The 2019 State of the Hobby Survey, a comprehensive questionnaire for ham radio operators (and other interested participants), opened this week and will be available throughout March.

Dustin Thomas, N8RMA, got the idea for a comprehensive ham radio survey while browsing Reddit back in 2017. “I started to notice an influx of surveys being posted, almost all in regards to highly specific topics in amateur radio,” he says. “I made sure to complete the surveys but always wondered what the results were. So I decided to host my own survey, make it broad enough for anyone in this diverse hobby (not easy) and publish the results as hard as I solicited responses.”

First licensed in 2014, Dustin upgraded to General in 2015 and looks forward to reaching Extra. His personal ham radio interests include contesting, DX, and Field Day operations. But as he got into the hobby, he wondered where it was headed. They survey is a way for him to make a meaningful contribution toward the hobby’s future.

“I always wanted some baseline questions to compare from year to year, as well as specific issues impacting amateur radio today,” he says. “The State of the Hobby was born.”

Dustin pointed out some highlights — and surprises — from the 2018 State of the Hobby survey:

• Concerns over HOA’s came in as the third most reported issue (fourth overall as the biggest single issue) yet 75% of respondents reporting not being effected by an HOA
• Respondents ranked HF award nets (such as 3905 Century Club and OMISS) very low – on par with believing there should be a code requirement for licensing
• 68% of respondents claimed to have talked with a new ham in the last 12 months
• DMR seems to be growing in terms of local repeaters, outranking both YSF and D-Star

Why should you bother to take the survey?

“It’s important for independent bodies (independent from the ARRL or commercial organizations with unknown agendas) to solicit and publish the opinions of ham radio operators,” Dustin says.
“This survey will give us insight into what is working and what is not, new or emerging trends in modes or activities, and successful ways to increase membership and licensing.”

He said interest in the survey has surprised him and that several clubs have reached our to say they’ve used insight from the survey to promote ham radio and establish new activities.

Dustin hopes to get more opinions this year from folks who may be studying for their license, or on the fence about whether to get involved. “This year I’ve also included a second for those not yet licensed, but who are interested,” he says. “This will give us a great insight into how new operators are preparing, what works / what doesn’t, and what recently caused them to be interested.”

More information:
https://www.radiosoth.org/2019/03/2019-state-of-hobby-survey.html

2019 survey link:
https://goo.gl/forms/fllqlu7kRkq0enAg1

Ham College episode 50 is now available for download.

General Amateur Radio Exam part 21. Decibels and Power. S units. Amplifier Classes.
1:09:19

Download
YouTube

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Bill Barnes N3JIX and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is an interview by Frank Howell (K4FMH) with Amateur Radio Author Don Keith (N4KC)

ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS

We would like to thank Richard Boley and Dino Papas (KL0S) along with our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

• Cricket World Cup Amateur Radio Marathon
• Comments Wanted on Amateur Radio Related Petition for Rule Making
• Radio Hams Transfer Crypto Currency on 40m Band
• Golden Globe Sailing Race - Penalty Given for Ham Radio Use
• Carole Perry (WB2MGP) is First Recipient of Award Named in Her Honor
• Tate Gallery Features Ham Radio Art
• St Patrick’s Day Special Events Station GB1SPD
• VeroRoute
• Highest Ever SOTA Activation

Stories you’ll find in our July, 2018 issue:

TSM Guide to Monitoring Air Shows
By Larry Van Horn N5FPW

Every year from March through November, millions of people hit the road to watch the excitement and thrills as military and civilian aero teams put their high-performance aircraft through their paces to entertain the crowds and perform at air shows all over the world.But you can add to the experience by monitoring the performing teams’ radio communications. With a radio scanner in hand, you will experience a whole new perspective of the show that few attendees will experience. Larry lets us all in on the frequencies used by all participants in these shows in VHF and UHF civilian and military bands.

