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Welcome to Handiham World!

I hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday. We certainly had a wonderful time sharing the holiday with extended family. With the new technology, I didn’t have to leave my ham radio friends behind, either. At my XYL’s sister’s house my first job was to repair the broken cable internet, an easy fix that simply required rebooting the cable modem and the wireless router. Now that the internet was back in business, it was easy to check in to the Handiham Echolink net using a tiny netbook computer and a USB microphone. I also managed a couple of check-ins on the 75 meter PICONET during the visit. No one minded, because there always seems to be some “down time” during these multi-day visits, and sometimes I think the best thing for everyone’s mental health is to spend some time doing relaxing activities like reading or getting on the air.

One interesting thing I noticed just before we headed out over the river and through the woods for Thanksgiving was the release of an NPRM, or Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, by the FCC. The topic: Amendment of the Amateur Service Rules Governing Vanity and Club Station Call Signs. The notice came to me in an FCC bulletin on the day before Thanksgiving, though the NPRM was actually issued on the day before, which was Tuesday, November 24. I have posted the NPRM on the Handiham website in a format that is more easily read than the original downloads. Because of the timing of the release during a busy, short holiday week, I suspect that many ham radio operators missed the announcement altogether, even though we posted it as soon as it was released, and the ARRL produced a story on ARRLweb that included an excellent explanation of what the NPRM is all about.

Here are the main points. At the end of this story, I will provide links to the ARRL story and the NPRM on the Handiham website.

• To look up anything on the FCC website or to offer comments on a notice of proposed rulemaking, one needs to know the docket number: WT Docket No. 09-209.

• The vanity callsign program began in 1996, but the FCC did not set forth all of the procedures governing vanity calls. This NPRM attempts to do a bit of fine-tuning by specifying some procedures.

• Club station licensing is also due to be addressed in this NPRM, stating: “The Commission also decided in the Vanity Report and Order to resume issuing new club station licenses. We believe that certain rule changes to the club station licensing rules may be appropriate.” and “…call signs shown on the license of a deceased licensee generally are unavailable to the vanity call sign system for two years after the license expires or is canceled. Below, we propose to amend our rules to clarify the process by which such call signs become available for reassignment.”

• If the rule changes are made, Novice Class licensees would be able to serve as club station trustees.

The conclusion states: “In summary, we believe that the public interest will be served by amending certain rules in order to make the amateur service’s vanity call sign system more equitable and transparent. We also propose changes in the rules governing club station licensing, to promote equitable and administratively efficient processes. We therefore seek comment on these proposed rule changes. In addition, we invite commenters to propose any other amendments to the rules governing the vanity call sign system and club station licensing.”

I urge you to do some further research on this NPRM, even though it is a busy time of year. You will find the appropriate links after my identification.

It's the holiday season, and our gift to our listeners is a brand new podcast. During my time at Ohio Linux Fest back in September, several of the participants who visited the Linux in the HAM Shack booth provided topic ideas for the program. I recently dug those topics up and Richard and I will be tackling them over the next few episodes. In Episode #026, the topic we decide to visit is shortwave listening, including hardware and Open Source software for that very purpose. SWL is a way for non-hams to approach the hobby without encountering mic fright, and a way for existing hams and non-hams alike to explore the world of radio frequency communication, whether it be foreign broadcasts, pirate radio, amateur radio or time beacons. With several manufacturers of equipment still in business, SWL is by no means a lost art, and may be an interesting extension to the amateur radio hobby for those who don't currently participate in it.

Several thank yous go out to those who donated to the Dayton Hamvention 2010 fund. With my upcoming matching contributions we'll be about halfway to our goal. Please keep those donations coming, even after we've met our goal, so we can continue to improve our equipment, our hosting and our program. As always, thank you for downloading Linux in the HAM Shack. Please send us your feedback and questions, and please tell everyone you know about us--through word of mouth, blogging, social networking, whatever it takes. Our listenership continues to grow, and we hope that trend continues for years to come.

73 de Russ, K5TUX

Welcome to Handiham World!

Handiham Headquarters will be closed for the United States Thanksgiving holiday

• Licence validation period extended
• GB3WX 6m/10m crossband repeater
• WA6ITF retires from Fox TV
• Whip Competition
• Frequency Measuring Test
• Ham couple save man's life
• AMSAT "Student Membership"
• New Bent Element Yagi tested
• Hams exempt from new cellphone law
• Happy Birthday OSCAR 7
• Trinidad & Tobago 5 MHz operation?
• Finland gets access to 70 MHz
• Norwegian amateurs get 3 new bands
• Donation to Irish Society

Your feedback, Hints, Tips and Tricks, and Alun Cross begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting, G4WGE joins use to review Microwaving

I just submitted my meager log from last weekend’s WAE RTTY test — just 45 QSOs and a whopping claimed score of 1,530. I only operated for a few morning hours (between 1125-1345 on Saturday and 1245-1700 on Sunday) in order to give DM780 a try at good ol’ fashioned 170/45 Baudot, a mode I haven’t worked since days of yore with the trusty old KAM and a terminal program. High time to give the new technologies a try, said I.

