AmateurRadio.com

I’ve finally decided to sell my Collins S-line station. Trust me, it’s not a decision I’ve made lightly!

I absolutely love this equipment. In fact, it’s my dream rig.  I just don’t have the time to devote to working HF and I don’t see that situation improving anytime soon.  I know that someone will be able to make very good use of it.

If you are interested, or know of someone who is, please pass this along!

Collins 32S-3A Ham Radio Transmitter
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120737000467

Collins 75S-3C Ham Radio Receiver
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120737004368

Collins 30L-1 Ham Radio Linear Amplifier
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120737009082

Collins DL-1 Ham Radio Dummy Load
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120737012242

Collins 312B-4 Ham Radio Station Control
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120737015978

Collins 516F-2 Ham Radio AC Power Supply
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120737020097

(Update: I’m sorry to report that all the equipment has now sold. Thanks for your interest!)

Some may just jump to the conclusion that I’m recycling articles from QST, but I’m not — I promise! Having said that, on with the show…

A few months ago there was a nice two-month series in QST about signal reports. The author concentrated on what the numbers actually mean and how to use the reports. The first installment was about voice signals, the second about digital signals along with a suggestion of a tweaked system for digital signal reports.

I enjoy a nice cross section of our hobby: rag chewing, traffic handling, EmComm, some contesting, DX’ing, nets, and digital work. Of all those aspects there is one thing that stands out that seems pointless. Every signal report is a 5 by 9. Now I understand that during the peak or activity in a contest, it may be easiest to give the same report to everyone, especially if you can have your logging program pre-fill the signal report. But is this helpful? Is it ‘honest’? The signal report system was designed to give a signal report. An honest evaluation of how you can copy the other station. It wasn’t conceived to be an autopilot tool to speed along a contest or QSO.

If someone is stuck in autopilot with 5 by 9 reports, what’s the point of even giving them? There are times where it’s beyond obvious that I was hard to pull out, yet I’m told I’m 5 by 9. If they we’re honest about my report, I could tweak my antenna or processor or if I have an amp, turn up my power a little to improve my signal. If I’m only giving out a 5 by 9 report, the same holds true, it’s of no help whatsoever to the other station.

I refuse to just give 5 by 9 reports. I don’t care if it’s a contest or a rare DX station. If they are not an honest 5 by 9, I will not give them a 5 by 9 report. I’ve made a few contesters mad. One even chewed me out about it. One even tried to ‘teach me’ to only give 5 by 9 reports. But I refuse. I want to use the system properly!

I challenge others to join me, give an honest signal, even when it catches the other station off guard. Maybe if enough of us do that we’ll start getting honest reports back and be able to actually use the reports as they were intended!

I met KE9V at the Dayton Hamvention a few days ago and told him this story. Jeff invited me to share it with you in the interest of public safety…

I was licensed in 1959 having been bitten by the radio bug when I was a just a wisp of a boy. I spent every possible spare moment building gear, antennas, and learning the ways of radio. At some point fairly early in my journey, I fell in with a bunch of 4’s who met on 75 meter phone almost every night for long-winded late night bull sessions. We all lived within a five-hundred mile circle except for one fellow who told us his name was “LG” – just letters, no name – and when asked, he would swear on his mother’s grave that they weren’t his initials, it was just his ‘name’.

That caused a few of us to privately wonder about the character of a man without a real name but LG was a nice enough fellow except that on most nights would ask everyone in the roundtable to open their icebox and look carefully at our bottles of milk.

He wanted us to report back on the color of the cap and the type of milk. I couldn’t see much sense in it though LG was insistent. He was working on a theory that enemy spies were signaling each other about big events by changing certain colors. For instance, if 2-percent milk usually had a green cap, but was suddenly switched to blue then that meant that something bad was soon to happen.

“Stuff and nonsense” was the usual reply though we were all more than a little shook when shortly after the skim milk cap colors were changed from red to blue a DC-10 crashed on takeoff from Chicago killing everyone onboard. “Could have been an inside job”, LG said and who were we to protest having been eyewitnesses to the change in milk cap colors just a week before the tragedy?

