The world -- in your dash!

I have speculated here and in other forums about what a major sea change will happen when wifi internet access is as ubiquitous as cell phone signals or--dare I say it--broadcast radio. Well, it is here, now--at least in a few lucky spots--and it seems to be working moderately well.

Read this article and tell me it is not inevitable that each of us one day has a browser in the dash. God help us if people actually try to surf the web while negoatiating expressway traffic! But think of the ability to listen to radio streams from around the world, as the fellow in this article did, or dialing up MapQuest for driving instructions on the fly (assuming the GPS is not soon as common as the turn signal lever). I think you will see browsers with knobs and dials like radios, or pushbuttons that take you directly to bookmarked streams.

Hey, how about rig control from your car, even if you and your vehicle are in San Francisco and your radio--hooked to the 4-element SteppIR and a 1.5KW amp--is back in Birmingham. Kind of gives "mobile" a whole new meaning, right?

Hang on! This is going to be fun!

Don Keith N4KC

Are the Arabs and eBay Killing Hamfests?

Interesting discussion threads are now active on a couple of amateur radio web sites about the fate of our hobby’s staple meeting event, the hamfest. In the past, these gatherings primarily featured flea markets (“boneyards”) and in-person contact between guys that typically only communicated with each over the air. Larger gatherings included booths manned by manufacturers and distributors and a number of forums, common-interest group meetings, and the like.

I suppose the discussion about how hamfests are faring is being kindled by the world’s largest—in Dayton, Ohio, this week—and how the gas prices and other changes in the hobby will affect attendance there. The general feeling is that eBay along with the ability to buy and sell equipment on the Internet has crippled the traditional ham gatherings. Stratospheric gas prices and other travel expenses are contributing to their demise. Many are struggling. I don’t dispute that times have changed, that some long-running hamfests are either gone already or fading fast, but I also see some events that are still thriving.

My observation—from a very narrow perspective, I grant you—is that small swap meets, pulling from a closer region, and offering lots of socialization and a decent boneyard, will continue to prosper. One reason is that a single bad year, due to weather or energy prices or some other unforeseen factor, doesn't put them out of business. Their investment is small so their risk is, too.

I remember back in the 1970s when the Birmingham Amateur Radio Club had designs on becoming the premier hamfest in the rapidly growing Southeast U.S. But we also realized that with the high rent and overhead for a suitable venue, the dependence on a few major manufacturers and suppliers to show up and support the event, and the other considerable expenses necessary to market such a major gathering, we risked bankrupting the club if something outside our control happened. A spike in fuel costs, a bad weekend of weather, somebody else in some other part of the country deciding to usurp “our” weekend—any of those things could put us out of business. Or a bunch of amateurs—“amateurs” in both radio and convention marketing—might simply not be savvy enough to break even, much less turn a profit.

The type of gatherings I'm thinking of that seem to do well, even with gas approaching $4 a gallon, is like the one at Dalton, Georgia. This is a prime example of a successful, flea-market-driven gathering. Oh, I believe we will continue to have several "national" events—Dayton, Orlando, Dallas, Visalia, and, yes, Huntsville, AL—keyed more to time of year so as not to conflict with each other and within short driving distances of a lot of people. There manufacturers will exhibit, key personnel from major vendors will be present, and important, personality-driven forums will be held. There will be less opportunity to socialize and flea markets will not be the primary draw (though both will continue to be factors). Discount dealers will offer bargain "show specials," distributors of parts and accessories will thrive because attendees can shop for all those odds and ends in one place, manufacturers will debut new gear and support loyal customers and early adopters, and we will all have the opportunity to learn from experts and take in top-line presentations by the "stars" in our hobby.

Certainly the economy and energy prices (as well as the Internet) affect many kinds of events. We see it in trade shows now. Thomas Nelson, a major publishing house (my publisher on the latest book, THE ICE DIARIES), pulled out of the industry's two biggest trade shows this year. Now they bring their key accounts to a big shindig at their place where they can control how they wow them and have their undivided attention…and save money in the process. For them, it is just a better way to do business. The annual radio broadcasters' show now has more exhibitors than attendees and could be on its last legs. Vendors are better off paying for customers to fly to their factory for some kind of roll-out party, knowing they don’t have to compete with the guy across the aisle or the casinos down the street for the customers’ attention. And again, it is much more cost effective than putting scores of employees in airplanes and hotels for a week and shipping tons of equipment to a convention somewhere.

Call it Darwinism, but I believe the shows or events that adapt, that offer what people want, will survive. But those that try to operate and rely on the same draws as they did in 1965, or who make assumptions about what will compel someone to come to their event, will likely go the way of the dinosaur.

That certainly seems to apply to hamfests.

