AmateurRadio.com

I’m scanning 20m spectrum space this morning while the event of the summer season is underway. The IARU HF World Championship in addition to the World Radio Team Championship (WRTC) guarantees a lot ham radio fun. I’m waiting for conditions to improve through the morning with a cup of coffee in one hand and my ears inside the cans listening to the music of Morse code.

My thought turns to the competitors in and around Moscow. Conditions are nowhere near epic however reflector chatter suggests heightened sporadic-e activity and not to ignore 15 or 10m this weekend. Likewise, competing with 100 watts against what one might call flat conditions, will certainly push the skill sets of all WRTC competitors.

Signals are beginning to rise above the receiver noise floor and my cup of coffee is nearly drained — first contact is logged!

An Idea.
My field day experience was a great teacher. Our operation, under the umbrella of emergency communications, provided insight into planning an expedition. It is not an easy task assembling equipment, antenna systems, power systems, and operators then operate in the field. The challenge was rewarding and field day opened a new path of ideas.

6m.
The charm of 50 MHz presents new opportunities and possibilities to consider over the summer season. Its portfolio of modes, fascinating conditions, and wide open frequency vistas is a relief from the doldrums of the current cycle and spectrum space gridlock. Likewise, 6m does not require a lot of aluminum or power, to enjoy ham radio at its finest.

I prefer the challenge of this frequency allocation because of propagation specifically sporadic-e, back scatter, and meteor scatter. Basically, one sends signal report and grid square, as measure against a fading signal. Potentially, every grid square is a rare grid square, and I enjoy logging each one as well.

Try 6m this summer season and consider CQ WW VHF next weekend because the magic band is waiting.

Meanwhile, teams are competing for the top slot in RadioSport this weekend in conjunction with the IARU HF World Championship, and I’m ready for another cup of coffee.

73 from the shack relaxation zone.

I’ve been QRT (both radio- and blog-wise) for quite some time as the XYL and I have been planning and, over the past week, executing a move from Robinson to the charming little town of West, TX — that’s West (comma) Texas, population 2,690, which despite the name is nowhere near “West Texas” but just a dozen miles or so north of Waco in the central part of the Republic. According to the FCC database there are 18 licensed amateurs in West, including your faithful correspondent.

The new QTH is an old but freshly renovated 3 bedroom house with a detached garage and (praise Jesus!) trees, giving me antenna possibilities that did not exist at our suburban-hell duplex in Robinson. There’s a tripod already on the roof; it’s not exactly heavy-duty but it should be adequate for a vertical. Whether I’ll put the Cushcraft R7000 back into service or simply mount the Tarheel on the roof remains to be decided. One of my priorities is to at least get a dipole strung up for 6/10/12 meters. Not yet sure if there’s room for an 80m wire.

The shack/office is about the same size and layout as at the last QTH. There’s a large walk-in closet that I will use as a library to store some of the 8.6 million books that I seem to have acquired over the years and which I hope to have moved for the last time. I no longer have a loud central air conditioning unit outside the window of the office; however, I now live across the street from the main Union Pacific train line that runs through the middle of the state. Being a lifelong fan of model railroading but never having the room, tools or skills to build the N-scale layout of my dreams, I can now enjoy a 1:1 scale road with regular trains that shake the entire house about a dozen times a day like a coin-operated bed in a cheap motel. Must remember turn the VOX off when I’m not at the radio.

Since we’re still living out of boxes it may be some time yet before I can get the shack reassembled, antennas installed, and return to the bands — needless to say, the IARU HF contest is going to have to get along without WW2PT’s big signal, and the IOTA test in a couple of weeks will be a long shot, but I fully intend to be up and running in time for NAQP in August.

I’ve been QRT (both radio- and blog-wise) for quite some time as the XYL and I have been planning and, over the past week, executing a move from Robinson to the charming little town of West, TX — that’s West (comma) Texas, population 2,690, which despite the name is nowhere near “West Texas” but just a dozen miles or so north of Waco in the central part of the Republic. According to the FCC database there are 18 licensed amateurs in West, including your faithful correspondent.

The new QTH is an old but freshly renovated 3 bedroom house with a detached garage and (praise Jesus!) trees, giving me antenna possibilities that did not exist at our suburban-hell duplex in Robinson. There’s a tripod already on the roof; it’s not exactly heavy-duty but it should be adequate for a vertical. Whether I’ll put the Cushcraft R7000 back into service or simply mount the Tarheel on the roof remains to be decided. One of my priorities is to at least get a dipole strung up for 6/10/12 meters. Not yet sure if there’s room for an 80m wire.