Having known about the milk caps and yet not alerting the local authorities weighed heavy on me like a man condemned. So much so that before long I dropped out of the roundtable.

I didn’t want the responsibility that comes with such great power and foreknowledge.

Besides, I needed a bigger challenge and somehow got it in my head that I would become a world-class CW operator. That was just the sort of thing I needed to challenge me and to hold my interest. Though I had passed the Morse test years earlier to get my ticket, I thought of the code mostly as an annoyance, a barrier to keep dimwits out of the fraternity.

But after a year or so of constant practice, on the air, in contests, and off the air with a CPO, I couldn’t get comfortable above about 18 words per minute. I was blocked and becoming obsessed with a growing desperation to break through that barrier.

And it was at about that time that I attended a hamfest in Texas and happened to bump into old “LG” from the 75 meter net while I was there. We sat down with a few frosty 807s and he spoke at length about the milk caps and the way they were facilitating chatter among the spies that had infiltrated the USA…

Wanting to change the subject, I confided in LG the challenge I had laid out for myself – to become a world-class CW operator – and I admitted that I was falling seriously short of that goal. That’s when he looked at me for a long moment, leaned a little closer and said, “follow me and don’t say a word”.

Not wanting to be rude, and admittedly a little curious as to what he might be up to, I followed him to the RV lot where his motorhome was parked and we went inside. The unit was clean, though very small with a rack of radio equipment on one side. He said that he was now living full-time in this rig and was enjoying his retirement by traveling all over the country “wherever he wanted to go”.

We sat down in the only two seats available and after looking out all the windows, I guess to make certain we had some privacy, he began to speak in a hushed voice.

“I spent thirty-years in the military. Special ops. At the end of WWII we spent a lot of time critiquing the war effort – what worked, what didn’t. Truman was impressed with what the Brits had done at Bletchley and he wanted us to do the same. One of the weaknesses of that time was that most of the radio communication being passed by spooks was coded messages sent by humans using Morse.”

“Teaching agents the code wasn’t difficult – but like you, most of them would top out at about 20 words a minute. Since shorter transmissions were less likely to be traced, high value was placed on field ops who could send and receive Morse at much higher rates…”

“And so the nation’s top scientists were given a challenge – give us a way to take an average ‘Joe’ and make him a high speed CW operator in a month or less – Project Celeritas became one of the first top-secret, high-tech projects of the Cold War era.”

“What they came up with was a drug. First, you learn the code at a rudimentary level, then you take one of these pills and your ability to send and receive Morse grows exponentially. It’s a miracle – though not without a few side effects. I have a small supply and would share them with you for – $500 – which would be enough to get this gas guzzling rig back home – you interested?”

It sounds crazy, I know, but I was desperate. And it just so happened that I was flush with cash having planned to blow a small fortune at the hamfest. I pulled out my wallet and had $550. It must have been fate. LG took my money then told me to turn around and close my eyes while he collected the pills from a secret stash.

He handed me a bottle with 100 tiny pills inside. “Don’t take more than one a week and don’t show off your new found skills too openly. Uncle Sam thinks that these are long gone and if you draw much attention to yourself it will be trouble. You understand?”

I told him that I did and wandered off anxious to see if I had just wasted $500 or not…

Back in my own shack I took one of the pills and began to tune the bands. I didn’t notice an immediate improvement and was beginning to think that I had been ripped off by a nut with a milk bottle cap obsession but then, wait … what was that? I was reading the mail on the lower end of 20 – in my head. I listened carefully and decided these guys were running about 35wpm. Eureka!

Over the next month I faithfully took a pill once each week and found myself easily copying high speed code in my head while cleaning the house, working on a crossword puzzle, and once I even answered the door to talk to some disciple inviting me to his church – and I never missed a single bit of the conversation that was whirring along in the background from my receiver on 20 meters.

I could detect no side effects. In fact, the biggest problem with the drug was that I could find no one fast enough to really challenge me. I retrofitted paddles with high speed bearings but was beginning to run up on the physical limits of sending because the hardware couldn’t keep up with my burgeoning ability. A fact I found horribly frustrating.

