Hello fellow travelers!
I wanted to take a few minutes to give an update on the repeater projects, since another month has rolled over. As a refresher for those not in the know - the repeater that I run died not long ago (I wrote about that here.) When that happened a couple very kind individuals donated some money to help out, I started an official fund-raiser to fund repairing my machine, and some others as well, and I also opened up a shop selling merchandise to raise money for the same effort.
So first of all, the plugs - support some repeaters financially, or with donations of equipment, or by connecting an existing repeater to the Pride Network. Donations of cash, or commitments to connect existing repeaters to the Pride Network have the biggest and fastest impact!
if donations aren’t your bag, Buy some cool stuff to support the projects - the margins are smaller, but walking around town, going to club meetings, or heading out to a hamfest, while wearing the swag helps bring more attention to the effort, so can be very impactful in the long run!
First - the financial bit. We’ve got a couple hundred dollars socked away towards our stretch goal of acquiring a Yeasu DR2X via the Yeasu repeater program. if less than 10% of the folx who follow me on Mastodon donate 5 dollars each, or each purchase a clothing item from the shop, we’ll make the goal so…
I also wanted to share the update on what is currently on the air serving as the N3VEM repeater, since goal 1 in the effort was to just scrounge together whatever I could, really fast, to get back on the air. It’s nothing fancy, but it has us operational in the meantime. What I scrounged together was essentially a pair of Kenwood TK-840 mobile radios that I already had, the small notch-type duplexer out of the dead repeater, the small PC that was running Allstar for the dead repeater, and a new RIM-Lite interface from Repeater Builder to allow me to use the PC and the Allstar software as the repeater controller.
While we haven’t quite reached the $ level for milestone 2, We are likely staged for success there, thanks to a recent ham-fest haul - I was looking at a Motorola repeater that a radio shop was getting rid of. The folx said it would be good for GMRS but they couldn’t promise it would work down to the Ham Bands, so they’d give it to me for $40. I’ve been considering putting a GMRS repeater on the air for family use anyway, so I figured why not for that money. In the interest of them wanting to pack up for the day, while talking they said they’d throw in a couple Kenwood UHF TKR-820 repeaters for free, since they weren’t having luck selling them. This model is old, and programming can be finicky, but for free, we can likely make it work. I also bumped into someone who works for that radio shop, who is willing to give me a direct replacement for my dead GR1225, so all I need to do is make arrangements with him to pick that up. So between the 2 Kenwoods, the Motorola that might tune down to the ham bands, and the promised GR1225, we’ll be able to get a proper used machine back on the air if nothing else.
My dead GR1225, and one of the newly acquired Kenwood’s:
A second Kenwood, and a Motorola CDR500 sitting on a shelf in my utility space:
This is the big goal! essentially raise a minimum of $700 to allow me to use that plus pitching in some of my own cash out of pocket to get a proper, modern repeater on the air. Did I mention that donations or shop purchases will help with that?!
Milestone two, the KJ7OMO Repeater, officially begins in September, but with the recent haul of equipment we should be off to a good start. At a bare minimum, I should be able to package up my current temporary machine into a nice little 4U or so sized box, and get it, along with a new antenna and some coax, shipped out to her to get her machine back up and running. I’m hoping though to be able to do something a bit better than that, depending on how this equipment and future donations work out.
While nothing official has been decided, I’ll probably start looking in ernest into what comes next while we’re working on the KJ7OMO machine this fall. Again, it depends on how the equipment and donations work out, but I suspect one of these current machines can serve as the basis for whatever this ends up being. The NR7WL club has an Allstar node set up, connected to the pride network already, so something I’ve floated with the club already was that it might be nice to find a place to put up one of these machines so that that node has an RF side as well - TBD!
Anyway, that’s the update for now! Thanks for stopping by!
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third fourth year of publication, with 1800 1900+ subscribers. Radios are computers - with antennas!
What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications - July 2024
Web version of this issue - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0160
Commentary by Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 05 for renewing their Annual Paid Subscription to Zero Retries this past week!
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 36 for becoming a new Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 37 for becoming a new Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
Financial support is a real vote of confidence for continuing to publish Zero Retries.
