IW5EDI Simone – Ham-Radio

IU – New Ham Radio Callsign Prefix in Italy

The Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico has run out of callsigns with the IZ prefix.

A new IU prefix has been just announced.

The new IU Prefix will be added to the already in use prefixes for ham radio operators, I IK IW and the IZ.

In Italy, we have several other Ham Radio Callsign Prefixes like:

IR that are assigned to FM Repeaters

IQ Are tipically assigned to club stations

but as you probably already know in italy we already have some special prefixes for hams living in particular regions:

IA5: Tuscany islands (Elba , Giglio etc)
IB0: islands of Lazio Region (Ponza, Ventotene, etc.)
IC8: islands of Campania Region (Capri, Ischia, etc.)
ID9: Eolie and other minor islands of north-east Sicilia Region
IE9: Ustica island (Sicilia Region)
IF9: Egadi and other minor islands of west Sicilia Region
IG9: Pelagie and other minor islands of south Sicilia Region
IH9: Pantelleria island (Sicilia Region)
IL7: Tremiti islands (Puglia Region)
IM0: all minor islands of Sardegna Region (Maddalena, San Pietro, etc.)
IN3: Trentino – Alto Adige (special-statute Region)
IS0: Sardegna island mainland
IT9: Sicilia island mainland
IV3: Friuli – Venezia Giulia (special-statute Region)
IX1: Valle d’Aosta (special-statute Region)

So who will use the new IU Prefix ? all new hams not living in the above special areas.

Micromix

Just added a new gadget for my Shack. the Behringer Micro Mix, an amplified audio mixer to optimize audio output management.

With this 4 ways mixer I can connect up to 4 radios and use a single external speaker, can mix volumes, and with an Y cable I’ve also connected my new Yamaha CM500 headsets.
Mixer output is Mono so is perfect for ham radio usage.
Got used for 20 euros.

LoTW : Logs Queue lenght decreasing

After new server’s hardware setup at ARRL LoTW started processing QSOs faster then before.

Delay is now aprox 7 days versus the 10 days performance of previous month.

You can chech the status here:

http://www.arrl.org/logbook-queue-status

IQ5FI DCI FI 465 today

Just back from ARI Firenze HQ where we operted as IQ5FI DCI FI 465.
Tnx Leonardo IW5EIJ for bringing IQ5FI again on air.

Yaesu FT-3000DX – Receiver review

I’ve been told by Rob Sherwood that he will be reviewing the Yaesu FT-DX3000 this month.

All receiver tests will be published in famous receiver test comparison table

Rob Expect to publish data before end of year !

And I will postpone my purchasing decision after that.

Some Yaesu FT DX 3000 resources

Yaesu FTDX-3000

Also Yaesu present during this period a new product, the Yaesu FT DX 3000, a 100 Watt HF and 50 MHz amateur radio transceiver for the casual dxer and for the contester.

By using new down conversion and sharp edged crystal roofing filter technology, this trasceiver is positioned just under the bigger FT DX 5000.

Along to te FT DX 5000 is the sole Yaesu transceiver with a band scope and full digital display.

Aspect and dimension are very compact.

Price is not yet bee announced.

FTDX 3000 at Dayton by IZ4GWE

Gmail goes Morse Code with Gmail Tap

With Gmail Tap announced today (April 1st) , Google adapted the Morse Code to the new Tap interface integrating a morse code interpreter into their Gmail App for Android Smartphones.

At first while reading I did suspected April Fools and so I still believe it could be a joke, but reading comments on play.google.com looks it’s a real announcement…. Let’s see tomorrow.

