Celebrating 5 Years of Holiday Spirit on the Air

Now with an AI-Powered Award System!

As the Christmas season approaches, radio amateurs across the world can once again look forward to hearing the cheerful special callsigns PH25XMAS and PH26HNY on the HF bands. These stations will be active during the Christmas holidays and the first week of January 2026, sharing goodwill and season’s greetings over the airwaves.

This year marks the first lustrum (5th anniversary) of the festive XMAS and HNY event calls. To mark the occasion, the organizing team has developed an all-new automated award platform — a creative blend of amateur radio, Python programming, and artificial intelligence. It is called SAVS (Special Award Validation System).

The system will be operational, starting the 6^th of December 2025. Until then a page is showing a count-down timer to the first date of operation and first opportunity to check the award eligibility.

A Fully Automated Award System:  SAVS

Participants who have made QSOs with PH##XMAS and/or PH##HNY stations between 2021 and 2026 can check whether they qualify for a commemorative certificate.

• The platform automatically searches remote and local ADIF logs (PH21XMAS–PH26HNY).
• Operators whose callsigns appear three or more times in the logbooks across the past four years and this year are eligible for an award.
• After entering your callsign on the Entry Page, the system validates your QSOs, displays the results, and — if qualified — instantly generates a personalized PDF certificate for download.

Behind the scenes, a Python Flask server performs the validation, integrates with QRZ.com for data verification, and generates your award PDF with just one click.

Open Source and AI-Assisted

The entire system was created with the help of AI tools and is released as a fully open-source project on GitHub: https://github.com/PA3EFR/SAVS_XMAS_HNY

Every element — from log validation to PDF generation — runs autonomously, demonstrating how classic ham radio activity can harmoniously combine with modern coding and machine learning.

Join the Celebration

So this festive season, when you hear “CQ from PH25XMAS” or “CQ from PH26HNY”, don’t hesitate to call back!

You might not only exchange warm holiday greetings, but also earn yourself a special place in the logs — and a beautiful award to commemorate it.

📡 Brought to you by Radio Scouting Fellowship PA3EFR/J

A few days ago, someone told me that a rumor is circulating that I don’t own any gear capable of operating on the high-frequency (HF) bands. I laughed out loud, wondering where this came from.

Actually, I know where this comes from: most of my postings here at k0nr.com are oriented towards VHF operating, often from the top of a summit. I fully admit that VHF/UHF has always been my favorite part of the amateur radio spectrum.

And I do operate on the HF bands.

Home Station

The photo above shows my ham shack set up at home. The primary transceiver is an ICOM IC-7610, which covers the HF bands and 6 meters. To the left is an ICOM IC-9700 that I use for 2m, 70cm, and 23cm. An ACOM 1000 linear amplifier sits at the far left. It is usually configured for 6m, just waiting for the band to open.

Here is a closer look at the two transceivers. Hey, look at that, the IC-7610 is listening to 20m CW. Yes, I even operate CW.

My antenna farm includes two towers but they are used for VHF/UHF antennas. For the HF bands, I use wire antennas. This article describes the end-fed wire antenna I have been using for the past 5 years. It covers 40m through 6m with one antenna.

Operating Results

I run hot and cold on chasing DX, but over time, I have made many DX contacts and worked quite a few countries. I favor the DX potential of the higher bands: 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, and 10m. Recently, I discovered that the 30m band can be a lot of fun, too. My current stats are: 205 DXCC Entities and 39 (out of 40) CQ Zones. Still looking to work Zone 34, Northeastern Africa. I’ve also been working on Worked All States (WAS) for each band, having completed 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, and 6m.

Going Portable with HF

Joyce/K0JJW and I often operate portable on the HF bands, almost always a Parks On The Air (POTA) activation. Our favorite radio for POTA is a Yaesu FT-991, which covers the HF bands along with VHF/UHF. Almost all of the POTA work is on HF but sometimes we do make a few VHF contacts.

We also have an ICOM IC-705, also covering all bands, and is especially useful for backpack portability. We favor VHF/UHF for SOTA but sometimes we will use the IC-705 to make some HF SOTA contacts.  We have a variety of wire antennas, all different types of end-fed designs. The IC-705 does not have a built-in antenna tuner, so we take along a small manual tuner.

