AmateurRadio.com

There are many ways to enter RadioSport and one of them is finding a group of operators who share the competitive spirit. One may not want to spend an entire weekend in the pilot’s chair or other commitments may compete for attention. A multi-single entry is an excellent opportunity to share resources, time, and establish new friendships.

Participating in this category made a significant difference in my attitude about RadioSport as a teenager. I spent hours inside the cans learning how-to listen for needed multipliers. A day existed, when paper dupe sheets tracked the log, and I learned precision and orderliness. A mistake in the dupe sheet would result in a significant point penalty.

Additionally, competing in this category set my personal future standard in terms of operating skill, station engineering, and sportsmanship. I modeled those who sat in the pilot’s chair and admired their operating skill especially when rate met or exceeded one’s capacity to write with a pencil.

Cox and Brockman stated, “In the battle of the Goliaths, W2PV captured the top world Multi-Multi score, no easy feat for a USA station.” (1982)

Furthermore, “The contest community around the world will remember this fall when the signals are strong and clear that a few of our friends are not present. W2PV, UI8LAG, and W3KT have become silent keys. Each one contributed to what the contest stands for: enjoyment and excellence.” (Cox & Brockman, 1982)

I want to remember their words as the technological wave rolls into the future of ham radio. Has competitive pursuit finally crossed the border where enjoyment and excellence does not exist or even count anymore? Is RadioSport beginning to miss the forest for the trees?

There exists somewhere in the future, conditions like 1981, when the cosmos fell into place and records fell like dominoes. Cox and Brockman stated, “The top USA All Band score was decided by less than a minute’s operating time on a good band.” (1982)

The North California Contest Club in the same year went from 9 million in 1980 to 160 million. One day the west coast will again stake its claim inside the club box.

Multi-Multi titans in 1981 were W2PV, N2AA, and W3LPL.

Single Operator All Band in the USA was K1GQ.

Single Operator All Band World was 9Y4VT (N6AA).

Top Three Clubs in the United States were Northern California Contest Club, Yankee Clipper Contest Club, and Frankford Radio Club.

Top Three International Clubs were Lithuanian Contest Group, Voroshilovgrad Radio Club, and Kaunas Polytechnic Institute R.C.

If one wants to enter RadioSport think about creating a team of like-minded operators who enjoy the game while pursuing excellence.

73 from shack relaxation zone.

Reference: Cox, B. K3EST, Brockman, L. N6AR (1982, October). CQ Magazine: 1981 CQ World Wide DX Contest: C.W. Results. pp. 20 – 34.

I need a new office notebook. Yesterday, while working on something a thin bright blue vertical line appeared on the screen. It’s still there this morning. I guess the TFT display is going on the fritz. Well, this Toshiba Satellite M60 is 4 1/2 years old and has been in heavy use 10 hours a day 5 days a week for nearly all that time, so I can’t complain. Time for a replacement. The trouble is, I use Linux on my work PC and it doesn’t seem to be possible to buy a high-spec laptop with Linux ready installed and working on it.

Obviously, I’d like to avoid paying for a copy of Windows I’m not going to use. If you’ve ever seen it on sale, you’ll know that the cost of a copy of Windows is quite substantial. Since, thanks to Microsoft’s obsessive copy protection, it will be an OEM copy locked to the hardware and without installation media I won’t even be able to install and use this copy under VirtualBox if I want to.

But also, as it’s a work machine, I’d like to buy one on which the operating system is supported and all the hardware works with it. I’ve installed operating systems far too many times in my life to have any enthusiasm for doing it one more time, and I know from experience that laptops often contain hardware that isn’t supported out of the box by Linux.

When we bought a new laptop for Olga a couple of years ago I bought a budget HP laptop that came with Windows Vista – which ran so slowly it took two hours just to finish it’s automated initial setup routine. I installed Linux but had an anxious couple of hours as I couldn’t get the wi-fi adapter to be recognized. I did in the end, and the chances are that any problems with whatever system I got this time could be resolved after hours of ferreting through support forums. But that long ago ceased being fun and I would really prefer to avoid it.

