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The Newtown, Connecticut tragedy has naturally been dominating the news and conversation here in the US the past several days.  As happens after any horrific event like this, debates arise over the cause and how we can prevent such atrocities from occurring again.  Similar to previous school tragedies, this recent event involved guns and a troubled soul.  Predictably the media and the public debate homes in on gun control and mental health diagnosis and care.

I had a discussion with several of my amateur radio friends, all advocates of weapon ownership.  I own several weapons myself, though I limit my activities to sporting and don’t really get into personal protection.  One of my friends took the position that we need to equip teachers with weapons to prevent or lessen these now more frequent violent events we’re seeing in schools.  I countered that it’s not practical, besides raising a host of day-to-day safety issues, equipping teachers would require massive amounts of training to really be effective.  Weapons in the hands of the untrained are statistically more dangerous than beneficial, and training needs to go well beyond merely being able to hit a target.  Most people, myself included, just don’t have the time or inclination to get this training and maintain it.  It’s essentially a lifestyle, and one that I don’t care to live.  I don’t want to continually be preparing for the worst and have to carry a weapon in my daily activities.  To me it’s quite honestly a deplorable and depressing existence, one that we shouldn’t have to live in this day and age.

My friend responded that to an extent as an amateur radio operator, I do live that existence, preparing for disaster.  He saw amateur radio as part of a regime of self protection and preparation for bad times, and presumably got his license for just that purpose.  The difference between our perception of amateur radio immediately struck me, to the point that I had difficulty formulating a response.  I’m in amateur radio because I enjoy radio, not because it may help me get through a disaster or combat an enemy.

There is a sort of society that has developed in the US over the past several decades, one of a combination of “preppers”, doomsday-ers, cynicists and political prognosticators.  They have a rather apocalyptic outlook on life, where no one can be trusted, especially the government.  The ills of life can be tracked back to legislation, taxes, freeloaders, or merely those with opposing viewpoints.  These people seem to make it their mission to inject their mantra into day-to-day conversation, whether it’s at work, at church, or even on the air.  You often hear this tuning across the phone portions of our bands.  Often they feel some need to “educate” others, fire up outrage, or just spread their narrative of negativity, a tapestry of plausible but often incorrect quotes and statistics.

I sometimes think of my estranged father who past away two years ago at 62.  He often complained about the course of the country. His death was untimely and unexpected.  I don’t know whether he’s with a creator now, or if such a creator exists, but his death made me aware of the futility of agonizing over bad scenarios when our time here is so limited.  While we certainly want to make this a better place for future generations, does this agonizing over what is possible but not probable serve a purpose?  Looking at this another way, what good is stocking up on guns and ammo if you’re very overweight and you get taken out by a heart attack?

I’m here to enjoy life.  We’re beyond feudal societies, the threat of barbarians invading, and drinking out of lead cups.  The world is not coming to an end, not from this tragedy in Connecticut, not from whether I may have to register my weapons, not because we don’t teach religion in schools, not because I have to pay taxes, not because any particular person is President, not because some state legalized smoking a plant or allows any two adults to marry, and certainly not because someone says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.  I don’t want to spend my life as though everything is going to hell in a handbasket or live in continual fear or disdain of some enemy, real or manufactured.  But we seem to have a segment of our society living in this bubble or abyss, determined to pull the rest of us into it.

Why are you here, here on Earth?  Is it to live or just survive?  Perhaps you are concerned about the world, but are you concerned about it for everyone, or just for yourself, your wealth, and your rights?  We have a problem that needs fixed.  Venturing further into the darkness that led to it won’t solve it.  We need to focus on living, and not just survival.

But I’m getting closer to getting a PCB made. I’ve solved the issues with the drill files but have now got a new problem. The schematic has now been corrupted, meaning I’ll have to redo that. it shouldn’t take long but its a case of one step forward and two back at the moment. I really wanted to get this PCB order before Christmas but it may not make it. Still here’s a little shot of the Gerber files rendered as a pcb by one of the online Gerber viewers called Mayhew Labs. Its nice to see it almost in the flesh as it adds another check to the process before I go ahead and spend money on (hopefully not) practice boards.

One day I’m just going to have to lump it and press the button. There are only so many checks you can do but I’ve had a check by our local homebrew superhero Kevin, M0KHZ and his eye is far better than mine.

Looking at my IBP beacon monitor pages over the last couple of days I have noticed an odd thing. I am not receiving the Madeira beacon CS3B on 17m at all.

