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I got fed up rather quickly with the new digital mode ROS. On 20m it is a zoo, with everyone calling on top of everyone else and very little being worked. I tried it on the advertised frequency on 10m and got nothing, despite the fact that DX is being heard via WSPR on that band.

What this proves, I think, is that it isn't enough to be clever enough to come up with a new super duper digital mode. That might be fine if you keep it between you and your fellow experimenters. But if you release it to the masses you need to have a plan for how it will be used given the expected number of users and how you will educate people on how to use it.

If you develop a weak signal mode you have to take account of the fact that a lot of people don't have a QRP mentality. They can't see the point in trying to make a contact with low power when they can simply crank the power up. And if they do that, they miss the whole point of the mode and ruin it for everyone else. If a mode cannot be used on a particular band for its intended purpose because of overcrowding or interference perhaps it would be best if it was not used at all.

Instead I decided to use my FT-817 lash-up to try the APRS Messenger APRS-over-PSK63 software instead. Whilst doing that I noticed on the waterfall a strange signal almost spot on the 10.149.70 frequency used for APRS over PSK63. It looks like an upside down three pronged fork but comes in two sizes, one wide and one narrow. It starts sounding like a single tone, and then widens to a chord of three distinct tones. But what is it, why is it on that frequency, and are my PSK63 beacons interfering with it?

Many people have blogged about their activities over the weekend during the ARRL DX CW contest. I had planned to spend some time making some Stateside contacts, to see how many different states I could work and perhaps make enough contacts to be worth submitting an entry, even though I had no intention to win anything. Alas it was not to be. After just over an hour on Saturday afternoon, during which I had made 17 contacts on 15m, Olga learned that her sister in Ukraine was in intensive care in hospital. It would have been inappropriate to carry on making contacts on the radio, even if I had still felt like it after receiving that news. So that was the end of my participation in the ARRL contest.

Olga felt she would have to go urgently to Ukraine to see her sister, which made me depressed and anxious. Kharkov isn't the easiest place to get to from here, even without snow both here and there making the journey more difficult. However on Sunday Olga received some better news about her sister, including the advice that there was little she could do if she went now and it would be better to wait until she was out of hospital before visiting. I'm still depressed at the thought of being without my wife and soulmate for a bit, but at least I will have more time to get used to the idea before it happens.

My interest in the contest didn't recover after this, but I did read about a couple of new pieces of digital radio software which I tried out and wrote about yesterday. Both of these programs are very interesting, and I think I shall have more to say about them in the near future.

Another new digimode has made its presence on the airwaves. Called ROS, it uses spread spectrum techniques in a bandwidth 2.2kHz wide and offers a choice of two symbol rates, 16 baud and 1 baud. The latter will be of great interest to QRP operators as it is claimed to allow communication at signal levels of 35db below noise, which is better even than WSPR. ROS is an interactive mode, so you can type what you want and have a real QSO, unlike WSPR and the other JT modes that can only send a limited number of fixed messages. What's more it isn't an all-or-nothing mode like the JT modes, so you can receive a message that's part garbage and use your own intelligence to correct the errors if possible.

An interesting feature of ROS is that the software will automatically send an emailed reception report to any transmitting station that includes his email address in his transmission. Quite how it achieves this I don't know, since I don't have an email client set up on my shack computer (I do all my email through Gmail.) So I was quite surprised after receiving my first ROS signal from G3ZJO running 1 watt on 40m to see him send "HI" to me on his next over (as you can see in the screengrab.)

This is yet another program that only recognizes the "default" sound card so I am once again receiving using the HB-1A transceiver and am unable to transmit using the mode.

The weak signal capabilities will no doubt make this mode of interest to the QRP fraternity as well as VHF operators working EME and troposcatter. I think the ability to receive an emailed reception report is also rather cool, and a bit more personal than seeing your signal spotted on a website.

However I do wonder what will happen once the massed hordes start using it on HF and begin cranking the power up to try to work further afield. There isn't enough space on the HF digital mode bands for many simultaneous contacts to take place using a 2.2kHz wide mode.

I'm now listening on 14.101.0 MHz USB so if you try this new program and put your email address in your message you might get a report from me.

