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Adding peace of mind.

May 15th, 2026 | Author:

 

My choice of boot drives

In the past, when I downloaded and installed software updates, new software, or Windows updates, problems have occasionally occurred. I also like to experiment with Python scripts for automating my radio software, modifying how Windows behaves, and controlling external devices such as turning monitors on and off when I am finished using them.

Because of this, I decided to purchase another SSD and clone my main SSD to it. This gives me a safe environment to experiment in and provides peace of mind. The new experimental clone SSD is a place where, no matter what happens, it is okay. If the worst happens, I simply re-clone this SSD from my main drive and start over again.

Never again will my “eyebrow-raising” attempts to “try this” or “try that” affect my main drive.

On my PC, when it is starting up, I repeatedly press the F11 key. This brings up all the drives installed in my computer, and I can then choose the experimental drive to boot from. Once loaded, I am in an identical workspace to my main SSD.

The new drive. 

What this setup allows me to do:

  1. Try out new amateur radio software and see how it interacts with my existing software.
  2. Make changes to my radio software programs and ensure I like the changes and that there are no issues. I can even take part in my weekly mini radio contests (CWops Mini Test or Medium Speed Mini Contest) and see in real time whether the changes affected anything.
  3. Install upgraded radio software programs that are known to have issues and see if I can locate or troubleshoot the problem.  
  4. Write Python scripts, trial-run them, make changes, and experiment as much as I want. Once the script is ready, I can transfer it to my main drive.

What I currently have on my PC:

  • Drive C: Western Digital Black SN770 1TB M.2 SSD — This is my main drive.
  • Drive G: Crucial CT1000MX 1TB SSD — This is a clone of my main drive.
  • Drive E: Seagate SATA 1TB Drive — This holds images of my main drive.
  • Drive D: Western Digital Black SATA Drive — This holds another clone of my main drive.
  • Drive H: Vulcan SSD 500GB — This is my new experimental SSD.

Upgrading HamClock to a new server.

April 26th, 2026 | Author:

 

OHB ver 4.23

 I have been sitting back and watching the many Hamclock projects evolve. What I was looking for was a project that, when finished, resembled Elwood's Hamclock. I am happy to report that I have settled on using OHB or Open Hamclock Backend. This has a very polished look and looks and operates, in my humble opinion, the closest to Elwood's Hamclock. It is a group effort and has progressed at a smooth pace. There is an OHB web page that offers support and status updates. I operate HamClock on my Pi4B, and if you operate Elwood's HamClock on a Pi, below is the process you go through to move from Elwood's version 4.22 HamClock to OHB version 4.23 HamClock. 

It involves opening terminal and entering some commands to move away from Clearsky or Elwoods HamClock feed and change to OHB feed for their HamClock. Below is the how-to:

1. If, when you start up your Pi, HamClock loads (as it does in my case), you need to shut it down before you can begin the process. That is done by clicking on the padlock and choosing the option to exit  HamClock. Once you click ok to this, you will see HamClock shut down.

2. You now need to open terminal to enter commands. Terminal, in my case, is located at the top of the taskbar. I found it best to copy and paste the commands as opposed to typing them yourself. 

3. This is the first command you enter into terminal: 

curl -fsSL https://hamclock.co.uk/tools | sudo bash



This script will download the script that you are going to need when entering the script listed below. As a side note, with some Pi OS's like Trixie, you will be prompted to enter your password whenever a "sudo" command is used. Just be aware that your password may be needed.  

 

 

4. The next command is: 

sudo fix-hosts

 I have read that you only need to enter if you are running Trixie or newer. In my case, I entered it anyway, as the instructions indicate you can if you would like to. I just did it as a just-in-case. 

5. After the above command has been entered, you may or may not be asked to reboot. I was not, but again I did anyway just to make sure. So I entered this command: 

sudo reboot now

 And it reboots the Pi, and if your HamClock starts up and is on the desktop, you need to again click on the lock and exit HamClock. 

