and tossed out the cord.

Back down again on the lawn, I tied the loose end of the light cord to the spool of ladder line and laid the center point of the dipole directly beneath the shack window, eyeballing the line where the antenna would hang between the two tallest trees. Stretching the antenna out to the tree most difficult to get to, I found a rock and tied a piece of string around it. This would be my guided missile to launch the string followed by nylon rope (all I could find here) followed by the antenna. I had to toss this over two shorter trees before getting the end of the antenna to the tallest “mast.” Tossing the rock proved to be a challenge for the last tree. There is a telephone cable directly in the path of launch so it compromised my throwing style. After a couple of throws I got it over a high branch, but I wanted the higher one.

At this point I lost my mind and tried to pull it back out and over the branch. Well, I jerked a little too hard, the rock made a flying loop around the branch, and is till there today, hanging like a prehistoric Christmas ornament. So, I needed a new rock. I finally found a lighter one and tied it up. A couple of attempts later and it was over the right branch. I tied the rope to the end of the string and threaded it over followed by the wire itself. I tied off the rope to a fence post and gathered up the stuff for the final launch.

The second tree sits out in the open making a toss to a high branch easier to throw if not easier to reach. I could swing the string on this end and fire off the missile. Birds scattered in fright but the rock found its mark on my second try. Feed the line up and over, tie it off and the antenna was up.

I gathered up by tools and climbed the stairs to the shack. Untying the light cord, I hoisted the spool of ladder line up to the second floor and through the window. Allowing some slack, I cut and stripped back the wire, threaded it through the connectors on back of the tuner (a MFJ –974 Balanced Line Tuner) and fired it up. After a half hour or so of tuning each band, marking the settings for reference alter, I tuned through the 20 meter band.

My first station worked was in the Ukraine, US4MCD. Last night I got into Australia easily – VK2GWK. So it works good enough for now. When I return to Uganda later this year I will bring a log periodic and rotator. I can build a tower here quite easily, the antenna is the issue.

Little by little the roster of equipment is expanding. I have one more antenna at the Masaka site I want to connect, a split dipole for 40 & 20 meters, but I am running out of time so don’t think I will get that connected until later.

QRP Matches Ugandan Lifestyle

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:30:49 GMT

March has delivered to me two anniversaries. On March 1st, I celebrated one year as a licensed General class amateur radio operator. Yesterday, March 15th, marked my 5th month in Uganda. I am still a uninitiated outsider here. I have lived in cultures other than my own for most of my adult life, first on the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona, then the Caribbean, and now Uganda. I have come to accept the reality that I am a perpetual outsider but not a tourist. My engagements with foreign cultures have been mostly vocational, not avocational.

To most Americans, Europeans, and those living in “westernized” cities in other places (like Hong Kong, Singapore, or Shanghai), a fast pace and high powered lifestyle is normal. I too like V-8 engines and high-speed internet. I did tire of the pressured corporate lifestyle and made the move to the Caribbean a few years ago, but that’s another story. I find reassurance in reliable and speedy parcel delivery, toll-free telephones, and fast food. But for most of my life I have been able to live without them.

Where I live now there is no cable TV, but we do have a DVD player. We might get mail 2x a month. The internet works most days, but slowly. All in all one learns to adapt and not get too frustrated. When a scheduled appointment does not show up on time, I remember that “on time” in Uganda is as much as an hour and half late. If I call and ask where the appointment is, he will most likely say, “Right now I’m coming.” Which means that as soon as I hang up the phone he will order another drink and get around to actually leaving for his meeting with me sometime later.

This drives some Americans crazy, and it will do so to anyone who insists on imposing an overlay of American customs on Ugandans. Kampala moves more quickly than the rest of the country, but even so it cannot match the pace of Los Angeles or New York. A couple of years ago American consultant was here researching the feasibility of a certain business in this economy. Frustrated at not getting a taxi soon enough, he decided to walk. With briefcase affixed underarm, he set forth to conquer the streets of Uganda at the pace of his native New York. Reports began to circulate in the gossip circuit that there was a muzungu (Ugandan word for white man) mad man out in the streets, you could see him fiercely clipping his way through the crowds of the hotel district.