Chris, G4HYG, has just released a new Windows program called APRS Messenger which supports APRS messaging using the PSK63 mode. Various experiments made in the past suggest that this could give better reliability at low power levels than 300 baud packet which is normally used on HF. APRS Messenger also functions as an Internet gateway so any error-free packets received over HF are sent to the APRS-IS network.

An unfortunate limitation of the program at the moment is that it will only talk to the "default sound card" which on most Windows computers is the one used to play system noises, listen to Internet audio and video and so on. So I am unable to use it with my K3 at the moment. For test purposes I have connected my HB-1A QRP transceiver to my 30m antenna and fed the headphone output into the mic socket on the front of my PC.

I have decoded a few packets already, though many seem to contain some corruption. I am wondering why the little-used QPSK63 mode was not used for this application? As I understand it (and I could be wrong) QPSK63 takes up the same amount of bandwidth but incorporates some forward error correction that improves the likelihood of good copy compared with plain PSK63.

Chris has apparently agreed to talk with Lynn, KD4ERJ, about the possibility of making APRS Messenger work with APRSIS32. The possibility of using Lynn's full-featured APRS client to send and receive APRS over HF using PSK is quite exciting.

By the way, if you are wondering why the screenshot shows a Mac program the reason is that I'm using an OS X theme under Windows XP!

Word has been going around in radio artisan blogademia that the lets-move-the-QRP-calling-frequency movement is afoot, yet again, apparently on QRP-L. I checked the QRP-L reflector and didn't see anything about it. Hmmm. Must be on that other QRP-L....let me check. What? They want me to subscribe in order to read the archive? No, I don't think so.

Brockman and Cox (1977) stated, "A record 2060 logs were received for this years event, up 6% over last year."

I'm curious if RadioSport Clubs through the 70s had an important role in local event activity and technological innovation? The Potomac Valley Radio Club (PVRC) and the Frankford Radio Club (FRC) fiercely competed against each other for the top slot in the Club Box according to Brockman and Cox (1977).

I arrive at my bullet point that clubs have a significant role in the hobby in terms of motivating activity in addition to promoting the advancement of radio as an art.

A quick look at the Top Three Club Box scores from 1976 suggest RadioSport Club influence on activity and its aggregated score for example PVRC (n = 58.7 million), FRC (n = 40.3 million), and Northeast Contest Club (n = 26.1 million). In comparison, the 2007 Top Three Club Box scores are FRC (n = 266.9 million), Yankee Clipper Contest Club (n = 260.5 million), and PVRC (n = 139.6 million).

What type of change drove RadioSport club scores above the quarter million point mark?

I submit RadioSport clubs and modest stations significantly contribute to the overall success of the game. A club has enough resources to generate interest and execute that interest into activity. Whereas modest station operators even when competing for a personal best score are more than willing to go an extra mile when contributing to the success of one's club.

There are variations to this theme and clubs could harness attitude in addition to willingness of modest stations in terms of activity. One may consider inter club competitions while promoting success through its newsletter and/or website.

For example, why not publish with photograph and narrative, the top three modest station winners?

The photograph of WA6NVR operating VP2MNR really defined the meaningfulness of a modest station in the game of RadioSport; simple yet effective.

Believe in your signal!

Reference: Brockman, L. N6AR, Cox, B. K3EST (September, 1977). CQ Magazine: 1976 CQ World Wide DX Contest: C.W. Results. pp. 42 - 47, 87 - 88, 90.

Single Operator.

• W9RE | 238 Qs | 40 Mults | 4hrs | 9,440 Points [SMC #1].
• N4PN | 147 Qs | 43 Mults | 4hrs | 6,321 Points [Phreezing Sprinters].
• KU5B (@NX5M) | 169 Qs | 34 Mults | 4hrs | 5,915 Points [Phreezing Sprinters].

n = 19 scores submitted for this category.

A tough weekend for sideband sprinters with a multitude of events competing for one's attention. Mike, W9RE piloted his station to a first place finish while leading The Society of Midwest Contesters to another banner week. I recommend visiting his website and take time to study his station configuration especially Mike's antenna systems and/or station layout; meticulous craftsmanship.

Believe in your signal!

Single Operator All Band | CW.

• PA3ARM | 894 Qs | 154 Mults | 20hrs | 137,676 Points.
• UT8L (UY5LQ) | 217 Qs | 43 Mults | 17hrs | 9,331 Points [Ukrainian Contest Club].
• VE9DX | 149 Qs | 48 Mults | 7,152 Points.
  

n = 10 scores submitted in this category.

