What is the most important aspect of life?  Having fun! (Of course!).

Perhaps it is unusual to wax philosophical in an amateur radio forum, but I am going out on a limb to share a perspective that hopefully is refreshingly new and full of life:  Systems thinking — an amateur radio approach.

What I’m sharing herein, I find very intense, invigorating, challenging, and motivational! The more I think about amateur radio with this perspective–the Systems Thinking perspective–the more fun I’m able to define, and then accomplish.

In my opinion, this approach to life is REVOLUTIONARY! Why isn’t this knowledge distributed far and wide?  Why aren’t these precepts taught in the schools for young children, so that they can be equipped for a life full of accomplished purpose?  Perhaps it is due to the deceptive simplicity of approaching life with the perspective of Systems Thinking.

SYSTEMS THINKING AND AMATEUR RADIO

Amateur Radio as a Service – a System, not a Collection

What is Systems Thinking?

In a very simplistic sense, a system is any group of parts that make up one complex whole.  Each part cannot function as the whole, and each part interacts with other parts, such that this behavior affects that end result which is expressed by the whole.

Think about a motorcycle.  Let’s play with that thought: I disassemble my motorbike in your living room.  Once the bike completely taken apart and the parts are scattered all over your living room floor, can any one of those parts support my riding it out to the countryside, and back again?  No.  Only the bike can act, when it is made whole again, as a motorbike.  But, even if the individual parts, doing their part well, try to be the bike all by themselves, but fail, in the end realize that the parts are very important.  Each part has a place and a job.  Each part belongs.

By now, as you think about this, you probably realize that there is a difference between collections, and systems, of course.  A bag of rocks is not a system.  A motorcycle is a system.  A bag of motorbike parts is not a motorbike.  The assembly of the motorbike parts does make a motorcycle.

What does this have to do with amateur radio?

The amateur radio service (hobby) is a system, not a collection.  There are many parts–and one of the most important component of the amateur radio system is you and me.  We interact with each other, exchanging knowledge, reports, friendships; we each function, lending our functioning the the autonomous self, the amateur radio service.

It takes more than one of us to make up the amateur radio service.  It would take at least two amateur radio operators, at the most extreme emaciated existence as a public service. It is obvious that one ham, all by herself, does not make the amateur radio service.  No one of us is the amateur radio service, by ourselves.  We need each other in order to have a ham radio community–the amateur radio service.  Ourselves, our radios, antennas, computers, knowledge, schedules, and so on, are all parts of the big system with which we participate in our community.

Let that sink in.

Ponder the long-term repercussions of this revelation:  We need each other, and we need our resources (time, skills, knowledge, radios, etc.).

How do we shape our System?  What will elevate our System so that it is effective?  And, so we begin to do this, SYSTEMS THINKING.

Please read, and ponder these thoughts, as you read through this article:

https://thesystemsthinker.com/a-lifetime-of-systems-thinking/

Additionally, you should check out this video–it is  great!

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbLh7rZ3rhU[/embedyt]

Bonus (not necessary but still VERY good deeper dive):

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGN5DBpW93g[/embedyt]

In my estimation, Dr. Russell Ackoff is amazingly wise, and inspiring!

SYSTEMS THINKING

At the moment, I am studying and trying to implement system thinking.  It is the topic I am mostly studying right now.

The following is an introduction to Systems Thinking:

https://thesystemsthinker.com/

Download this useful paper that helps you understand system thinking:

http://nw7us.us/systems-thinking/Introduction-to-Systems-Thinking-IMS013Epk.pdf

I would very much like to hear your thoughts on all of this.  Seriously.  Take your time.  But, let’s start wading through this pool of refreshing water…

Happy New Year!

Tomas Hood
NW7US

Addendum:  I do not necessary agree with every perspective, conclusion, or point made by Dr. Russell Ackoff.  Never-the-less, the overarching idea of systems thinking seems valid, and is worth considering.

After seeing some videos about small HF transceivers for Summits On The Air (SOTA), I feel I need to set the record straight.

The following video shows the World’s Smallest SOTA Transceiver in use. Of course, it uses the UHF spectrum because shorter wavelengths enable smaller ham radio stations.

The radio shown in the video is the NKTech NK-M1 UHF transceiver.

This radio is a 16-channel UHF transceiver, available from multiple online vendors. I programmed it to operate in the 70 cm band on 446.0 MHz.