A Look Back at the 2018 Air Shows
By Brian and Jo Marie Topolski

Air shows offer a variety of aerial action and every year is a little bit different. Veteran air show attendees, Brian and Jo Marie, give us a look ahead at the 2019 season and a look back at what happened last year. Among the new teams to look for this year are the Royal Air Force aerobatic jet team known as the Red Arrows and the US Department of Defense F-35A Lightning II demonstration team. Brian and Jo Marie tell you where you are likely to hear communications from these teams as well as all of the others. The duo also takes a look back at the losses that occurred during last year’s air show season.

Photos from 2018:
B-52 Stratofortress; Japanese Navy Type 97; Mitchell B-25
By Brian and Jo Marie Topolski

It’s hard not to be attracted to the impressive sight of a Blue Angels or Thunderbirds aerial demonstration. The number of planes in the air at once, the deafening sound of their pass across air show center are thrilling. But there are plenty of quality side shows as well. Brian looks closely at several examples of vintage aircraft and the role they played in aviation history.

In the Air for Sean D. Tucker’s Last Solo Season
By Kevin Burke

The dramatic photo on the front cover was taken by Kevin Burke, who has had the opportunity several times to fly in a chase plane following the daring aerial exploits of veteran air show pilot, Sean D. Tucker. It’s not an easy assignment and to get this kind of photo you need to have a good camera, plenty of experience using it and an ability to forget that you’re being held into the plane by a belt during a flight nearly as breathtaking as Sean’s.

Photographing USAF Thunderbirds’ Air Show Demonstration
By Kevin Burke

When you go to an air show, you’ll want to bring along your camera to try to freeze some of the drama for later viewing. But, there’s a trick to photographing moving objects, particularly when they’re moving at hundreds of miles per hour, at heights anywhere from 200 feet to 5,000 feet, under rapidly changing light conditions. Kevin has had a lot of experience doing so and has some tips for your next air show.

Scanning America
By Dan Veeneman
Scanning Jackson County, Mississippi

Federal Wavelengths
By Chris Parris
Atlanta Federal Mysteries and Super Bowl 53

MilCom
By Larry Van Horn N5FPW
Monitoring Venezuela’s Military

Utility Planet
By Hugh Stegman
Rejoice! WWV is Saved!

Shortwave Utility Logs
By Mike Chace-Ortiz and Hugh Stegman

VHF and Above
By Joe Lynch N6CL
ESA Astronaut Tim Peake KG5BVI and
UK Space Agency’s Principia Education Campaign

Digitally Speaking
By Cory GB Sickles WA3UVV
EMCOMM and DV Radio

Amateur Radio Insights
By Kirk Kleinschmidt NT0Z
Antennas before Amplifiers

Radio 101
By Ken Reitz KS4ZR
OTA-TV and the Mystery of HDMI

Radio Propagation
By Tomas Hood NW7US
It’s a Gray Area

The World of Shortwave Listening
By Ken Reitz KS4ZR
Shortwave Listening in the 21stCentury

The Shortwave Listener
By Fred Waterer
Shortwave Still Offers Exotic Listening

Amateur Radio Satellites
By Keith Baker KB1SF/VA3KSF
Amateur Radio Satellite Primer (Part III)

The Longwave Zone
By Kevin O’Hern Carey WB2QMY
Still Learning with SDRs!

Adventures in Radio Restoration
By Rich Post KB8TAD
James Millen and the Toy Company

Antenna Connections
Dan Farber AC0LW
Flying High Again: Aircraft Antennas

The Spectrum Monitor is available in PDF format which can be read on any desktop, laptop, iPad®, Kindle® Fire, or other device capable of opening a PDF file. Annual subscription is $24. Individual monthly issues are available for $3 each.

If you know someone who is planning on getting their ham radio license, this app may be just what they need.

It was written by Roy Watson, N1ZTL and has the current question pool (2018-2022). The app has 67 reviews on iTunes and boasts a 4.8 star rating — and it’s also free.

You can study each question in the question pool and each section is broken down by the number of questions per section as well.

Once you select a section, it gives you each question number, the text of the question and the four possible answers as well with the correct answer highlighted in green.

If you’re interested, check out my full review of this app.

73 y’all

Lets start this with a clear statement – This is not a ham radio post

Introduction

My youngest was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes a little over 12 months ago. Type 1 is a bit different from Type 2 diabetes in that it is auto immune and there is no insulin available. This means a regular tightrope of carbohydrate intake and insulin being administered. In our case this is through a pump.

