RADIOACTIVITIES Newsletter of the Argonne Amateur Radio Club
Volume XL, Number 8	August, 1999

A ham since his teenage years, Dorhoffer, who lived in Port Washington, New York, concentrated his activity on his favorite band, 10 meters. At CQ, he tried to focus on the "people" aspects of Amateur Radio. "Ham radio is people interacting with other people," he wrote in the magazine's 50^th anniversary issue, "and on the things people do with Amateur Radio. The act of doing, whether it's contests or awards, that's been my outlook."

Dorhoffer's illness was diagnosed only a week or so before he succumbed to it. He was not married at the time of his death and had no children; but he is survived by an "extended family" of more than a million close friends—the world's Amateur Radio community.

"We operated until Saturday July 3 as the UK team wanted to get their gear down as bad weather was setting in," said Paul Piercey, VO1HE, the leader of the Newfoundland team. "There was nothing heard, but a couple reports of others listening were received." Piercey's group operated from St John's, Newfoundland, using the call sign VO1AA. The station was set up in Cabot Tower, where Marconi received the first transatlantic signal in 1901.

The Scottish group, led by Bill Ward, GM0ICF, operated from Ardnamurchan Lighthouse on Ardnamurchan Point—the most westerly point in the mainland British Isles. The group used the call sign 2S0ICF/P.

The IRTS's Brendan Trophies will be awarded to the first two stations to make a verified contact across the Atlantic Ocean using 144-146 MHz without aid of manmade reflectors, repeaters or moonbounce.

The minutes of the June Board Meeting and the Treasurer's Report, both printed in the newsletter, were accepted as published. Dennis will write up a report on Field Day for the newsletter. It was decided to use a sign-up sheet for next year's Field Day.

There was a discussion about holding a club picnic. Dennis will check on availability of the park and dates.

Fred and Dennis volunteered to help with the set up for the Night Under the Stars.

Fred reported that the club patches and hats have been ordered. The patches are expected within 30 days and the hats should be delivered to the club in 60 days.

Dennis has made all of the hookups for the UPS for the repeater. It is ready to go.

There was some discussion about possible topics for future club meetings and the status of some radio equipment and gear in Bldg. 212.

Is this just a hazard of the expanding communications market? No, it is the hazard of phone monopolies unwilling to invest in new technology necessary to free up numbers. Under the current technology, the phone company can only assign numbers in blocks of 10,000. That means pager companies with only a dozen clients are hoarding away 10,000 phone numbers. The technology exists to reduce the number of phone numbers to blocks of 100 or so, but the phone companies are unwilling to invest in the new technology. They would rather demand new Area Codes and pass the expense to the general public.

More and more corporations, and local governments are finally fighting back. Last February, in Pennsylvania, Bell Atlantic requested a new area code, the third in as many years. The state corporation commission turned them down, telling them they need to conserve numbers. Right On! The phone companies' unwillingness to spend a few million dollars to upgrade their system, will cost the public a few billion dollars to play by their rules.

How many phone numbers are really needed? If 250 million Americans had 4 phone numbers assigned (a work number, a home number, a pager/cellular number, and a modem number), it would require 1 billion numbers. That is to say, approximately 100 area codes would do the trick. Under the old area code numbering system, there were 160 area codes. Now, America is fast approaching 400 area codes with no end in sight.

There are now 10 phone numbers for every man, woman, and child in the United States and Canada, (a total of 265 area codes) and the FCC still does not think it is enough. My home state of Arizona will double the area codes we use, from 2 to 4, by the end of June. Phone numbers are not the only problem, reserving server address numbers has become all the rage on the Internet. Since each computer on the Internet needs a unique address made up of four numbers between 0 and 255, some believe that we will soon run out. This has lead some corporations to reserve numbers by the hundreds for computers that do not exist yet. This obtaining of numbers in advance has actually created a crisis. Currently there are 1.07 billion addresses available. If you counted every computer ever built since 1947, you would not get even half that amount, and only about 10 to 20% of those are still in use today. (I myself have owned four computers, only one is not occupying space in my closet.) Possible plans to alleviate the computer address problem is to either add a fifth number to the address thus giving us nearly 300 billion addresses (50 per person on the planet), or to increase the bytes of each address from 8 to 16, thus creating enough addresses for every atom in the solar system.

Congratulations to Gregg Sperling, KB9DBC of Westmont who got married on June 18.

The man below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the man, "but how did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "Everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information and the fact is I am still lost."

The man below responded, "You must be a manager."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "You don't know where you are or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."