AmateurRadio.com

Well.. you knew this was coming.

Here is the detail.. the smells were not all that bad this year, I ignored the so-called food, the crowd was thinner than I remember — there were less outdoor vendors than I remember — but more indoor ones. Chinese HT’s were dirt cheap, and I did have a lot of fun. I was sad that Max-Gain doesn’t come with fiberglass anymore.

The weather was as beautiful as possible, Yaesu seriously cheaped out on hats… And except for one old bag who ran over me, from behind where I couldn’t have possible seen her or heard her, with her “hover round” right when I got into the inside exhibits and then yelled at me for stopping to take a picture..(don’t worry.. I responded even more rudely) everyone.. well seemed nicer than in previous years. (Maybe losing 160 lbs helped with that?!?)

But what can I say. Except for a SERIOUS lust for a Kenwood TS-590 and an impulse buy of a Peet Bros weather station (which I’ve been considering doing for years).. I didn’t do that much or buy that much. Probably the neatest thing is the Argent USB Data APRS Tracker and the cable for my TYT .. I’ll be geeking on the way back.. track me on:

aprs.fi…

My 1st gen TYT is now going for $89+tax now instead of the $99+tax I paid for it at Des Moines.. thanks Radio City.. no.. I still love you guys but you owe me a small deal in the future! Wouxuns dual banders from wouxun.us were selling for $90 with tax…. If I didn’t live in Cedar Rapids with only one 222 MHz repeater I would have bought the 144/220 version just to have 220.. (I almost did anyway) but it’s pointless at my QTH…

But here it is.. commentary aside:

Beautiful day for a Hamvention...Yup that

What an eclectic bunch of stuff.. Yaesu=Cheap no hats-- Kenwood much better freebies!!

Obligitory Mendelsohn's shot.. also DEMI and other goodies

ARRL and international radio societies inside

AMSAT, WB4APR's "Mean Green Machine" and other oddities...

More Fun and probably lame coverage tomorrow night.. same Bat Channel

Jeff Davis KE9V was among the first to post pictures from Dayton of Elecraft’s latest announcement, a portable all mode HF to 50MHz transceiver – almost literally “a K3 in your pocket.”

   Weight: 1.5 lbs
   Size: 1.7×3.5×7.4″
   KX1 form-factor
   internal battery pack & charger
   internal wide-range ATU
   new adjustable, attached keyer paddle

…and a K3-like front panel, including the same LCD.

I want one!

No, CW doesn’t make bad amateur operators. But tuning over somebody does. Is there a connection between the two? [hint: probably not]

I started thinking about this a few weeks ago when, prior to a net on HF, a few members we’re ragchewing for a bit beforehand. As seems to be all too common, somebody started to tune on top of them. Then came a comment from one of the operators who mentioned how he wished they had never done away with making CW a requirement to get your Amateur Radio license. He connected the two: no CW and bad tuning practice. I was at a loss — thankfully I wasn’t talking then, just listening.

I fail to see how the two are connected. I am grateful that CW is no longer required. Even if I had to, I couldn’t make out any code with the exception of S.O.S. But that doesn’t make me any less of an operator than one who knows code does it?

Does my lack of CW skill/knowledge mean I will disregard common courtesy — and FCC rules — regarding tuning my antenna? Again the answer here is no. Sadly I know many who know CW yet do that very thing. Some of them tune at full legal power.

Common courtesy would be to pre-tune at low power prior to making the final adjustments at the power level you will use for the QSO. Sadly, there’s a large number of Amateur Radio operators out there who disregard that courtesy.

An ideal solution is for all of us to play by the rules. Unfortunately that probably won’t happen. So what can we do? For starters, listen before tuning. Pre-tune. When someone starts overpowering you by tuning, wait for a lull and politely remind the tuner that it isn’t OK to interfere with another operator’s signal. Another thing we can do is keep talking about this problem, and any other problems on the bands. We’re supposed to ‘police’ ourselves. We have a nice code of ethics yet we don’t talk about them much.

Another idea, and this is one that I can’t do, is to find a new way to tune. There are lots of very smart, savvy engineers in our hobby evidenced by the many different modes and protocols, more being added almost daily it seems. What if some of those programmers were to work on a better way to tune?

Maybe a subaudible tone? I’m sure that someone out there could come up with a solution. I’m asking on behalf of all of us on HF who get annoyed by tuners who lack courtesy. Will you help us?

