AmateurRadio.com

Reading through the Southgate ARC blog this morning, I came across this interesting post from Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP.

It was funny, because this very morning, JackFM were playing the Buggles track, ‘Video killed the Radio star’ from 1979 (we hear the playback and it seems so long ago). And I was thinking, we probably really did think that video WOULD kill radio. But here I am, 31 years later (gulp), listening to more broadcast radio than I have in years – and seeing a really vibrant and varied radio scene (though as an industry it’s fair to say that it has its’ own challenges). And of course, “internet broadcasting” has become part of radio, as we would have called it in 1979.

So it’ll be interesting to see whether the predictions of doom for amateur radio ring true. My guess and earnest wish is that as a hobby, it will evolve. It may(will) not evolve to everyone’s satisfaction and how many times have we heard the phrase “but it’s not amateur radio” muttered?

The truth is that the hobby MUST evolve to survive. It cannot survive as it was, for all sorts of reasons. That doesn’t invalidate the pleasure that people gain from taking part in the facets of amateur radio that have existed “for ever” – not at all.

Geoff’s choice of title made me think about about the parallels with the music broadcasting world. The need and desire to broadcast will not go away – only the methods will change. And so, I suspect will it be with amateur radio – the underlying principles will remain, but the methods will evolve.

And the other thing is that moaning and complaining about it won’t stop “progress” either. Just get on with enjoying what you do – engaging with other people and showing them what a great hobby this is; past, present and future.

I’m Tim Kirby, G4VXE and that’s what I think, how about you?

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Driving home last night, I was talking to Andy, G0UWS (who incidentally is now on Twitter) who was telling me and Richard, G4ERP that he was planning to be out on the 144MHZ UK Activity Contest that evening.

After we’d eaten and I’d attended to the dishwasher, I popped upstairs and had a quick listen to 144MHz SSB. Sure enough I managed to work Andy who was a great signal, along with a number of local stations. Conditions didn’t seem that great. I came back to the rig a little later on, around 21z when the GB3VHF beacon seemed a lot louder than it had been earlier.

I was able to work a few more people in the East and South East – it’s always good to work into the Suffolk/Norfolk area as well as some of the Cray Valley guys like M0RCV and G0VJG/P to the south-east of London.

Richard, GD8EXI was an intriguing signal. I could barely hear him beaming direct path, but his signal peaked up to the south-east! I didn’t bother to call him, but I strongly suspect I would have been able to work him.

Around that time, I noticed that the PI7CIS beacon was coming through nicely on 2m, so I went over to 70cms to listen for it there. Sure enough it was somewhat above average, though not startling. I tried a couple of CW CQ calls on 432.200 beaming towards the Netherlands, but no luck on this occasion.

All in all, an interesting evening. And thanks to Andy, G0UWS, for without the ‘prompt’ during our earlier FM QSO, I might not have checked the bands.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

The title of this entry is a phrase that I recall hearing numerous times, probably from a grandparent, when I was growing up. It was usually in response to me doing something that I shouldn’t have done, and it was a form of punishment that relied on my own sense of guilt for doing something that I knew was wrong. 

As adults, we learn about things as we go through life, and part of what we learn is to distinguish between things that are right and things that are wrong. We also learn that life is complex, and that sometimes the distinction between right and wrong isn’t very clear. The philosophical implications of that ambiguity are beyond me and something better left to the professionals (such as my uncle and cousin, both of whom have chaired the philosophy department at a major university). However, there are some fairly well-defined things that we all agree are wrong. One thing that we all know is wrong is cheating. Cheating can be defined as “Acting dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination”. 

Recently, the sponsors of the CQ World Wide DX contests have begun to do something that should have been done long ago. They are publicly identifying and punishing those who cheat in their contests. A recent article on the Radio-Sport blog discusses how a number of well-known contesters have been either disqualified or moved into different categories because they were caught cheating. In a very few cases, the operators involved accidentally broke the rules, but it appears now that the majority of them knew what they were doing was wrong, and didn’t expect to get caught. In the past, when such things happened, they weren’t well-publicized, and often the only way anyone ever found out was by noticing that a well-known station was missing from the final results. Even then, the contest sponsor would not comment on the reason for the disqualification. It just “happened”.

From the information published in the Radio-Sport blog, it would appear that most amateurs are pleased with CQ’s new policy of naming and publicly punishing the offenders. I am certainly among them, and I’d like to congratulate CQ for this new policy.  Just like in “real life”, if you cheat and get caught, you will have to suffer the consequences. CQ has done a good job of shaming those involved in cheating, which I think is warranted. In ham radio contests, we aren’t competing for multi-million dollar prizes, we’re competing for the right to be proud of our accomplishments. If you cheat, removing that pride is pretty much all that can be done.

I would like to encourage the ARRL and other contest sponsors to follow CQ’s lead. The technology exists today to catch cheaters, and it should be used wherever possible to do so. Quietly disqualifying someone is a disservice and an insult to the vast majority of operators who contest honestly and with integrity.

