What is so great about this Ham Radio Software Transceiver?

No extra hardware needed, just your PC, a microphone, speakers and you are ready to call CQ on the virtual Ham Radio bands.

You can feel audio on Hamsphere with simulations of occasional band noise and fading, as in a real radio transceiver. The user interface looks like a real HF transceiver

If you are interested in becoming an Amateur radio operator, here is the opportunity to practice it without buying costly amateur radio gear.
Forget about building complex antennas, raising it on high mast, antenna tuners etc. All you need is an Internet connection and Java support.
Voice (SSB) and CW (Morse code) are allowed on most bands. On the lower bands we can turn on/off(noise-free) the simulation.

Digital modes were prohibited on HamSphere earlier, but are now supported on the 30m band. RRTY, PSK31, SSTV etc can be used.

Pre-requisites: Download JAVA

Download Hamsphere (Windows, Mac and Linux )

For more updates @Hampshere

Possibly Related Posts:

• Free Online Clipboard with security: CL1P.net
• Hamfest India 2011 on December 10, 11 at Cochin, Kerala
• A quick glance at the Linux Kernel
• Few invites left for Diaspora, the open source “Facebook killer”
• FOSSMEET 2011 : Free and Open Source Software meet, February 4-6, 2011 at NIT Calicut, Kerala

Sharing is an easy three step process:

1. 1. Enter a URL that starts with http://cl1p.net
      example: http://cl1p.net/vipinonline/
   1. Paste in anything you want.
      Some text, links, etc. Click ‘Save’ when done.
   2. Access the same URL from the target machine.
      You will find the information you entered in step 2.

   If the information is confidential, you can secure it by going to Options—> Security, then add a password. We can specify the lifetime of the clipboard from 1 hour to 9 months.

   It is not just a clipboard, you can do more with CL1P

• Create a notebook and secure it with a password.
• Have conversations, share the link with your friends. Each of you can update it.
• Create an online community. You and your friends can create cl1ps and link them together using the cl1p link feature

Possibly Related Posts:

• Hamsphere: Virtual Ham Radio transceiver on your PC
• Few invites left for Diaspora, the open source “Facebook killer”
• Yahoo Shutting Down Delicious, Buzz, Other Services : It’s time to backup your bookmarks
• Recover your Gmail and Orkut accounts from Bom Sabado attack
• ICANN explores the possibility of full-fledged use of domain names in all 22 official languages in India

20 years back it was started at Kuttikkanam, Kottayam, Kerala.
It’s a good opportunity to get updated about the recent advancements in amateur radio.

There’s in much in store

• Antenna workshops and demos
• Home brewers’ corner
• Interesting Technical sessions
• Surprise Gifts and Awards
• Wide display of Radio equipment and accessories

Don’t miss it !

For Registration

Indian Hams and SWLs

Early Bird Offer – (July 1 to 31) :Rs. 400/- per person (as per the updates, extended upto 15th August 2011)

After 31 July up to 5th December 2011 – Rs.500/- per person

On the spot registration – Rs. 1000/- per person

International Hams and SWLs

Euro: 20/- or US $ 25/-

Click here to Register Online 

(Early Bid Offer is closed now)

For more information please visit Hamfest India 2011

Route Map

View Larger Map

Nearest railway station is “Ernakulam Town”. Kaloor bus station is also near to the venue.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Hamsphere: Virtual Ham Radio transceiver on your PC
• A quick glance at the Linux Kernel
• Ham Radio workshop conducted at Kerala State Science and Technology Museum, Thiruvananthapuram from December 11-13, 2010
• To the World of Amateur Radio
• FOSSMEET 2011 : Free and Open Source Software meet, February 4-6, 2011 at NIT Calicut, Kerala

by Mr. Manu Abraham at School of Engineering, CUSAT on 5th March, 2011.

Slides:

Source: Mr. Manu Abraham, Linux Kernel Developer/ Maintainer

Possibly Related Posts:

• Hamsphere: Virtual Ham Radio transceiver on your PC
• Hamfest India 2011 on December 10, 11 at Cochin, Kerala
• Ham Radio workshop conducted at Kerala State Science and Technology Museum, Thiruvananthapuram from December 11-13, 2010
• To the World of Amateur Radio
• FOSSMEET 2011 : Free and Open Source Software meet, February 4-6, 2011 at NIT Calicut, Kerala

The target group will be researchers and teachers in the Universities, Colleges and other research institutions. Tentative list of topics to be covered include, recent trends in Fiber Optic communications, Optical fiber components & devices and Fiber optic sensors. Feb 26 will be devoted to tutorials based on fibers to initiate freshers to these areas.