Wrap Up

So there you have it, I do have some HF gear and I do use it!

Remember, the universal purpose of amateur radio is to have fun messing around with radios. Using whatever amateur band you choose.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Confirming K0NR Does Have HF Equipment appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

This weekend is the ARRL Field Day, a great opportunity for individual hams, small groups, and radio clubs to get on the ham bands and have some fun. But what is Field Day all about? The ARRL says this:

Field Day is ham radio’s open house. Every June, more than 31,000 hams throughout North America set up temporary transmitting stations in public places to demonstrate ham radio’s science, skill and service to our communities and our nation. It combines public service, emergency preparedness, community outreach, and technical skills all in a single event. Field Day has been an annual event since 1933, and remains the most popular event in ham radio.

I have always thought that one of the great things about Field Day is that it can be tuned to whatever interests you or your club. It can be a Radio Contest, an Emergency Communications Exercise, a Radio Campout; a Food Fest, a Beer-Drinking Party, a Social Event, a SOTA or POTA activation,  a Public Relations event, an Educational Event, a Mentoring or Training event, or (very likely) some combination of these ideas. Or insert your idea here. In other words, “season to taste” and make it your own.

Always remember the Universal Purpose of Amateur Radio:

The Universal Purpose of Amateur Radio is To Have Fun Messing Around with Radios.

If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Field Day: Season to Taste appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

At first, I was just looking around on the web for some simple Rules of Thumb that compare the weak-signal performance of commonly used analog and digital modulation types. I was mostly focused on FT8 and FT4 but I also wanted to compare SSB and CW. I failed to find a simple comparison of these modes but I did find a number of good articles that compared some but not all of them. This article is my attempt to aggregate the available information into something easy to understand.

Disclaimers

I decided to leverage the work of others and to not try deriving everything from basic principles. I am telling myself that I am perfectly capable of doing the analysis but that I would never find the time to actually complete it. (Yeah, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.) Where the articles disagree, I tried to identify which one(s) had the most convincing analysis or rationale and used those values.

My goal is to compare common modulation types primarily in terms of weak-signal performance. This means focusing on how well a signal can be detected with low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). I have ignored other factors, such as signal fading, frequency drift, multipath distortion, etc. Also ignored are factors such as the information rate provided by the modulation type and the required signal bandwidth. This is focused on having the ability to pass just enough info to make the contact.

Literature Survey

Searching the internet provided me with a number of good articles that have examined this topic, listed below in the References section. My approach is to compare the results of these articles and aggregate them into a concise summary. These minimum SNR values are listed in the table shown below, along with my aggregated conclusions in the righthand column.

Most of these articles presented SNR data in terms of a 2500 Hz bandwidth, with the goal of providing an easy comparison between modulation types. SSB is the widest signal discussed, and it roughly fits into a 2500 Hz bandwidth, which is often the IF bandwidth of the receiver being used. Some authors make this explicit by tagging this SNR as SNR2500.  It is common practice in communications work to normalize the bandwidth to 1 Hz, which indicates the modulation’s bandwidth efficiency. However, we’ll stick with SNR2500.

I started with the article by PA3FWM [Ref 1], which provides a look at many of the modes I was interested in comparing. Unfortunately, this article does not include FT4 and FT8. N6MW [Ref 2] has a good treatment of FT4 and FT8 as well as minimum SNR values for SSB and CW. These lined up well with the PA3FWM values, so that was a good sign. N6MW referenced the foundational article about FT4 and FT8, published in QEX, written by the FT4 and FT8 developers [Ref 3]. The KB9II article [Ref 4] focuses on VHF weak-signal performance and provides minimum SNRs for SSB, RTTY, CW, and PSK31. He introduces the concepts of SNR (average) and SNR (peak). I used the SNR (average) numbers in the table. The KF6HI [Ref 5] article provided another set of SNR values that lined up pretty well. Finally, I came across a presentation by K0LB and KK4SNO [Ref 6] that includes a slide summarizing SNR performance. Because it is slideware, it does not include much about the sources of their numbers, but it seems useful to include them in the table.

