AmateurRadio.com

It was a perfect September afternoon. Judy and I hiked up to a field on Shute Hill. I worked Bulgaria, Bosnia, Cuba and three stations from Washington state.

We parked the car and walked north on the Rufus Colby Road. The town only maintains about a half mile of it, then it turns into an impassable woods road. After another few hundred yards, we headed east through the woods on an  abandoned farm lane. The woods open into a small field after a few minutes’ walk.

Here, there are two small fields separated by a stone wall. Judy gets a photo of me walking through the first field.

On the other side of the wall, we enter the second field.  I open my pack and setup the little Chinese HB-1B on 20 meters.  I heave a water bottle into an oak tree so I can pull up a wire. I miss my mark,  the bottle hits the ground, splits and all the water runs out. The bottle has lasted  for nearly three years of frequent outings. It had to happen sooner or later. I search in the stone wall for a suitable rock. I find one that’s a bit too heavy and my throw doesn’t go as high as planned. I use a half-wave sloper instead of a vertical! But still… it works.

With key in hand, I work six stations in about 20 minutes. Here’s the log:

Date      UTC   Time   Call      My His   QTH
———————————————————————————
16 Sep-12 2005  14.021 LZ1DS CW  449 599 BULGARIA
16 Sep-12 2015  14.026 E72U  CW  599 599 BOSNIA
16 Sep-12 2019  14.047 K7TJ  CW  599 599 WA
16 Sep-12 2020  14.048 W7WMO CW  599 599 WA
16 Sep-12 2022  14.049 K7INA CW  599 599 WA
16 Sep-12 2023  14.006 CO6RD CW  599 599 CUBA

This is a lovely, quiet spot to visit on an early fall afternoon. The air is chilly, but the sun is warm. These few days before the first frost are treasured, and I get out every time I can.

This afternoon I rode my bicycle to Old Hill Village on the
Pemigewasset River. Just as I was about to call an Italian station,
a Black Hawk Helicopter landed in the field in front of me.

I wasn’t really surprised… the National Guard from Concord flies training missions along the river. It’s a wonderful, isolated place… not just for nature-loving radio ops, but for helicopter training maneuvers as well.

So I put down the key, and walked out into the field as the helicopter was about to take off again. They had left an airman on the ground.

I walked over to see what was going on. “You want me out of here?” I asked the airman. “No, you’re fine,” he replied. He explained that the helicopter was going to circle the area, drop a rescue litter and then circle again and haul the litter aboard. They were practicing rescue operations. The airman is a medic, and his team is leaving for Afghanistan at the end of the month. I thanked him, wished him godspeed in Afghanistan, and walked off the field to watch the practice session.

Soon the helicopter returned and dropped a line to the airman who guided the litter to the ground.  Afterwards, they hauled both the litter and airman back aboard. Soon I could hear them repeating the drill in a field on the other side of the river.

I returned to my setup at the edge of the field. I was running the little Chinese HB-1B on 20 meters with a half-wave vertical wire. As soon as I sat back down, I heard R1NA calling CQ. Alex was pretty strong and answered my call. He gave me a 449 and copied all of my information. He was north of St. Petersburg, not far from the Finnish border… about 4,000 miles from Old Hill Village.

After the QSO, I packed up and started back to the car. It was a glorious afternoon in Hill. The day was balmy, early fall flowers were in bloom, and I was exhilarated to be in the outdoors once again.

Like everything else in Amateur Radio, CW has its supporters and its detractors. Me, I am neutral. I encourage those with the dedication to pursue proficiency with this mode and to be able to copy code at blinding speeds. I think it is great that this part of our radio heritage is preserved and that there is even growing interest today. Just like Boy Scouts who use two sticks to start a fire. Do they still do that or do they prefer the magic of a butane lighter today?

There was a time when I could copy code at 20 WPM with my trusty No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. And after I got my general in 1955, I pinky-swore that I would always use CW as my primary mode. And you know that among kids a pinky swear is the most powerful swear you can make.