The shack/office is about the same size and layout as at the last QTH. There’s a large walk-in closet that I will use as a library to store some of the 8.6 million books that I seem to have acquired over the years and which I hope to have moved for the last time. I no longer have a loud central air conditioning unit outside the window of the office; however, I now live across the street from the main Union Pacific train line that runs through the middle of the state. Being a lifelong fan of model railroading but never having the room, tools or skills to build the N-scale layout of my dreams, I can now enjoy a 1:1 scale road with regular trains that shake the entire house about a dozen times a day like a coin-operated bed in a cheap motel. Must remember turn the VOX off when I’m not at the radio.

Since we’re still living out of boxes it may be some time yet before I can get the shack reassembled, antennas installed, and return to the bands — needless to say, the IARU HF contest is going to have to get along without WW2PT’s big signal, and the IOTA test in a couple of weeks will be a long shot, but I fully intend to be up and running in time for NAQP in August.

The Dayton Hamvention was a little while ago and we’ve just now been able to get around to talking about it. In this episode, we bring in Bill, KA9WKA, our right-hand man, to help us out with discussion of the event and a number of other topics as well.

Don’t be alarmed, however. We keep the dated material to a minimum and move directly into things that are much more current and much more interesting, including questions about the “lightness” of distributions, how to install Ubuntu on a USB stick, a super geeky radio question and much more. Not only that, this may have been the most fun episode we’ve recorded so far. For those who want to brave the unedited version of this one, there are belly laughs aplenty. Check out the stream feed in the right column for that. Just remember, unedited means just what it says.

We haven’t been pushing donations lately so here’s a small tug on your subconscious: If you have a spare few dollars, please consider helping us with our hosting expenses so we can continue to bring you the show long into the future.

73 de The LHS Guys and Bill

Earlier today, fellow blogger and Cornbread Road podcaster Jeff, KE9V posted an article on his blog entitled “Screw You Newington“. Please take a minute to read that if you haven’t already.


While I don’t entirely agree with Jeff’s comments (and I commented there saying so), I do feel that the ARRL has possibly made a serious mistake in the way they’ve gone about starting up their presence on Facebook. As I promised Jeff, I’ve written an email to my ARRL Division Director (Frank, N2FF) and Vice- Directory (Joyce, KA2ANF) explaining my concerns. I have slightly edited what I wrote to them (removing some personal things) and I am posting it here, sort of as an “open letter”. Unless they explicitly give permission, I won’t be posting their response, but I felt that posting this would give my view of things.

Hi Frank and Joyce,

I hope you’ve been keeping cool and the DX has been flowing for you.

Recently, the ARRL posted an article on their website about their presence on Facebook. In general, I think this is an excellent idea, as social media, like it or not, is here to stay and is an important part of having public visibility. I think it’s a great way to show that the ARRL is active and recognizes that things like Facebook have value to many people. A Facebook presence should help the League acquire new members who may not be aware of the fine work that they do.

However, I do have one concern. The following is quoted from the article:

Thanks to Herman May, KE5HYW, the ARRL has its own Facebook page. Check out the page to see a lot of features you won’t find anywhere else, such as pictures from ARRL events and interactive status updates. [emphasis mine]

I have shared with both of you my disappointment in the current ARRL website, but I think that the worst thing that the League can do is to start posting “exclusive” content elsewhere. While I understand that intent is to provide another outlet for content, asking members to visit a second site doesn’t seem to be a good idea to me. If the ARRL wants to keep users coming back to their website (which is typically the goal of any website), the exclusive content should be there, and there alone. I think it’s perfectly fine to have some overlap between the sites, but the arrl.org website should be the primary site.

I also think that the League will run into issues with members who aren’t willing to join Facebook (they’ve gotten a lot of bad press lately, some of it deserved, some not, for their privacy issues), and I am sure there will be complaints from users who are being “forced” to join Facebook to view the content.

With that said, I have looked at what’s up on Facebook now, and aside from some user-posted pictures, most of the content appear to be cross-posted from the ARRL news feed along with minimal status updates like today’s “Who did you have your first QSO with”? If that’s really the main thrust of what’s going to be available there, then perhaps this isn’t really a significant issue, but I am aware of several fellow hams who are taking the information published in the article at face value and assume they’ll be missing out on something if they don’t join Facebook.

