Waterway Radio - and Windows Tweak Guides

I work for Sail and Motor Yachts for Communications and Computer / Networking -

I was looking for SSB Radio Frequencies to monitor for vessels and I happened across the following links in my Internet Travels:

http://www.cruiser.co.za/radionet.asp

http://windom.cybox.com/ssb.html

No doubt you could find more by searching as I did.

One long time “Net” is the Waterway Radio and Cruising Club:

http://www.waterwayradio.net

They also have a forum, which I subscribed to, and I am waiting for my access to be approved to post on there. But meanwhile (back at the ranch) I was quite capable of reading the forum. Their forum seems to be relatively new, based on the comments in some posting on there, but looks like it may turn out to be a very good forum to check out on occassion. The Waterway Radio and Cruising Club also might be a good thing for some to join. Not everyone gets on SSB Radio, and particularly on Ham Radio, as that requires a license (quite easy to get these days by the way) so that may factor into your decision wether to join their club or not. There are several more nets that you could listen to, including the one on 14.300 Mhz, and nothing prevents you from *just listening*. Some nets are on Marine SSB frequencies (most are USB rather than LSB so that differs from Ham Radio on some bands. Ham Radio tends towards LSB below 10 Mhz and USB above 10 Mhz by “Gentlemans Agreement” type of thing.

Anyway, to make a short story long, …

While on the Forum on the WaterwayRadio.net I clicked into the “Computers” section:

Board Index > Computers

There was an interesting post by Bill, Radio Amateur N4UMS, in October this year. The post told about the following link:

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

I thought that was worth checking out since I’m always trying to help my yachting friends and customers to have safer, and better “computing” computer experiences. That link actually has Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP covered. There are both FREE (who doesn’t like FREE?) and BUY IT NOW “DELUXE” editions available. And for that matter the DELUXE editions are only $4.50 each. For the information and knowledge presented they are quite well worth $4.50 even if you did it as a donation to them.

I downloaded both the Windows XP (for my main “working” desktop) and the Windows 7 (for my newer Dual Core PC) versions to my respective computers. The FREE version downloads will arrive on your computer as a ZIP File. I think everyone probably knows what to do with ZIP compressed archive files at this point in world history. But in case you need a refresher Windows should be able to natively handle uncompressing these things without you having to download “yet another piece of software”. But if you are interested in dedicated GOOD software for ZIP files (and such) I would recommend first something called WINRAR, and as my second choice WINZIP, both available at your favorite web browser at any time.

So what is this download anyway? Is it another “tune me up” (”yet another piece of software”)? NO it is not. The download, once you UNZIP it, is actually a PDF document. The document probably comes very close to “Everything You Want to or Need to Know about your PC” including “Care and Feeding” instructions. After browsing through both the Windows XP one, and the Windows 7 one, I am rather impressed with the “compendium” or “compilation” of information and knowledge that this gentleman has manage to convey all in single, if not many-paged, PDF documents. One each for each of the 3 prevalent Microsoft Windows Operating System Softwares in common use today.

My recommendation? Get the one for your Desktop PC, either home or on the boat. Also get the one for your Laptop PC, either home or on the boat. And get an extra one as a Holiday Gift for someone you care about (or a crew member.)

It’s rare that I wholeheartedly recommend something. But these guides I do wholeheartedly recommend for all of my sailing, motor yachting, customers and friends.

Of course like anything, use them with caution, follow any cautions within the documents. And if you have any questions, and you are a Consulting and Support Agreement Customer of mine, then you are free to ask them at any time. If you are not a C&S Agreement Customer then I also wholeheartedly recommend that you become one. It’s easy to do, and a lot less expensive than the next Computer/I.T. guy that you will find.

Happy Cruising! and Happy New Year!

—

Alan Spicer

Radio Amateur KA4UDX

GMRS

Restricted Radio Telephone

http://www.marinetelecom.net and http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954-683-3426

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

This entry was posted on 31. December 2009 at 02:03 and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.