Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Handiham World for 12 March 2008

Welcome to Handiham World!

Since I'll be out of the office next week, the e-letter is also going to take that week off. Avery asked me about it, and I suggested that he do the e-letter by himself. I think he would have jumped out the window to escape right then and there, but he doesn't have a window in his office! Anyway, we will make this issue do double duty, and we will still update the main website at www.handiham.org as necessary.

You never know what you'll discover on the Internet, which is one of the reasons I like checking out sites like Google News from time to time. This morning's discovery was "New Directions Radio" from Mother Earth News. It is a series of columns written for the magazine during the 1980's by Copthorne Macdonald,VY2CM, the inventor of slow-scan television. VY2CM was inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame in 2007. I suspect that Mother Earth News only recently posted these articles, which is why Google News picked them up in March of 2008, as if they were news from a time warp!

One of the things you can do with a Google account is to change your news notification settings so that stories in your interest areas will appear. Of course I am always interested in ham radio stuff, so I modified the Google settings to show more ham radio stories. Some of these new tools can work to our advantage in getting the word out about ham radio publicity successes.

Speaking of successes, Nancy from our office reports that the new lifetime membership is gaining ground with several new members. Thanks to all of you who renewed your Handiham memberships.

Patrick Tice
wa0tda@arrl.net
Handiham Manager