The Communicator: January – February 2026

31 December 2025 | by John VE7TI  |  Leave a Comment (1)

The Communicator First Issue of 2026

Happy New Year! This first issue of 2026 spans 110 pages and offers a comprehensive exploration of amateur radio. Readers will find a diverse mix of content, including technical projects, the latest operating news, and engaging historical perspectives relevant to the amateur radio community.

Historical and Informative Features

Readers will find historical profiles of notable figures in radio, this time including Edouard Branly, inventor of the coherer, and the fateful and communications-stricken flight of Amelia Earhart. The Silent Revolution: The future of RF is in light, is an overview of transceivers using light rather than wires, promising  less noise and terrific bandwidth. You will find tutorials on a variety of relevant subjects including HF digital modes such as FT8 and JS8Call, suggestions for contest logging software, and tips for successful portable operations.

Technical Articles

Several articles in this issue delve into practical projects and technical experimentation. Topics covered include encrypted communications in amateur radio, antenna construction and tuning, including the revolutionary Challenger+, low-power (QRP) operating strategies, free access to online software-defined radio receivers, and modifications to homebrew equipment. Additional articles address emergency communications preparedness, recent regulatory changes affecting Canadian amateurs, and reviews of new ham radio products and books.

Regular Sections

The issue includes our regular informative columnists, providing valuable information for operators.  They include feature propagation forecasts, updates on satellite and digital modes, reports on VHF/UHF activity, summaries of recent contests and on-air events, and even a ‘snow muffin’ recipe for Winter Field Day.

Feature Article: Embracing Versatility in Amateur Radio

An opinion piece reflected by the cover: “Are you an Amateur Radio chameleon?” (p. 102), employs the chameleon as a metaphor for versatility in the hobby. Drawing on the Senegalese proverb, “The chameleon changes colour to match the earth, the earth doesn’t change colour to match the chameleon,” the article gently critiques operators who specialize exclusively in one aspect of amateur radio—whether chasing DX on HF, focusing on VHF repeaters, contesting year-round, or limiting activity to digital modes like FT8.

While acknowledging that specialization can foster deep expertise, the article contends that remaining in a single niche may restrict personal growth and diminish the enjoyment of amateur radio. Instead, it celebrates those who adapt fluidly, moving between CW, SSB, digital modes, satellite work, QRP portable activations, microwave experimentation, public service events, and homebrewing. These “chameleons,” the article suggests, find greater fulfillment and contribute more broadly to the amateur radio community.

It concludes with an invitation for readers to share their own stories of adaptation and discovery by emailing [email protected].

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On behalf of SARC and SEPAR, we wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.  

~ John VE7TI, Editor


Contents for this issue:

  • Edouard Eugène Désiré Branly  and his Coherer  4
  • Amelia Earhart: Better radio skills may have made a difference 32
  • Photonics the Silent Revolution: The future of RF is in light 38
  • Ham Rocket Men 42
  • The story of Salmon, Idaho   44
  • Profile: The Canadian International DX Club 48
  • The Challenger+ OCF: A portable  Halfwave Antenna by KJ6ER 50
  • About that Un-un 57
  • Coaxial Cables and Common Mode Currents 58
  • A Challenger+ build  61
  • 2025 Appointment to the Canadian Amateur Radio Hall of Fame: Geoff Smith VA3GS (SK) 62
  • A Starter Guide: Internet Remote Software Defined Radio (SDR) Receivers 64
  • The BC QSO Party   66
  • Ham Radio Outside the Box: What really determines the efficiency of an antenna? 68
  • The VA7ZEB Line of Sight (LoS) Web App 71
  • Converting the shack computer to Linux 74
  • Foundations of Amateur Radio: I have a problem with logging 76
  • Back to Basics: Near Vertical Incident Skywave 79
  • Amateur Radio HH as a modular option of a new electric car  82
  • No-ham Recipes: Winter Field Day Snow Muffins 83
  • Profiles of SARC members: Blake R. Wiggs VA7BWG 86
  • 2025 SARC Field Day Results 92
  • SARC General Meeting minutes 94
  • The Christmas Social 96
  • Coming up 98
  • The SEPAR Report 100
  • Are you an Amateur Radio Chameleon? Embrace the multiverse of the ‘Hobby of Hobbies’ 102
  • Ham Leftovers 106
  • A look back: at The Communicator—January 2016 108
  • Kudos 112





