We went to see Bruce Willis’ new movie this weekend, Live Free or Die Hard and the amount of general radio coverage was very interesting in the movie, especially if you are a ham radio operator or SWL (short wave listener). Apparently there is a large amount of radio type coverage in all the movies, being a new ham I just hadn’t looked that closely before. I did make a few observations from the latest and greatest from Die Hard.
There were several “radio” shots throughout the movie, because of the nature of the movie I guess (end of the modern telecommunications world etc.), but most were factually incorrect and some were just facts. ICOM did have a presence in the movie, real or not, they were ICOM-ish looking radio’s and a huge number of HT’s were used by everyone, but they were often referred to as CB’s regardless of the radio used. Not to surprising as I guess everyone that isn’t familiar with ham radio thinks every radio is a CB radio.
At one point Bruce Willis’ character is talking to Warlock, a cyber hack, and he points to (what is called a CB radio) a radio with a taped sticker on it that says Frequency 66.6, and is later used when Willis is in a 18-wheeler type truck. The radio he used to make a call on 66.6 frequency was not a CB, and the radio station he was calling was not either. It did look much like a modern HF or all band ICOM. Of course the frequency 66.6000 is not a CB frequency. According to the FCC, it is a public TV broadcast frequency (54.000-72.000 – Broadcast TV (channels 2-4) (6 MHz steps – FMw), and the Citizens Band frequency range is 26.965-27.405 (the 11 meter band).
Another observation was the radio in the NYPD unmarked cruiser was set at 144.330 mhz. This frequency is obviously a 2 meter ham band frequency, which falls in the sub-plan of 144.300-144.500, assigned to new OSCAR subband (the satellite repeater links). Apparently there are many people out there that watch movies just to report on the errors made thorughout making the movies. I personally haven’t paid to much attention to that until now when I noticed such a glaring error in the frequency I had to post something about it. I might just have to go watch the others again now.
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I found this unique build from KC7FYS and I had to post a quick link to it here. 40m Pixie Tin
This 40 Meter CW rig was built out of a Pixie Tin through the help of an old ARRL Handbook. He has some great step by step instructions on how to build the rig, including pictures, and with a little help and just a few supplies it looks like anyone can build their own 40 meter CW pixie tin. Even if you don’t want to build it, it’s worth a look and it is a good read! 73, KI4WLR
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Some of you may know that my wife and I sell books. I have always hunted around for many of those great books on ham radio and never found a good spot to find all of them in one place, so I put together a list of books available from amazon on amateur radio. You can search for a specific ISBN or just click on one of the category links on the left side. If you are looking for a hard to find title just let me know, we can probably find it for you. You can find the store located at http://www.ham-radio-books.com.
I have read (or are reading) both of the ARRL manuals on the FCC Amateur Radio License (Technician Class) and the same manual for the General Class and they are both excellent. Another recommended book would be the ARRL Operating Manual for Radio Amateurs. This book is updated each year and has a lot of real good information for amateur radio as a whole.
There are several books on my “list” to buy at some point, including the book shown to the left. The ARRL Antenna Book is a comprehensive ham radio book on building and learning all about antennas and it has gone through years and years of revisions to be a current, and useful book, and you can usually get it used for around $35 USD.
If any of you have read any good books on ham radio please leave a comment below, I would love to hear the other books hams love to read. 73, KI4WLR
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An updated 2 meter repeater list has been posted now on http://www.islandzephyr.com/ki4wlr/repeaters/ for southern Lee County Alabama. This is not a complete or comprehensive list, but an ongoing work in progress as I find and program local repeaters in my area. Some of the tones may need to be updated. I am also still working on the call signs and exact locations of the towers, if you see anything that needs changing just let me know. 73, KI4WLR
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I took my Ham Radio license exam, Technician class, about three weeks ago and passed on the first try (thank goodness). We have been waiting for my call sign to be issued and now it is official, I can finally use on the air KI4WLR. I installed another antenna on the house and now we are just trying to figure out the first radio to purchase so I can put this new license to good use. The house is beginning to look like a NASA station of some sort. I can’t wait until we put up the tower. That should be a blast.
Along with the antenna installation we went ahead and got an ICOM 2-meter band radio to start off with. The range of the 2-meter with the antenna installed seems to be very good so far. We have been able to listen to people from north Alabama over to Atlanta and into Mississippi. The 2-meter antenna sits pretty high on our property. Our house is one of the highest points, the roof line itself is almost at the tree line, then add a 20 foot mast and the range from here is quite astounding (to me).
Don’t know what’s next but I am looking forward to the ride.
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This Saturday we installed what is to be the first of several radio antennas on the roof of our house. I climbed to the top of the roof and mounted the mast and antenna while Deb ran around on the ground fetching tools and lending moral support. After it was installed we went into attic to retrieve and feed the wiring from the antenna on the roof down the inside of the wall of his office and then out at the base of the wall by an electrical outlet. Hot doesn’t even begin to describe the temperature in the attic in the summer in Alabama. It had to be something in the order of 130*F or more.
The hole saw’s that we own have been used for years and are quite lousy so after fighting with the hole drilling for a while we decided to bring out the big guns. I retrieved the new sledge hammer and it did the trick. Now the scanner is working great with the new antenna installed. It does look a bit sci-fi though. This antenna is called a Ham Discone Radio antenna and I am going to be using it with his Radio Shack Pro-2052 (dual truncking) scanner until I get a 2-meter ham radio, probably an ICOM 2-meter radio.
Can’t wait to see what configuration the next one has. Hopefully it will be a little cooler the next time we try this. The heat was just incredible today and I probably lost 10 pounds just trying to feed the wires through the attic into my office. This antenna can now be seen quite a ways off, maybe we can use it some day to put Christmas lights up with a star on top, you will be able to see it from Birmingham.
