AmateurRadio.com

Last night for the first time in a very long time I operated RTTY. I made ten contacts in the BARTG RTTY 75 contest. The reason was that Elecraft had released a beta version of firmware for the K3 that enhances the built-in DSP modems to support the 75baud RTTY mode that was being used in the contest. Now that the K3 also supports a way to get decoded text into a computer program I thought it would be fun to give it a try.

For those unfamiliar with the K3, the transceiver boasts a built-in Morse decoder plus DSP based modems (encoders and decoders) for PSK31, standard 45.5baud RTTY and now 75baud RTTY. As the K3 doesn’t allow direct input from a keyboard, the usual way to use this facility is to send text using a Morse paddle and read received text on a scrolling 7-character window of the K3 display. However, using a program like KComm it is possible to send and receive text using software commands over the CAT interface as well. Since, like most things that require good motor skills, I’m hopeless with a paddle (or key) at anything much above 12wpm, that’s what I did.

I installed the new firmware and it decoded 75baud RTTY signals perfectly, so I waited for the contest to begin. After it did, I soon found that although people were hearing me they weren’t decoding me. I got lots of QRZ?, ??????? and SRI NO PRINT. I started to get frustrated and began thinking that RTTY is an obsolete mode that has no place in the 21st century because I know I could have made contact with these stations easily using PSK31 and a fraction of the power.

I decided to switch to soundcard mode and use Fldigi to try to make some contest contacts, and then found that people were replying to me on the first call! So clearly there was something wrong with the RTTY being generated by my K3.

This morning I tried receiving some of my transmitted RTTY using the FT-817 and Fldigi on my NC-10 netbook. When the RTTY was generated by Fldigi it was received perfectly. However when it was generated by the K3 I received gibberish unless I switched the K3 to REV DATA mode (i.e. reverse sideband.) Since I was receiving the RTTY perfectly OK using the normal sideband I presume that the K3’s transmitted RTTY was reversed. I have reported it to Wayne and await comments.

Unfortunately I did have some problems with KComm as well. After a while, it started aborting the transmission of any macro after the first few diddles. Like many programs, it has grown to the point where it is hard to understand what is going on any more and my interest in programming has fallen off a cliff in the last few months. I don’t know if I will ever get around to fixing the problems and releasing the final version. I do like using it, and KComm is the only program that really supports the K2 and K3 properly because it doesn’t treat them like a Kenwood TS2000 (whose command set it nominally shares) but was written to take account of the way these radios actually work.

Contest on.

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.

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 bought a copy of Practical Wireless today and noticed the following in the Waters and Stanton ad inside the front page.

It isn’t often words fail me, but three hundred quid delivered for a hand held QRP antenna?!? I guess it would perform about as well as my home-made Wonder Loop.

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.