However, it is virtually impossible to buy a PC or laptop with Linux installed and supported. Dell appears to offer a small selection of laptops preinstalled with a long superseded version of Ubuntu. There is also a firm called The Linux Emporium that offers a limited range of Lenovo laptops with Ubuntu installed on them. But they have nothing that meets my spec. This old Toshiba has a 17in display with WGXA+ 1440×900 resolution and I’m not going to settle for anything smaller. So it seems the only way I am going to get what I want is to buy the laptop I want, pay the Microsoft Tax, throw away Windows and do my own Linux installation.

Is it any wonder that Microsoft enjoys such a virtual monopoly when people who buy PCs don’t even know there is an alternative? Why hasn’t the EU done something about this? It has taken months and cost millions to force Microsoft to install a screen that lets people choose what web browser to use, despite the fact that a) the browser market already has healthy competition and b) switching browsers later on if you want to isn’t a problem. But it has done nothing about a situation that forces people to pay for a Microsoft operating system even if they know enough not to want one. Even if computer manufacturers don’t want to offer Linux because they don’t wish to support it, they should at least be required to offer the OS as an optional extra so those who don’t want it don’t have to pay for it.

I often use WSPR, the very narrow band, low power, automatically reported beacon mode, which operates in a 200Hz wide band and reports the frequencies of received stations to 1Hz accuracy. I also sometimes use other digital modes where I want to be able to set my transceiver to a specific frequency with confidence. So one Elecraft K3 add-on that I had been eagerly awaiting was the KREF3 board that was supposed to allow you to lock the K3 reference oscillator to an external frequency standard. In fact, readers of this blog may recall that only a couple of weeks ago I posted an item about rubidium frequency standards being sold on eBay.

A few days ago Trevor G0KTN, who is actually the person responsible for turning me on to WSPR in the first place, posted a question to the Elecraft reflector asking for a comment from Elecraft as to when the KREF3 might be available. When no answer was received he asked again, and eventually received this reply from Eric WA6HHQ: The KREF3 is not in current planned development. I thought we had removed the references to it in all of our docs. Is it still showing up somewhere?

It is still showing up in the copies of the manuals I have. There is still a labelled, blanked-off hole for it on the back of my radio. More importantly, it showed up in the specification and brochure that Elecraft produced at the time I ordered the radio.

In the past I have been flamed quite harshly by members of the Elecraft fan club for suggesting that Elecraft had broken promises or even acted dishonestly by failing to provide advertised features. But is it being honest, when deciding not to provide a feature that was initially advertised and promised, to quietly delete all references to it and hope no-one notices? Perhaps Elecraft figured that since most hams are in their 60s or later we all have Alzheimer’s and will have forgotten the KREF3 was ever offered.

For someone as plagued with HF band interference as me this sounds like a sick joke or an April 1 spoof that passed it’s read-by date. The Electromagnetic Compatibility Industry Association (bet you didn’t even know there was one) has announced a contest to see who can detect interference furthest from a power line adapter installation. Yes, really. There are two prizes: the Long Distance Award (LDX) for the person who detects interference the greatest distance from the installation, and the Most Typical prize (MTY) for the entrant whose detection distance is closest to the median value.

Well I suppose when interference blots out HF entirely we need to use our radios for something. I believe a CQ WW Wi-Fi contest in the offing. You collect SSIDs for multipliers. Double points if the network is unencrypted.

I’m sorry for another non-radio related post but as someone whose wife is an immigrant from outside the EU I can’t let this news pass by without comment. The British government has announced today that it is bringing forward measures to require people from outside the EU who marry British citizens to demonstrate a knowledge of English in order to obtain a visa. I think this is discriminatory, insulting and a denial of what ought to be a basic human right to be able to live in your own home with the person you have chosen to marry.

Although Olga knew sufficient English when she came to the UK to have met the requirement had it existed at the time, I know of British men who have married women they met whilst working or holidaying in Russia, China or Asia who spoke little or no English at the time they came here. I’m sure most of them learned the language after they got here, which of course is now (quite rightly) a requirement for gaining British citizenship. But there is a world of difference between allowing someone to learn the language in their own time, if they choose to (after all, gaining citizenship is not essential to live in Britain) once they are here, instead of compelling them to do so before they are allowed to live in the country that is home to the person they married. It’s the difference between treating someone with respect or as a second class citizen.

