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aprs.fiYesterday I helped my friend Karel, PE2KDK. Karel developed a game based on APRS. Basically you need 2 or more teams for this game. Every team has a team captain. The team itself is in the field and the team captain is at Basecamp. The position of the team is known in Basecamp because one person in the team wears a helmet with a handheld and a bluetooth GPS-mouse in it. In Basecamp we have a APRS-configuration consisting of a Kenwood TM-D700 with a Diamond X200N to pick up the APRS-signals of the handhelds. This is relayed thru a laptop running UIview so the teams are visible on aprs.fi.

In the ‘battlefield’ there are several command posts. These are populated with older scouts. The challenge for every team is to be the first at every command post. The team captain has to look at aprs.fi and talk his/her team to the command posts (every team has also a ‘voice’ hand held to stay in contact to their team captain on Basecamp).

The hard part is: every team can only talk for 2 minutes and then the other team captain gets to coach his/her team for 2 minutes. So effectively every team is ‘unguided’ for a few minutes before they can speak to their team captain again.

Of course this game is really nice for Scouting (for which it was created in the first place). The outdoor element, navigation, team effort, coaching, there are a lot of things you can learn of this game.Besides the bad weather it was a great day and the kids love “The Radio Game” as they call it!

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buddipoleThis weekend another package arrived in the PA1JIM-shack! It’s from Wimo and contains a Buddipole mast of 240 cm (only 66 cm folded) and a tri-pot. So now I’m able to actually set-up the Buddipole in the field.

Still need to align the Elecraft K1 for proper functioning and complete the last 6 CW-lessons. Then I should be able to go out and log some QSO’s with my wonderful portable kit.

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I read K5ND, Jim’s blog for a while now. Jim (K5ND, not me) is an excellent writer and knows how to give Ham radio good PR! Sometimes I comment on his posts and he always replies very friendly. So funny to watch Jim in a video report of Hamvention in Dayton together with N9JA, Ray from Icom. Suddenly you see and hear a voice (I’ve listened to Jim’s podcasts), a face (pictures on his blog) and facial expression come together into one person.

Please watch the video interview (from 17:01 Jim is on) for a view minutes and hear what great things Boy Scouts of America and Icom are doing for Ham radio!