In the good old days that meant taking a bit of blood from your finger. measuring it for blood glucose and then acting on the information. This could mean correcting to meet a magic number (6 mmol) or just before a meal.

In the modern connected world there are a few toys that can help you. Freestyle Libre continuous glucose monitoring, Nightscout, XDrip+, Miao Miao, Smart watches…….This is my experience of setting a few of these things up. Hopefully in a non techie way.

Setup prior to new toys

• Omnipod Insulin delivery with the Insulet PDM
• Old android phone
• Freestyle Libre Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM)

The game goes like this. Offer up your phone to your patch, it reads the sensor and you get a BG reading on your phone. Make any adjustments using the PDM Nothing too exciting there.

The problem

The problem with this is that at night there is still a regime of checking. The CGM is collecting data and it needs a human to wave a phone near an arm (invariably the wrong one, in fact sometimes it takes three goes to get the correct arm!)

There are no alarms or warnings

After a few poor nights of sleep it is easy to miss a check and hence mistakes will happen

A solution

Here’s the basic wish list. Use the CGM to it’s potential without waiting for a commercial integrated solution. This means connecting a few things together and for the information to be displayed on a smartwatch in such way that it provides an adequate indication of the state of BG play. So here are the ingredients

1. Freestyle Libre – The CGM
2. Miao Miao – A bluetooth device that sits on the Libre patch
3. Android Phone – The hardware glue
4. Fitbit Verso – A reasonably priced smart watch
5. xDrip+ – Software glue
6. Glance – A watch face to display the info

The system works by the Libre monitors the BG, The Miao Miao collects the data every 5 minutes, xDrip+ receives the data and manipulates it and lastly the Verso shows you whats going on. All this because there isn’t a straightforward off the shelf solution (yet).

What I want is this….

Steps

First thing to remind yourself is that this is not a medical device or set of devices. This is the equivalent of bleeding edge homebrew, short only of a step that makes the adjustments for you.

You’ll need a bit of time – A good hour or two depending on your skills

Set up the FitBit

This bit should be relatively straightforward. Download the App, sign your life away to megacorp and do the updates it prompts for. This took about 30 minutes and to be honest wasn’t smooth. The software could be a bit better but eventually it works. At the end of all this you should have a working FitBit with the default screen.

Set up the Miao Miao and xDrip+

Luckily for me there is a good guide on the Miao Miao website so as long as you can follow that you should be ok. As this stuff is a bit techie it assumes you understand what repositories are and installing apks from sources other than Google Play for example. It’s not as hard as you might think and if you struggle here’s one of few thousand tutorials.

At the end of this you should have a phone that is collecting data every 5 minutes from the Libre patch and giving you a pretty picture. An optional step would be to add a follower to xDrip+. This might be handy if like me you are a parent and you’ll effectively mirror the data on your phone as well as the kids phone. The developers have done a nice video that will show you what to do.

Next up – displaying the information on your FitBit

Again, all the hard work is done for you. Using the phone you used to install xDrip+ and connect to the FitBit and navigate to this page on a browser. There is a good wiki but there are basically two steps to this.

Change some settings in xDrip+

Changing the settings allows the xDrip+ software to send the information to the watch but it is easy. Go to settings, then InterApp settings, then xDrip Web Service. Change this to on

Add a ‘Watch Face’ to the FitBit

The wiki gives you a warning about making sure you’ve done the first step. Make sure you do this. Follow the link to ‘Latest version of Glance’. This will open up the FitBit app and after some time will install the watch face.

Some problems I found

1. You need to make sure the Miao Miao is well and truly stuck to the Libre patch. Even a mm is enough for it to not connect.
2. The xDrip+ software is really very capable. A slip with the fingers and a wrong setting will stop it working. For example a FitBit verso is not an Android watch. Take care when setting things up.
3. This is a do it yourself system and there are a whole bunch of people that can help, but it moves from plain English to TechSpeak pretty quickly and can look daunting. It need not be like this.