In closing, I hope that you take this note in the spirit in which it’s intended, which is to provide constructive criticism of something that I think the ARRL could be doing better.

The last couple of days I’ve been wasting way too much time tracking mobiles using the new Google Street View feature of aprs.fi, which since I wrote about it last is now live on the production server. I have been running a second instance of APRSIS32 linked to my K3 on 30m using the AGWPE soundcard modem. Surprisingly, I have found quite a few mobile stations beaconing their position on 30m and even more surprisingly they are often being picked up direct by my attic mounted MFJ magnetic loop. It’s fun to follow these mobiles and see what they are seeing as they drive along, but I get a bit of a thrill when I see my station displayed as the one that gated their position report to the internet. I suppose it’s a bit like reverse WSPR.

Yesterday and today I have been following Bernd DF8HL and his XYL Karin DF8HY who are touring Scandinavia an an old VW camper van festooned with antennas, as you can see from their website. It must be great to just tour in your mobile shack, going from one place to another, yet in touch with your friends by amateur radio. But Olga wouldn’t agree, so instead I must content myself to do it virtually with the help of APRS and Google Maps.

I attended a great fox hunting presentation at Dayton this year, hence a few posts on the topic.

I had some posts in the past about tape measure beam antennas.  Really neat antennas and they have multiple purpose use (they are GREAT for hitting distant repeaters when you orient them vertically!).  Much like the picture on the right (courtesy of Joe Moell K0OV) they are more useful for fox hunting when you add the active attenuator to your setup.  FYI, Joe is the co-author of the great book “TRANSMITTER HUNTING, Radio Direction Finding Simplified” available where most ham books are sold.  His website has more information on the book at http://www.homingin.com/THRDFSinfo.html and he contributes to CQ and CQ VHF.

So….. just what is an offset attenuator?  Joe explains it on his “Homing in” site as:

An RF attenuator is a device that goes between antenna and receiver to reduce the signal strength down to within the range that the receiver S-meter can handle. Without one, you may think you’re close to the fox when you’re still far away. You won’t be able to get close enough to a camouflaged hidden T to identify it. The amount of attenuation should be adjustable so that you can add just a little when your S-meter first pins, up to a lot as you get within a few feet. Special ARDF receivers used by champion foxhunters have electronic attenuation built in, but ordinary handi-talkies don’t. Adding it would require major micro-surgery in the HT.

His attenuator page is:

http://www.homingin.com/joek0ov/offatten.html

I recommend his site in general, many great projects:

http://www.homingin.com

On his attenuator page, he has full schematics to make an offset attenuator.

But wait…… there’s more!

Further on his page, you see one made in a sweet Pomona box.  I like this box and thought it was a bit pricey at first, until I did the math and figured out the cost/time to do it myself.  These boxes are shielded with the connector of your choosing (BNC/SMA/259, etc).

They generally cost around $25 or so and are shielded!  Great to have.  When you add the cost of connectors and such, it isn’t really so expensive after all.

I really advise using such a case or a metal case in general, makes things work out much smoother in the end.  More information on this box at: http://www.pomonaelectronics.com/index.php?i=prodsub&parent=BOX&cat=BONCONN&getDetails=

But wait….. there’s even more!

Marvin Johnston KE6HTS is now offering a “semi-kit” for this attenuator on his website.  I’ve seen this kit when I was at Dayton this year and encouraged a friend to pick it up and build.  I may end up running a buildathon here in CT on these attenuators.

The price is really not bad at $22.00.  You can purchase them built for a few dollars more.

Information on the kits and pre-built models are at:
http://www.west.net/~marvin/k0ov.htm

And yep……. there’s even more (again!).

If you would like to “roll your own” from parts you may have on your bench, but don’t want to make a circuit board, you can get one from……. you guessed it…… Far circuits.  I picked one up and am going this route myself.

There are a few boards/projects on the Far circuits website at:

http://www.farcircuits.net/

There are a ton of great resources out there on the web, these will really get you going right from the start.  Fox hunting is a really fun and useful part of our hobby and one that doesn’t cost a ton of money to get started in.  If there are no active fox hunts in your area – start ‘em!  There are plenty of options as far as transmitters and such and really doesn’t cost a club much money to get started.