KB9MWR's Web site is a source for some interesting Amateur Radio projects that can liven up your ham shack.
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
October 26, 2002
This week, visit the Web site of a ham who is experimenting with interesting new uses for Amateur Radio.
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KB9MWR's Web site is a source for some interesting Amateur Radio projects that can liven up your ham shack. |
I found the Web site of Steve Lampereur, KB9MWR, (http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/) while I was searching the Internet for information about using Part 15 wireless Ethernet devices for Amateur Radio applications, ie, using spread spectrum techniques in amateur packet radio by experimenting with commercial wireless computer equipment that is now readily available to the consumer. The goal is to find "a simple way to build a high-speed, affordable, RF network, where you mimic the Internet and have Web pages, conferencing, FTP," etc. KB9WMR's Web site has a page dedicated to this containing a summary of what it is all about and how you can get involved.
In addition to the Part 15 wireless Ethernet device endeavor, Steve's project page delineates two other interesting projects he has worked on: a weather radio alert computer interface and digital paging system. The former is a simple project for modifying and interfacing the Realistic WeatherRadio Alert III to a Linux computer so that when the National Weather Service issues weather advisory, the computer will transmit the alert via packet radio and/or the Internet, use voice synthesizer software to transmit the alert over 2-meter voice, or anything else you can imagine. The latter is a project for building a paging system that operates over the VHF/UHF Amateur Radio bands. You can use such a system to send weather alerts for Skywarn use, club meeting reminders; "wake-up calls" to yours friend to get them on the radio, etc.
Until next time, keep on surfin'
Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, resides in downtown Wolcott, Connecticut, and is a member of the QQCC (QST quarter century club), i.e., he has been a QST writer for 25 years. Since getting his ticket in 1969, Stan has sampled nearly every entrée in the Amateur Radio menu (including a stint as Connecticut Section Manager), but he keeps coming back to his favorite preoccupations: VHF and packet radio. As a result, he runs a 2-meter APRS digipeater and weather station (WA1LOU-15) from his mountaintop location in central Connecticut. Stan has been a long time advocate of using computers with Amateur Radio and wrote programs to dupe contests and calculate antenna bearings way back in 1978. Today, he is on the board of directors of the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR) and uses his Mac to surf the Internet searching for that perfect ham radio web page. To contact Stan, send e-mail to wa1lou@arrl.net.
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