Cherryville ARC Hamfest March 17, 2012

For New Jersey area hams, the Cherryville ARC Hamfest is tomorrow - March 17, 2012.

Ab Absurdo: The New Dipole

Weatherproofing Coaxial Cable Connections

Weatherproofing your coaxial cable connections is absolutely essential to avoiding moisture  damage which can result in high SWR and other problems which diminish your system performance.  DX Engineering has published a helpful document showing how to do it correctly and effectively.  Be sure to give this a read:

DX Engineering - Weatherproofing Coaxial Cable Connections

Weatherproof cable antenna connector box

Winter has a way of accelerating the deterioration of cable weatherproofing.  With the return of Spring and warm weather (at least here in New Jersey), this is an excellent time to get out and inspect and maintain your coaxial cable connections and weatherproofing.  A few minutes of preventative maintenance is a low cost way to assure your cable system continues operating at peak performance.

73,
NJ2X

60m Operations – New Privileges and Recommended Practices

The ARRL has published an excellent guide to 60m operations.  60m privileges were recently revised by the FCC and came into effect on March 5, 2012. Be sure to read up on these important changes, 60-Meter Operations – New Privileges and Recommended Practices.

Upcoming New Jersey Hamfests

Here are a few upcoming New Jersey area hamfests to add to your calendar:

• Cherryville ARC Hamfest March 17, 2012
• Splitrock ARC Hamfest March 24, 2012
• Raritan Valley Radio Club Hamfest June 16, 2012
• Sussex County Amateur Radio Club (SCARC) Hamfest July 15, 2012

FCC New Rules for 60m Band

March 5, 2012 is the day that new rules for the 60 meter (5 MHz) band go into effect.  The new rules were published in the February 3, 2012 edition of the Federal Register.

Summary of the changes to the 60m band in the Amateur Radio Service:

• Replaces one of the channels with a less encumbered one
• Increases the maximum authorized power amateur stations may transmit in the band
• Authorizes amateur stations to transmit three additional emission designators

Keeping Windows 7 Running Well

We recently experienced a hard drive crash with our laptop which was running Windows 7.  The hard drive problem wasn't immediately apparent as the root cause.  The were a number of symptoms that indicated that something was progressively going wrong with the system including system freezing up, extreme slow performance, inability to make a backup, and other strange behavior.

During the process of diagnosis and eventual identification of the root cause we also discovered a wonderful tool called Iolo System Mechanic.  Iolo System Mechanic is a powerful tool set to keep a PC running at peak performance.  The tool does all the hard work and does not require you to be an expert.  It automatically performs important maintenance work such as:

• Repairs registry
• Accelerates start up
• Recovers memory leaks
• Boosts Internet speed
• Defragments drives
• Stops CPU-hogging items

After we finally determined that our hard drive was failing and replaced it, we reloaded Iolo System Mechanic and have been using it ever since to keep our system tuned for speed and reliability.  It is simply the best tool of its kind that we have tried - easy to use and powerful.  We highly recommend the Iolo System Mechanic.

You can download Iolo System Mechanic for 50% off the regular price.

NJ2X


Other related articles on NJ2X.COM:

• Windows 7 Is A Great Teacher

Famous Quotation: Knowledge

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. -- Frank Herbert