JARL Ham Fair 2024 in Tokyo, Japan on 2024-08-24 and 25, in 6 weeks!
Digital Communications Conference (DCC) in Knoxville, Tennessee on 2024-09-20 and 21, in 10 weeks! The DCC will be held in conjunction with GNU Radio Conference 2024 (GRCon24).
Pacificon 2024 in San Ramon, California, USA on 2024-10-18 thru 20 in 14 weeks. Tina KD7WSF and I plan to attend Pacificon 2024 (which makes it “major” to us).
Recent updates in the Zero Retries Guide to Zero Retries Interesting Conferences include these events:
Glancing at one of the many obscure status pages for Zero Retries in Substack - Audience Insights, this statement got my attention:
Location
Zero Retries is read across 49 US states and 58 countries.
49 states??? I clicked into that section to find out who the holdout state was, and actually there are several Zero Retries “holdout” states (have no Zero Retries subscribers):
Alaska
Mississippi
New Hampshire
New Mexico
North Dakota
South Carolina
Vermont
Wyoming
I’m a bit skeptical of this metric, given that Substack only knows about email addresses and IP addresses when you read or click on an issue of Zero Retries. “Registration” with personal identifying information, like address, isn’t required for subscribing to Zero Retries.
Still, if you know of a co-conspirator that might be interested in Zero Retries, located in the Zero Retries holdout states, please put in a good word for Zero Retries 😄.
“According to these stats”, the most popular state for Zero Retries (14%) is California. Washington and Oregon are tied for second most popular state - 8% for each of them.
Worldwide, Zero Retries is still pretty obscure, though it’s making some inroads, with one subscriber each in:
Argentina
Chile
Hungary
Norway
Romania
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Again, these stats are highly suspect; despite a subscriber count of 1800+, per this report there are 275 subscribers in the US. And no subscribers in Peru - bummer! The map was skewed to the point where I couldn’t find several countries despite browsing the cursor in the areas where I know some small countries are located.
But it was kind of fun to look at this.
Thank you again, Zero Retries subscribers!
I once read a story1 about Steve Jobs that when he became CEO of Apple (again), he was checking out his new offices and came across a closet full of older Apple units that were being saved for an eventual on-premise Apple Museum. The story goes that Jobs told his assistant to get rid of them, donate them somewhere. The memorable part of that story, to me, is that Jobs reportedly said that “If you look backwards in this industry, you’ll get run over” (or “you’ll get killed”, or something to that effect).
I thought about that pearl of wisdom from Jobs this week as I approached the 3 year anniversary of Zero Retries (2nd Friday of July) and am now faced with how to deal with the legacy of securing hundreds of issues of Zero Retries into archival form. I was discussing with a trusted advisor to Zero Retries on how best, and most efficiently, to secure those past issues issues into a permanent archival form, safe from the vagaries of Substack. I felt like Jobs did upon seeing that closet full of computers; time spent dealing with the Zero Retries archive is time away from creating new material for Zero Retries, and of course the fun of Amateur Radio activities. But unlike Jobs, creating archives of Zero Retries is a unique task that falls to me (though the trusted advisor suggested outsourcing this task).
I don’t have any profound insights to offer for Zero Retries having been in continuous weekly publication for three years now; just a few minor insights.
The first is that I periodically need to emphasize to Zero Retries readers that most of what I’m writing about in Zero Retries is largely exposing technological innovation in Amateur Radio that others are doing that isn’t being reported on elsewhere. I periodically offer some of my own thoughts about technological innovation that I’d like to see Amateur Radio go in… but beyond Zero Retries, my contributions to technological innovation in Amateur Radio are pretty modest. There have been a few surprises, such as Mark Herbert G1LRO creating an Amateur Radio Data Appliance that I only imagined:
In this article by Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Steve sets out the functionality required to create the Amateur Radio Data Appliance, being:
Power supply
Battery backup
Radio transceiver
Modem
Embedded computer with a minimal display for status / health / troubleshooting
Networking required to for remote access via “household” network (not Internet)
Most of all, cabling to interconnect all of the above
And, as you’ll read, I had actually imagined something vaguely like Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC), but I did not imagine the scope of what DLARC has become, and how wonderful it is to have DLARC as a publicly accessible resource.