The New Year’s Ham Baby

31 December 2025 | by John VE7TI  |  Leave a Comment (0)


Midnight struck! The calendar flipped,

A brand-new baby boy born fully equipped. 

But this was no ordinary, cooing tyke, 

He burst out screaming... "CQ! Q-R-Z! gimme a mic!"

His parents, both veteran 2-letter hams, 

were thrilled—not only by baby, but the accurate count on his radiograms. 

His first sound was: "dah dit dah dit, dah dah dit dah", a properly spaced CQ, 

A perfect fist, spectacular for a ham just so new.

Mr. Jones, the neighbor wasn't as happy. 

Just what I need, another ham next door like his mama and pappy. 

They named him "Kenwood", a name everyone knew, 

but in phonetics, baby confused quite a few. 

They bypassed the rattle, the blanket, and ball, 

‘cause he only wanted a transceiver with a nice waterfall. 

He skipped "goo-goo" for Q-codes instead: 

"My QTH is my bedroom!" is what he often said. 

And change me often when I get wet… 

I don’t want to risk the high voltage when I’m on a QSO in bed.

One day, they found him, in a corner on the floor, 

He'd built a QRP rig they couldn’t ignore. 

He keyed up on twenty, it was truly a feat, 

Sending: "Happy New Year!!" it sounded so sweet.

The FCC called, "Is that your harmonic on the air?" 

His dad just laughed, "No, sir, that’s my son you hear there. 

"He's only seven weeks old, and his signal's 5-9-9" 

The New Year's Ham Baby? He’s doing just fine!

~ The Communicator ~




Licensed Amateurs by State

29 December 2025 | by Richard AA4OO  |  Leave a Comment (1)

 How Extra is Your State?

My amateur radio license was set to expire early in 2026, so I sat down to navigate the FCC’s renewal process. I don’t recall a separate payment system (CORES) needing to be tethered to an FRN a decade ago, but it’s there now, and hopefully at your next renewal you will enjoy the game of Bureaucratic Twister as much as I did. I'll spare you that particular headache for this post.

While I was clicking through the digital maze, it reminded me of the time I spent a decade ago studying to upgrade from General to Extra. I wanted the extra band privileges and the ability to help out as a VE, but it made me wonder: how many amateurs actually bother with the climb to the top of the licensing hill?

Back in 2006, the upgrade from Technician to General still required the 5 WPM Morse test. If I’d had the audacity to try for Extra at that time, I would have needed to demonstrate 20 WPM. Since I was already struggling to keep my head above water at 5 WPM, the prospect of hitting 20 felt about as realistic as me winning the lottery.

The FCC eventually dropped the Morse requirement in 2007, but I didn't give the upgrade serious thought until 2015 when I started playing with QRP rigs and CW again. The reality is that if you enjoy working CW, there are exclusive neighborhoods in the bands that you simply can’t enter without an Extra ticket—and that’s usually where the best DX is hiding.
Amateur Extras - Percentage by State




Show me the data

That was a wordy intro, so what’s this really about? I wanted to be able to query the FCC database. There was supposedly an API at one time, but that seems to be defunct now. However, you can still download the entire FCC database as a zip file: https://data.fcc.gov/download/pub/uls/complete/l_amat.zip That download provides a collection of pipe-delimited files containing the raw data from the FCC amateur license database. Many of these are large files, containing data that is related by call sign or fccid records.