NOT! After a few months, I fell under the spell of AM and spent more and more time on the phone bands. I was running phone patches and participating in the AREC (the predecessor to ARES) emergency nets. Night after night was spent roaming the 20 meter phone band, searching for a new country. Pushing the envelope to see how close I could get to the edge of the band without a pink ticket; speaking in tongues and only to fellow addicts I met on the air. It was not a pretty sight.

There is something about CW that is the essence of ham radio. Like the “purity of essence” mentioned by General Jack D. Ripper, just before he blew his brains out in the movie, Dr. Strangelove. So when I came back to the hobby in 2009 after a hiatus of forty plus years, I promised myself that I would get back to the purity of CW someday. I am afraid that I haven’t made it back there yet.

In spite of the best efforts of my friends to coax me, support me, lend me a key and a keyer, challenge me with a bet and regale me with stories of DX contacts on the low end of the bands and listening to W1AW code practice sessions. I have to confess, the magic isn’t there. Somewhere along my path, I lost the purity of essence that CW represents. I surrendered to the Dark Side of the Force (SSB).

Its pretty good over here on the Dark Side you know. I have plenty of projects that need to get done and that challenge my skill set. Improving antennas, camouflage techniques, installing mobile HF, eliminating RFI, better grounds, more automation and improving my audio. All those are wicked diversions from the purity of essence.

There are plenty of pileups for rare DX or special events and contests, on sideband and CW. Though CW purists believe they can get through when SSB can’t, that is in a perfect world. A CW operator has to deal with bad manners, QRM, splatter and guys running 2 KW against their 100 watts too.

On the other hand, SSB can be a more personal mode. While in a CW QSO, you get to know the operator by their fist, its more like texting; only faster. On SSB you actually hear the other guy’s voice, their tone and timbre. The little nuances of speech that make them human. You are face to face, mano a mano. SSB contests take on the character of an old fashioned bar fight and some rag chew nets go on and on like old radio soap operas.

But, I promise that I will get back to CW someday.

Is this the Chinese mobile radio at a good price point ($275) people have been waiting for? The specs list a detachable head, cross-band repeat, 50/40 watts, 758 memories, AM aircraft receive, wide-band FM receive, and 2013 FCC compliant. Ed’s site even mentions that it’s Part 90 certified.

Here is the text of Ed’s e-mail:

After the dismal performance and high price of Wouxun’s dual band mobile radio, I’m excited to share information about the AnyTone AT-588UV. I have been testing this radio for a couple of weeks and I’m impressed. I think this will be the Chinese dual bander that takes the market.

It’s computer programmable and the control head separates from the radio via a CAT5 cable. This radio is easy to manually operate because there are no sub-menus and there are matching controls for the left and right sides. Either side can be set for VHF or UHF or both the same. It has dual receive (two signals at once) and when transmitting, you can set the off side to be muted if desired. Unlike the Wouxun, with the AnyTone, you can scan one side while monitoring the other side. It only takes a couple button pushes to set up cross band repeat. And unlike the other brand, this cross band repeat actually works! It has AM Aircraft receive plus 220-260 MHz receive (sorry NO 220 transmit).

The company has given me this timeline for availability. They plan to produce a small run at the end of September and hopefully full production by the end of October. I suggested they make a larger test run because I’ve found nothing major that needs improving. I’ve made a few suggestions for firmware changes which they quickly approved. This company is interested in producing a good product. When the AT-588UV is available to purchase, I will send an announcement to this mailing list.

The owners manual is not yet available but I have a list of the various functions. I will post this information and the programming software on my web site as soon as I can. This will take you to that location.

Best Regards,
Ed Griffin

—-

So, what do you think?  Will you be in for one of these?

Which would you choose, this radio or a Yaesu FT-7900R ($350) or Icom IC-208H ($345)?

Adding the panels

Finally everything fell in place… my shack is running on solar power only. An idea/project I have been pursuing for years but the circumstances were never perfect… until this July. Last fall, a hailstorm took care of the roof and I had to replace it. In July I was able to secure a large chunk of money from our City which is offering a (very) limited number of rebates for Photovoltaic (PV) installations. Together with the federal tax credits it will put the ROI within my life expectancy. Good enough for me.

