February 2003
Articles from the
Feburary 2003 issue of CQ posted on our
website include:
Last month's highlights started out by reporting that amateur licensing numbers in the United States appeared to be at a 5-year high. We have an update: After doing some more research, it now appears that we are either at or near the all-time peak for FCC-issued ham licenses. So those of you out there who tell your friends, neighbors and reporters that the ranks of ham radio are slowly shrinking should stop. You're wrong. Ham radio is healthy and growing and there may very well be more licensed hams right now than ever before. There's more detail in the February "Zero Bias" editorial, which is posted here on the CQ website.
One of the main things that gets people interested in ham radio and keeps them active is the opportunity to talk to people in faraway places, better known as DXing. And wherever there's a remote dot on the map without any active hams, there's likely to be a group of amateurs planning to go there to operate. The February issue of CQ gets rolling with a look inside one of these DXpeditions, this one to Ducie Island, in the South Pacific.
Next, we have a look at a real "skyhook." How do you support a temporary vertical antenna for 160 meters ... out in the desert? With a balloon, of course. A group of hams from the TRW Radio Club in California did it and shows us how.
We have our annual market survey in the February CQ, focusing this year on VHF/UHF handhelds. Plus, we have the latest installment in Mike Bryce's very popular series on restoring old Heathkit radios -- this time, the HW-202. Mike's work is always pristine, so we followed up his article with K0GRM's "Confessions of a Radio Modifier (Butcher)." You kind of get the idea that his radios don't look like Mike's when he's done! Finally in our feature articles for February, we have the long-delayed wrapup of the CQ Millennium Award program, along with a profile of one of the two dozen hams worldwide who qualified for all four award segments during 2001.
We introduce two new columns in our February issue, starting with a quarterly mobiling column, driven by Jeff Reinhardt, AA6JR, who already contributes the "Magic in the Sky" column in CQ. The second new column is a blend of two previous columns -- Computers and Internet Editor Don Rotolo, N2IRZ, merges the Digital Wireless column into his, which kind of make sense because there is so much blending of computers, radios, RF and the internet going on in ham radio right now. Don's new column will appear every other month. He starts out this month with a look at cheap high-speed networking.
"Washington Readout" Editor Fred Maia, W5YI, looks at the way license exams are put together; Public Service Editor Bob Josuweit, WA3PZO, talks about better ways of letting the world know about ham radio's role in emergency and public service communications. In "World of Ideas," Contributing Editor Dave Ingram, K4TWJ, takes us through more spider web coils; and in his QRP column, Dave takes a look at "cool clubs and hot goodies."
Beginner's Editor Wayne Yoshida, KH6WZ, discusses "self-elmering," that is, educating yourself about various aspects of ham radio ... while Awards Editor Ted Melinosky, K1BV, poses questions from newcomers to the sport of county-hunting.
All this and more will be in February issue of CQ, which should be in readers’ mailboxes and on newsstands in mid-January.
Zero Bias
The Glass is Half Full
Balloon-Supported Vertical Arrays for 160 Meters Appendix
On the Cover
Paul Bittner,
W0AIH, and his "aluminum farm" in rural Wisconsin