If you thought that beardy ham radio operators slurping tea in sheds full of wires and glowing valves had gone the same way as the Sinclair C5 and 8-track cartridges, think again.
f According to P. Surendran, secretary of Quilon Amateur Radio League in India, the huge growth of mobile phones poses no threat to the usefulness and popularity of Ham radio.
Speaking to the Hindu Times, Mr. Surendran extolled the benefit of ham radio over mobiles, “You can only communicate with one person on a cellphone, but on the Ham radio, you can talk to a large number of radio operators using the same frequency.”
Foxhunting
Mr. Surenderan and his chums had gathered to organise a ‘foxhunt’ competition.
Unlike the UK, this doesn’t involve a load of toffs in fancy dress trampling over crops in a bloodthirsty quest to pull a creature apart, but something rather more sedate.
It the gentle world of Ham operators’, their sport involves a ‘fox’ of the human kind going into hiding with wireless equipment and an external antenna.
Once burrowed away in a hidden location, the fox then sends out periodic ‘beep’ signals which participants in the foxhunt try and trace.
The winner is – surprise surprise! – the first person to unearth the fox.
There’s life left in the ‘umble ‘am
Mr. Surendran also explained the benefits of Ham radio over mobiles in more remote locations, pointing out that mobile charges made it a more expensive medium and that coverage was not always available.
Ham radio signals, on the other hand, could be sent to any part of the world wherever another Ham, operating on the same frequency, was located.
Moreover, Ham radio can provide an alternative way to communicate with people, especially during emergencies and disasters
But before you start clearing out your shed and practising your, “Alpha Alpha This is Dudley” call sign, bear in mind that some Ham leagues have stiff rules.
In the case of the Quilon Amateur Radio League, it’s a case of “No sex, no politics, no religion and no business.”
And that, sadly, looks rather like, ‘no fun’ in our book.
eHam.net Home – (Ham Radio Community Site
Radio Society of Great Britain
After putting the book on subtle design through the shredder, Pure’s designers have come up with the dazzling new Pure One, a DAB digital radio for under £50 – in bright pink.
The scrolling text monochrome display shows station name, status icons, time and signal strength, with one touch tuning giving quick access to 20 DAB and FM (with RDS) stations.
Supported by a full 2-year warranty, the Pure One will be available from May 2006.
A clever new scheme from WifiTastic makes it pie-easy for home broadband users to turn their connections into revenue-generating wireless hotspots.
Although free shared connections tend to appeal to our right on ideals more, there’s no denying that this smart, simple system looks to benefit both owners and those who need Wi-Fi access and are prepared to pay for it. Other companies like the 
Don’t be fooled: natural language doesn’t mean speech; and Numéro isn’t referring to speech recognition, when it says it has found a method of “entering a new phase in shopping… an intelligent SMS technology for retailers that can understand unstructured text messages – or plain English – allowing customers to shop from their mobile phones.”
You send a text, and it responds. “If a customer wants to ‘find stores in Manchester that sell DVDs’ or ‘find a hotel room for three nights in Manchester city centre’ then the system will read and understand the text and send back the information. It will also give them a choice of reserving or ordering the product or service they want, and organising a home delivery,” said Colclough.
“The product, éSMS, has the ability to enact complex business transactions like product purchases, price comparisons, stock availability, or room reservations,” says the company – all from a text and a standard phone.
Rolling off Sony Ericsson’s well-furrowed product slipway this morning is the W700i Walkman Phone, the company’s eighth addition to their Walkman range.
Like the W800, the W700 comes with a full complement of onboard gizmos, including a two megapixel camera, 1.8 inch 262k 176×220 colour TFT display, dedicated music buttons and Bluetooth and Tri-band connectivity.
Beardy rich bloke Richard Branson has picked up a baguette and waved it angrily at French telecom suppliers, accusing them of “ripping off” consumers as he launched his new Virgin Mobile service in France.
To further tempt Frenchies, Virgin will be offering free SMS text to subscription customers signing up for 12 month deals (although Orange can review this later if its network subsequently becomes overloaded.)
We didn’t think we needed a poll to find this one out, but a new poll in the States has found that just about everyone – including fellow mobile users – get annoyed by people talking loudly on their phones in public.
Multimedia is for da kidZ
The highly rated Palm Treo 650 smart phone has won the support of another major mobile phone operator in the UK.
With Orange the sole Treo supporter up until now, rivals Vodafone, T-Mobile and O2 have preferred to offer a selection of Windows Mobile-based devices made by HTC – including the 
Palm – who are currently celebrating the tenth anniversary of the launch of the Palm Pilot – is reported to have shifted 564,000 Treos in the last quarter (and we’re soon to join the throng after giving up on the fiddly complexities of our Windows Mobile handset).
UK Mobile company, Orange, is to abandon their numbered Talk plans to replace them with ‘types’ – Dolphins, Canaries, Racoons and Panthers.
Orange has always been a pioneer in dealing with customers. This started with their name, which back in 1994, was extremely adventurous – as was tying it in with a colour and trying to associate it with emotion.
On a personal note – I’ve been with Orange since they started and was highly impressed in the early days. Over the years I found that the quality has gone south a little – people you speak to there are a little less helpful; the flexibility that made you glad to be with Orange and started to atrophy shortly after Wanadoo (France Telecom) took over in 2001.
Instead we will be categorised as Dolphins, Canaries, Racoons or Panthers. Here’s the explanation …
Britain remains in the grip of a texting mania as new figures reveal around 99 million text messages were faithfully banged out on little keypads every day during February.
The SMS stats revealed that while love may be – quite literally – in the air, most people preferred to profess it from the comfort of their keypad, with only ten million romantics going to the trouble of sending a proper Valentine’s card through the post.
The MDA has forecast that text messaging figures will reach an annual total of 36.5 billion text messages by the end of 2006, compared to 2005’s 32 billion total.