For the first time also, the City of New York had to be ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city for 370 000 people. In the East Coast of the United States, nearly 1 million people have had to be evacuated. Hurricane Irene has a diameter of about 820 km, the equivalent of almost 1/3 third of the total length of the U.S. east coast.

LiveStream Hurricane Irene

A special livestream of Hurricane Irene live broadcast from Manhattan:

Hurricane Irene Live

StormPulse offers a map and updated data in real time: http://www.stormpulse.com/

Live Webcam New-York

Webcam 5 fifth avenue New York: http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/fifthave/

Follow hunters cyclones and hurricanes live

It is also possible to follow the hunters through cyclones maps, updated live, their locations and their activities broadcast video http://www.tornadovideos.net/full-screen-chaser-video.php

Twitter accounts related to hurricane:

• @twc_hurricane: The Weather Channel’s hurricane central account shares the latest updates on Irene’s location
• @NYCMayorsOffice: Official info for New Yorkers on evacuation and transportation
• @FEMA and @CraigatFEMA: tips and latest updates on Hurricane Irene

Click to open full size.

The service is available in the Google Crisis Response project, already used in the past for example for the earthquake in Haiti, and available here: http://crisislanding.appspot.com/

You can also check the new Google Maps Weather Forceast services :

Available here.

Morse Decoder can be used by Ham Radio operators or anyone else interested in decoding Morse code from a Radio or any other device.

Morse Decoder includes a “waterfall” to show a frequency spectrum of about 50Hz to 2300Hz. A narrow band DSP filter can be set for the frequency of the Morse code tones by tapping the waterfall. The DSP filter is followed by an automatic gain control (AGC) to compensate for changing signal strengths.

The detected signal will be shown as a graph and several algorithms will then detect the speed of the Morse code and convert them into readable text. Speeds of less than 4 Wpm (Words per Minute) to more than 50 Wpm can be decoded.

How to decode morse with a Android phone:

Place your Android phone against the speaker of the radio or the device which transmit the Morse code. If there is a tone present the waterfall will display a blue or white vertical line (As stronger the signal as brighter the line) Slide the red rectangular on top of the vertical line. Even though Morse Decoder uses a 200Hz wide AFC (automatic frequency control) it is recommended to move the slider always on top of the vertical line. It may take several initial characters containing both dots and dashes before the WPM speed estimation acquires the actual Wpm and decodes the characters correctly.

Sunspots appear everywhere on the solar disk and one of them the 1226 sunspotactivity shows a very strong, creating a geomagnetic storm on Earth. Solar wind speed 643.2 km / sec, density of 2.4 protons/cm3.

So far, none of these blasts had no effect on the earth, but this is changing as the active region turned toward Earth in the coming days.

This activity allow us these beautiful pictures of Southern Aurora Lights by Ian Stewart via spaceweather.com, aurora australis, seen in Tasmania, Australia May 29, 2011.

DX propgation is back and here to stay from now!

Here are pictures before and after the earthquake and tsunami, available on Google Earth.

Picture of Yuriage in Natori (Japan)

Fukushima nuclear plant after Japan Quake

Sendai aeroport before/after picture

Tomioka near Fukushima after japan quake tsunami

Fukushima nuclear plant explosion Japan

To view high resolution images of the tsunami and earthquake in Japan on Google Earth, download the KML file available.

Satellite pictures source: Google Latlong blog

Website of VA7OJ : http://www.ab4oj.com/ – http://members.shaw.ca/farson/ – http://www.qsl.net/icom/

Icom Japan Global Website : http://www.icom.co.jp/world/

The following figures are based on analysis of 570,000 unique visitors and 55 million page views, only for the month of December 2010, using Google Ad Planner.

Gooole says: Ham radio in US is a male at 66% more than 35 years old for 80%, mainly with some college education for 52% and a household income more than 50 000 $ for 59% of them.

Did you reconognize yourself in this description ?

This may be the case with Google Ad Planner, primarly an online tool to create media plans and advertising on Internet and Google.

So what is the relationship with amateur radio?

Doubleclick / Google Adplanner, lets us know which websites have the more unique visitors, page views, in any given topic, and for ham radio too !

In other words Google knows and reveals “approximate” statistics for any websites or blogs (except those from Google of course) and making more than 2 to 3,000 visitors per day.

This tool provides the first classification, objective and based on the audience of amateur sites in the U.S., here for the month of January 2011.

Top 20 Ham Radio 2.0 by number of page views per month

Top 20 Ham Radio 2.0 by number of unique visitors per month

The total audience for all amateur radio sites is estimated at 55 million page views and 570,000 unique visitors per month and there are 735,000 amateur radio operators in the U.S. in January 2011 (Hamdata)

The top 20 amateur radio 2.0, used Doubleclick Ad planner by Google, and based on the analysis of first 68 sites visited in the U.S. and available here in the ham radio fields interests.

Thoses numbers are approximations with a margin of error ranging from 5% to 30% depending on the site. Data are collected from anonymous sources including Google Analytics, Google Toolbar and external sources.

