AmateurRadio.com

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 [...]

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 who setup flares and redirect traffic when there's a fire or vehicle accident.  Ironically they don't put out fires or have any police authority.  Despite being experienced with sitting for hours on end directing traffic, the fire police most of the time don't seem to be prepared for this annual event in the hot sun, rarely bringing drinks or food for themselves, or familiarizing themselves with the event.  But I digress.

This year the club solicited volunteers for the event as usual, despite no need for amateur radio communications.  A bit of a brewhaha erupted when it was asked just what would volunteers be doing.  No one wanted to flip burgers or park cars, and rightfully so as radio amateurs want to communicate and are not called amateur car parkers or amateur burger flippers.  One would think if the event organizers needed such people, they would naturally solicit volunteers from those who are interested in the athletic event itself, not radio amateurs.

Despite not being requested for communications, the morning of the event a few hams were stationed at the usual route checkpoints as in years past giving updates to each other.  Three repeaters on two bands covering four counties were linked together resulting in a sequence of varying courtesy beeps sounding like a battle out of one of the Star Wars movies from the 70s.  An amateur stationed on the route received a question from an event participant and asked net control for information.  Net control couldn't answer the question as they had no one officially stationed at the event central command.  Later in the event a ham reported to net control that there was an injured participant and an ambulance was needed.  He was advised by net control to call 911 on his cell phone.  After phoning 911 he reported back to net control that an ambulance was in route and gave information on the injured participant.  He was then advised by net control to call the event organizer on their cell phone to relay the information.


Anthony Good, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Pennsylvania, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

An EchoLink app has recently been released for Android mobile phones. That makes two smartphone platforms – Android and iPhone – that can now be used to access EchoLink. Is this really a good idea?

Let me make it clear from the start: I like EchoLink. What I like about it is that it can be used to link repeaters in different parts of the country or the world, and even allows individual operators like myself to set up simplex voice nodes without the technical complications, expense and licensing issues of running a repeater, the aim being simply to get some interesting activity on what may otherwise be a more or less dead band.

I realize that contacts made using EchoLink are not traditional amateur radio point to point contacts, so I don’t want to start up the old “it’s not ham radio” argument again. But I don’t think the point of most contacts made on VHF FM is that you worked direct and exchange QSLs afterwards. They are just conversations between hams. The fact that the transmission went most of the way over the internet is of no more significance than if you used a conventional repeater. However it does matter to me that radios are used at each end, otherwise it’s internet chat not a radio contact in any shape or form. So far, that seems to be the case with most of the EchoLink contacts I have made, but for how long?

The trouble with EchoLink apps for smartphones is that they are VoIP apps pure and simple. They encourage the use of EchoLink as a VoIP chat mode. Smartphones are so popular now that I’m afraid this could become the dominant way of using the system. It could even replace ham radio handhelds. Users are going to ask themselves: Why bother carrying this goofy looking radio about when I can just use my phone? One more nail in the coffin of amateur radio?

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

Observant readers may have noticed a change in the “strapline” in the header logo of my blog. It now reads “My position on amateur radio.”

The new strapline reflects more accurately what the blog is currently about. If you haven’t already realized, it is also a play on words. “My position” alludes to my present interest in APRS which is the subject of many of my postings. But it also makes it clear that this is an opinion blog; that I use this blog to express my thoughts on various ham radio related matters, to give my point of view without any obligation on my part for that view to be fair, balanced or uncontroversial.

So don’t expect any changes to the content, other than a gradual evolution as my interests move from one thing to another. I expect that I will still occasionally write on topics related to stealth ham radio operation, but I feel I have probably pushed things about as far as they can go in my present situation. Now it’s just a matter of waiting and hoping that I don’t experience the Final QRN that puts paid to my radio activities for good.

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

David Rowe has released an early version of his low bit rate open source digital voice codec. Whilst this is certainly a significant achievement, I can’t get very excited about it for two reasons. First, it is incompatible with the AMBE codec used by Icom in D-Star, so it is never going to be able to work with existing D-Star equipment and it is not all that likely that it will be incorporated in future versions. And second, I still don’t see what benefits digital voice offers us as radio hams in the real world.

Digital audio gives you clear “fully quieting” audio up until the signal starts to be lost, when it quickly breaks up and you get nothing. Analogue audio experiences a gradual degradation as the signal gets weaker. Those who have used the two report that an analogue signal is usably copyable about 15 – 20% further out than a digital signal. I can understand that for some professional services nothing but clear copy will do. But we are amateurs who are supposed to be good at digging weak signals out of the noise. Is this really “progress”, in the context of what ham radio is used for?

The other reason for my antipathy to digital voice is that I question whether we need another voice mode at a time when VHF analogue voice operation itself seems to be in decline. Surely it would be better to be making more use of existing technologies like Echolink to create more activity for users of existing equipment than to introduce new digital modes that will have an even smaller number of users. I’ve seen D-Star radios up for sale because the original purchaser found there was hardly anyone to talk to, and D-Star has now been around for several years. I don’t see the availability of an open source digital voice codec changing that situation somehow.

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

Labor Day here in the USA! So a day to play for most of us. Depending on the weather I may get a bit more on air time, but I have a project lined up too.

Some time ago I purchased a Deluxe Tuner kit from Dan’s Small Parts and Kits aka a QRP Mini Tuner by Mark L. Meyer as described in a 73 magazine article. It is a nice little set of parts and a schematic for the price.

So I’m thinking this holiday might be the time to build that little T tuner out and see if I can load up the downspout that runs down the side of my back porch. I’ll let you know how it works!

Hope the bands hold up. Tonight’s QRP-L has a message from N4QA about how nice 40m is sounding right now! Sure would be fun to have our bands back from the QRN and low sunspot streak of late!

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