PV: Panel Monitor

The complete system is a grid tied, 5.5 kW system – 22 panels organized in two arrays (one south and one west facing). Each panel has a microinverter to optimize production and to add some ‘intelligence’ to the system. Monitoring and trouble shooting is a breeze. I can literally see when a bird poops on a panel and degrades my production 🙂

Since my shack consists only of a Yaesu FT-817, I am using the excess energy in the rest of the house. It should produce over 100% of our typical electricity usage per year if everything goes according to plan – I guess time will tell.

Here a short clip of the installation:

Please add your questions and comments through Youtube.

An interesting news item popped up on the ARRL website last week.

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) has expressed public support for a .radio top-level domain name. Under the proposal as put forth by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), registration will be available via the EBU to all eligible radio representative organizations and broadcasters, Internet radios, radio amateurs, radio professionals and their respective representative organizations, as well as companies providing radio-specific products and services in order to create a worldwide radio community.

The IARU supporting comment:

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) welcomes dot-radio, the Internet Top Level domain that the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) proposes to create for the global radio community.Created in Paris, France, the IARU has been the watchdog and spokesman for the world Amateur Radio community since 1925 and counts with over 160 members from many different countries and territories.

The IARU believes that the dot-radio proposal to be submitted by the EBU could provide an unique opportunity to standardize Radio domain names on the Internet.

The use of a specific global online name such as dot-radio can help create a unique space worldwide, a place where the global radio community can gather.

Am I the only one who thought to themselves, “what does this have to do with Amateur Radio?”

What does the European Broadcast Union, a group that represents the interests of broadcasters (especially on radio spectrum issues), have anything to do with ham radio? Anyone? I can hear the crickets chirping….

What does it mean to “standardize radio names on the Internet”? How about “a place where the global radio community can gather”? I mean, is anyone feeling like this sort of thing is missing on the Internet?

Has anyone had any trouble getting their callsign domain name in .com, .net, .org, or .co.uk? From an Amateur Radio perspective, this whole thing seems like a solution in search of a problem.

Others have also weighed in the potential conflict of interest in EBU’s application. Julien Mervyn Dedier filed this comment with ICANN:

Dot. Radio the Internet top Level domain that EBU proposes to create for the global radio community is not in the best interest of amateur radio operators worldwide. The International Amateur Radio Union’s (IARU) support for Dot. Radio by EBU does not reflect the views of all amateur radio operators globally.

Apparently he’s not alone in raising the conflict of interest concern. Kevin Murphy, editor of the domain name blog DomainIncite, wrote:

The European Broadcasting Union, which is one of four applicants for the .radio top-level domain, has asked to join ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee as an observer.

It is believed that its request is likely to be accepted.

The move, which comes just a couple of weeks after ICANN revealed its list of new gTLD applications, could raise conflict of interest questions.

While several GAC governments and observers are backing new gTLD bids – the UK supports .london, for example – they’re generally geographic in nature and generally not contested.

I’m not suggesting that there is some grand conspiracy here. There may be very valid reasons why IARU believes that this is fundamentally in our best interest. They just aren’t clear to me from the press release.

I e-mailed Mr. Ellam, the president of the IARU, a week ago for comment. I asked specifically for an example of how the approval of EBU’s .radio application would benefit the Amateur Radio community.  I ‘m still awaiting a reply.

It is now official: I have a fixed amateur radio station in Taiwan. Very interesting that the licence shows both my name and call, which wasn’t the case in the past.

Yesterday another gruelling teaching semester has started. Like so many I need to put extra effort and energy in my work just to be able to keep the job I have. Apart from that, I need to work on my physical well-being also (being 45 and all), so I have joined my kids in their Taekwondo class. It is going to be busy and tiring for the next half year. The little time I have to myself I’m going to spend in the shack, not behind the computer. So, I’m going to be quiet for while, not writing anything except for the occasional entry in the diary on my own web site. But who knows, maybe we will meet on air before I return here. 73 from Taiwan.