N4RFC.COM

The dog it confused?  I’m confused!

I love Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. He just gets things done. Did you hear that he convinced the County Commission to take over the Animal Control Facility in the County? The Animal Control Facility was in terrible shape and nearly broke. He cleaned it up, put inmates from the County Jail in the facility to take care of the animals. In a few months the facility was clean and organized, the inmates were given jobs at which they made money, and the animals were getting good care.  He is saving the County millions of dollars each year.  It is a Win-Win for all involved, good job Sheriff Joe!

He can also sum up reality very succinctly:

“A liberal’s paradise would be a place where
everybody has guaranteed employment, free
comprehensive healthcare, free education, free food,
free housing, free clothing, free utilities, and only law
enforcement has guns. And believe it or not, such a place
does indeed already exist: It’s called Prison.”

Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Maricopa County, Arizona

This is funny!

Did you notice something different on the website?  Well, the name has changed…..actually, my Amateur Radio Call, for which he site is named, has changed.

I was first licensed as a Novice Class Amateur Radio Operator in 1965 as WN4EJE.  After my novice period, I passed my General Class License test which included a 13 word per minute code test and a technical test, and my call changed to WB4EJE.  I have had that call until December of 2014.

I like to operate CW (morse code for the uninitiated.)  WB4EJE is a terrible call to send and hear on CW.  The problem is, that last “E” on the end is a single ‘dit’ in morse code and frequently gets lost, especially when the bands are noisy or the signals are weak.   I can’t tell you how many times I have had other stations come back to me with ‘wb4ej’ instead of ‘wb4eje.’

The FCC started a program some years ago called the Vanity Call system.  In this system you can dig through all of the unissued Ham Radio calls and pick one that you like for your own.  A lot of Hams, if it is available, will get their initials as their call, or other catchy calls.

The general rule for Ham Calls is the shorter the better.  Basically, the older licenses have the shorter calls.  As more and more Calls were issued the length of the Calls got longer.  They started out as just two letters and one number.  (The number in a Ham Call indicate the region of the US you are in.  There are 10, 0 through 9, plus some funky ones for US Possessions)  Because I am an Extra Class License holder I qualify under Vanity Call system for a one by two call, I.E. W4BC or a two by one call, like WB5C.

However, to complicate matters, a few years ago the FCC removed the requirement from the Extra Class Licensee to pass a 20 Word Per Minute code test.  Apparently the 20 WPM code requirement was keeping a lot of Hams from upgrading from the lower class licenses to the Extra.  (Extra Class is the highest)  When the FCC removed the code requirements a large number of folks that couldn’t pass the code test, but could pass the technical exam became Extra Class License holders and they basically sucked up all the 1X2 and 2X1 calls.  So when I started looking, there was basically nothing much available in a shorter 1X2 or 2X1 call.

So I decided to look for a 1X3, of which there were lots available, that had a nice sound on CW.  After looking I narrowed it down to N4RFC and about 18 other choices.  I got my first choice and there you have it my call is now N4RFC.

I have registered the Internet Domain, N4RFC.COM.  You can now get to my website by either www.wb4eje.com or www.n4rfc.com.  However, in May of this year wb4eje.com will expire and I am not renewing it.   It, like my old call, will go into the pool to used again.  Whatever.

DE N4RFC SK

I was watching a program today on the Science Channel called “Moon Machines – The Navigation Computer.”  This is a six part series that reviews the history of the development of the systems required to complete the Apollo mission to the moon.  This particular episode was on the development of the Navigation Computer used in the command module and the landing computer used in the Lunar Lander.  This was in the late sixties and computers were not what they are today.  The navigation computer has about 72Kbytes for program storage.  The software was being developed at the MIT Instrument Lab.  To store the program in the Navigation Computer they used Rope Memory.   This is a version of Core Memory technology that can be used as a Read Only Memory to store programs.  I had never heard of Rope Memory and I have been around computers for a very long time!

By weaving the sense wires through or around the cores of the memory they can hardware the program into the computers memory system.  Here are a couple of photos of the Rope Memory.

A Rope Memory board having a program “threaded” into the memory.

A Rope Memory wired with a program.