If you were so inclined, you could load those records into the database of your choice, a Jupyter Notebook, or any other tool to query it.  I would guess they are too large for Excel but not having Excel I can't be sure. Fortunately, a helpful ham created a bash script that downloads and parses these files into a MySQL database. You can find the repository for that script at: https://github.com/k3ng/hamdb

I had to modify the script slightly to get it running under Windows, but otherwise, it worked as expected. The script includes some simple commands to send SQL to the database server to look up a record by call sign or return all call signs for a specific zip code. In my initial testing, I found it interesting that there are 257 licensed operators in my zip code.

However, if you want to obtain interesting insights that requires writing SQL (Structured Query Language), which is the standard for relational databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL. If you haven’t spent time as a software developer, that might seem a little daunting. 

But in this bold new age of "I don't need to know nothin because I have an AI assistant" 

Anyone can now generate a SQL script to return the results they are looking for.

Specifically, I wanted to know how many amateur operators held Extra Class licenses across all states. It was a bit tricky to pull the correct data because the operator class is part of a table that contains every upgrade and renewal. Since there are multiple records for many call signs, you have to build a query that returns only the most recent result from the updates (hd) table.

Example SQL Query:

SELECT 
    e.state,
    -- Total count of all active licenses in the state
    COUNT(*) AS total_licenses,
    -- Count of Extra Class specifically
    SUM(CASE WHEN a.class = 'E' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS extra_class_count,
    -- Percentage of the state's total that is Extra Class
    ROUND(SUM(CASE WHEN a.class = 'E' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) * 100.0 / COUNT(*), 2) AS state_extra_percentage,
    -- Distribution of other classes (optional context)
    SUM(CASE WHEN a.class = 'G' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS general_count,
    SUM(CASE WHEN a.class = 'T' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS technician_count
FROM fcc_amateur.am AS a
JOIN fcc_amateur.en AS e ON a.fccid = e.fccid
INNER JOIN (
    -- Get the single highest fccid (most recent) for every callsign
    SELECT MAX(fccid) AS latest_fccid
    FROM fcc_amateur.hd
    WHERE status = 'A'
    GROUP BY callsign
) AS latest ON a.fccid = latest.latest_fccid
WHERE e.state IS NOT NULL AND e.state != ''
GROUP BY e.state
ORDER BY extra_class_count DESC;

I joined those results with census data into a Google Sheet to provide the following:

Results



Conclusion

That table shows that Idaho has the highest percentage of Amateur Radio licenses  by population but one of the lowest percentage of operators upgraded to Extra class. 

The column "One out of every" I find interesting just to demonstrate how rare licensed operators are in the population.  For example, in the state of North Carolina where I reside while there are 25,924 licensed operators, given the total population of the state only one out of every 42,609 persons are a licensed operator.  There are more doctors in the state than licensed amateur operators.

As to my original question of how many upgraded to Extra there are only 5,705 amateurs in NC or 22% of the licensed operators.  So almost a quarter of operators in NC upgraded to Extra.  It ranks slightly better than other states in that regard (see map above).

Play around with the table and let me know in a comment if you find anything surprising or interesting.



That's all for now

72/73 de Richard AA4OO

Richard Carpenter, AA4OO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from North Carolina, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

ICQPodcast Episode 473 – Is AI About to Kill Ham Radio?

27 December 2025 | by Colin M6BOY  |  Leave a Comment (1)

In this episode, we join Martin Butler M1MRB, Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin Butler (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief, and the episode's feature is, Is AI about to kill Ham Radio?

We would like to thank Richard French (M7GET) and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate


Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Getting comfortable

27 December 2025 | by Mike VE9KK  |  Leave a Comment (4)

 


As much as it is hard for me to believe, this past year I officially became a senior citizen in Canada—that’s 65 years old. Do I feel older? Not really at all, but one thing I have noticed is that my long periods of contesting have required me to make some adjustments. It may not have anything to do with me getting older, but deep down, I know it’s a factor. Being a fan of radio sport, I sit for long periods of time in front of the PC and the radio. Below are some of the adjustments this senior citizen has made to make radio sport easier.
 