Don Keith N4KC

Does your puppy have an IP address?

It's only a matter of time before each of us, along with our pets, our cars, all our worldly possessions, have our own IP (Internet protocol) address. That means we will be able to be even more exact in addressing people, critters, and things via the Internet, issuing commands, monitoring status, controlling stuff no matter where we are.

Example: you get up in the morning when the alarm clock rings--at a time you pre-set it to do so the night before from your laptop. The wife sleeps on beneath her electric blanket, set for her comfort by the microprocessor in the bed control, just as was your side of the blanket and the hardness of the mattress. You smell coffee perking and the toaster pops up a nice, perfectly-toasted bagel while you shower in water that is exactly the right temperature, just the way you set them to do in the software suite on your office machine. A traffic report for the route to work is available and waiting on your PDA, constantly being updated, as well as the weather for your little corner of the world, and the pre-opening prices on your stocks. But you don't watch them on the tiny little PDA screen. You have relayed them to your 52-inch TV to view while you eat breakfast -- in one window. The other two show ESPN's "Sports Center" and trailers for the new movies due to be in local theaters this weekend, streamed to your TV from a distant website.

Still thirsty when you get to the office, you touch the vending machine in the break room with your PDA and it drops a bottle of vitamin water into the slot for you and charges $1.50 to your phone bill. During the day, you send your browser on your desktop to Fido's IP address to make sure he's okay, has water in his bowl, and is leaving the cat be. You also check on the temperature in the house, answer a call from a telemarketer on your home phone (then hit one key to blacklist that guy's IP), and accept delivery of a new VHF radio the UPS guy brought to your front porch.

(Of course, when the boss is not watching, you fire up the rig in the shack at home from your desk, rotate the beam to the heading you saw on the DX spot on your wrist watch readout, and work a DXpedition while propagation was right.)

If it's a cold day, you start your car out in the deck about ten minutes before quitting time so it will be nice and toasty when you get there. Of course, the vehicle has its own IP that you can address, including choosing the exact temperature in the car and the station that will be selected on the radio when you climb in. Of course, that station could be a stream from Europe featuring blues music or a bluegrass station from California. You could even program the exact songs you wanted to hear, in order. Or you may have the mobile rig already tuned to the roundtable frequency and the screwdiver antenna properly adjusted for you when you get there, just in case you want to talk with the guys on the way home.

The wife sends a text message to the readout on the car's dash letting you know she ordered up some groceries--including two piping hot deli meals--from the grocery store and they'll be waiting at the pickup window...but only once the store's computer senses that you are five minutes away. The meals will be hot and the ice cream won't melt.

Sound far-fetched, futuristic? Most of what I just described is possible today. Is the time coming when everything around us has full Internet addressability? Will we be issued a Social Security number and an IP address when we are born? Is all this good or bad or indifferent? Is that Fido on the dashboard readout, reminding me to pick up his tasty treats?

Don Keith N4KC

N9N -- Update May 3

Things are progressing nicely on our Nautilus North Pole anniversary operating event. I heard from Chuck Motes, K1DFS/NNN0HAL, yesterday and he and his group are having discussions with LCDR Caskey and his staff at Historic Ship Nautilus about where we will be able to set up the stations. The really exciting news is that we will have the okay to operate continuously from 0900 Saturday, August 2, through 2359 Sunday night, August 3. That means someone will get a QSO with N9N at 2315 EDST, August 2, the precise moment when Nautilus and her crew of 116 "pierced the Pole," and became the first vessel to reach that point on the planet.

It also appears that I will have the opportunity for a book signing and speaking event at the Naval Submarine Force Museum and Library sometime that weekend--probably on Saturday. My publisher is also working on some other events in the Groton/New London area as well.

I will continue to update the special events station here on the blog and, if this turns out to be as successful as I suspect it will be, I will do an article on the whole operation so other groups can learn from our experiences. I really like the idea of doing special events stations in public locations. With all ham radio has to offer these days, I think it's a worthy goal to show it to as many people as possible, then let them decide if they want to learn more.

Of course, the reason for N9N is to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of a truly historic event that has somehow not gotten its due with the current generation. That one voyage by the world's most famous submarine literally changed the course of the Cold War and lifted the spirits of Americans at a time when they needed it most.

NOTE: Locate N9N on QRZ.com for details of the special event operation, including days, times, frequencies, and QSL info. By the way, one thing I did not anticipate was that QRZ would post the information so far in advance of the event. As you may know, special event callsigns like N9N are issued for short periods of time and may be issued to several groups during a year. I understand a contest group had the call sign recently and operated in the 7-land and New England QSO parties. That was NOT us from Nautilus. We only expect to activate the call letters on August 2 and 3 or a day or two either side.