I’m sickened by some (the majority, actually) of the small minded comments supporting this measure on the various blogs and news media forums. It seems that most people in this country view all immigrants as idle spongers who contribute nothing and only come to the UK to claim benefits and become a drain on public services. I’m sure that’s true of some, but all of those I know are hard working and pay their taxes. I also know of many born and bred Brits who prefer living on benefits to getting off their backsides and earning a living. Perhaps we should cut benefits and make them less attractive?

If it’s OK to stereotype immigrants then I guess it’s also OK to stereotype working class Brits as lazy uneducated whingers who think the world owes them a living just because they are British, and who complain about immigrants taking their jobs when the truth is employers prefer immigrants because the British are idle, useless and far too prone to “take a sickie.” There was a TV programme a couple of months ago where firms that employed East Europeans were persuaded to hire some unemployed Brits and they either were late for their first day, called in sick, or had egos that couldn’t take being shown up for being too dumb to do even a simple manual job properly. I’d employ a Pole instead of a Brit any day.

There is a latent racism in British society which is pandered to by the right wing mass media, with the result that the government can get away with policies like this that go completely against the old British tradition of fairness. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect that someone coming to live in Britain has a means of support, whether that is a Swiss bank account, a job or a husband. But to keep people out because they can’t speak the language when they have a husband to support them (spouses from outside the EU aren’t even allowed to work for the first two years in another nonsensical piece of regulation) is pure discrimination which I’m sure we’d be up in arms about if it started to be applied when we want to live in their countries. It’s well known that the British are useless at languages. When in Rome – or Paris, or Madrid, or Moscow – JUST SPEAK ENGLISH LOUDER.

Every now and then, a little gem comes along, something that just works right.

I recently stumbled on a piece of software called “WorkedGrids” by Bertrand Zauhar, VE2ZAZ.  This software, of course, is geared towards those of you in the VHF and up crowd.  Satellite, VHF/UHF/Microwave sidebanders and such.  Bertrand describes it as:

WorkedGrids is a Windows application that displays a map showing the amateur radio grid squares contacted and logged in using a third-party logging program. WorkedGrids uses colors to display information on a per-band basis. Up to four bands can be displayed concurrently.

As you can see by the image on your right, there are plenty of color coded grid squares telling you how you worked a station.  Swell stuff really!  Being a “1 call”, I thought it was neat that the image he uses on his site was centered right on my area.  Some of those spots are indeed hard to work, but I digress…….

The beauty of this software is it’s not “logging” software, it’s really QSO mapping software.  You use your logging program of choice.  If it doesn’t have a similar feature, you can export your log and then load it into this program and Voila!  All set.

System requirements:

Operating System: Any 32-bit version of Windows from Windows 95 to Windows Vista. Most likely 64-bit versions of XP and Vista as well, but untested so far.
Minimum CPU Hardware: Pentium-Class CPU, preferably Pentium-II or faster for quicker map refresh.
Display: 640×480 or higher resolution, 256 colors or more.
Disk usage: 1MB
Typical RAM usage: < 10MB, varies as a function of Map window size.

So why not give this gem a try?  You can find it at:

http://www.ve2zaz.net/WorkedGrids/WorkedGrids.htm

Cross Country Wireless recently introduced a new product, a built, boxed and ready to use SDR receiver that is optimized to work with the bog standard sound card provided with every computer. It covers two 48kHz segments which may be on one or two bands using a switched local oscillator. At £49.95 it looks like something of a bargain.

I was looking at the product’s web page this evening and the thought occurred to me that this might make a rather good inexpensive option for a panadapter for the Elecraft K3. It would need a different crystal to cover the K3 IF output frequency which is 8.215MHz, but that shouldn’t be a problem. CCW might even offer this as a stock option if there was a demand for it.

As the receiver covers 40m and 30m everything else should work OK unmodified. The key point would be whether there is adequate isolation to prevent the local oscillator leaking into the K3 IF and desensitizing the receiver – the reason why most people use a buffer amplifier when using SoftRock boards for this purpose.

I don’t have a great urge to have a panadapter display and I already have three sound cards (well, one and two USB sound modules) in use with my shack computer so this isn’t something I’m planning on trying. But I thought it might be worth mentioning the possibility for other K3 users. Even if the idea is a non-runner, the Cross Country Wireless receiver still looks like a very nice product.