To begin with, all who are involved in radio sport sit for long periods of time. For that reason, I have an office chair with above-average support: adjustable lumbar support, head and neck support, height adjustment, rollers for easy movement, and, finally, height-adjustable armrests—more on that later.
 
All my monitors are on adjustable arms, and I have them all adjusted to eye level. There is no looking up or down. In the past, I have found that continued looking up or down can get aggravating on my neck and shoulders. I have also moved the monitors in close so they are easy to see, reducing eye strain from small print. I have the programs I need for radio sport spread out over two screens. This way, information is not cramped, and nothing is hidden in the taskbar. Finally, I have a monitor connected to my Icom 7610. This stops me from looking down at the radio display. All the information is at eye level,and large and easy to see. Having said all the above there is one monitor connected to my Raspberry Pi4B that I use for Hamclock. The monitor for this sits on the top shelf of my desk. I have no room for another eye level monitor. I only check this monitor from time to time to view VOACAP propagation. 
 
During contesting, there are times I use the VFO for tuning while searching and pouncing (S&P). For this reason, I have moved the radio closer to me on the desk. It allows me easy reach to the radio with no leaning forward and overstretching.
 
One piece of hardware I use all the time is the keyboard. In my case, I use a full-size keyboard, the Lenovo Professional. In the past, I have tried the small keyboards, but I just find them to be a cramped workspace. I have a wrist support that is the full length of the keyboard. I found it was too low, and my wrists were still at an angle, so I added just the right amount of 3x5 cards under the support to get the right height. The keyboard itself is on an adjustable tray for both height and closeness to me. Once the keyboard is at the right level and closeness, I have adjusted the armrests on my chair so my arms are level with the keyboard.
 
Now, a computer would not be complete without a mouse. My mouse is off to the right and also has a wrist support. Right beside the mouse is my Icom VFO B RC-28, sharing the same wrist support. On the left side of the keyboard, I have another smaller keyboard tray that extends from the side of the large keyboard tray. I have a mouse connected to my Icom 7610. This mouse allows me to click on band spots that are shown on the waterfall display on the large monitor at eye level. This allows me to slide my left hand off the keyboard, click on a spot, and return to the keyboard without even looking down.
 
Alongside N1MM+ logging software, I also use the Win4icom suite. This allows me to change bands, and each band macro is set up to adjust filter, noise reduction on or off, noise blanker on or off, RF gain per band setting, and filter settings if needed. I can have all this done with one mouse click on the Win4icom software.
 
I am able to use my hearing aids along with my headphones. My hearing aids have fine adjustments I can make to allow me to hear weaker signals and adjust tone and sound for maximum benefit and less fatigue. All this can be saved to my iPhone and called up when I need it. My setting name is “Contesting.” All I do is swipe the iPhone hearing aid app to Contesting, and it sets everything up automatically.
 
The final thing is a portable heater set up at my keyboard level and set to low heat. In the winter, even if my radio room is warm, I find that over time my fingers get very cold. When this happens, the heater is turned on, and warm air blows across the keyboard. In no time, my fingers are nice and warm.
 
In the station setup picture the mouse on the right is my main PC mouse along with the RC-28 external vfo. On the left side the mouse on the blue mouse pad controls the Pi4b Hamclock screen. Its a bit hard to see but under the tray that holds the Pi4b mouse and Begali key is the tray that holds the mouse for the Icom 7610 in which I can click on waterfall signals.  
 
These setup ideas I use may not only be for us seniors but for anyone. I just find that as I get a bit older that these help greatly. If you have any suggestions of your own, do drop them in the comments.