Although I had nothing to do with the creation of Open Source in Amateur Radio wiki, l had imagined and written briefly that such a directory was needed to be able to easily locate existing Amateur Radio Open Source projects to lessen the “reinventing the wheel” issue of creating multiple implementations of the same system. I had advocated for funding such a thing with a grant or direct involvement of ARDC, but that went nowhere, and this project is simply a better realization of my idea.
All that said, I do have some plans for doing a little of my own technological innovation in Amateur Radio that I hope to make a bit more real during Summer 2024.
When I began Zero Retries, I had a lingering fear that I would run out of interesting material to report on. I began with a substantial queue of interesting things to write about, but I wasn’t sure what would happen when I emptied that queue 🤣 - would there still be interesting things continuing to occur that I could keep Zero Retries going? This actually happened two decades ago with my Digital Wireless column in CQ Magazine. I actually did run out of things to talk at times, which caused friction with CQ’s editor about missed deadlines. The good news is that in the 2020s, the rate of technological innovation in Amateur Radio is such that the queue has kept growing, not reducing. The bad news is that caused the opposite problem to what I feared - there are too many things to write about, with not quite enough time and never enough space in Zero Retries as an email newsletter.
Another minor insight is that I now have confidence that I can sustain a weekly publication schedule, being able to say something of substance about technological innovation occurring in Amateur Radio.
Yet another minor insight is that I must be doing something right given the subscriber count keeps growing - now at 1900+. When I began Zero Retries, I did not imagine that level of interest; I only imagined perhaps a few hundred subscribers would share my specific interests in Amateur Radio… but apparently I didn’t dream big enough.
I have some short term plans for the Zero Retries ecosystem:
My book - Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century is still in progress. I recently discovered an interesting service that can publish a book online (beyond a simple PDF on a website) that might speed up my progress to allow posting incremental updates (chapters) as I complete them.
I’ve been threatening to create an email list on groups.io for Zero Retries, and that is now imminent.The first tranche of invitations will go out to the paid subscribers as a Thank You for their financial support of Zero Retries. Eventually the Zero Retries email list will be opened to all Zero Retries subscribers. My idea is to post the headlines / links there each week and let the discussions between subscribers commence in a more interactive, easy to access system. The Comments section of Zero Retries on Substack has proven problematic for a lot of folks who don’t want to “get involved” in Substack’s ecosystem for various reasons (and I don’t blame them). I also plan to offer “requests for comments” for upcoming articles in Zero Retries in which I invite folks to contribute ideas and background on subjects that I need help in understanding. Zero Retries can sometimes come across as a “one man show” but believe me, I lean heavily on advice and expertise of others when I’m trying to understand and explain a deeply technical subject on Zero Retries.
Kay Savetz K6KJN and I have decided to do a podcast called Store and Forward. We conspired that we can offer a unique combination of looking back at Amateur Radio (from the perspective of DLARC) - “Store” and the future of Amateur Radio (from the perspective of Zero Retries) - “Forward”. The prototype episode of Store and Forward is online in DLARC. Initially (Summer 2024) we’ll be recording biweekly. The longer term logistics - website, podcast feed, etc. will be worked out. Both K6KJN and I have busy summer plans (some intense travel ahead for K6KJN, as you’ll read) and I just have a lot of catching up to do in N8GNJ Labs to take advantage of the summer weather interlude between the Whatcom Winds / Monsoon Rains seasons. Thus the publication schedule of Store and Forward might be a little irregular initially.
I recently wrote a brief note of thanks for the existence of DLARC within the Internet Archive to Brewster Kahle, Founder and Board Chair of Internet Archive:
I just wanted to drop a note to you and IA in general as a Thanks for creating and maintaining the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications within IA.
DLARC has proven to be an absolute godsend of archival information for Amateur Radio (despite the stubborn resistance of the ARRL… which I’m working on). One of the most valuable aspects of DLARC is reading about technologies and projects that were mere dreams or not-quite-successful decades ago that can be realized now with current technology such as cheap embedded processors and FPGAs and Software Defined Radio technology.
I use DLARC multiple times per week… and contribute to it regularly, working with Kay Savetz to periodically send in material from my Amateur Radio collection that DLARC doesn’t already have.