Six months later I heard about an annual high-speed Morse code contest in North Carolina and decided to enter the fray. Before long I was seated at a table with a dozen other ops all with cans clamped to our heads copying code messages limping along at just 60wpm. When the speed reached 90 words per minute there was just me and one other guy left and he bowed out at 100wpm.

Amazed, they kept cranking the code speed up – it was being sent by a machine capable of sending at 160wpm and I easily copied paragraph after paragraph of random text, right up to the limit of the machine and was all the while taunting them to “go faster”.

I took home the trophy and $1000 prize without realizing that the results of the event would be published in the local newspaper. That story was picked up a day later by the wire services and within 48 hours there was a knock on my door. Two G-men escorted me to a local office where they asked me a lot of questions about how I was able to copy code at such speeds.

I hadn’t heeded LG’s warning not to show off the results of the drug and now there would be hell to pay.

After being transported to a dank office in Langley, Virginia I was interrogated but there was no need for them to go to extremes. I coughed up the details in a heartbeat figuring that now wasn’t the time to be coy. I had 43 pills left and told the Feds exactly where to find them in my home. And I told them everything I knew about LG … and the milk bottle caps. After two days of incarceration and hours of high-speed Morse tests they took me home.

The remaining pills were gone – taken by the government I assume.

Withdrawal from the drug began driving me crazy. I heard Morse when there was none to hear. Every sound in the house, from rain dripping off the roof to the popping of the water heater sounded like code to me and it only became worse. When I heard people talking my brain was trying to convert their words into code and that distracted me from having even a brief conversation with anyone. It kept getting worse until I could no longer work for a living or enjoy ham radio.

I sold my house and all my gear and moved to a solitary cabin in Michigan’s UP where even the chirping of birds sounds like a message that my brain strains to decode, but there’s nothing there to be decoded. I think I may be going completely mad.

I’m telling you this story because the Feds contacted me a year after all this went down for some additional information. It seems they never found “LG” and for all I know, he’s still out there dealing that magic drug to some unsuspecting radio ham who just wants to improve his code speed a little. After all, what ham doesn’t want that?

You’ve been warned…

I’ve been slow to adopt digital communications for a very practical reason: between the day job and writing books, I spend ten to twelve hours a day on a computer keyboard. When I get on the air, I prefer my keyer paddle or microphone when I reach out and touch. But friends kept evangelizing about the wonderment of PSK31, and I kept seeing rare DX entities that I covet being spotted on PSK31 and RTTY, so I finally bit the bullet. Well, sir, I have seen the light! I am officially converted!

I was on the verge of doing a quick and dirty hookup just to get a feel for the stuff but I had an order I was submitting to DX Engineering anyway so I included a SignaLink USB in the shopping cart. Of course, I managed to order the wrong interface cable for my Kenwood TS-2000…it would have worked but I would have had to plug and unplug the microphone…but DXE handled the swap seamlessly. And in no time, I was PSKing with the best of ’em. Downloading and setting up my software
of choice took most of the time. The SignaLink only required setting some jumpers internally for my radio. The manual and an extra sheet were well-written, though I did have to go to the Internet to get some tips on working with Microsoft Vista. That should make it into the standard manual soon, I would hope.

I confess I did quite a bit of RTTY back in the ’70s, when we used old, noisy, oil-and-sprocket-slinging surplus teletype machines and boxes of fan-fold paper. I recall that back then, unless you were blessed with pretty decent power, and with constant duty that required a hefty amp and power supply, the mode was susceptible to QRM as well as drifting, and more. I did enjoy it, despite these drawbacks.

But I’ve quickly learned there is no comparison with PSK31. I have not even tried RTTY yet due to my fascination with this narrow, narrow mode. Friends told me, but I didn’t believe them. When I was ready to go and tuned the receiver to 14.070 and heard that caterwauling bunch of cats in heat, I smirked and said to myself, “Self, there is no way you can pull any intelligence out of all that screeching!”

But there on the waterfall (I use Ham Radio Deluxe Digital Master 780 software) were a good dozen clearly defined traces. I could copy any one of them. I tried a couple of them so dim I could hardly see them in the clutter and got almost solid print on them, too. Finally, I clicked on one and saw it was a UA9. When he finished his QSO and called CQ, I answered, making sure to keep the power level low…about 20 watts…as advised. He came right back and we proceeded to have a nice chat. I’ve had a bunch since, all over Europe, the US, and South and Central America, mostly on 20 and 17.