Extract from G4ILO beacon observations

Either my multiband dipole has a very sharp null in that direction (which I think is unlikely as an indoor antenna probably receives enough reflections not to have any sharp nulls) or the beacon isn’t transmitting any signal on that frequency.

A quick check around other beacon monitor pages and I can’t see any spots of CS3B on 17m at all. Should I tell someone?

Series Five Episode Twenty-Six of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, listener mailbag and Martin reviews the Raspberry Pi for Amateur Radio

• Issues with Northern Ireland Amateur Radio Exams
• ACMA warning about non-compliant goods
• VK5VF Adelaide beacons back on air
• Taiwan Radio Hams seek additional allocations
• FreeDV Ham Radio digital voice software
• GB2BP QRT
• Ofcom announces additional 5 MHz channels
• Update from Campbell Island DX

Series Five Episode Twenty-Six of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Issues with Northern Ireland Amateur Radio Exams
• ACMA warning about non-compliant goods
• VK5VF Adelaide beacons back on air
• Taiwan Radio Hams seek additional allocations
• FreeDV Ham Radio digital voice software
• GB2BP QRT
• Ofcom announces additional 5 MHz channels
• Update from Campbell Island DX

Listener mailbag and Martin reviews the Raspberry Pi for Amateur Radio

I had some time this morning to experiment with the RTLSDR USB dongle which I’ve previously mentioned. Designed as a DVB TV/DAB receiver, with different drivers, they can be used as a wide band scanning receiver. As I mentioned yesterday, I’d seen Pete 2E0SQL report success in decoding the ADSB transmissions from aircraft with his stick.

I used my latest USB dongle with the E820T tuner – having made sure that the drivers were up to date. The first ADSB decoder that I tried was the ADSBSharp program which you can download from here Having installed that – I started the program with the dongle plugged into a USB port and a small antenna which came with DVB stick plugged in. Immediately I could see that the dongle was decoding frames – and quite a few of them.

I wanted to try and plot them, so I started up ADSBScope which you can download here

From the menus, I selected Other/Network/Network setting and set the Raw Data CLIENT (not the server) to port 47806 which ADSBSharp was ‘broadcasting’ on. The URL should be set to 127.0.0.1

I then pressed the RAW Data Client icon – it’s the right hand of the group of three ‘network’ icons on the icon bar. Lots of messages started appearing in the right hand pane, but very few position decodes. I filtered around with the filter but didn’t see much improvement.

Honour was sort of satisfied as I knew the data was being decoded, but I wondered if if I could do better. I’d seen some discussion on Twitter about the RTL1090 software which would work with the RTLSDR dongle and should decode the data. I downloaded the program and installed it from the RTL1090 website

Running the program up, I could immediately it seeing aircraft and displaying ‘Active Flight’ data. However, even after reconfiguring ADSBScope’s Raw Data Client to point at RTL1090 which was running on port 31001 ADSBScope was not displaying flight information.

I then remembered seeing in the ADSBSharp instructions that you had to configure the client to use AVR format. I had no idea what that was, but wondered if I should get RTL1090 to send the data to ADSBScope in AVR format. This was what cracked it! Simply start RTL1090 from a command prompt with the /AVR flag and the data will then be sent to ADSBScope and mapped.

I am surprised how sensitive the receiver is. Not as good as the LZ2RR  ADSB dongle, but as you can see from the map, the system is quite capable of receiving aircraft over distances of 20 to 50 miles away – even with a basic indoor antenna.

Definitely a great use for the DVB dongle, especially if you have been interested in Virtual Radar, but were put off by the prices!

Christmas Eve came and Dave and his dad attended Midnight Mass together. Jason sat in one of the pews while Davey pulled duty as an Altar Server.  The next morning, they opened up their gifts to each other. Jason was very pleased with the gloves and hat and scarf that he received from Davey. Likewise, Davey loved the books and video games that his Dad had given him. He knew that money was tight this year, and he appreciated all his dad had given him.

While cleaning up the breakfast dishes together, his dad reminded him that they would be having dinner over at the Mason’s later in the afternoon. “You know that the Masons invited Jimmy and the Stapletons over for dinner too, right?”, His father asked.

“Yes, sir”, Davey answered, “It was nice of them to do that.  I have Jimmy’s kit all wrapped up and under their tree, so that when Jimmy gets there, he can open it.  He has no idea ……. this is going to be great!”

