Number 2 Amigan Beacon October 1987 - Hello fellow Amigan Amateurs, the first issue of the Amigan Beacon was well received, judging by the nice letters and notes which were sent in by most of you. Thanks for the encouraging words, and a special thanks to those of you who sent a couple stamps or a little stamp $ to help defray mail costs. - The number of known Amigan Amateurs has doubled to about 45, most of the new ones answered a packet bulletin sent out via the packet network mail forwarding system, and a note in QST's "Online" column (Thanks Stan !). Unfortunately the bulletin stopped somewhere in the Midwest before getting to the West Coast, where I think we'll find some more Amiga / Radio Users. Several bulletins were recently sent out to CA and TX to try to cover that part of the country. If you log onto any West Coast or Southern Amiga BBSs please post a message on the board announcing our group, so that Amigan Amateurs who want to exchange Amiga Radio info can get on our mailing list. - AmigaNet: Doug Frie ( NG2G ) has agreed to be AmigaNet Control. The Net is scheduled for every Tuesday evening at 7:00 PM EDT (23:00 GMT), frequency is 3882 khz + or - for QRM. Starting date is October 6, 1987, though he and I will be there chatting till then anyway, come join us! This first sked will cover the Eastern half of North America, including you who live in Michigan and Canada. As more people join the group from the West and Europe, a 20 meter Net may be started. - Public Domain Disk: Although several fellows sent me blank disks and $'s for copies of the Ham PD Disk, I think we'll hold off finishing them till we get some more West Coast Amigan Amateurs involved. They may have some neat stuff to add to the disk. The disk is currently 40 % FULL, so there is plenty of room for YOUR favorite ham PD program. Send them in ! - Packet: Amigas are great microcomputers for packet radio use because you can monitor or run packet while running other programs. I got a look at Randy Lilly's (N3ET) fledgling Packet BBS program. It's a good start. Since he uses a Kantronics TNC it is based on that TNC's responses, I can't try the program out here. - Terminal Programs: Allan Ebert (VE3AXV) sent news of a Terminal program he wrote in AMIGABASIC to "access and control all functions of the Kantronics UTU." For more info, write to Allan at: 924 Westbury Court, Sarnia, Ontario N7T 7R7, or phone (519) 344-7802. - I've put 2 public domain terminal programs on the Amiga Amateur Radio PD disk, Starterm3.0, & one from N3ET. If you have another favorite PD terminal program that you think ought to be included, let me know. - End of page 1, look on this PBBS for page 2... WB3KRN @ K3RLI - - Issue # 2 Amigan Beacon October 1987 PAGE # 2 - - Fax: Wouldn't it be neat to receive FAX photos and Weather maps on our Amigas ?? Sure, so I ordered the updated ROMs for the AEA PK-232 Terminal Unit. The new ROMs allow FAX reception. The problem is that graphics are sent out to a serial printer, mine is a parallel (Juki 5510 C). I've tried "capturing" the graphics info into a file, then printing the file, but haven't got it going yet. If any of you guys have got the FAX reception going, I'd love to hear about it ! - Slow Scan TV: I wrote to SoftCircuits about the rumor mentioned in Amazing Computing a couple of months ago. The rumor was that they were developing software for Slow Scan TV. My letter was returned by the Post Office,stating they had no forwarding address for SoftCircuits. If you hear anything about SoftCircuits before I do, (or have their proper address) let me know. - Logging & Contests: Allan Ebert (VE3AXV) sent me information on some programs he wrote which are "radio" related. One of the programs is ACE Logger, described as an "Amiga Interactive Logging Program". It is written in AMIGABASIC, and is "intended to be used to log Amateur Radio Activity". You can write to Allan for more details at:924 Westbury Court, Sarnia, Ontario N7T 7R7, or call (519) 344-7802. Allan also has written an "Interactive Command Shell" as an alternative to the CLI. - Some Amiga databases use "dongles" to protect them from being copied and sent out to non-paying users. These dongles plug into the 2nd mouse port. Although on the surface it seems like an OK scheme, my dongle for Superbase started to have contact problems, meaning the program would not always run, so I took an ohmmeter to the dongle. Sure enough, I made a working backup dongle from a 9 pin joystick connector, and a couple resistors. I suppose each company uses different resistor values, so I won't list any here. Look for a resistance between the 5v (pin 7), the analog pot 1x input (pin 5), and the analog pot 1y input (pin 9). - Sources of Information: Here's addresses for the 2 magazines which are devoted to the Amiga: Amazing Computing, PiM Publications, Inc., PO Box 869, Fall River, MA 02722 AmigaWorld, PO Box 868, Farmingdale, NY 11737. - Software Requests: I'm looking for "Screen Reading" Amiga software, to make blind Amiga using easier. Yes, I have a couple of talking terminal programs, but they are more for sighted people who want to hear and see the text, rather than blind users. Any help greatly appreciated... Send info to Kathy. - Wrap-up: That's it for this time. Please keep sending comments, articles, software, and questions in. If you're reading this on packet (there is also a "mailed out" version), and are an Amigan Amateur, please drop me a note via packet or mail to let us know you're out there, and what you're interested in. SYSOPS: If you'd like the Amigan Beacon Newsletter, packet version, to be sent to your PBBS, send me the callsign of the PBBS. Happy Amiga-ing... - Kathy Wehr - WB3KRN (WB3KRN @ K3RLI PBS for packet mail) RD#1 Box 193, Watsontown, PA 17777