Just the other night, I gave UX1IW a call and, as I have grown accustomed to, he came right back. We were chatting away (he gave me an RSQ of 599) when I noticed each of my wattmeters were barely moving off the peg. Huh? Oh. I had been using the amp on CW earlier in the evening and had left the RF out on the TS-2000 on 35 watts. With the audio out from my sound card set as usual, I was barely running 5 watts!

So, I’m evangelized. I do wish there was a little less reliance on the canned macros, one of the other things I did not like so much in the old RTTY days. But all in all, I am darned impressed with this PSK31 stuff.

Moral of the story is that we can always learn something new. And it is always surprising how something as simple as trying a new band or mode can reinvigorate our interest in this wonderful hobby.

As if I need reinvigorating!

73,

Don Keith N4KC
www.n4kc.com
www.donkeith.com
http://n4kc.blogspot.com

Bob Heil, K9EID, is a very busy guy (especially today as he gets ready to debut his new show on Leo Laporte’s TWiT network called HAM Nation), but I had the opportunity to catch up with him to find out more about his plans:

Bob, when Leo Laporte, “The Tech Guy,” offered you the opportunity to host a show about ham radio on his amazing TWiT Network, what was your first reaction?

I was very thrilled and extremely honored to have Leo recognize the importance of the ham radio community.

Talk some about the equipment you’ll be using to record the show. Will you be broadcasting live?

The show will be done live from my station lab where I develop all of our amateur radio as well as professional series products. I use a P.C. based computer fed with an Alesis Mix 8 USB mixer. Using one of our PR 40 into the mixer, it gives me great flexibility with tailoring the audio right where we need it. For camera, I am using what most of the TWIT hosts are using, the new Logitech C 910 HD camera. Very small but extremely high quality for the size and cost.

You’re going to have a massive technically-oriented audience that may not have much familiarity with Amateur Radio. What are some of the goals you’re hoping to achieve with the show?

It is amazing how many hams are in that TWiT audience. It was one of the leading factors that led Leo to invite our industry onto his network. As Leo, I will let the chat room guide us to the subjects they want to know more about but I already have guests lined up to do all types of technical things – kit building, antennas, types of transceivers, digital communications, D Star, emergency communications, Field Day activities, etc. . . any ideas? Please pass them on. We, the amateur radio community now has a platform on Tuesday night where we can share with the world.

What are some of your personal interests as a ham? What equipment do you run in your shack?

If it were not for my interest in ham radio back in the mid 50’s as a high school teenager, I would never have been able to accomplish anything close to what has happened. The basis of everything I do was learned from great mentors I met on the air. I spent 17 years as a technician exploring SERIOUS VHF work. Since 1976 when I upgraded, I have been all over the map but I STILL revert to much of my original gear that I have had over the years including my 1956 Harvey wells, 1958 CE 20A, 1962 HT 37. I love all of the vintage gear and you can find me on AM several nights a week. Because my station is my lab for my company, I have many late model transceivers to keep up with the technology and what needs to be done to make then sound good.

Tune in Tuesday nights, starting tonight, 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern at http://live.twit.tv.  You’ll also be able to watch the show via the embedded video below.  Good luck, Bob!

Recent comments on some of the amateur radio web forums have attempted to posit the point that someone is not a “REAL HAM” unless he or she meets certain arbitrary criteria.  Those include such requirements as passing a code test to get licensed, using equipment with tubes in it, or being able to build a transceiver from scratch, using only a pie tin, a set of shoe laces, and a handful of grab-bag parts from a swap meet.