The authors have somewhat different approaches to determining their SNR2500 numbers, mostly related to the assumptions used. You may want to read through these papers to gain a better understanding of the fine points. Overall, there is good alignment on results, with a few exceptions.

SSB

The single-sideband SNR2500 values are a mix of 10 dB and 6 dB. Frankly, I think 10 dB is a bit high for “minimum SNR” because I’ve spent quite a bit of time making weak-signal VHF/UHF contacts with the signal right at the noise level. I’ve squeezed out radio contacts with SNR much less than 10 dB. I looked at the rationale supplied in the articles for this value and it is mostly just assumed. So I went with my own experience and chose something smaller, 6 dB, aligning with KB9II and KF6HI. Even this number might be a bit conservative.

RTTY

I found only four values for RTTY, and they vary quite a bit. After studying the articles, I judged KB9II to have the best justification, so I went with -9 dB. I suspect that the actual decode performance may vary depending on the type and quality of the detector.

CW

The SNR2500 numbers for CW varied significantly, over a range of 10 dB. One way to estimate CW performance is to use the bandwidth of the receiver and compare it to 2500 Hz. Using a typical CW filter bandwidth of 200 Hz, SNR2500 = 10 log (200/2500) = -11.0 dB. However, it is well-known that the human ear/brain combination provides additional signal processing. The classic article by W2RS [Ref 7] covers this topic quite well. Using actual on-the-air tests, the article explains that the skill of the operator can introduce a variation of 3 to 6 dB. Another interesting note is that if the operator knows in advance the type of information they are expecting (such as the callsign of the other station), it provides a 3-dB advantage.

We can and probably will debate the SNR2500 value for CW until the cows come home, but I decided to adopt -12 dB in the right-hand column. This is probably conservative for a highly skilled operator.

FT8, FT4

For FT8 and FT4, I used the N6MW values, which come directly from the FT4 and FT8 paper [Ref 3]. I rounded off to the nearest decibel to be consistent with the rest of the column.

JT65

The JT65 values are quite consistent. An article by K1JT [Ref 8] says JT65 SNR is “roughly -28 to -24 dB in 2500 Hz,” so I put -24 dB in the righthand column.

WSPR

WSPR is a popular beacon mode and the king of weak-signal reception. Signal reports are collected worldwide and shared via WSPRnet.org. WSPR performance will vary depending on the specific settings used on the software and we have some variation in the table. The K1JT & W1BW article [Ref 9] says, “The WSPR protocol is effective at signal-to-noise ratios as low as –28 dB in a 2500 Hz bandwidth, some 10 to 15 dB below the threshold of audibility.” So I used -28 dB in the aggregated column.

Conclusions

The rightmost column in the table provides a reasonable comparison of the listed modulation types. I don’t claim that the values are perfect, but they should be helpful in understanding the performance of these modes. These data show that SSB is the least sensitive mode, followed by RTTY and PSK31. As mentioned earlier, the CW number is open to debate but it performs better than RTTY and PSK31. This brings us to FT4 and FT8, which are commonly used WSJT protocols with reasonable throughput. (FT4 and FT8 using 7.5 and 15-second transmit/receive intervals.) JT65 operates at lower SNR, but it is really in a different category, It is designed for Earth-Moon-Earth contacts, using one-minute intervals. WSPR is also unique as a beaconing system and not designed for two-way radio contacts, but it does have the best SNR performance on the list.

When using this data, keep in mind that most of these modes degrade slowly so there may not be a sharp cutoff at an exact signal level. The values are Rules of Thumb, accurate to within a few dB.

Thanks to Jim/K5ND and Bob/WØBV for reviewing this article and providing feedback.

