Al Gritzmacher's Blogosphere

From Drop Box

For the second weekend in a row, I took off on the bike for a overnight trip. This time I rode to the Rochester Hamfest in Greece NY, a trip I usually make by car. I go every year and it’s a chance to socialize with fellow Ham Radio operators I often don’t see much any other time. I talked to more Hams I know from Lockport than I see around town.

I belong to one Rochester area Ham club, the Rochester DX Association, and I enjoy meeting and hanging out with them. They always set up a big area at the hamfest for that purpose. You can sell things there, if you don’t have enough to justify setting up your own table. Or just talk.

I rode out on Friday, planning on arriving in the evening and camping overnight. I knew I would need to stay over Saturday night as well, so I asked ahead to see if I could stay the second nigh and got permission.

The trip out was long, but uneventful. I rode the Canalway Trail from Lockport to Medina, then jogged north to Route 31 aka, NY Bicycle Route 5, and took that to Albion. Riding the road was much faster and it was hot and sunny. I was glad to find places to stop and buy something to drink. I pulled into the Super Wal-Mart just outside Albion and bought a lemonade, Vitiamin Water and a candy bar, mostly for a break and a chance to get out of the sun. When I left, I stopped again in the Village of Albion at McDonalds and had one of those Lemon-Strawberry Slushies. I got brain-freeze, but felt much cooled off. Continue Reading…

Well, I almost decided to ride my Trike to the Dayton Hamvention. I had the route all figured out and plotted to take about 60-70 miles each day. It would have taken a full week to get there. The plan would have been to leave Thursday the 12th and arrive at a hotel on Wednesday the 18th of May. I found a room less than 3 miles from the Hara Arena for a very reasonable price.

I though about a room at the QRP-ARCI Four Days In May conference, but that was a fair distance away from the Hamvention. There was a shuttle bus to and from the Hamfest, but I kind of wanted to ride there and partake of some of the BMHA (Bicycle Mobile Hams) events. Plus, the FDIM rooms were nearly twice as much per day as the one I found to the north. Continue Reading…

This is the radio I’d like to take along. It’s got everything it needs to do both voice and APRS.

The whole point of lugging this solar panel along is to have enough power to not need to compromise on my connectivity. I want to be able to blog, to take copious amounts of photographs, to stay in touch with the world, especially my family and friends and have some left over for luxuries like playing Ham Radio along the way.

Since I’ll be traveling alone, the staying in touch will be important. I hope my family will want to know where I am and that I’m safe! I also want to be able to let the people in the cyber-community know how things are going as well.

Ham Radio will also be a part of that. For those of you not familiar with it, you’ll hear a lot about it as I go here. I’ll be using two types of radio communication – almost three, in a way. Continue Reading…

I’ve been digging through a lot of web pages about some Ham Radio topics the past day or two. Digging is a good description, as I could use a shovel to help out.

I’ve been trying to learn a few things about APRS and Packet Radio. I’ve been away from them for a long time. Actually, I never tried APRS, but I was quite heavily into Packet at one time and APRS uses packet radio. I still have equipment that I should fire up and play around with.

But in preparation for my bike tour, I ordered a new radio that has a TNC and GPS built into it. It is supposed to be a self-contained APRS station. So I have been looking for information to prepare me to use it. Continue Reading…