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Lately there’s been more saber-rattling and calls to arms over HR 607 here in the US.  This is the bill that places several UHF bands on the auction block for commercial wireless service and public safety.  The item of concern to amateur radio is the listing of the 440 band which amateur radio has a secondary allocation.

There are some “inconvenient truths” about 440 and its potential reallocation:

1.  Amateur radio usage of the 440 band is abysmal.  (Dead repeaters don’t count as usage.)

2.  What usage there is of 440 is inefficient when compared with 3G and 4G technologies that could use the band.

3.  Millions could benefit for 440 rather than a few thousand who use it today.

4.  Amateur radio’s 440 band is a secondary allocation, not primary.

BPL was a major threat to amateur radio and I adamantly opposed it.  Millions could have benefited from BPL as well so opposition of BPL may seem hypocritical, but there is key difference.  BPL didn’t actually use the spectrum, it polluted it.  If BPL would have made actual use of the spectrum for transmission of data, we may have seen a de facto reallocation of amateur radio HF spectrum.  But ultimately physics and market forces killed BPL.

When it comes to the reallocation of 440, I’m neutral about it and almost leaning towards letting the chips fall where they may.  However, I feel like I’m selling out amateur radio.  It’s been ingrained in our minds that we have to reflexively defend amateur radio against any and all threats.

The comments I see from amateurs regarding HR 607 seem to reflect a lack of understanding of the real world today, technology, and amateur radio’s place in the world.  Perhaps I’m reading and hearing the wrong comments, undoubtedly from venues that cater to those who speak before thinking.  But I digress.

Amateur radio has little to no political pull today.  Any semblance of political power is merely momentary photo opportunity politics.  We lack the numbers to give politicians appreciable benefits from sticking their necks out for us.  The post 9/11 homeland security “importance bump” we received is winding down and arguably so will the war on terrorism.  The next war is going to be a war of limited resources and debt, areas where amateur radio is politically irrelevant and potentially a roadblock.

We can’t expect to hold on to valuable spectrum forever with 1960s technology when faced with 21st century technology that can make use of a limited resource that would result in a benefit several orders of magnitude greater than what amateur radio is doing today.  In recent years in American society it’s become common for vocal citizens to complain about entitlements, programs, and hand outs under the guise of reigning in the national debt, thinly veiled in patriotism, protecting the American Way and all that is good.  But when it comes to cutting entitlements, programs, and hand outs from which they receive benefits, the conversation abruptly ends and out come the protest signs and 16th century costumes.  It’s much the same with amateur radio bands.  Our wise and aging licensees are deathly afraid of the coming debtpocalypse, but “you can pry my barely used UHF spectrum from my cold, dead fingers.”  I see retorts to HR 607 like “why do they need more spectrum; public safety/cellular has X MHz” or “why don’t they reallocate FRS/TV/WIFI/Cellular!?!”  I just have to do a face-palm.  It’s painful to read.

Ultimately I doubt 440 will be reallocated as a result of HR 607.  Amateur radio is a secondary allocation, the primary being the military.  All the boilerplate letter mailing campaigns and phone calls to poor overworked congressional staffers won’t have an effect.  If the military throws in the towel on the 440 band, the amateur radio 440 allocation is going down for the count, regardless.  Much like the situation with BPL, it’s mostly out of our control.

Rather than just totally blocking the reallocation of this band, “we’re the radio guys who will save the world, end-of-story”, we need come up with some reasonable compromise options that gives something to the public and justifies what spectrum we hold on to for decades to come.  Perhaps this means offering up 10 or 20 Mhz and keeping the remain part for satellites and data modes.  As I mentioned in a previous article, we need to develop a digital protocol and network to utilize this spectrum at a respectable level with applications beyond ragchewing and exchanging grid squares.  We certainly can’t forever defend holding on to this band with analog repeaters and point-to-point links linking vegetating two meter repeaters.

We are very pleased to announce the winner of
1,000 Photo QSL Cards
from KB3IFH

Thanks to Randy for sponsoring this month’s drawing.
We had almost 500 entries!

We’re giving away more great prizes soon.
Stay tuned and get ready to enter.

OK, onto what you’ve all been waiting for!