Kahle replied and wondered if my “dreams” perspective might be expanded into a post on the Internet Archive blog, and I agreed.
That article is now online - Using DLARC, Amateur Radio Operators are Resurrecting Technical Ideas from the Past, Using 21st Century Tech. A Thank You to Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications.
Excerpt:
One of my favorite ways to use the DLARC (nearly 120,000 items now, and still growing) is to re-explore ideas that were proposed or attempted in Ham Radio, but for various reasons, didn’t quite become mainstream. Typically, the technology of earlier eras simply wasn’t up to some proposed ideas. But, with the technology of the 2020s such as cheap, powerful computers and software defined radio technology, many old ideas can be reexamined with perhaps succeed in becoming mainstream now. The problem has been that much of the source material for such “reimagining” has been languishing in file cabinets or bookcases of Ham Radio Operators like me, with nowhere to go. With the grant, IA could hire a dedicated archivist and began receiving, scanning, hosting, and aggregating electronic versions of old Ham Radio material.
Kahle noticed the post, and commented:
You are most welcome– thanks to ARDC, DLARC has been a huge success for other reasons as well: a possible model for other communities.
Kay has made this a success, I believe, because he is both a knowledgeable ham community member, and embedded at the Internet Archive (he has the tech and social chops to get things through our internal processes).
This is a first for us– and hopefully a model for archives to come.
Thank you ARDC, Kay, and ham community.
I agree wholeheartedly - while ARDC provided the funding with a grant, and IA had the infrastructure to host DLARC… K6KJN has made DLARC a success.
I’m surprised that not much that was Zero Retries Interesting was reported out of HAM RADIO 2024 which concluded 2024-06-30, at least that I’m aware of. No new Zero Retries Interesting products, or Zero Retries Interesting new vendors, etc. Admittedly I haven’t watched the walkthrough videos that have been posted (they’re queued up in a too-deep queue of videos to watch), but I would have thought that there would be some exciting developments reported. If I missed something, please Zero Retries readers, let me know so I can share it here in Zero Retries.
Most of the summer, Northwest Washington where we live is blessed by a mild summer climate, so we mostly sleep with the windows open to the fresh cool air overnight. One morning last week we awoke to hearing some voices in a small group on the edge of our property. To my delight, the voices turned out to be a survey crew from Ziply Fiber who apparently is considering bringing in fiber to our neighborhood and down our private street.
In contrast, Comcast’s infrastructure in our neighborhood is solely serviced by “well aged coaxial cable” with a fiber / coax transition well outside the neighborhood. A neighbor was experiencing significant issues with their Comcast service and reported to me that Comcast would constantly play the “reset your router and in 10 minutes it should be OK” game, replacing the router, etc. - everything to forestall sending out a technician who discovered that a previous technician had disconnected the first neighbor’s coax to bring a new neighbor online whose house previously didn’t have Comcast service. Thus switching to Starlink for my household was a relief from the vagaries of Comcast “service” over “well aged coaxial cable”.
If Ziply Fiber does become available on my street (I’ve heard of Ziply not actually deploying fiber as promised), that’s going to be a tough decision not to opt for that, if for nothing else than greatly improved uplink speeds beyond what Starlink is capable of given that I eventually plan to do video production. But it’s possible Starlink might tinker with their service plans with a more affordable price than the current $120/month for unlimited usage. I’d happily accept a transfer cap for mostly standby (or solely Amateur Radio) use for a lower price such as the $30/month Starlink currently charges for use of the new Starlink Mini user terminal.
I’ve recommended The Random Wire newsletter (and now, podcasts!) in Zero Retries and would like to do so again here. Tom Salzer KJ7T is doing a stellar job exploring various aspects of Amateur Radio that I simply don’t get around to, or have much depth to offer, here in Zero Retries. One example is KJ7T’s regular coverage of radio hotspots for Amateur Radio Over Internet such as AllStarLink, covered so well that instead of trying to cover that subject in Zero Retries2, I’ll defer to KJ7T’s much better knowledge of the subject, and his constant experimentation with different aspects of Amateur Radio Over Internet.