They thought he was mad, an opinion formed by observation not conversation. I suppose, if we were to look at it from their point of view we would come to the same conclusion. What, they wonder, is the hurry? Why the need to press through? The accompanying photos show only two uses for a bicycle. Motored transport is available, but the bike works just fine and in some cases, gets through better.

Ok, I guess I need to draw some correlation to radio since this is a radio blog. But it is a blog about radio in Uganda and if you check the archives, you will see more than one article about QRP. Qrp is all about doing more with less, about getting a signal through without ramming it through, and about homebrewing. All of these match Uganda living perfectly. When I owned a custom millwork shop in the islands I had lunch one day with friend who owned a cabinet shop. I told her that I saw a big contrast between the people of Uganda and the people of the US. While we in the States enjoy the highest standard of living and the broadest selection of consumer goods, too many of us, I felt and still feel, are frustrated, driven, and angry. But in Uganda, the vast majority are poor as Job’s turkey yet happy, content, and enjoy life when everything I own and use will never be theirs.

Her answer was both remarkable and insightful. She thinks, and I have to agree, that so many Americans are frustrated and angry because we have become a society of consumers, not producers. Very few people actually make anything any more, not even lunch. (We are not suggesting that most Americans feel this way, only that many of us do). We are no longer a manufacturing society. We have outsourced manufacturing and therefore craftsmanship along with the satisfaction of making something ourselves.

This could explain why amateur woodworking is the biggest avocation in North America. This also helps explain the resurgence in QRP and homebrewing. We hams hearken back to the time when we put things together ourselves, when technology was embryonic, and so much about radio was unknown. Back then we threw parts together based on what theory we understood, put power to it, and fired off a signal.

We’re a bit more sophisticated these days, but in principle little has changed. Most of us still don’t know a lot about radio and our grasp of technology is still in its infancy. But we’re having a great time. QRP combines both elements. Pursuit of QRP these days has virtually become a movement within amateur radio. No longer the fringe actions of those odd guys over there, we are rediscovering how good it feels to solder components into circuits and build a radio. Kits help us get over the design hump, clubs add in motivation and assurance, even the internet provides gathering places for mutual education. And QRP is a gentler, even more genteel way of making contact. I’d like to think we are a satisfied lot, but I cannot answer for others. As for myself, I feel pretty good.

Hold on, the phone is ringing.

“Where am I?… Right now I’m coming... Bye.”

Now, where did I put my drink? And where is that assembly manual. I’ve got to go…in a few minutes. Let me solder one more connection.

Mudslide Death Toll Now Exceeds 300

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:16:25 GMT

You have probably seen the reports about the mudslides here in Uganda that have caused so much devastation. The region in which they have occurred are far to the east of here. US military personnel are helping out. Ugandan President Museveni has ordered the evacuation of more threatened villages in the remote area. It is a tragedy compounded by the area’s remote location and the lack of comprehensive emergency services. Ugandans work hard and are dedicated professionals but it is a long, long ways over there. When you get there you will be hard-pressed to find any mechanized digging equipment or more than elementary medical care. There certainly would not be medical air rescue service.

The region is prone to mudslides and the President intends to relocate residents from the area, a task much easier said than done. It is always difficult to displace residents from the home land, even more difficult now that so many have perished. “Who,” the survivors are asking, “will clear the land around the graves of our loved ones if we are forced to move?”

Bududa, on the map to the left, is the location of the catastrophe. I am in Masaka, below and to the left of Kampala. Our area is hilly but not mountainous, rainy, but not overly so. Bududa was a forested region that has been imprudently cleared for farming leaving hillsides exposed to erosion and collapse.

Just a few days after the hillsides fell away, I had a meeting with David Firth, 5X1DF, a Texan working here for a Christian organization building radio stations. David has been here several years and is presently working with the Uganda Communications Commission to set up RACES and ARES type services for the country. In time he will be successful, but there are many obstacles. Under Ugandan law there is no provision for a Ugandan citizen to become an amateur radio operator. Only foreigners can get licenses. He is also working to revive a long-dormant amateur radio club here. I have pledged my support and am optimistic that both projects will see fruition.