The winner of our May 2011 prize giveaway is…

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The iHAB-4 launch last Saturday was oddly enough close enough to my QTH (51 miles away– in Oxford, IA just east of Iowa City, IA) to justify taking the kids to.  It also happened to be sponsored by the Marion Home School Assistance program (Marion, IA) that my children happened to be open enrolled in. Yes, on top of everything else (having four, young, non-genetically related South Korean adoptees) we homeschool our children.

This was a great way of trying to interest kids in Amateur Radio. I’ve been taking my oldest two boys (9 and 10) to a Technician Class with the hopes that eventually between that class and me teaching them the material that at least one of them would get a Technician license. Yes, they are a little young, but I think they could do it. (After all, they are homeschooled.)   Unfortunately, they have been very antsy.. I think I will get at least one to pass.. but maybe that will take months more.. maybe years more?

They like hamfests… but they LOVED this launch…

It is difficult to keep kids interested in DXing, Contesting, building antennas, etc. But launching a balloon is a different story.

This should remind us all that Amateur Radio is a very diverse hobby with many aspects. Marshall Dias, W0OTM of Ottumwa, IA I believe became a ham to fly the types of communications payloads that he does fly on the iHAB missions.

You can see what this leads to:

Serious hardware for the balloon experiments

And, you can see a “Serious ham’s” equipment inside of the trailer:

Inside of the iHAB Communications Trailer

Of course, the payload boxes are even more interesting than the trailer.  Again, this shows how serious even this unusual aspect of the hobby can be technically!

iHAB-4 Top most payload - APRS 2m Beacon and 20m CW Beacon

As you can tell, Marshall W0OTM is an extremely positive guy and one could genuinely tell he enjoyed the involvement of the children.  My kids, with the important task of keeping the payload boxes from blowing away in the 25 MPH (with gusts over 30) Iowa nasty spring winds we thrilled to have the task.

The picture above showed my 9 year old son helping steady the top payload from blowing away.. the picture below shows my 10 year old (yes he’s shorter and smaller) doing the same with the bottom payload.  One of the experiments on this launch were separating the two payloads and running the antennas vertical between the two payloads.  It was probably a success on 20m, but it proved to be a bad idea on the parrot repeater (and maybe the APRS?) because when the balloon was above about 10,000 ft. the stations on the ground in Iowa were in the antennas deep null!

The payloads are a clever version of simple technology:  Here is an example:

iHAB-4 20m CW Beacon inside the payload box

The equipment inside the payload is decidedly low-tech.  I actually decided to show the 20m beacon as it is probably the most custom piece of hardware in the whole balloon.  The repeaters and APRS transmitters are literally Alinco small Handi-Talkies.

Marshall is not an electrical engineer.  He’s willing to fly payloads that the ham community provides.  (So build something for him!)  Personally, if I had time (which I don’t) I’d like to do a SDR ARISSat-1 style linear transponder with the APRS beacon as the transponder beacon.  Marshall also said that he has most or all of the equipment to do a crossband FM repeater.  But he believes the “parrot” repeater is more accessible to hams.  I think it’s rather awkward to operate through.  Maybe the community can convince him not to fear 70cm.  I worked the parrot repeater with a $99 TYT dual band HT.  Dual band FM rigs are cheap now!

The main point, though is the science and the “WOW!” factor of the event for the kids.  Actually the iHAB-4 launch was probably the least technically successful launches that he did– really.. almost nothing on it worked fully correctly!  But the specific involvement of the children on this launch made the event really special.  Marshall, W0OTM should be lauded for his willingness to cooperate with the homeschool assistance program and his utter excitement and positive energy was an inspiration to my kids– and all of the kids at the event.

He also reminded me, now 25 years into the hobby and — even though I am only 42 years old– I am definitely a curmudgeon and a OF…   the excitement I had early in my ham radio experience.  I suppose I need to try to recapture some of that.

The event was covered by the local newspaper (the Cedar Rapids Gazette) and their associated TV station KCRG-TV (Channel 9) in Cedar Rapids.  So there was very good positive advertising for the hobby with this event.

KCRG-TV 9 report on iHAB-4 launch — video on You Tube

Yes, my children and I seriously get our 15 seconds of fame here.

There are a lot of primary source info about this event on the http://www.ihabproject.com website at the following link:  http://www.ihabproject.com/iHAB-4/

Of course who are these goofy people posed by the fully inflated and ready to go:

The Motley Balloon Observation crewe

4/6 of the Spinner clan.  My youngest son and my wife stayed home to be the remote “mission control” for us!