The DM780 + HRD Logbook combination did fairly well, considering HB9DRV himself says “HRD/DM780 is not contest software.” As such, there is no easy provision for sending or receiving QTC info for extra multipliers, and it wasn’t clear at first how to get DM780 to increment serial numbers in the exchange field (put them in [brackets], I finally discovered). Using a fresh database file for the log (as I do for every contest) lets me use the logbook’s Awards Tracking and Worked Status functions to keep an eye on what stations and countries I’ve worked on each band, but I have to be careful to individually set the other databases (previous contest logs, plus my master logbook) to not figure into the worked status lookups (this is one in the Logbook Databases control panel).

Another limitation from a contesting perspective is HRD Logbook’s inability to output Cabrillo files for log submission after the test, a feature that was available in HRD v4. So I have to use another app (SP7DQR’S nice ADIF2CABR freeware app) to convert an ADIF export file into Cabrillo format, and that only after doing a search-and-replace on the ADIF file to change the tag to that the conversion app is looking for. No biggie, I mud-wrestle data for a living, so this is just another day at the office…

That said… I’m familiar and comfortable with DM780 and HRD Logbook so it all worked just fine for me.

I worked the first day with the K3 in DATA A mode before remembering that AFSK A mode allows DUAL PB filtering to peak the mark and space tones. The DM780 waterfall screenshots below illustrate the difference far better than words:

K3 set to DATA A mode. BW = 400 Hz, Fc = 1530 Hz

K3 set to AFSK A mode. BW = 400 Hz, Fc = 1530 Hz, DUAL PB enabled

Note that the overall bandwidth in AFSK A mode is quite a bit narrower, even though in both cases the K3 was set to 400 Hz, and the distinct notch between mark and space tones is indicative of how effective this filtering mode works. Back in the pre-DSP days with the TS-930S and JST-135/245 transceivers and NRD-525/535 receivers, I used to use a Datong FL-3 audio filter which had a RTTY mode that accomplished the same thing, albeit at the AF stage.

DATA A and AFSK A each have their advantages. In DATA A (or AFSK A with DUAL PB turned off), I can open the bandwidth up and see a good portion of the band (I generally set DM780 to display 3 kHz on the waterfall and set the K3 bandwidth to match) and all the signals on the air, then select the desired signals with a point-and-click like I do in PSK31 mode. If QRM is a problem, I can crank down the bandwidth and shift the passband center frequency to pass only the station I’m working; once the QSO is complete, a quick tap-twist of the K3’s shift control recalls my wide settings and I’m back on the hunt. I rarely touch the VFO dial, all tuning is done with the mouse.

In AFSK A mode with DUAL PB enabled, however, the K3’s center frequency is fixed at 1530 Hz so all tuning must be done with the VFO. Also, the bandwidth is limited to 500 Hz max (which as shown in the image above is a bit less in practice, more like 250 Hz or so) making VFO tuning very touchy and slow (the 1 Hz fine steps must be used) and renders the waterfall useless for spotting other signals. But the filtering advantage is huge, especially in a contest scenario.

For me, it’s a no brainer — in the latter stages of the WAE contest I found myself using DUAL PB almost exclusively, occasionally switching it off and opening up the bandwidth if the band was quiet or if I’ve already worked the majority of the stations I tune across, since clicking on a waterfall makes it far easier to hunt and pounce.

DM780 facilitates the switch from narrow DUAL PB to wideband waterfall tuning easily: I first activate the center frequency marker (Tools>Program Options>Waterfall menu, or F8) and set it to match the K3 DUAL PB center frequency (1530 Hz). After finding a signal on the waterfall and clicking on it, I can then click the C button just above the waterfall to center it at 1530 Hz (HRD offsets the K3 VFO frequency to do this), and then activate the DUAL PB (press/hold the #6 key on the K3 keypad). The bandwidth is narrowed to 500 Hz, and the mark and space tones are perfectly positioned for decoding. To switch back to wideband, press/hold DUAL PB, and tap XFIL a couple of times to select the 2.7 kHz filter or use one of the filter presets to select my standard wide data setting of 3 kHz. This can perhaps be simplified to a one-button process using the new macro feature Elecraft just added to the latest firmware version; I need to check into that…

Note to K3 users: when working RTTY in AFSK A mode, either the radio or DM780 needs to be set to reverse, as AFSK A demodulates the lower sideband while DM780 looks for the upper. DATA A, however, works in the upper sideband.