Life In Africa - Kampala

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:10:11 GMT

I have been to Africa 4 times before. Those were short visits of no more than a few weeks. Coming to live here for over 8 months presents more complex logistical issues. Being an American from a highly consumer-oriented society like that in the States, I had become quite comfortable with wide access to goods and services.

Now, to be frank, living 7 years on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands help prepare us for life in Africa. Even though we lived in a US Territory there was a certain shortage of goods and it was not easy to just click onto the net and order something. UPS and Fed Ex regards the islands as an international destination and price their delivery services accordingly. So we learned to order with delivery through the Postal Service or freight forwarders.

Uganda is a step further, a big step further. There are no Home Depots, no Wal-marts, no easy or uncomplicated delivery services. There are shopping malls and lots and lots of shops. Just not exactly the kind we are accustomed to. Kampala has a lot to offer. It does not conjure up images of safaris on the African savannah. It is a busy, contemporary, growing and thriving African city. There are some great hotels here, magnificent actually.

And there are thousands of cars and buses. Traffic is a tangled mess most days, and in certain districts absolutely impossible. If you are driving a car for errands or shopping, it can take most of the day just to get to your destination in the city, and then there will be the impossible challenge of finding a parking place. So most locals forego cars and ride on the back of a scooter piloted by a local driver. There are even more of these two-wheeled wonders. They are called boda boda's here. For a few shillings one hops on the back being careful where you grab on, say a quick prayer, and close your eyes. The boda boda driver pays no attention to one way street signs, no attention to stalled traffic, no attention to pedestrians. He just weaves in and out and gets you there in a hurry.

Boda bodas are all over the country and comprise the most often used form of mass transportation. There are surprisingly few accidents but when there is a collision it is understandably quite serious. The rules of the road, such as they may be, consider them as part of the ecosystem and make accommodations for them. Ugandans are by nature mild-mannered and courteous. They speak softly and with deference. Until they get behind the steering wheel! Then they become maniacs. They will make 3 or 4 lanes out of 1, pass on blind corners and hills, hit speed bumps at breakneck, or I should say, break axle speed. I do not drive in the city or on the major roads. We have a driver who has the nerves and fortitude to brave the streets.

So, life in the city when it comes to traffic takes some getting used to. But there is more to Africa than traffic. I'll post some entries about life in the village and on safari. If you've not been to Africa, you really should come here. It is an experience not to be missed.

WSPR beacon will be here the week of March 5th

jackdunigan@mail.com (Jack Dunigan) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 06:36:33 GMT

Several weeks ago I was contacted by Gernot Frauscher in Germany about a WSPR transmitter he developed. You can take a look at his webpage here. The basics are these:

It will cover the bands 80, 40, 30. 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10m
TX power is 1W
It will TX continuously. 2min on each band, so the repeat interval will be 16min for each frequency.
The beacon is set to GPS timing and location mode, so one need only connect everything and turn it on. It will get timing and locator from GPS.

When I came to Uganda I not only wanted to work SSB phone, but I am very interested in QRP and QRSS. A beacon seemed a great idea and I am delighted to have been contacted by Gernot. As our correspondence grew, we developed a plan whereby Gernot would supply his WSPR transmitter and I would put it on the air using my license and call sign here in Uganda. He is part of a team that is going to be installing a network at a university in Mbarara, a city about 3 hours south and west of Masaka. Alexander Wuerflinger, an advance team member is scheduled to visit Uganda the week of March 5 and is bringing Gernot's WSPR transmitter with him. I will supply the antenna, a battery, and power supply. Should have everything on the air in a few days.

WSPR is a fascinating mode. Take a look at the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network if you want a deeper explanation. You can also checkout G4ILO's blog here. The cool things about Gernot's transmitter are that it runs independently of a PC and that it is a multi-band unit. With a simple car battery as backup power, this propagation beacon should run uninterrupted from Southwest Uganda!

It is a wonderful and generous act on the part of Gernot and his friends who are coming to work here in Uganda. Stand by for official notification that we are on the air.