Ham Radio Repeaters in Italy

An updated and complete list of ham radio repeaters in italy, is mantained by IK2ANE in his website, where you can download the italian repeaters excel file

Here is a subset of Italian Ham Radio Repeaters in Tuscany and in Florence area (FI)

Nome	Freq	        shift	         tone	Prov.	QRA Loc
R0	145.600,0	-600 kHz	1750	LU	JN53HW
R0a	145.612,5	-600 kHz	 	AR
R1	145.625,0	-600 kHz	 	LI
R1a	145.637,5	-600 kHz		AR	JN53XL
R1a	145.637,5	-600 kHz	 	MS	JN54BC
R2	145.650,0	-600 kHz	1750	GR
R3	145.675,0	-600 kHz	1750	GR	JN53LD
R3a	145.687,5	-600 kHz	79,7	MS	JN54BC
R4	145.700,0	-600 kHz	 	PI	JN53IP
R4a	145.712,5	-600 kHz		GR	JN52SU
R5	145.725,0	-600 kHz	 	PO	JN53OT
R6	145.750,0	-600 kHz	 	FI	JN53SR
R6	145.750,0	-600 kHz	 	MS	JN54BC
R6a	145.762,5	-600 kHz		PO	JN54NA
R7	145.775,0	-600 kHz	 	MS
R7	145.775,0	-600 kHz	 	SI
R7a	145.787,5	-600 kHz	79.7	FI	JN53SR
RU0a	430.012,5	+1.6 MHz		FI
RU1a	430.037,5	+1.6 MHz		AR	JN53TP
RU2	430.050,0	+1.6 MHz	79.7	PI	JN53IQ
RU2a	430.062,5	+1.6 MHz	146.2	FI	JN53SR
RU3	430.075,0	+1.6 MHz	79,7	GR	JN53LD
RU3a	430.087,5	+1.6 MHz		MS	JN54BC
RU4	430.100,0	+1.6 MHz	 	FI	JN53SR
RU4a	430.112,5	+1.6 MHz	79.7 	MS	JN44XF
RU5	430.125,0	+1.6 MHz	 	AR
RU6a	430.162,5	+1.6 MHz		FI	JN53SR
RU8	430.200,0	+1.6 MHz	 	LU	JN53HW
RU9a	430.237,5	+1.6 MHz	 	FI	JN53LR
RU11	430.275,0	+1.6 MHz		FI	JN53QS
RU12	430.300,0	+1.6 MHz		FI	JN53SV
RU13	430.325,0	+1.6 MHz	 	FI	JN53OR
RU13	430.325,0	+1.6 MHz		MS	JN54AB
RU14	430.350,0	+1.6 MHz	 	GR	JN52RU
RU15	430.375,0	+1.6 MHz	88,5	GR	JN52TV
RU20	431.325,0	+1.6 MHz	88.5	AR	JN53XL
RU20	431.325,0	+1.6 MHz	88,5	FI	JN53SR
RU22	431.375,0	+1.6 MHz	88,5	SI	JN52TV
RU24	431.425,0	+1.6 MHz		PT
RU26a	431.487,5	+1.6 MHz		LU	JN53GU
RU27a	431.512,5	+1.6 MHz		AR
RU28	431.525,0	+1.6MHz	 	MS
RU28a	431.537,5	+1.6 MHz		GR

In the Florence area, a popular repeater is the R6, on 145.750 -600 it is managed by ARI Firenze.

New 50MHz Band Plan

Looks like IARU Region 1 has published a new Band Plan for the ham radio six meters band, effective from January 2012.

Download a PDF of the latest
IARU R1 Bandplan 2012

or watch a presentation video at UK Six Meter group web site

QRZ.com new Design

Few hours ago QRZ.com published a new design interface.
They moved from the full wide screen size to the more common 970 pixel wide template. Much more similar to most of the blogs and news web sites.

One of the main innovations of this interface, is the navigation menu, that using the drop down feature allow a faster access to the numerous QRZ.com features.

While the Main site template has changes, the Forum template has been unchanged, and this is maybe one of the worst things… a so professional web site, with an huge income in founds, I expect could invest more on usability and web design.

In any case, the load time looks faster than before.