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 401

27 December 2025 | by Cale K4HCK  |  Leave a Comment (0)

Amateur Radio Weekly

The Top Links of 2025
At the end of each year, I take a look back at all the previous issues of Amateur Radio Weekly, count up all the clicks, and see which links were most popular among Amateur Radio Weekly readers. It’s a fun way to look back at 2025 and I hope you enjoy!
73 K4HCK

10. You’ve been warned
When the speed reached 90 words per minute there was just me and one other guy left.
KE9V

9. Exploring the Caged Hen Delta Antenna
Derived from the Hentenna, it is a very quiet, very broadband, horizontally polarized antenna with a low take-off angle excellent for DX.
AE0EN

8. Morse Maven
Master Morse code at your own pace with simulated QSOs and decoding tools using both audio and light.
Morse Maven

7. A tragic reminder: Safety must come first in the field
A tragic accident that took the life of fellow Ham Radio operator and POTA enthusiast, Tripp Owens (N4NTO).
QRPer

6. SteppIR to stop selling antennas to the Radio Amateur market
While this type of antenna was somewhat unique say a decade ago, other manufacturers now use a similar concept.
EI7GL

5. Ham community frets in “Delete, Delete” comments
Many commenters worry about the future of Ham Radio under the FCC’s deregulatory effort.
Radio World

4. The case of the shrinking Technicians
The Technician class is concerning with a 7.2% cumulative decline starting in June 2021.
K0NR

3. The U.S. Ham Radio market: Is it dying?
The short answer is no. But it is changing.
K4FMH

2. SCAMP digital mode available in Fldigi
Simple Conversational Amateur Message Protocol (SCAMP) is a weak signal digital mode developed by Dr. Daniel Marks (KW4TI).
Amatuer Radio Daily

1. Bandplan Generator
Allows completely customizable frequency ranges and segments generating a well-designed plan for screen or print.
LY1JA

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Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

CQ Worked All Zones

22 December 2025 | by Bob KØNR  |  Leave a Comment (1)

I always have an operating goal in sight to motivate me to get on the air. On the HF bands, I followed the typical progression of getting Worked All States (WAS), Worked All Continents (WAC), and DX Century Club (DXCC). It seems that DXCC receives all the glory and attention, with many DXers pursuing the goals of working all countries, I mean entities.

Worked All Zones

The Worked All Zones (WAZ) award is another well-known HF DX award, organized by geography. WAZ recognizes operators for establishing confirmed two-way radio contacts with stations in all 40 geographic zones defined by CQ’s official zone map. These zones divide the world into areas based on continents, regions, and specific entities (see the map below). 

This zone-based structure emphasizes propagation challenges and global coverage, often making certain zones (e.g., remote Asian or polar areas) particularly difficult depending on the operator’s location. If the goal is to recognize “working the world,” this approach seems much more logical to me than the DXCC award. For DXCC, the initial award is for 100 countries/entities, which may or may not be spread worldwide. DXCC recognizes political boundaries, which result in many different entities clustered in small geographic areas. For example, the Caribbean is filled with many small countries that are easily accessible from the US. Europe is also dense with countries. The WAZ award requires you to work stations all over the world.

My Journey

I had not paid too much attention to working all zones until recently. I began tracking them and making a point to chase the ones I needed. Of course, working DX already produced contacts with many zones around the world. I have a mixture of SSB, CW, and digital (FT8) contacts, so I was focused on the Mixed award. My HF station is modest, running 100 watts to an end-fed wire antenna. Towards the end, I was missing two zones: Zone 22 – Southern Zone of Asia (India, Bangladesh, etc.) and Zone 34 – Northeastern Zone of Africa (Sudan, South Sudan, Egypt, etc.).

I used FT8 to work these last two zones, working VU3RGB (Zone 22) in August. Then I finally worked Z81D (Zone 34) on 30m yesterday. I was pleased to get him in the log, and I quickly submitted the contact to Logbook of The World. The confirmation came through the same day. Very nice! Similarly, I submitted the confirmed contacts via LoTW to the WAZ awards manager (Jose/N4BAA), and the certificate arrived via email almost immediately. (I paid $8 to LoTW to transfer the confirmations and $12 to WAZ to process the award.)

This leads to the question of “what’s next?” in terms of operating goals.

73 Bob K0NR

The post CQ Worked All Zones appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.


Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].
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