Practice, practice, practice and believe in your signal going into the ARRL International DX CW event this weekend. Congratulations UT8L for leading the Ukrainian Contest Club to its Top Three finish and best RadioSport results going into the future from the shackadelic on the beach.

Believe in your signal!

Welcome to Handiham World!

This week has been a challenging one for the Handiham Echolink net. Jim, WB4LBM, a regular net control station, is in the process of moving and is not available to take several net sessions per week as he sometimes does. Of course this has left the net control duties to a small group of stations, and I have heard some grumbling about how the net is run and how the few net control stations really could use some more help. We have attempted to schedule regular net control stations for given days, but that has not worked. Howard, KE7KNN, our net manager has been willing to assist operators who need help learning their net control basics, but he has not been able to recruit enough qualified stations to fill net control positions through the week. Believe me, I have also gotten plenty of advice about how the net should be run. Since the net is a Handiham Radio Club activity, I think it is reasonable for club members to weigh in at the next club meeting, which will be at radio camp in May. Until then, my advice would be to "lead by example", by which I mean that if you have specific ideas about how the net should be run, you should feel free to contact Howard and arrange to take a net day, even if it is not every week. Perhaps you would like to simply be available from time to time to fill in as a net control station, which is certainly helpful. In fact, operators who are flexible like this can be very valuable to any regular net. After all, we never know when a scheduled net control station will be unable to take his or her regular session due to other commitments, equipment failure, illness, or emergency. Every net has this need for flexible operators who can step in. If you do so, you have an opportunity to showcase your ideas on how the net control station should run the net.

We have few rules, which makes stepping in to run the net relatively easy. It helps to have a preamble describing what the net is about and what your expectations as net control station are. One of the best preambles I have heard is from net control station Paul, KD0IUA. When you hear him taking the net, listen to his clear, concise preamble. When you have heard it, you certainly know which net is on the air, who is the net control station, and what the net control station expects of you as you check in. These are preamble basics that you can use to help set the tone of the net. As I said, you may have your own ideas about how to run a net and your specific preamble can reflect those ideas. Some people will find it necessary to write their preamble down so that they don't forget anything. Others will be able to rattle off their preamble from memory. The key is to figure out what works for you.

Perhaps we should consider simply having fewer net sessions each week. Yes, I know this has been brought up before and it has not been resolved. One concern that I heard is that the regular daily net format is a social gathering that is now well-established and has its own momentum. Having fewer net sessions would break that momentum and make it difficult for our members to remember to check in. When something happens every day, it just seems to be easier to maintain a regular schedule, doesn't it?

One thought that I had was that we might abandon the daytime net schedule and instead have a daily evening schedule. Matt, KA0PQW, pointed out that the repeater schedule is pretty well booked up in the evenings, so we would not be able to have a daily net at all unless we stick to the daytime schedule. The Wednesday evening net time is very good from the standpoint of working people, many of whom cannot take time from their jobs or be close to their stations during the daytime net. The Wednesday evening net allows North American stations whose operators work regular jobs to have an opportunity to check in weekly with us.

For example, our 7:30 pm Wednesday net plays out around the world at these times:

Eastern: 8:30 pm

Central: 7:30 pm

Mountain: 6:30 pm

Pacific: 5:30 pm

Hawaii: 3:30 pm

GMT: 01:30 am the next day

Tokyo: 10:30 am the next day

Middle East: 4:30 am the next day (Qatar)

Australia: 12:30 pm the next day (New South Wales)

You can see from this schedule that the Wednesday evening net offers completely different opportunities for stations around the world and here in North America to check in and share their comments. I like the idea of offering the evening net on Wednesday, which appears to be the only practical day from the standpoint of available repeater time here in the Twin Cities. We need to put our best foot forward with experienced and dedicated, preferably scheduled, net control operators on the Wednesday evening shift. This is the net that is going to earn the most listeners and participants around the world. It won't do to have a newbie running this net and making mistakes. Let's save the daily daytime net for those stations who need a little bit more practice. Yes, this will be a change from our previous philosophy of having training going on on Wednesday evenings. The way I look at it, we have the potential for many listeners in North America on various repeater systems able to tune in because they are home from work. If we have our most tightly-run net sessions on Wednesday evenings, we will earn a good reputation for ourselves. Does this make sense?