Trends of traffic for amateur radio websites

Source : Google Trends for Websites

Discovered thanks to the excellent blog of Laurent F1JKJ, Clublog recently published comprehensive statistics based on QSO logs, ordered by HF bands and transmission mode, for over 40 years, from 1970 to 2010 !

Statistics of QSO made on HF amateur radio bands

Statistics of QSO made by amateur radio bands HF

Source : Clublog

As Laurent points out, CW remains stable over time and digital modes are growing to the detriment of voice QSO.

Indeed, CW still the most used mode with 45% of QSO made, 42% for voice QSO, and finally the digital modes (RTTY, PSK31, ROS, …) counting for 13% of all the QSOs.

Clublog become more powerfull with your blog uploaded online, you will get a set of comprehensive statistics on your own business on air.

Coulb be a good idea and time to update or upload your logs (.ADIF format).

Sign up online and then go to upload, for free.

There is also HRDLog which also offers statistics from your traffic log and give additional tools to Clublog.

HRDLog offers the advantage of being able to publish directly on your website in real time your last QSO with details or not.

To operate HRDlog based on Ham Radio Deluxe software suite and Hamlog module that automatically synchronizes each new QSO logged on the PC to the online service.

When your radio station is connected to the PC and hamradio Deluxe 5, an icon “On Air”appears and shows your status on the air to your blog or your website :

HRDLog widget allows many settings to display yours QSO and also a world map with details of last QSO, for example station F1JXQ:

To install on your website or blog, create your widget on HRDLog.

Twitter is a microblogging platform, that allow to broadcast a tweet, a short message of 140 characters to share an information.

The platform has proved useful for example during major events, such as Haiti or Tunisia.

For hamradio, the tool can also help to develop new practices and uses.

Some twitter example of uses for OM

- Follow in real time amateur radio news;
– Subscribe to alert services from DX Cluster;
– Share photos, videos and live impressions during a contest, an activation;
– Tell your friends (followers) your geographical position and send a signal online to indicate his activity on air, in real time;
– Relaying weather alerts, emergency messages, support;
– Etc.

Feel free to share comments about other idea to use Twitter for amateurs radio.

Which equipment is required for a twitter amateur radio?

In terms of equipment, a computer course, but also a smartphone, a phone with a camera and an internet connection and for the ultimate equipment, equipped with a GPS for better accuracy for geolocation. During portable radio activity, Twitter takes a special interest.

Equipment and amateur radio transceiver with antennas of course hi!

How to register on Twitter?

Visit the registration page at: http://twitter.com/signup

Choose your username, use your CALLSIGN in capital letters for easy identification, this will also allow you to have a URL like http://twitter.com/CALLSIGN

The first steps on Twitter

A little bit like for radio communication, with the Q code, there is a code on Twitter with a new language, culture, hashtags, behavior, …

To become familiar with Twitter way of life, you should start by LISTEN, like in hamradio

You will have initially to add people to follow. It will then appear on your wall in real time, all messages sent by people you followed.

To quickly find hamradio, go on my list of amateur radio on Twitter : http://twitter.com/F1JXQ/following

There are also directories of profiles such as We Follow and http://wefollow.com/twitter/hamradio

How to write a message?

A tweet is a message up to 140 characters which requires to be concise.

It may contain a link, however, given the small size of a tweet, it is recommended to use a URL shortener such as http://bit.ly/. You paste the long url to share and get a short link to copy in a tweet. Some software automatically include this feature.

It’s alos recommanded, during events or to indicate topic of conversation, to use hashtag #keyword, and allows to specify the name of a former event, ex. : #vhf-contest or #hamradio.

A tweet can be forward by you or a follower in  Twitter, we call this action ReTweet a message and add RT to mention it.

The RT code is very similar to QSP radio code in fact !

Software for Twitter and Tweeter?

Besides using Twitter from the website, it’s often more convenient to use it with a software on your PC or mobile phone (iPhone, Smartphone).

TweetDeck : both web and mobile and can manage multiple accounts simultaneously,  categorize tweets, shortener URL includes and Tweetdeck is multi-platform: Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace, Foursquare, and Buzz twitter.

Other web / mobile Echofon http://www.echofon.com/

Applications for Twitter

Many tools and apps are being developed around twitter, that has changed its policy for managing passwords and now more security applications from third party tool show here.

Selection of tools and apps for Twitter:

- TwitterFeed To synchronize RSS feed from our blog to your Twitter account.

- Social oomph A comprehensive suite of tools to optimize management of its Twitter account.

- Hootsuite comprehensive dashboards to manage multiple accounts with multiple people.

- Trends map / Interactive map to see keywords by geographic area.

- Twitpic To share photos and TwitVid for video on Twitter.

- Paper.li To create a daily newspaper based on the activity of your account and your friends. F1JXQ example: http://paper.li/F1JXQ

- Tweetbeep to create email alerts for keywords and topics, hashtag.

- TwitterCounter / Provides a set of graphs and statistics of one or more accounts twitter.

- Ustream.tv / To live stream live video from the web and an iPhone or smartphone

- Bulk: Tweetmeme , Twitoaster /

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