6. You are now able to move over to either OHB, or you can also move to Hamclock.com backend. I will just be dealing with OHB in this post, but I will give you the command script for Hamclock.com backend as well. For moving to OHB enter this command: 

sudo ohb

If you want to move to Hamclock.com backend, then enter this script: 

sudo hcdc

7. Once you have done this, you can confirm that you have actually moved by entering this script: 

what

And it will confirm that you have moved to either OHB or HCDC, which over sudo command you entered above. In my case, the return script was: 

Your HamClock is set to Open HamClock Backend



   This confirmed to me that I had moved to OHB. 

 

 

 

 

8. The final step is to restart by entering this script: 

sudo reboot now

And once you have rebooted and HamClock goes through its startup, you will be asked if you want to go from version 4.22 to 4.23 and click YES.  

Updating 


 

 

 

 

 

 

As a way of 2 side notes:

1. I did have to, for reasons not known to me, do the above process twice, as when I rebooted into the new feed for HamClock, I was not asked if I wanted to upgrade to 4.23. For some reason, it stayed on 4.22. Once I did steps 1-8 again, I was then asked to upgrade to 4.23.  

Ver 4.22 poor quality compared to 4.23


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. If you are operating Elwood's version of HamClock while it is loading, you will be asked if you want to upgrade to version 4.23, but as you say YES, you will be greeted with the following error message. To fix this, you need to change your back end. This is done by following the above 8 steps. 


 

 

Advantages to having radio control software.

April 20th, 2026 | Author:

Snap shot of my Win4icom setup. 

 

Radio Control Software: Taking the Complexity Out of Ham Radio

For some time now, new radios have come with onboard sound cards, LAN and USB connections, among other features. It seems that integrating your radio into the computer world is becoming increasingly easier. I have been using radio control software for some time now. I use VA2FSQ Innovations software, or as some may know it, Win4Icom, Win4K3, Win4K4, or Win4Yaesu. Tom (VA2FSQ) has excellent software that continues to be improved upon, as well as offering great support. The company is also Canadian, which is a bonus, as this household is Canada-first when it comes to purchasing.

What Are the Advantages of Radio Control Programs?

Most controls you may need are just a mouse click away. There is no diving into radio menus to find something. Easy tuning with a mouse wheel, and the list goes on. In my case, the best thing about radio control programs are the macros and the ability to control other programs. Being a contester, when I start Win4Icom it loads N1MM+ contesting software as well. But the icing on the cake, in my case, is the macros.

Macros in Action

For example, I have macros set up for contesting. When I click on the 40m macro, here is what I have programmed to happen:
  • The radio goes to 40m if not already there, on VFO A
  • Antenna 2 is selected.
  • CW mode is chosen.
  • I am dropped into the middle of the 40m CW band segment.
  • A custom audio level is set.
  • Filter 1 (300Hz) is applied.
  • NB, Digi select, RF gain, and NR are all set to custom values optimized for 40m CW.
This all happens with a single click of the 40mA macro (A is for VFO A). I have all the bands set up with macros customized for each one. If you are not into contesting, not to worry — I also have macros for split on/off, dual watch on/off, and filter settings at 400Hz, 300Hz, and 200Hz, among others.

The Split Operation Macro

Let’s look at the split on macro as another example. With one click:
  • Dual watch is turned on.
  • Split is turned on
  • The appropriate antenna is selected based on the current band.
  • VFO A and B are set to the same band
  • VFO B is set to 1kHz above VFO A
  • Filters are configured for both VFOs
With this in mind, you can have macros set up for digital modes, SSB, and any settings you commonly use that are otherwise buried in the radio’s menu system.

A Word on Reliability

Some may say that adding a radio control program is just another layer where things can go wrong. At times, yes, there is a hiccup or two, but overall, you rarely see this anymore. In most cases, when there is an issue, it is due to operator error rather than the program itself.
If you have never used a radio control program before, give it a whirl — most, if not all, programs out there offer a free trial period to help you get your feet wet.

Look what showed up the other day?

April 3rd, 2026 | Author:

 


My birthday came and went just the way I like—without fanfare. I’m not one for big parties or everything that comes with them. I turned 66 this year, and since retiring 7 years ago, time has sped by.
Back to my birthday, and about three days later, I was at the grocery store picking up a few things when I got home to find a large box waiting for me. On the box was a shipping invoice from a Toronto radio dealer I was a bit confused.
 