73 Bob K0NR

The post The Truth About Tiny SOTA Transceivers appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Closing out 2020, here are the top five blog posts at k0nr.com during the year. Some people may see this as a lazy way of creating one more blog post for the year without much work. This is definitely true. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Leading the list is this blog post…a perennial favorite that seems to make the top five each year.

Getting Started on 2m SSB

This is another popular article that explains some of the details behind the 2-meter band plan. This particular article is tuned for Colorado but there it also provides a link to an article that covers the topic for the USA.

Choose Your 2m Frequency Wisely

New on the blog this year,  I wrote this article about the Yaesu FT-4XR handheld transceiver. Spoiler Alert: Buy this one instead of the Baofeng.

What About the Yaesu FT-4XR?

Coming from nowhere, this article talks about an alternative firmware package for the popular Tytera MD-380 transceiver. I don’t know why this is getting so many hits but it might just be people searching for the TyMD380toolz, which seems to have disappeared.

TyMD380toolz for Tytera MD-380

The fifth-place post is one of my personal favorites that talks about proper kerchunking of repeaters. It even introduced a new Q-signal for kerchunking, although I must admit it may not be catching on.

Proper Kerchunking

Editor’s Choice

I am going to add one more post to this list. No extra charge. This one announced that Joyce/K0JJW achieved Mountain Goat status in the Summits On The Air program. You Go, Grrrrl.

New SOTA Mountain Goat: Joyce/K0JJW

The post Top Five K0NR Blog Posts for 2020 appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

The Arkansas River Headwaters is a unique recreation area that follows the upper Arkansas River in Colorado, extending roughly from Leadville to Pueblo. POTA has it listed as the Arkansas River Headwaters State Park, but the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website shows it as the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area. This area is a bit unique, a cooperative effort involving Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Bureau of Land Management, and the US Forest Service. See map here.

Joyce/K0JJW and I decided to activate this park earlier this week, enjoying a nice sunny day. We operated from the Collegiate Peaks Overlook, which has a picnic area and an excellent view of Mount Princeton and adjacent peaks.

For POTA, our standard station configuration is the Yaesu FT-991 transceiver driving an end-fed halfwave antenna, usually on 20m or 15m. We have a collection of end-fed halfwave antennas that cover 40m and up.  We have bigger and smaller transceivers available to us, but the FT-991 is small enough to be portable but includes an antenna tuner and has 100 watts of output available. (Typically, we run about 50 watts of RF output on battery power.) Our power source is a Bioenno 12V 20aH LFP battery.  This battery is lightweight and compact, capable of running the FT-991 for hours.

Bob working VE4RBH and AG7KO on 20 meters.

We set up our station on a convenient picnic table. We had hoped to lash the mast to a conveniently-located post or tree, but none were present. Our backup plan was the drive-on mount, held by the front tire of the truck. The 20m band was alive so we just set up on that band and never looked back. We also worked some of the locals on 2m FM. It is always fun to see who shows up on that band.

Here’s Joyce working AA5UY in Louisiana.

I don’t think we have really optimized our POTA setup but we have found an approach that works well. Never underestimate a properly-fed halfwave antenna up in the air.

73 Bob K0NR

The post POTA: Arkansas River Headwaters State Park (K-1208) appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Recently, I commented on participating in the Parks On The Air (POTA) program: How About Parks On The Air? Since then Joyce/K0JJW and I have done a few POTA activations, including a few combination SOTA (Summits On The Air) + POTA activations. We are starting to sort out how SOTA and POTA work for us. I am sure this will evolve over time as there are many operating options with both programs. But here is what we’ve done so far.

Recall that we’ve been focusing on VHF/UHF operating for SOTA, although I did break down and actually made some HF contacts from a SOTA summit recently. VHF/UHF  is a good match for SOTA (Height Above Average Terrain). However, for some remote summits, it can be a challenge to get enough radio contacts (4) to qualify for the SOTA points. Using HF can be a big help in generating contacts. POTA can also be done with VHF, some parks have high elevation, but many of them are not attractive VHF locations. POTA requires 10 radio contacts to qualify for points, so that raises the bar a bit, too.

Yesterday, we decided to hike up Mt Herman (W0C/FR-063) for a short afternoon VHF/UHF activation. I posted both a SOTA alert and a POTA alert.  We made plenty of radio contacts (40 total) and submitted logs to both the SOTA and POTA websites. I know there were SOTA chasers out there but I’m not sure if anyone worked us specifically for POTA. As usual, a lot of hams give us a call just because it is fun to work someone on a summit (without any SOTA or POTA interest).

