Sport Pilot Talk

I've long noticed significant overlap between the hobbies of aviation and amateur radio, and this venue supports my conclusion that both addictions stem from a common genetic mutation. At the risk of divulging secret identities, here's a partial list of ham/pilots on this forum. If I've left you off the list, please post.

NAME / USERNAME / CALLSIGN

Paul / drseti / N6TX
Jim / jnmeade / N0OB
Marcus / daidalos / WA2DCI
Jack / Jack Tyler / N3FYP
Brian / ka7eej / KA7EEJ (Duh!)

I know there are others out there, so please speak up. Maybe we can plan our own fly-in hamfest.

Just yesterday, this same Q came up in our local EAA chapter meeting. One of the gents asked because he was recommending APRS as a tracking/reporting/locating service for pilots who were at least Technician level hams. But only two of us raised our hands. In this era of handheld satcoms and countrywide cell service, hams seem to have disappeared even faster than pilots!

There's been a sort of resurgence of ham interest with Computer/Geek types...
Have you guys seen http://twit.tv/show/ham-nation ?

I was once flying a B-767 over the NorthAtlantic from London to New York. Flight ahead had been talking to a ham radio guy in Oklahoma but had to change frequencies so we picked up and talked to him for a while.

He was very clear and signal was strong, which was amazing since at that time we had to use HF radio to make position reports with either Gander or Shanwick and quite often they were difficult to communicate with...atmospherics etc.

Guy in OK apparently quite often talked to flights over very long distances...very cool!

I've never talked overseas as you have, but one Citation I flew had an HF radio in it and I'd check into my Army MARS nets when I could.

What are the oceanic frequencies, do you remember? I suppose I could look them up.

I have a K3 with KPA500 amp. My antennas for that range are an 80 meter inverted V, an 80 meter broadband dipole, and a 40-80m inverted L. I also have a StepIRR to cover 6-40 meters. It's on a Tajian tower with a rotor. To be honest, my radio operating has taken a back seat to farming and flying, but I need to get on it again and work some DX.

The oceanic HF frequencies were for position reporting (now mostly done automatically via satellite) and I don't remember which ones are assigned for that. Besides they're only for that use.
Between reporting points aircraft used the common oceanic VHF and monitored 121.5. It was on the common freq that the airliner ahead asked if we wanted to talk to this guy on a particular HF freq. Which is what we did.

There lots of freqs used...one BA had one for the BBC world news and another so he could hear the cricket matches between England and Australia!

In the 'long distance communications' category, we used our small Icom 706 with a Pactor modem for 11 years and across 2/3 of the earth to get email every single day, download wx graphics and text f'casts. The wx info was very helpful to us (one no-longer-young couple out on the ocean by themselves) but hey, nothing improved crew morale like pulling down email from family & friends when thousands of miles away!

www.winlink.org
www.sailmail.com

Were you using a Pactor II or III? $$$ Can Pactor I work with Winlink as you used Winlink?

Mine was a Pactor II, subsequently upgraded. Folks with Pactor I units weren't having much luck as I recall. But a whole lot has changed and a search at Winlink.org would be a far better source than me.

Gene Mohr / KG4VOC/ General with Morse Code.

AF4N showed me several of the APRS boxes he has built and used over the weekend and it was interesting to learn how many individual ham stations - just folks with an interest and spare computer - have chosen to work as 'repeaters' for the APRS system. A simple/elderly 2m h/h transceiver, one of these small analog/digital converters and an external antenna (or maybe even one hung inside, behind the seats, depending on the aircraft) will now allow a flight from Florida to Maine to constantly be posting its position in-flight, there are so many 'volunteer APRS stations'. As with most of these ham-related services, the attraction aside from putting the pieces together is the cost...or rather the lack of cost. After buying (or perhaps assembling), there's no cost involved in posting positions nor in the positions being viewable on-line by friends/family.

Bruce / Merlinspop / KD8KSX (General)

Welcome to the thread, Gene and Bruce. Thanks for checking in.

73 de N6TX

W3IXK Had my ticket since the 50's.

David