Then his mood changed and he got quiet, and after a few moments, his dad said, “I know Davey, I miss her too. Your Mom and you are the most important things in my life. I love you both so much – you’ll never know how much.  Just know that she’s looking down on us and is glad that we’re celebrating her favorite holiday together.”

Dinner at the Mason’s was a feast.  Mrs. Mason, who was by any measure a great cook, outdid herself.  There was a turkey, there was a ham, there were mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, cranberry sauce, vegetables and home made buttermilk biscuits.  For dessert there were three kinds of pie.  Nobody could outcook Mrs. Mason. Everyone enjoyed the meal and the friendship.  After they had all stuffed themselves to the gills, Mrs. Mason called everyone over to the tree.  “Santa was here last night and left some presents!” she gleefully informed her guests.

There were presents for the Stapletons, who were overwhelmed and didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t say anything”, George said.  “Jeannie and I know what you’re going through, we’ve gone through it a few times ourselves over the years; and with God’s help, we always got by.  Some day, when things are better, you do the same for someone else.”

Then Davey handed  Jimmy a gift wrapped box.  Jimmy took it eagerly, “Oh man, I wonder what this could be?”

“Well open it up, knucklehead!” Davey kidded his friend, “Unless you’re like Superman and have X-ray vision, you’re never going to know until you do.”

Jimmy unwrapped the gift and saw that it was a kit for a QRP Tri-band transceiver, a popular model by famed QRP designer Steve Weber KD1JV. “Davey, are you nuts? This must have set you back a ton!”

“Hey buddy-boy, don’t yell at me, yell at Santa, he’s the one who brought it here”, Davey glibly replied.

“Yeah, well, “Santa” is the greatest friend a guy can have – tell him I said so the next time you see him”. Jimmy looked at his friend with a stunned look of disbelief still on his face.  Mrs. Stapleton had a few tears welling up in her eyes, overwhelmed by the generosity of their friends.

Davey told his friend, “Santa wasn’t able to dig up an antenna tuner or a paddle, though. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come up with those on your own”.

That’s when Mr. Mason chimed in ”I’m sure that there’s enough stuff in the N2EBA parts box, that we can come up with a QRP antenna tuner. And if I’m not mistaken, Jimmy, I think Santa left you another box under the tree”.

This time, George handed a small box to Jimmy.  When Davey told George what he was up to, their Amateur Radio mentor decided to buy Jimmy a Bencher paddle to go with the rig.

Jimmy looked at them, “The both of you are the best. Thanks so much!  This has been a great Christmas!”

Then Mrs. Mason came over to Davey and whispered something in his ear.  With a quizzical look on his face, he moved over to the Christmas tree when he heard her say, “Go on, Santa left one for you, too.”

Davey found the box with his name on it.  Caught totally off guard, he sat down on the floor next to it and began to remove the brightly colored wrapping paper.  He caught his breath for a second when he saw what it was – the Elecraft KX3 kit that he had wanted so badly!  He immediately looked at his dad, who simply nodded and said, “There’s a note attached to the box, Davey.  I think you might want to read it”.

He opened the envelope – inside was a plain sheet of paper with handwriting on it – his mother’s handwriting.  She had written the note shortly before she died.

“Dear Davey,

With all that has been going on, your Dad and I decided that we wanted to buy you a very special Christmas present this year.  We both know that this is something that you’ve really wanted and that you were trying to save up for on your own.  We also know that you’ll get a lot of enjoyment from this for years to come.  So no matter what happens, or wherever life takes you, please know in your heart how much your Dad and I love you.

My love always and Merry Christmas!

Mom”

This time, Davey was the one caught speechless. With tears glistening in both their eyes, he looked at his Dad, and his Dad looked back at him.  Both had smiles on their faces. As much as he had wanted the radio, that small piece of note paper with his Mom’s handwriting  that he had just received, and what it represented, meant more to him than anything in the world. Dave Bolton still missed his Mom terribly, but now he knew that she would always be with him.

“You’re right Jimmy”, he said, “This IS a great Christmas”.

Note: The names and call signs that appear in this story are purely fictitious with two exceptions. Steve Weber KD1JV continues to design kits that are sold primarily through Hendricks QRP Kits. N2EBA was originally issued to Mark Rosenwald, a good friend of mine who is now a Silent Key.  Thanks Mark, and a Happy Hannakuh to you, in the Big Shack in the Sky!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!