I’ve said before that I probably wouldn’t have started Zero Retries if the stuff I’m interested in was covered adequately in other Amateur Radio media. The Random Wire is an excellent example of exactly that - covering subjects I’m interested in so well that I can just read it (enjoyably) and learn from it instead of having to research it to write about it. I’ve also been enjoying KJ7T’s foray into podcasting, following his adventures with microphones, recording, etc. Given our geographic proximity, I hope to meet up with KJ7T face to face sometime this summer. I think that if you enjoy the subject material in Zero Retries, you’ll find ample Zero Retries Interesting material in The Random Wire and I recommend that all Zero Retries subscribers also subscribe to The Random Wire.
73,
Steve N8GNJ
By Kay Savetz K6KJN
Greetings from DLARC World Headquarters, which has three big things going for it: a fast Internet connection, air conditioning, and cats to pet. In the past few weeks, I’ve added a wide variety of ham radio material to DLARC. Here’s a peek at some of it.
The DX Bulletin (TDXB) was written and published by Jim Cain, K1TN. He published 324 issues from 1979 to 1986. He scanned the entire run — about 1500 pages — years ago. The scans have been hosted by The Yasme Foundation, a non-profit that conducts scientific and educational projects related to amateur radio. Mr. Cain and Ward Silver of The Yasme Foundation agreed it would be a good idea to make the newsletters available at DLARC as well. Mr. Cain told me that in retrospect, the name The DX Bulletin was too generic — many other publications have had similar names over the years — and maybe he should have titled it “Jim Cain's Weekly DX Screed.” By any name, it’s a fascinating read and DLARC is better for its inclusion.
Cain is also the author of the book “YASME, The Danny Weil and Colvin Radio Expeditions” which is now downloadable from DLARC with his permission. From the back-of-book blurb: "This is the history of three travelers spanning the birth of YASME — the boat that carried young sailor Danny Weil on his first voyages beginning in 1954 — and the lives of famed ham radio DXpeditioners Lloyd and Iris Colvin.”
DLARC has added 217 issues of the “Blown Fuse” newsletter from the East Bay Amateur Radio Club out of El Cerrito, California. Some of them were PDFs on their web site. For the older issues that were only available on paper, the club lent us a hefty stack of newsletters to scan, some of which go all the way back to 1964. We’ve also added 113 issues of the Minnesota Amateur Radio Technical Society newsletter. The 12-year-old group is based in Minnetonka, MN.
Sometimes a simple newsletter donation turns into a whole little project. California Historical Radio Society donated, and we scanned, 35 issues of Spark Gap Times, which was the newsletter of the Old, Old Timer's Club. That organization started in 1947. At the time, the requirement for membership was proof of two-way communication by wireless 40 or more years prior to 1947. I can only assume that specific requirement was relaxed as the years passed.
The OOTC web site is gone now (replaced by a spammy ad for a sportsbook) and I guess that the organization is now defunct. The OOTC site’s last capture in the Wayback Machine was just this May. So I scoured the site in Wayback, found another 44 issues of Spark Gap Times, and added those to the collection too. Thanks to the California Historical Radio Society for the donation of those first 35 issues which started me down this rabbit hole.
Here’s a special treat for our esteemed editor, Steve Stroh: last year he donated three issues of the Texas Packet Radio Society “Quarterly Report” newsletter. TPRS was devoted to radio digital communications, and the creators of TexNet, a wireline/wireless hybrid networking project. Based on their site in The Wayback Machine, the group lasted from roughly 1996 to 2003ish. I scrounged 15 more newsletter issues from their Wayback’d web site and created the TPRS Quarterly Report newsletter collection. If you have more issues in any format, please let me know.
I was sorry to learn that Allen Katz K2UYH died in June. Katz was the publisher of 432 And Above EME News, and was a professor of electrical and computer engineering at The College of New Jersey. I am grateful that he gave permission to archive his newsletter in DLARC before he passed.
Somehow I’ve managed to write almost entirely about newsletters so far. Moving on to other topics.
DLARC has added all 99 episodes of the Ham Radio 360 podcast. This podcast ran from 2014-2018: it was a bi-weekly show created “for the new guy” hosted by Cale Nelson K4CDN. (Nelson recently launched a new podcast called PrepComms.)