73 Bob K0NR

References

1. Signal/noise ratio of digital amateur modes – Pieter-Tjerk de Boer, PA3FWM

2. FT8 Modulation and Decoding – A Dive into SNR interpretation N6MW

3. The FT4 and FT8 Communication Protocols – Steve Franke, K9AN- Bill Somerville, G4WJS – Joe Taylor, K1JT

4. A Comparison of Common Digital Modes for Weak Signal VHF Communications – John Matz, KB9II

5. Signal to Noise Ratio, definition and application to Radio Communications – KF6HI

6. Digital Modes in Amateur Radio – Larry, K0LB and Scott, KK4SNO

7. The Weak-Signal Capability of the Human Ear – Ray Soifer, W2RS

8. EME with JT65 – Joe Taylor, K1JT

9. WSPRing Around the World – Joe Taylor, K1JT, and Bruce Walker, W1BW

The post Weak-Signal Performance of Common Modulation Formats appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Six Meter WAS

Chasing States By Band

WAS Score Card

Operating from countries outside the US can be a lot of fun. I just completed another Slacker DXpedition, this time to the British Virgin Islands. The formula for this type of operation is simple: identify an interesting vacation spot that is also considered DX, travel there with friends and family, take along some compact radio gear, and get on the air. A key point is not to overdo the radio operating, or the friends and family will veto any radio activity on future trips. This was not a super-gonzo turbo-charged DXpedition. I just worked in some radio action in between snorkeling and exploring the island. This is referred to as a “holiday style” DXpedition, or maybe it’s just the slacker approach.

VP2V British Virgin Islands

The idea for this trip originated with a group of friends who often travel together to fun places, often an island in the Caribbean. BVI had been on our list for a while, and we had a trip planned back in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused us to cancel it at the last minute. It has taken us some time to get a plan back together, but here we are doing the trip five years later.

When a travel opportunity like this surfaces, I check out the implications of amateur radio licensing for that country. For a US radio amateur (and probably most other countries), getting a radio license for VP2V is easy. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) website has clear instructions on how to apply. Joyce/K0JJW and I filled out a form, provided copies of our passports and FCC licenses, and paid a $20 license fee. This did require a trip to a notary public to have these documents notarized. My friend, Paul/KF9EY was on the trip so he also obtained his VP2V license.

Location

We rented a fantastic house (Ana Capri Estate) on the north side of the island of Tortola. This house has a great view out over the water. Tortola is the main island of the BVI, and international flights are available at the airport on the east end.

The Ham Station

We took along our usual portable ham station, with a few updates. Our Yaesu FT-991 has served us well for POTA, SOTA, and island activations in the past, so it is our go-to radio for this sort of operation. The key features include a 100-watt RF output, a built-in sound card for digital modes, an internal antenna tuner, and a small enough size. This radio has HF plus 6m, 2m, and 70cm, which can be handy. Add a compact Samlex switching power supply, and we are ready. Recently, we have moved away from using End-fed Halfwave (EFHW) antennas and started using an End-Fed-Random Wire (EFRW), also called an End-Fed Long Wire (EFLW). The difference is subtle but important. The EFRW uses a wire length that is intentionally not resonant on any band, fed by 9:1 UNUN matching device. This setup radiates well over a range of frequencies but does require an antenna tuner because it is not a consistent 50-ohm impedance on all bands. I’ve found this to be a reasonable tradeoff between quick-changing band coverage and performance.

For this trip, we used the Palomar Engineers Bullet-9 UNUN, rated for 500 watts PEP. A variety of wire lengths can be used with this approach, with longer wires supporting lower frequencies. The 34-foot wire element supports operating on all bands from 40m to 6m, supported by the SOTABeams Travel Mast. The Travel Mast compacts to just 26.5 inches and extends to 32 feet. Actually, I modified the top of the mast to make it stronger, so the net height is closer to 29 feet. The end-fed wire antenna is almost vertical when deployed in this manner.

In past portable efforts, I’ve encountered issues with inconsistent antenna match and RF getting back into the FT-991. I checked this out carefully before the trip and adopted some mitigation practices that seem to help. First, I made sure the wire antenna could be supported almost vertically. This is not a strict requirement but it seems to help with getting a good match across all bands. I don’t use a counterpoise, but I do have 50 feet of RG-8X coax lying on the ground, which provides a bit of counterpoise. This length of coax also lets me keep the antenna separated from the transceiver by a reasonable distance, reducing the opportunity for RF to get back into the transceiver. Finally, I use a short USB cable, with ferrite cores on both ends, to connect my notebook PC to the FT-911. In the past, the USB connection between my PC and radio sometimes quit. These precautions appear to have paid off, as the station worked without any issues.