With apologizes to a certain comedian who has made a gazillion dollars with his “You might be a redneck if…” shtick, here goes my feeble attempt at a similar definition of a “REAL HAM:”

• If you have a ham band antenna on all four fenders of your car, the roof, in the trunk lip, and another one clamped to the trailer hitch with an alligator clip and duct tape…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If your wife…sorry, “XYL”…asks you to help bring in the groceries while you are chasing a rare one and you yell back, “QRX!  QRX!”…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you can recite the numbers of every driver, modulator, and final amplifier tube in every Heathkit, Drake or Collins transmitter or amplifier ever made, and name the best idling grid current for 90% of them…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If when you were a teenager, you tore open the cases of your little brother’s “Flash Gordon” walkie-talkies just to see if you could modify them to work on 10 meters or used the pans from your sister’s Easy-Bake oven to breadboard a code-practice oscillator…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you have ever tried to ker-chunk the repeater while riding in a funeral procession…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If your kids…sorry, “harmonics”…know your call sign, your grid square, and your 10-10 number, but not your middle name…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you have at least a half-dozen different sets of hilarious (at least to you and the guys on your 75-meter roundtable) phonetics for your call letters…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you have more countries confirmed than you have dollars in your 401-K and more bucks invested in your tower, rotor and tri-bander than you have in your retirement annuity…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you have ever taken an HT to church or a scanner to the courthouse while on jury duty…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you painted the walls of the new playroom downstairs in the colors of the resistor color code…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you ever chopped up your wife’s…sorry, XYL’s…patio furniture to build a Yagi for 15…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you have ever attempted to use a gutter downspout, the hubcap from a ’93 Buick, your dog’s food dish, your neighbor’s rose trellis, the vent hose from a clothes dryer, a wicket from your mom’s croquet set, or a one-quart metal Thermos bottle (with or without coffee) as an antenna…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you read the ARRL “Repeater Directory” or the latest catalog from one of the big “candy stores” while taking your daily “constitutional” …you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you know the formulae for Ohm’s Law and Kirchoff’s Law and can read a Smith Chart from 100 feet but have no idea who Paris Hilton is…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you typically go to hamfests wearing your “Hams do it with frequency” tee-shirt, a “KNOW CODE” belt buckle, at least two HTs clipped to your belt and an earpiece for each in each ear, a pith helmet with a 440 ground plane sticking out the top, and a blinking-LED button with your callsign on it…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you know the prefixes for every DXCC entity as well as their beam headings but you don’t know your oldest kid’s…sorry, “first harmonic’s”…birthday…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you ever flagged down a local utility bucket truck and tried to bribe the guy to hang some ropes and pulleys in the trees in the backyard…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• If you ever tried to convince your fiancé that Dayton, Ohio, has replaced Niagara Falls as the Honeymoon Capitol of the World and that the first part of May is absolutely the best time for a wedding…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

• Of course, if you MET your fiancé in the flea market at Dayton when she tried to jaw you down on the price of a Hallicrafters HT-37 with a bad power transformer…you might be a “REAL HAM!”

Finally, if you call beers “807s,” money “green stamps,” your house your “home QTH,” your car your “moe-byle,” your base station your “shack,” the FCC “the friendly candy company,” anything a salesman tells you “Bravo Sierra,” the big brouhaha at the last club meeting “a Charlie Foxtrot,” your wife your “XYL,” and your kids “harmonics” …you might be a “REAL HAM!”

Ain’t it fun?

Just when you convinced your wife that your friends were normal…

You take your wife to Dayton! 🙂 (Ok it’s been about 15 years since I did that and I can’t get my wife to come back even still!)

Dayton 2011: Saturday– the BIG day!

Except for the toilets (sewer line) exploding in the afternoon in the flea market… it was a picture perfect Hamvention. Nothing like it ever before for me.

But it looks like driving back it will be “tornado alley”.. I’ll keep my fingers crossed…No Hail… No Hail…

Here’s the day in pictures:

Who is that crazy looking dude with the Astronaut?!?

Well.. it was all fun and games this year.. it’s a wrap for me and the Eastern Iowa DX Association.. I’m praying that the weather isn’t as severe on the way back as predicted.

It was a blast meeting everyone I met at Dayton this year.. I had great fun.. the City of Dayton looks a lot better than it did in 2004, and the weather was beautiful. I had some of the best eyeball QSOs that I’ve had anywhere.

Hopefully it won’t be 7 years before I make the pilgrimage again… catch you all on the bands, eh?