David Kozinn, K2DBK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

If you’re operating the PSK digimode on the weekend of 18th-19th September and suddenly find your screen full of PSK63 signals that you can’t decode, don’t be worried that there is something wrong with your radio or your computer. You are hearing the 7th CIS DX QPSK63 Contest 2010. Yes, it’s QPSK63, that mode you’ve seen on your menu and never been able to get a reply to when you tried it. If you were ever frustrated by this, now’s your chance to get satisfaction!

Starting at 1200UTC on the Saturday and continuing until 1200UTC the following day, the object is to make as many contacts as possible using QPSK63 (and only QPSK63) between stations in the Commonwealth of Independent States (known to many of us as the Former Soviet Union) and stations who are somewhere else. For more information see the contest website.

If you prefer SSB to digimodes, look for the upcoming 1st DX Esperanto Contest. It’s a contest for phone operators, where all the contacts must be made using Esperanto.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

If there were no limits (job, family, taxes, spouse, etc.) on where you could set up your ideal ham shack here in the USA, where would you go?

Think for a minute where the propagation, weather and other conditions create the ideal spot to operate.   Then leave your vote in the poll on my blog and write a comment if you’d like to let us know why…

Nice to dream a bit,  isn’t it?

p.s. Sorry and deepest apologies to the great state of Arizona… must be AZ Brain Freeze at work, it is on the bottom of the list until I figure out how to move it up higher in the software.

72,

Kelly K4UPG PB #173

Orlando, FL btw

Kelly McClelland, K4UPG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Florida, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

I was reflecting on what I wrote yesterday about the EchoLink app for Android and why I find it and similar developments disturbing. I thought it was because it made me uneasy having to face the fact that the internet and a cellphone appears to make ham radio redundant by allowing us to make the same contacts so much more easily without using the ham bands at all. Then I had a blinding revelation. Ham radio is not about making contacts. It is about not making contacts, or making them only with luck and some difficulty.

I almost stumbled across this truth a few months ago after I sold my first VX-8R to do APRS on a smartphone using Lynn KJ4ERJ’s excellent APRSISCE software. It worked far better than the 2m radio, allowing me to be tracked and exchange messages in places where there was no 2m signal. But I went back to using RF for precisely that reason. The smartphone didn’t provide the interest of allowing me to see how VHF RF propagates around the local terrain. The disappointment of not being tracked as I slogged up the mountain was balanced by my surprise when a beacon was gated from a location I wouldn’t have thought possible and the interest created in working out how it happened. There is also the technical challenge of finding ways to improve coverage and get a radio signal out of difficult locations, for which buying a smartphone is simply a cop-out.

When you look at other ham activities that remain popular or are even gaining in popularity it’s obvious that the interest is not in how easy it is to make contacts, but how hard. DXing isn’t about pressing the PTT and ticking another entity off the list a minute later, it’s about what you have to do – buy equipment, improve your antennas, learn about propagation, develop operating skills, be patient – in order to achieve it. People boast about the DX they’ve worked, but what keeps them interested in DXing is the places they haven’t worked and how hard it will be to work them. Dialling up a contact using an internet application has nothing to do with it.

Contesting isn’t popular because it’s easy to amass a winning score but because you need the best equipment, the best antennas and lots of skill to get even close. It isn’t meant to be a level playing field. That’s why many people dislike developments like reverse beacons and skimmers that take away some of the skill required.

QRP pursuits like WSPR or MEPT beaconing aren’t about making contacts at all, but just about seeing how far a whiff of RF can go. The excitement isn’t in being received by someone for the nth time, it’s that first barely detectable trace on the screen of someone or somewhere new that makes you punch the air (if QRPers go in for such QRO expressions of emotion.)

The thing about VHF FM activity is that for the most part it isn’t about the achievement of the contact at all. It’s just about being able to converse with people. When I was first licensed, before mobile phones and inclusive call packages, chatting on 2m FM was actually the best and certainly the cheapest way of keeping in contact with my local ham friends. But things have changed over the last 35 years and I haven’t been paying attention. I’m the dinosaur who wouldn’t disclose his mobile number to the radio club database because I felt that if someone wanted to talk to me about radio they could wait until they can contact me on the radio. But I suspect that everyone else has moved on. If they want to speak with one of their ham buddies they pick up the phone. Which may partly explain why the VHF bands these days are almost dead. Or even the development of D-Star, which provides some of the convenience of calling someone on the phone without totally abandoning use of the ham bands.

In only a handful of pursuits like SOTA and WOTA where the point is to make a contact direct using radio is 2m FM still used in what I would call a traditional manner. People will struggle to hear their signal report even if the activator is right down in the noise and get a feeling of having accomplished something when they are successful.

So EchoLink on a smartphone really doesn’t change anything. It already changed. Whether hams call one another on the phone using their phone number or their EchoLink node number really makes no difference. It has just been blinkered thinking on my part to have felt that if people hold ham radio licenses they ought to talk to each other using ham radio even if it isn’t the most convenient way of doing so.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

One of the neighboring amateur radio clubs has for years provided communications for an annual athletic event.  This year was different.  The organizers decided they no longer needed or wanted communications from the radio amateurs, opting to use the fire police.  For those who aren’t familiar with the term, the fire police here are the guys [...]