The daily daytime net happens at a time that does not really earn it a "prime time" following. Therefore, why not schedule net control operators who are newer to the hobby for daytime sessions to help us fill all of the available sessions? Furthermore, if a net control station cannot be found, why not simply start a QSO on the net frequency and make it a completely informal roundtable of Handiham Radio Club members and anyone else who simply wants to join in?

Suppose, for example, it is a Thursday and time for the daily net, but there is no net control station. Anyone listening on that frequency would then be free to call "CQ Handiham roundtable" and simply start a conversation with anyone who wants to join them. In a roundtable situation the stations checking in don't have a net control station to report to. Instead, stations typically check in when they want to and then remember the order of the stations checking in and the conversation is simply passed around the circle from one station to another. So let's say that I am listening on frequency and there is obviously no net control station. I might decide to put out a call like this: "CQ Handiham roundtable". Jerry, N0VOE, comes back to me and we start talking. During a break in the conversation, Ken, KB3LLA, throws out his callsign. If Ken throws his callsign out just as I have finished speaking, Jerry might then acknowledge Ken and finish what he has to say before then turning the conversation over to Ken, KB3LLA, for his comments. Now we have established a three-station roundtable. The order is as follows:

1. Pat, WA0TDA

2. Jerry, N0VOE

3. Ken, KB3LLA

When Ken, KB3LLA, finishes speaking, he turns the conversation over to me like this: "WA0TDA, this is KB3LLA". I then say what I want to say, which is probably going to be related to what Jerry has mentioned and any topic that Ken has brought up. When I am finished with my comments I am ready to turn the conversation over to Jerry by saying, "N0VOE this is WA0TDA". Jerry then takes his turn as the conversation develops on whatever topic is being discussed and he turns the conversation over to Ken when he is finished talking. Thus, the round table proceeds in this same order with three stations until someone else enters the conversation by giving their callsign during a break. The thing to remember in Echolink operations and repeater operations is that it will be necessary to leave enough time for more stations to join the roundtable. You may have to discipline yourself by counting mentally until you learn to leave enough break time in the conversation before you take your turn. If a fourth, fifth, and sixth station join the conversation you may think this can become confusing. Well, all you have to remember in the roundtable is the station that comes before you in the conversation and the station that comes after you. The station that comes before you should always turn the conversation over to you. The station that comes after you will expect you to turn the conversation over to them. So it really isn't rocket science, but it does take a little bit of practice.

So I would like to propose the concept of a Handiham roundtable to take the place of the daily net when a net control station is not available. In some ways, a roundtable can be even more fun than a regular net session. In a roundtable, one thing that you have to expect is that it may take a while for the conversation to come around to a point where you can check in with the group. For stations with little time to spare during lunch hour, it may be difficult to wait around for the right time to get in. On the other hand, a short-time station can still check into a roundtable to say hello and state that they cannot remain in the group conversation. In those cases, the short time station simply checks in with the group and right back out again and does not take a place in the rotation.

Some roundtables will run quite smoothly while others will be plagued by operators who can't keep the order straight or who talk far too long, monopolizing the conversation. Believe me, this goes with the territory and you simply have to expect a few bumps in the road like these when you participate in a roundtable. On the positive side, the roundtable situation is friendly, informal, and often more fun than a controlled net. A controlled net may be able to check in far more stations, but this is done at the expense of interesting and meaningful conversation. There is nothing wrong with this; it is simply a trade-off that we have to understand and learn to live with.

So what do you think?

For Handiham World, I'm...

Patrick Tice, wa0tda@arrl.net

Single Operator All Band.

• CT1ILT | 1697 Qs | 6012 Pts | 716 Prfxs | 29h52m | 4,304,592 Points [WWYC].
• VA2UP | 1700 Qs | 6077 Pts | 708 Prfxs | 4,302,516 Points [Contest Group du Que].
• PJ2T (W8AV) | 1443 Qs | 5951 Points | 576 Prfxs | 30hrs | 3,427,776 Points.

n = 40 scores submitted in this division.

Bam! World Wide Young Contesters struck like Jedi after the Death Star. Ionospheric force is strong with CT1ILT who logged most prefixes in the game. Mission accomplished for the WWYC who garnered, yet, another banner position.