The last date for registration is 16th of February 2011

Phone : 91-484-2675848

Website: www.photonics.cusat.edu

Download Brochure (19.73 KB)

Possibly Related Posts:

• Ham Radio workshop conducted at Kerala State Science and Technology Museum, Thiruvananthapuram from December 11-13, 2010
• To the World of Amateur Radio
• Industrial Fisheries Alumni Association, CUSAT (www.ifalumni.org)
• Internet at its 40th year of existence
• NPTEL free video tutorials for Engineering students from IITs

The workshop was actually very helpful. We built our own 40m JOTA receivers from scratch.
Veteran hams were there to guide the budding ones. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet the veterans and hear them.

Usually it takes more than a month to assemble, troubleshoot and test the receiver, but with the helping hands of VU2DEV and all veterans around, it took only a couple of hours. It’s one of those wonderful moments when the receivers were tested and brought to life. My Rx picked up the transmission from Indonesia !

At the end of the workshop I took home my first Ham radio receiver.

The workshop was very successful and well organised.

Even though I registered late, VU3AUZ Allen managed to get the components and kit in time. I’d like to extend a special word of thanks to VU3AUZ. I am also thankful to SWL Biju, Anith and Shanthi who extended their helping hands to complete the receiver in a single day !

You can find more detailed reports with photos and videos from the following links

Receiver Workshop at KSSTM- The first day

Receiver Workshop at KSSTM -Second day

Receiver Workshop-Third day

There is a Ham radio club station, VU2CLU operating at Kerala State Science and Technology Museum to demonstrate amateur radio to the general public. The club is under the control of  Government of Kerala.

Kerala State Science and Technology Museum

Route Map

View Larger Map

For more information please visit http://tvmhams.blogspot.com

Possibly Related Posts:

• Hamfest India 2011 on December 10, 11 at Cochin, Kerala
• A quick glance at the Linux Kernel
• Workshop on Recent Trends in Fiber Optics and its Applications at International School of Photonics, CUSAT, February 27 – 28, 2011
• To the World of Amateur Radio
• Internet at its 40th year of existence

What is Ham radio?
A two way radio station to talk to people all over the world.  There are no political, social or cultural boundaries. The following vintage video explains it well.

Is it sill relevant at this Internet age?
When you have no infrastructure due to any disasters like earthquake, floods or tornados your ISPs and mobile phones won’t work. Radio Amateurs plays a vital role in disaster management. They provide communications after natural disasters when all the other lines of communications are down.

Ham radio is still the only affordable personal communications system capable of worldwide communications without the use of infrastructure. Hams enjoy operating their own two-way radio station to talk to people all over the world or in their own community. They all have one thing in common, an interest in what’s happening in the world, and they use radio to reach out. It helps to

• learn the technology behind radio, including the finer details.
• an excellent opportunity to meet like minded people and many more !

Many are attracted by the ability to communicate across the country, around the globe, or even with astronauts on space missions.
Amateurs can operate their equipment from wherever they want, in homes, cars, boats, office buildings, even on bicycles.

"Another role amateur radio has to play is in education. It provides the crucial element of hands-on experience for young and old alike who want to explore the world of science and technology. Many scientists and engineers will happily tell you they were first inspired toward their careers by amateur radio. Most people who pursue careers in science and engineering will agree that what gets young people excited about these fields in not reading or listening to lectures, but actually getting your hands on some equipment and making it work. Amateur radio is an excellent way to encourage budding technical professionals.

Amateur radio not only helps young people enter technical careers, but it also serves as a vital interface between people in technical careers and those in non-technical careers. Since the world is an increasingly-technical place, anything we can do to improve the technical literacy of the workforce is good for the nation. Over the years, ham radio has consistently drawn people with no technical background at all who develop a curiosity about not only radio but also other technical subjects. In this way, ham radio has expanded their intellectual horizons and possibly made them better workers, managers and voters."
Source: qsl.net

How to get license to operate Amateur radio ?