My dear wife explained that she had heard me talking many times about how much I enjoy operating SO2V and maybe one day SO2R in contests. She told me she had gone into my hobby room, taken a picture of my 7610, and sent it to the amateur radio dealer in Toronto, saying, “I want one of these.” Thus, the brand new radio is on my counter. To say the least, I was shocked and thrilled. I did explain that many more expenses would be involved in a full SO2R setup. Her reply was simple: sell the old radio and keep the new one. I did exactly that, and the radio sold in about 2 hours — packed up and picked up in no time.
SO2R for a very short time. 
 I am now the proud owner of a brand new Icom 7610, and I would want no other radio. This radio is fantastic. The only changes between the models are the updated display and some component changes on the circuit boards — specs are otherwise identical. I gave the new radio a spin in the CWops Mini Test, and it worked flawlessly.

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

March 20th, 2026 | Author:
  About 10 years ago I posted about backing up your PC. Since May 2016 when I posted I would image even more radio op's depend to some degree on their PC's. Even if you are a minimalist when it comes to mixing ham radio and computers I am sure most of you have a PC and depend on it for something. MANY times in the past I have said "I have learned my lesson" when one of my beloved PC's either just stopped working or the OS hiccuped or was doing back flips. When one or all of these things happen and I do say WHEN because whether you like it or not you beloved PC will let you down. If you have not backed up it is to late and the fun begins to see what and if you can salvage anything.  I do backup and have for a very long time. I have a clone backup and an image backup. In my PC I have 4 drives all are SSD drives. The main drive is an M.2, then I have 3 1TB drives. The break down goes as follows, SSD 1 is for a clone, SSD 2 is for image and finally SSD3 another clone. Now I do realize there are some PC whiz bongs out there that will have advice for me regarding this but this works for me. Do I have cloud storage, no I don't. The way I figure it is I have enough on my PC for backup and well if the PC catches fire and the drives are toast I more to worry about as most likely either all or most of my house went with it.  Have I ever had to fall back on my backup's over the past few years....HELL YES! With the setup I have I can do the following: From the image drive I have multiple snap shots of what is on my PC. I can pick a date open it and look around via file explorer, the desktop and so on. For example I deleted a file on my PC but then 3 month later realize I really really need it. I can go to the image drive look for an image that is before the date I deleted the oh so important file. Then open that image and navigate to where that file is and I can drag it onto my desktop.   
My clone drives
  The clone drive is a duplicate drive of my main C drive. If I get up one morning and start the PC and greeted with ZERO Win11 working. No problem I just turn off the PC, restart, press a certain F key that takes me to my BIOS and tell my PC to boot from my clone drive. I then am back in biz, I then I have the time to determine if my C drive is software or hardware related. If it was a Windows melt down I can reformat the drive. Then ask my backup software clone of my drive I am now using back to my C drive. Then restart in BOIS and direct my PC to start using drive C again.  To both examples above the very import thing is to regularly backup your PC. You are wasting your time if you only back up let say every 6 months. So many things can change over that time and if you do need to use the clone you may have lots missing. I do a backup once a week and really with SSD drives it takes no time at all. In the above picture you can see the top drive SN770 section 3(C) has 299.52 GB of info. My clone drive below CT1000 has 291.26 GB of info and this is only after I did a backup yesterday.  The software I use is free and very simple to use. I have asked it on numerous occasions to save me and it has never let me down. The software is called Macrium Reflect free version. There is no long a free version available from the Macrium site they have stopped that. But if you are interested go to Oldergeeks website in the search bar type Macrium Reflect and you will be directed to working download of the free version and do so at your own risk.   

3Y0K in the log

March 8th, 2026 | Author:

 

 Finally, it has started to warm up here and on Saturday temps hit a nice 7C, and we celebrated by burping the house. It ended up raining all day, but that helps melt the snow faster which is ok with me. I was in the radio room doing some this and that, I decided to check (again) the DX Heat cluster and see what if anything was going on with 3Y0K on Bouvet island. As way of background I have seen them many times on the cluster followed by a huge pile up but never could hear them. 