The majority of our SOTA activations in Colorado are in national forests, which count as “parks” for POTA. So it is easy to tack on a POTA activation when doing SOTA.

Vehicle-Based POTA

Joyce and I also did some POTA activations from a vehicle. It is pretty easy for us to get to Pike National Forest (K-4404) or San Isabel National Forest (K-4407) and set up a portable station.

We used a Yaesu FT-991 and endfed halfwave antennas for 20m and 15m, supported by a SOTAbeams pole. This is the same configuration I’ve used for portable operating from many locations, including some Caribbean islands. I recently purchased a 20 Ah LFP battery from Bioenno Power to use as a power source so that we don’t rely on the vehicle battery.

We focused on HF for these POTA activations and were pleased to have decent pileups of stations calling us on the 20m and 15m bands. Fifty watts to a halfwave antenna works just fine. We also made it a point to call on 2m FM and usually picked up a handle of contacts on that band, too.

What’s Next?

At this point, our outdoorsy portable operating is looking like this:

• SOTA Summits – if the summit is in a park, we will probably go ahead and submit a POTA log along with the SOTA log. Many of the W0C SOTA summits are in national forests, national parks or state parks. VHF-only activations will probably have less impact on POTA…those chasers/hunters tend to be on HF.
• POTA Parks (day trip) – another option is for us to just stop by one of the national forests or a state park and get on the air. (Pike National Forest is about 2 miles from our home.) This will be focused on the HF bands but we can always make a call or two on VHF.
• POTA (RV camping) – we’ve been RV camping in state parks and national forests this past year. An obvious additional activity is to set up on HF for a POTA activation. We haven’t done this yet.

I’ve already done a combination VHF Contest and SOTA activation, so this could be extended to include POTA. Three Things In One. In fact, some locations qualify for more than one POTA park, so maybe it is time for a Four-In-One.

73 Bob K0NR

The post More On SOTA and POTA appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Recently, Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV) announced its purchase of certain iconic RadioShack brands and related assets. Many radio amateurs and electronics hobbyists would like to see something happen in the way of a new, improved RadioShack, whether online or via brick-and-mortar stores. RadioShack is still a strong brand but it takes more than a brand to drive success in business. Count me as a bit skeptical that anything significant will happen with this move but I would be happy to be wrong about that.

A quick look at the RadioShack.com web site reveals some cross-selling on the top of the home page to Linens+Things, Pier 1, Dressbarn, Farmerscart, The Franklin Mint and Modell’s. In what marketing universe does that make sense?

RadioShack Brands

Not too long ago, I got to looking at the list of old RadioShack brand names. I thought I was a tech-savvy RadioShack dude but quickly found out they had a boatload of brand names that I never heard of. (One could argue that RadioShack completely messed up its branding strategy with so many diverse product line brands.)

Here’s what I found:

AntennaCraft (outdoor antennas and amplifiers)
Auvio (audio/video cables, LCD TV’s, headphones, premium surge protectors and speakers)
Enercell (batteries and power)
Gigaware (computer, GPS and iPod accessories, mp3 players and accessories, as well as digital cameras, digital camera accessories)
PointMobl (Wireless Phone Accessories)
Accurian (audio and video equipment and accessories)
MyMusix (MP3 players; later marketed under the Gigaware brand)
Kronus (tools)
Optimus (formerly audio and PA/DJ equipment; later used for digital camera accessories)
Presidian (audio and video equipment, telephones, flashlights,calculators, and 2-way radios)
VoiceStar (wireless phone accessories)
Archer (wiring and antennas)
Duofone (telephones & accessories)
Micronta (scientific and educational equipment)
Realistic (used broadly for radio and audio equipment)

Source: http://www.lb7.uscourts.gov/documents/14-14713.pdf

And if you want to go deeper, here is a history page on the RadioShack company.

Maybe they will bring back the Battery-A-Month Club.

73 Bob K0NR

The post RadioShack Brands appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Charlie/NJ7V invited Joyce/K0JJW and me to be on the All Portable Discussion Zone, on the Red Summit RF YouTube channel. We talked mostly about Summits On The AIr (SOTA) using VHF/UHF. It was a fun experience for both of us.

The post K0JJW and K0NR Interview on Red Summit RF appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.