Each country has its own licensing arrangements. License tests cover electronics theory and amateur radio rules and regulations.  In US the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) issues the license. In India the licenses are issued by Wireless Planning & Co-ordination Wing under Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

For more details and detailed syllabus about the exam visit the website of hamradioindia.org.

You can download the book A Guide To Ham Radio (ISBN: 81-7480-068-9) for free from Vigyan Prasar Digital Library.

If you are interested, just drop in to your nearest Ham club. Try Ham Radio Search engine to locate one. They would be glad to have you as a member.

There will be new technologies, new modes but, Ham Radio will be around for a long time to come.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Hamfest India 2011 on December 10, 11 at Cochin, Kerala
• A quick glance at the Linux Kernel
• Workshop on Recent Trends in Fiber Optics and its Applications at International School of Photonics, CUSAT, February 27 – 28, 2011
• Ham Radio workshop conducted at Kerala State Science and Technology Museum, Thiruvananthapuram from December 11-13, 2010
• Internet at its 40th year of existence

Diaspora is a "privacy-aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open-source social network". It’s a decentralized alternative to social network services like Facebook. Diaspora works by letting users set up their own server, like a hosted wordpress installation, to host content; pods can then interact to share status updates, photographs and other social data.

It’s your data and you ought to be controlling it. Diaspora is to allow participants to retain ownership of all the material they use on the site, and retain full control over how that information is shared. It categorizes the social connections into individual groups called Aspects, and the user can control which groups see which material.

Choice

Diaspora lets you sort your connections into groups called aspects. Unique to Diaspora, aspects ensure that your photos, stories and jokes are shared only with the people you intend.

Ownership

You own your pictures, and you shouldn’t have to give that up just to share them. You maintain ownership of everything you share on Diaspora, giving you full control over how it’s distributed.

Simplicity

Diaspora makes sharing clean and easy – and this goes for privacy too. Inherently private, Diaspora doesn’t make you wade through pages of settings and options just to keep your profile secure.

In short it’s the social network which respects your privacy the most.

The Alpha version of Diaspora is out !

A few invites are left. Click on the following link to sign up for Diaspora

Diaspora invites

Possibly Related Posts:

• Hamsphere: Virtual Ham Radio transceiver on your PC
• Free Online Clipboard with security: CL1P.net
• Yahoo Shutting Down Delicious, Buzz, Other Services : It’s time to backup your bookmarks
• FOSSMEET 2011 : Free and Open Source Software meet, February 4-6, 2011 at NIT Calicut, Kerala
• Recover your Gmail and Orkut accounts from Bom Sabado attack

A simple tutorial on how to migrate Delicious bookmarks to your Google Bookmarks account is here.

The reminiscent of a by gone era is also bidding farewell. Altavista, one of the pioneer and most popular search engines in its hey days !

Altavista introduced many revolutionary features like free translation service, Babel Fish and propelled the Internet revolution in the late 90’s.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Free Online Clipboard with security: CL1P.net
• Few invites left for Diaspora, the open source “Facebook killer”
• Recover your Gmail and Orkut accounts from Bom Sabado attack
• ICANN explores the possibility of full-fledged use of domain names in all 22 official languages in India
• Wolfram Alpha : The Computational Search Engine

FOSSMeet provides ample opportunities to meet people who are well versed in FOSS.

FOSSMeet is an annual event on Free and Open Source Software at National Institute of Technology Calicut. This event brings together FOSS enthusiasts from all over India. The 2011 edition of the event is scheduled to be held during February 4 to 6, 2011.

It started as FLOSS Meet @ NIT Calicut in 2005 which was a single day event. It is being conducted annually since then. During this period, it has evolved into one of the biggest Free Software conferences in India.

FOSSMeet 2011 is the 7th edition of this attempt at popularizing Free and Open Source Software in India.

It’s a perfect opportunity to meet and chat with FOSS folks. Don’t miss it !

For registration and more information  http://fossmeet.in/ 

FOSSMeet at Google groups

Location Map

View Larger Map

Possibly Related Posts:

• Hamsphere: Virtual Ham Radio transceiver on your PC
• Hamfest India 2011 on December 10, 11 at Cochin, Kerala
• A quick glance at the Linux Kernel
• Few invites left for Diaspora, the open source “Facebook killer”
• Get System Management BIOS table in Human readable format, DMI Decode