As I was looking over the spots on the cluster 3Y0K just popped up with a new spot on 20m. I flipped the switch on the 7610 and ventured down to there spotted frequency on 20m. For the first time I could hear them at about S3, even better there was next to no pileup.....YET!  The Icom 7610 was on CW,  I tapped Dual then split and joined the fray. 

In the right ear I could hear the pileup and was looking at the waterfall to see where the lonely signal was who answered 3Y0K's beck and call. Very fast I caught on to how they were working the pileup. One issue was 3Y0K would reach out to a caller BUT still many would continue to send their call sign. Once 3Y0K worked a station many like me have a waterfall display and could see were the action was. Then all of a sudden that small wedge of the frequency became very busy. What I noticed was 3Y0K moved down frequency a bit more than normal to get away from the clump of callers.  I decided to do the same. I noticed that 3Y0K now had moments of fading in and out, also the pileup was starting to grow fast. But after only 3 tries I was in the log. 

During my attempt there were those calling on 3Y0K's frequency, someone for about 30 seconds or more sending a carrier over top of 3Y0K and those who just sent their call continually no matter who 3Y0K was working. Oh well just part of the fun I guess. 

HamClock lives on

March 1st, 2026 | Author:


 

With Elwood (the creator of HamClock) now SK, HamClock is set to stop functioning in June 2026. Fortunately, several alternatives and workarounds exist for those looking to continue using similar features. Here’s a summary based on my experience and research:

1. Open HamClock

  • Feature-rich: Offers extensive customization and configuration.
  • Spotting Control: Ability to turn off spotting to de-clutter the map.
  • Setup: Easy setup process; remembers your preferences if saved.
  • Full Screen: Can be run in full-screen mode.
  • Updates: Regular updates with clear notifications and instructions.
  • VOACAP Display: Improved propagation prediction display.

2. Hamtab

  • Web-based: Runs in your browser for all OS’s.
  • HamClock Themes: Includes a theme similar to Elwood's HamClock theme.
  • Fewer Options: Less configurable than Open HamClock.
  • Spotting Limitation: No clear option to remove all spots from the map.
  • Map Interaction: Limited ability to click on the map for DX/solar info; can only click on spots.
  • Solar Overlay: Not as detailed as Open HamClock, Open HamClock-backend or Bruce W4BAE HamClock.

3. HamVision

  • Early Development: Still under heavy development; site is often in maintenance mode.
  • Limited Configuration: Little to no configuration is possible at this stage.
  • Updates: Latest info and updates are shared on their Facebook page.

4. HamClock me Online

  • Web-based Version: Another browser option.
  • Limited Testing: I haven’t explored this one deeply, but it’s worth checking to see if it meets your needs.

     GitHub-Based Projects

  • General Note: These require familiarity with GitHub, Docker, and self-hosting.
  1. Open HamClock Back-end
  • Actively Updated: Closest in spirit to Elwood’s original HamClock.
  • Setup Challenges: Can be tricky to get running if you’re not comfortable with GitHub/Docker.
    
  • Mixed Results: I couldn’t get this running on my Pi4; the Mac OS version didn’t work due to OS version issues. Your experience may vary.

     3. Keeping HamClock Alive

  • Resource: Bruce (W4BAE) has compiled a detailed guide and history at his website.
  • -b Flag: Elwood’s last version (4.22) introduced a back-end override (-b flag) letting HamClock point to an alternate server.
  • Easy-to-Follow Instructions: Bruce’s guide makes it straightforward to implement this workaround, and he’s responsive to questions.
  • Result: I was able to set up a working HamClock on my Pi3b using this method. I kept my Pi4 still running Elwood's HamClock until I am happy with alternatives.  
  •  Summary
    While Elwood’s original HamClock will stop functioning, there are multiple alternatives and ways to keep similar functionality alive. Your best option depends on your technical comfort level and preferred features. For those wanting a near-identical experience, Bruce W4BAE’s method is highly recommended along with Open HamClock-Back-end. As for a one stop shopping I would recommend Open ham clock. Enter it in your browser and you are ready to go. 
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