Operating

We set up the station outdoors under a covered patio to enjoy the fantastic view and (mostly) great weather while operating. This was not optimal, as we did get chased inside a few times when rain squalls moved in. They never lasted long, so I think the tradeoff was worth it.

The propagation on the HF bands has been quite good lately, and we continued to enjoy that while in BVI. We did not have much of an operating plan (“slacker style”) but intended to operate on the higher HF bands, mostly 20m and higher, using SSB, FT8, and FT4. Bob/W0BV pointed out that VP2V is somewhat rare, showing up at number 114 on the ClubLog Most Wanted List. Sure enough, whenever we called CQ, we were greeted with a nice pileup.

My VP2V/K0NR log has 1030 contacts, including 61 DXCC entities and 23 CQ Zones. I focused mostly on keeping the run rate up and just making contacts. About half of the Qs were with the US. The logs of VP2V/K0JJW and VP2V/KF9EY are not included in these numbers. I tended to stay on the higher bands as they were working quite well.

VP2V/K0NR Log
Band Phone Dig Total  %
30       0  79    79  8
20       0  46    46  4
17       0  90    90  9
15       0 161   161 16
12      44 349   393 38
10       0 260   260 25
 2       1   0     1  0
--    ---- ---   --- --
Total   45 985 1,030 100

As you can see from the numbers above, I made a lot of digital contacts (FT8/FT4). I found FT8 to be slow, and the normal FT8 frequency became crowded. There was much less congestion on FT4, and the run rate was better, so I found that to be effective. I enjoyed the SSB pileups for a while but found it to be a challenge to manage them. While I can work CW, I did not try to manage a pileup on that mode.

I found a 2m repeater on the island 146.73 MHz (—offset, no tone) and made a few calls on it, but I did not receive a reply.

QSLs will be via Logbook of The World only. I won’t be printing cards for this effort but the logs for VP2V/K0NR and VP2V/K0JJW are already loaded into LoTW. Thanks to everyone that worked us!

British Virgin Islands

BVI was a fantastic place to vacation. During our ten days there, we enjoyed the beaches, snorkeling, and sailing excursions. If you are interested in that, there are many online tourism sites to explore.

Thanks for stopping by.

73 Bob VP2V/K0NR

The post VP2V/K0NR: Another Slacker DXpedition appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

 You may wish to add these to your calendar

We will publish a report in The Communicator's next issue.

I would like to inform you about a few special event stations we will put up in the next few months. 

February 14,15 and 16th, PA80OV will be operational from Gennep, Netherlands. 
I will be a guest operator, and probably the organisation has written to you allready, but it is nice to know. 

https://radioclublimburg.nl/pa80ov/

----------------------------

The two others are also very interesting. 

At the end of WW2, the Netherlands suffered a hunger winter. Allied forces conducted a humanitarian action called Operation Manna. 
In April this year, 80 years ago, tons of food was dropped over the western part of the Netherlands, saving many people from starvation and death. 

To commemorate this event, we will activate a couple of stations, including GB80MAN, VE80MAN, VK80MAN, PH80MAN. 
We are hoping Poland is participating as well, and we hope the USA will put up a station. 

https://manna80.radio/the-team-in-the-netherlands/

As you have seen some SES from us, we will put up PH80MAN at a former drop zone. 
I have added a flyer with this mail.  This one is in Dutch, but an English version is under construction... will follow as soon as it is done!

Lastly, I would like to inform you about PA82AD. 
This is a call we used 5 years ago to celebrate 75 years of freedom. We held a DX-pedition but due to COVID, we could not really complete our goals. 
Please read the qrz.com page from bottom up. 

https://www.qrz.com/db/PA82AD

To finish this DX-pedition as planned, we will be operational for a very last time. 

Thanks again for reading, and hope to hear you on the bands. 

73, 

~ Sander PD9HIX