“Don’t Stop Surfin’” is the title of this week’s installment of Surfin‘. After you read it, you can post your comments, if any, back here.
By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that finds and features Web sites that are related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.
Steve Dimse, K4HG, the brains behind findu.com, is planning to do a version of APRS for the iPhone. (That might push me over the brink to buy an iPhone myself!)
Here is what Steve posted this morning on the APRSSIG:
Just curious if anyone else will be getting an iPhone at the end of the month.
It seems that Steve Jobs backed off from the closed architecture he initially proposed, and rumors abound that Apple will release an SDK next week at their developer’s conference. I’m an Apple developer, and I will be writing an APRS version to run on the iPhone if it is possible. Whether it is web based or APRS-IS based depends on what the SDK allows. One rumor is that the SDK will be a modification of Mac OS X widget, which does not allow access to ports to connect to the APRS IS stream, in which case a web app will be the only option.
If anyone gets an iPhone and wants to beta test whatever I develop email me privately.
Steve K4HG (steve@dimse.com)
“Brew Your Own Software Defined Radio, Revisited” is the title of this week’s installment of Surfin’.
Read it here, then come back here and leave your comments, if any.
Yesterday, I wrote here how I want an iPhone. After sleeping on it, maybe not. Here’s why.
My wife and daughter have cell phones. Their provider is Verizon. Verizon is reputed as having very good coverage in these parts, yet their coverage is very spotty up here on top of Compounce Mountain. Some days there is no signal. Other days you have to stand in just the right place to get a signal. Such is cellular life at 1000 ft ASL; the cellular towers are all below us.
The iPhone’s provider is Cingular. Their coverage is reputed as not being as good as Verizon’s in these parts. So, an iPhone would likely be useless most of the time up here.
I guess I will stick with my Powerbook using DSL via WIFI.
I never considered owning a cell phone before. My wife and daughter have cell phones, but not I. However, Apple may have pushed me over the brink today when they revealed their new gizmo, the iPhone.
If you only need one prototype of your printed circuit board design, read this week’s installment of Surfin’ and leave your comments (if any) here.
This week, Surfin’ has “Yet More Tools for Online Hams.” Read it and come back here to post your comments.
Seven thousand one hundred and fifty –five (7155) is the number of songs I have stored on my iPod. I can’t believe it myself!
Primarily, I use my iPod when I am mobile. For a couple of years now, I have used an iTrip with my iPod to transmit the iPod’s audio to my car’s FM radio. It was convenient and worked satisfactorily for a long time. The iTrip’s transmitter is puny weak, so I had to position the iPod just so, otherwise I did not get a good signal into the FM receiver. But I knew all the hot spots in all our vehicles, so it was no big deal.
About a year ago, I would occasionally get interference from other vehicles I passed or passed me during my travels. I am not sure, but I assume it was related to mobile satellite radio installations because the interference was often in the form of a Howard Stern broadcast.
During the intervening year, the interference is more frequent. It occurred three or four times during my daily 35-minute commute and if the interfering vehicle was going in the same direction as I was traveling, the interference could last for minutes. I also started experiencing the same interference from non-mobile objects. For example, there is a house I pass by everyday on my way to and from work that causes the same interference.
I finally abandoned the iTrip and replaced it with a $10 gadget called an iPod cassette adapter. It looks like a cassette tape (it uses the same plastic case as a cassette tape), but has a long cable that plugs into my iPod’s audio output connector. I insert the gadget in my car’s cassette deck and I’m in business again.
I no longer have to deal with interference or the finicky placement of the iPod to find the hot spot. It is a low-tech solution that works.
This week’s installment of my weekly column, Surfin’, is now online. This week, its title is Tooling Around The Internet. Read it if you will and leave your comments here.
Read this week’s installment of Surfin’: What on Google Earth!, then leave your comments here.