Software Defined Radio Academy is an annual conference, since 2015, that covers all aspects of SDR. The hosts have done an admirable job of recording their conference’s presentations over the years, and now those talks are archived in DLARC.
Meanwhile, the Internet Archive’s scanning centers have been hard at work scanning thousands of magazines and books, which can be checked out using controlled digital lending in the DLARC Library. It would be folly to try to list them all, but I encourage you to browse around and see what’s new. Of particular note are many books and journals about microwave communications, which were a generous donation from the family of James Beyer W9ADJ, who was a specialist in that field.
If you’ll permit me a paragraph about a personal project that’s only tangentially ham radio related: I found, recovered and digitized 53 episodes of “The Famous Computer Cafe”, a radio show about home computers that was broadcast from 1983-1985. The hosts interviewed many of the big tech names of the day: Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Apple’s Bill Atkinson, Atari VP James Copland, author Timothy Leary, author Douglas Adams, and more. From the news segments to the commercials, the shows are a perfect time capsule of the world of home computers in that era. One of the interviewees is Steve Roberts, a ham radio operator. From 1983 to 1991, he explored the United States on a computerized, radio-equipped recumbent bicycle named BEHEMOTH.
Next week I’ll be leaving the cats and climate-controlled comfort of DLARC World Headquarters for Denver Colorado to retrieve pallets of material from the estate of Bob Cooper. Bob was an expert in satellite and cable TV communications, and publisher of Coops Satellite Digest. I already have a little start of a Bob Cooper collection in DLARC, but there’s sure to be much more in the coming months as we begin to process and digitize what I find in Denver.
Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. If you have questions about the project or material to contribute, contact me at kay@archive.org.
Kay Savetz, K6KJN
Internet Archive's Program Manager, Special Collections
DLARC want list: https://archive.org/details/dlarc-wantlist
…
Editor’s Note - K6KJN is too modest to mention this in this month’s column (which is intended to highlight new material in DLARC), but unlike DLARC, the work of digitizing the 53 episodes of “The Famous Computer Cafe” (and potentially additional episodes should they be located), is privately funded, with some reimbursement from a successful GoFundMe campaign (donations currently closed). There’s more detail about the rescue of TFCC there. Kudos to K6KJN for rescuing these treasures.
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Some thoughts about the ideal interoperability of digital voice and data in Amateur Radio.
I’m on an email list where the technical details of Amateur Radio repeaters are discussed… at times in excruciating technical detail. The discussion that inspired this article was about the minutiae required to keep a repeater signal and audio path absolutely “clean” for good retransmitted radio signal and good audio, including knowing about external factors that can influence the repeater’s signal quality - down into the weeds to the point of debating the relative merits of different types of coaxial cable connectors.
I’m not disparaging the concepts being discussed or the folks making offering the minutiae. But it struck me in reading the discussion that to a large extent, most of those details largely become moot if the repeater was operating as a digital system rather than analog (FM).
Disclaimer - Yes, I am acutely aware that one cannot entirely ignore the analog aspects of radio transmission. While digital systems can overcome some aspects of interference, or noise, or other radio issues… “making it digital” is certainly not a “cure all” for significant radio system issues such as major antenna and feedline issues.
In my highly inexpert opinion, almost all of the issues of the discussion I was following would simply not be an issue if that system were digital, largely because of the presence of Forward Error Correction (FEC) in modern digital radio systems. Minor noise issues on analog systems that are annoying to the point of the system being unusable (un-listenable) are simply not an issue with digital systems.
One of the most elegant digital techniques I know for Amateur Radio digital repeaters is the idea of receiving a digital signal and then applying bit regeneration at the repeater. which permits the transmitted signal from the repeater to be perfect, even if the signal received at the repeater wasn’t perfect. (Yes, I understand that there’s a threshold beyond which the FEC cannot help.) I featured an excellent article about bit regeneration in Zero Retries 0147 - Advantages of a Bit-Regenerating Repeater for Local Area Networks that explains the concept well, despite predating the now-common use of FEC.
But beyond the “digital fixes analog issues” factors, digital radio systems offer the (theoretical) advantage of being able to do data in addition to digital voice.
