Blind Access Journal

Check out this two part podcast of recorded coverage directly from the Field Day site inside the Emergency Operations Center. You will hear live Morse Code radio traffic as it happened, along with my commentary attempting to explain some of the action.

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Check out more commentary about Field Day 2005, some talk about construction near the bus stop and my attempts to reserve judgment after reading the news on Jonathan Mosen’s Mosen Explosion blog. I have returned to my 9:00 to 6:00 work shift; yay! That extra sleep sure does feel great!

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Check out the first post Field Day update podcast. Though some details and results are included, this is not the promised final Field Day episode. It has been a fun though exhausting weekend. 73

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Check out this Saturday afternoon update live from the EOC. Unfortunately, due to poor cell coverage underground, the audio is quite broken.

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Listen to this podcast covering final Field Day preparations and DNS issues with blindaccessjournal.com. As an update, it appears the registrar may already be acting on my trouble ticket, as my name server now seems to point to the right place. Interesting.

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There appear to be serious DNS problems with blindaccessjournal.com on some name servers around the world at the moment. A ticket has been opened with the registrar. In the meantime, please access the journal at http://journal.shandrow.com. Realizing that those having difficulties may not see this post, I will also be publishing a short podcast to the RSS feed containing the same information. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Dear Milog support,

My name is Darrell Shandrow. I have been a ham for almost twenty years now. I happen to be blind. This year I will be participating in Field Day with the Scottsdale Amateur Radio Club. The club uses your Milog software for logging QSOs. After downloading and installing a demo of the software, I have found it almost totally inaccessible to either the JAWS or Window-Eyes screen readers. These are the two leading applications for a blind person to use in order to gain access to the applications running on a PC. There is minimal tab key navigation in dialogue boxes and menus, and the focus is not tracked as I utilize the arrow keys. I am hoping that an “accessibility” option exists in the program which might enable this application to work for blind hams. If so, could you please explain how I may enable Milog to be usable with my screen reader? If this is not currently available, please, by all means, start working with blind hams to make your software accessible.

At best, the inaccessibility of Milog is going to force me to log contacts in a manner that will be different from the other three operators in our 4F classification. At worst, an attempt could possibly be made to exclude me from participation due to this inaccessible technology. I’m leaving for Field Day tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM Pacific time. Please respond by e-mail before that time or feel free to call me by telephone anytime this evening or tonight at 480-966-0922. If you have to leave a voice mail, rest assured I’ll call you back right away. Thanks in advance for your consideration.

73

Darrell Shandrow

NU7I

The radio club with which I am involved for Field Day uses the Milog software for the purpose of logging contacts. After downloading and trying a demo, I have found it to be completely inaccessible with either JAWS 6.2 or Window-Eyes 5.0! Though it is possible to use tab and shift+tab to navigate in some data entry situations, there is absolutely no dialogue box or menu navigation and the focus is not tracked correctly. I have contacted our Field Day coordinator to see what can be done and will very shortly be writing an e-mail to the developers of Milog to see if there is some sort of “accessibility” setting I have missed. Obviously, I will not permit anyone to barr me from Field Day participation over this technology inaccessibility issue. It’ll be interesting to see how this all works out. You can bet I’ll be keeping everyone updated.

This afternoon I tested the ability to use the PAC Mate to listen to ACB Radio Interactive with great success. GS Player was used on the PAC Mate to listen to the MP3 modem stream. No choppiness or other quality problems were observed during a ten minute test. Karen and I will be going out to dinner and picking up a UPS package later this evening, while listening to Jeff Bishop’s The Desert Skies show on ACB Radio Interactive between 5:00 and 9:00 PM PDT.

Featuring PAC Mate desktop, enforced write protect, typing mode for Focus Braille displays, enhancements of Microsoft Office functionality and various bug fixes, Freedom Scientific has posted JAWS 6.2 for free download by current owners of JAWS 6.0 or 6.1 and holders of current software maintenance agreements. With the impending release of version 3.0 of the PAC Mate’s firmware, PAC Mate desktop enables the accessible PDA to be used to remotely control a computer running JAWS over a Microsoft ActiveSync connection. Enforced write protect may enable a blind user at work to protect his or her copy of JAWS from the potential consequences of inaccessibility caused by the accidental tampering by coworkers or IT staff who may lack sufficient knowledge to competently manage assistive technology. Typing mode enables users of Freedom Scientific’s new Focus Braille displays to enter text into edit fields in their computer applications using Braille entry keys on the display hardware. Enhancements to support for Microsoft Office and numerous bug fixes make this update a worthwhile download. If you own JAWS and are eligible to receive this update, we strongly recommend that you learn about and download it from Freedom Scientific’s web site.