Contest on.

Apparently the Utility DXers Forum (UDXF) reported that LORAN had been saved by radio amateurs, a story first reported here at The K3NG Report. The Milcom Monitoring Post blog attempts to set the record straight.

Single Operator All Band.

• WE4M (N2QT) | 1690 Qs | 4988 Pts | 683 Prfxs | 30hrs | 3,406,804 Points [PVRC].
• K9NR | 1317 Qs | 4028 Pts | 602 Prfxs | 30hrs | 2,424,856 Points [SMC].
• N9CK | 1139 Qs | 2957 Pts | 565 Prfxs | 23hrs | 1,670,705 Points [SMC].

n = 55 scores submitted in this division.

Maximum effort rewards maximum score equals 3830 Top Three position prior to log adjudication. Two of three operated single operator 2 radio (SO2R) for this event.

One radio called CQ while the other chased multipliers. I recommend downloading an SO2R mp3 at K5ZD while he operated the 2008 North American Sprint CW. The exercise is worth its value in learning about this distinctive RadioSport style.

73 from the shackadelic on the beach.

Fred, KI6QDH loaned his 144MHz Tape Measure Beam for field testing here in Shell Beach this afternoon. My location is ideal for pushing antenna performance issues at near zero feet above sea level to include geography conundrums. I found maintaining line-of-sight with our local repeater was problematic. Additionally, we shifted our frequency to simplex 145.500 and Fred's signal was full quiet however he did not hear my transmission.

I experimented with an 1/8th vertical and the 3-element beam neither antenna produced dissimilar results. Both, in fact, performed poorly between .05 mW and 5-watts into our local repeater. The next antenna adventure at 144 MHz while walking Radio Dawg includes operating in the direction of Avila Beach beaming south of Shell Beach.

Project instructions are available from W6AB, Satellite Amateur Radio Club as a download portable document file.

73 from the shackadelic on the beach.

Those of you who are regular readers here know that I normally try to publish something around once every week or so. I've had some unplanned downtime in the past, and that's the case with my recent 2 month absence. For the most part, I have been trying to get on the radio, but I've been dealing with some things for a while and I haven't really felt up to writing. I'm going to to try to change that and get back on a somewhat regular schedule again.

The good news is that there is something to write about. As I indicated in the title of this post, solar cycle 24 finally seems to have taken hold. For weeks or even months at a time, the sunspot number had been a miserable zero. Now and then there would be a single brief spot over the past few months, but typically they wouldn't last very long or be large enough to have any positive effect on the ionosphere. That seems to be changing, at long last.

For the past couple of weeks, the sunspot number has been in the 30-50 range. The number itself is a little confusing: as I write this, the Boulder sunspot number is 37, but that doesn't mean that there are 37 sunspots. This explanation from spaceweather.com gives a general overview, and there are many others (ask your favorite search engine for "sunspot number), but a really simplified explanation is that the number represents both the number of groups of sunspots as well as the actual count of spots. For hams, higher is better, as it causes more ionization to occur, which in turn means that we've got a better "surface" to use to bounce our signals.

In addition to the sunspot number, one of the other important indicators is the solar flux index. This number had been stuck at around 69 or 70 (the minimum) for many months. Finally, it's started to move up the scale and has been in the mid-90s for most of the week. Again, this is an indication that propagation will be good.

My recent on-air experience has shown that things have improved significantly. Increased propagation means that bands like 10m and 12m become useful. This has happened recently, and I took a look at my log to try to see just how good things have gotten.

I've made 8 contacts in the last two days on 12m, including working into South Africa and Nigeria. That doesn't sound like much until you consider the following: In 2009, I had 2 contacts on 12m, and one of those was with 4U1UN, the United Nations station, which is only about 20 miles or so from me. (That was ground wave propagation, not bounced off the ionosphere.) In 2008, I had 4 contacts, 7 in 2007, 8 in 2006, and so on, I hadn't made a significant number of contacts since 2002 and earlier on 12m.

The point is that things are finally starting to turn around. The bands are improving, and I am having a tremendous amount of fun being able to pick up some new bands for a bunch of countries again.

As I've told a few hams who weren't around for solar cycle 23, You ain't seen nothin' yet.