Don Keith N4KC

Live forever? Why not?

Several things this week got me to thinking about technological innovation and longevity of lifespan. First was the death of an amateur radio operator I never met but admired greatly--L.B. Cebik, W4RNL. He epitomized the ham spirit of helpfulness through his extensive writings and wonderful website devoted primarily to antennas. Though his true calling was as a professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee, he brought that teacher mentality to his avocation, to the betterment of us all.

Well, that got me to thinking about mortality. Another ham radio acquaintance, Pete Sides, W4AUP, celebrated his 100th birthday last Saturday, and a group from the Birmingham area bused down to Montgomery, Alabama, to join him for a great party that featured some of his old ham gear and QSL cards from decades ago. I didn't get to go but I saw a video of the event at the Birmingham DX Club meeting this week. At one point, Pete said, "People are always asking me what I did to enjoy such a long life. I tell them I know exactly what the secret is. I had the good sense to pick the right parents and grandparents."

Of course! Genetics is probably the biggest factor in enjoying a long, healthy, productive life. Too bad we can't really pick out some long-lived ancestors. (Pete did give one other key to longevity: having a goal. He says his goal is to last at least long enough so he will have been retired as long as he worked, and that will be 2011! By the way, W4AUP is still active and can be heard most mornings at one of several frequencies on 75 meters.)

I've mentioned before in this blog an interesting statement I read someplace that the first person to live forever is already 60 years old. The implications of that are many, and especially to me, since I just turned 60 in December. And then, this week, I saw that the MSNBC web site is doing a very interesting series of articles on extending the life span of us human beings.

Is it because so many of the babyboomers are hitting 60 that we are suddenly so interested in extending our tap dance on this orb? Or is it simply the fact that medical knowledge has now progressed to the point that 150- or 200-year lifespans are not so far-fetched anymore?

As I tell my kids, they were a burden to me for at least 20 years. I expect to return the favor!

Don Keith N4KC

http://www.n4kc.com/

http://www.donkeith.com/

A miracle...just south of 20 meters

You may have heard already about the amazing work of John Kanzius, K3TUP. Using his knowledge of radio waves, he has developed one of the most promising cancer treatments yet. He does not even have a college diploma, but he is now working with top researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, as well as a top Nobel Prize winner. And he is continuing his own battle with leukemia. John's wonderful story was featured last Sunday on 60 Minutes on CBS. If you missed it, click here to see it. It is well worth a few minutes of your time.

There are those who say amateur radio operators are no longer on the cutting edge, no longer using their knowledge and experimenting nature to advance technology. Maybe things have gotten too complicated for many of us to be able to contribute to the body of knowledge. But here's a guy who used his ham rig, a couple of pie plates, and a pack of hotdogs to make what may well be a major breakthrough.

Here's a curiosity, too. The frequency he uses for his cancer killer? Somewhere just below 20 meters.

You gotta love it!

Don N4KC

Now that you have broadband and HDTV...you're obsolete, Lester!

Ponder this breathless prose from The London Times:

"The internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds. At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, 'the grid' will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds."

No, you can't call up Verizon or Bellsouth today and get "the grid," but comparisons are inevitable between this new technology and how the internet that we know and love developed a mere dozen years ago. And if it is truly as spectacular as this article in The Times says it is, you just know everybody will have to have it.

What makes this thing so spectacular? "...the internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch (sic) of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and therefore lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.

"By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years."

But do we really need that kind of access speed to look at email and buy stuff off eBay? No, but get ready for what you will be able to do.

"Ian Bird, project leader for Cern’s high-speed computing project, said grid technology could make the internet so fast that people would stop using desktop computers to store information and entrust it all to the internet."

Hmmmmm. Or how about:

"Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic internet users, many telecoms providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies. One of the most potent is so-called dynamic switching, which creates a dedicated channel for internet users trying to download large volumes of data such as films. In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so."

There's the thing. If this system becomes a better way to deliver entertainment, it will become ubiquitous. This week, the National Association of Broadcasters are meeting for their annual convention in Las Vegas. Would you assume that digital broadcasting and high-definition TV (and even radio) are the main topics, considering analog TV disappears next February?

Wrong! That is so 1998!

The emphasis this year is on 3-D TV. Yes, 3-D. And there's talk of holographic content, where the American idols perform right there in the middle of your den. (Pretty disconcerting for guys like me who just now invested in a HDTV set!)

Can traditional, tower-on-the-mountain RF telecasting handle such bandwidth? Maybe. Or is everything going to have to be delivered through something like "the grid?"

Well, as they say, "Stay tuned."

Don N4KC

(Thanks to my friend Wayne Long for the link to the article cited.)