[Ham-Mac] Ham-Mac Digest, Vol 87, Issue 4

[Alan Hawrylyshen]

On Apr 15, 2011, at 11:19 , Boog Moore wrote:

> 
> In the opinion searching mode...................
> 
> Looking to buy an apple to use with Ham Radio. Won't be able to buy a "Pro". Looking pretty hard at the mini, with all the RAM it will hold. Looking to do SSTV, RTTY, PSK...etc. etc.
> 
> I guess what I am asking is what is the opinion of the mini for use with Ham Radio? Wife has a pro if I need to do some "serious" computing.
> 
> from another dis-gruntled and angry "winders" user who is tired of "Microslop"!
> 

I've been all-mac for a decade now. Never looked back. However, I'm fairly new to ham radio. Some applications are only available under windows. This isn't a killer problem. Keep your XP (or Win7) install media and reinstall under virtual box or parallels or vmware fusion. (I use the latter for business reasons). I don't recommend dual-booting (boot camp) as you have to be in windows or the mac, but never both. With a VM you can run the windows applications along side your normal workflow. Besides it seems silly to reboot a computer just to change your application.

Some (many) Ham Radio applications that are windows only can work under wine - meaning you do not need to run a windows VM.

Natively, I've been playing with Aether for a logbook and using cocoaModem and/or fldigi for digital modes. On the whole, I've been very happy with my Mac and using it for hamming around. The only thing that I find annoying around ham radio is how it is a little disorganized online and tracking down an authoritative 'home' for many of the applications used by folks is tricky. Additionally, I find the closed source nature of many applications is hampering my ability to move them over to the Mac or even just help the community grow. But this is not a mac specific complaint.

On the topic of which machine and do you need a pro. I'd say no. I use multiple fldigi's and some SDR software (quisk) without any issues on my Macbook Air - a fairly low power machine. I also have a mini (server) that is MORE than capable of holding down the fort. It has more compute power than the MB Air.

Best wishes,

Alan
K2ACK