Think about how different types of data is handled by TCP/IP and by extension, the Internet. We take it for granted that the same high speed TCP/IP connection into our homes, offices, and shacks can easily handle realtime voice (and video) bits, recorded voice (and video) bits, email bits, file download bits, photo bits, realtime telemetry bits, etc. That’s because TCP/IP generally3 treats all bits the same. It doesn’t care what the bits are supposed to be part of in the end, it just moves the bits from point A to Point B.
In Amateur Radio, we haven’t done voice / data mixing and matching particularly well to date. When there is a data capability in an Amateur Radio digital voice system, to date, data has been an afterthought. In the oldest Amateur Radio digital voice system - D-Star, there is a 900 bps data stream accompanying the (3600 bps) digital voice stream. Roughly two decades after its introduction, Icom quietly slipstreamed “DV Fast Data” mode into some radios4 which allows the digital voice stream to also be used for data. System Fusion’s data capabilities are “locked” to only support transport of images and some telemetry data such as APRS. DMR and P25 have data capability in their respective system and protocol specifications. In those systems, digital voice interoperability was extensively tested and required, but data capabilities were left to individual vendors such as Motorola and Hytera to implement a usable data option.
This is somewhat understandable - Amateur Radio has been doing voice over radio for about a century now, and data for nearly as long (Radio TeleTYpe - RTTY was used extensively in World War II). But with the technology of the 2020s and beyond, we can do better, and I posit we should do better. Amateur Radio shouldn’t remain stuck in a frame of reference from the 1960s that “repeaters are for voice”5.
Sidenote - Repeaters are for voice, Digipeaters are for data is a specious premise.
There is a “blind spot” with many Amateur Radio Operators that think that because data systems like packet radio can use digipeating to extend range, that data systems should use digipeating, and not use (simultaneous receive / transmit) repeaters to extend range of data systems.
Digipeaters can work well if they are very lightly loaded, but if there is significant usage of a digipeater, it begins to be subject to Hidden Transmitter Syndrome (Wikipedia calls this issue Hidden Node Problem).
A simple thought experiment can demonstrate what a specious premise this is. There have been “simplex voice repeaters” for decades, ever since we’ve had microprocessors that can record a transmission, and replay it back onto the same channel. It’s a poor experience at best, obvious because we can hear the poor result. No one likes using a simplex voice repeater, and will go to the trouble and expense to create a full duplex repeater instead. Digipeaters for data are no different in suffering from the poor effects of receive / buffer / retransmit on a simplex channel. It’s just that with data, the effects are hidden by the data devices.
…
We’re getting a bit better about making data equivalent to voice in Amateur Radio. As discussed in Zero Retries 0159 - M17 Data Modes, M17 can do both voice and data within the M17 protocol / systems. FreeDV is a digital voice mode for HF communications, and the modem for dealing with HF conditions is so good that there’s now work underway to use the FreeDV modem for data - FreeDATA. I’m not aware that FreeDV and FreeDATA are going to be made interoperable - send voice, or send data, interchangeably from the same app / system, but in my opinion, that should be a goal.
But the most recent such development was (welcome!) recent news from Open Research Institute about their ongoing project called Opulent Voice (emphasis mine):
Opulent Voice Flying High
Opulent Voice is an open source high bitrate digital voice (and data) protocol. It’s what we are using for our native digital uplink protocol for ORI’s broadband microwave digital satellite transponder project. Opulent Voice has excellent voice quality, putting it in a completely different category than low bitrate digital communications products such as D-Star, Yaesu System Fusion, and DMR. Opulent Voice can be used on the 70 cm band and above.
Opulent voice switches between high resolution voice and data without requiring the operator to switch to a separate packet mode. Opulent voice also handles keyboard chat and digital file transmission. Seamless integration of different data types, using modern digital communication techniques, differentiates Opulent Voice from any other amateur radio protocol.
(It’s not explained why ORI says Opulent Voice can only be used on “70 cm band and above”, possibly because the US FCC currently applies too-restrictive limits on bandwidth and data rates on VHF / UHF bands below 70 cm. Such limitations are generally not an issue outside the US, and hopefully that issue will be fixed in the US soon.)
Yes! YES!! YES!!! Someone finally gets this fundamental issue of being able to seamlessly mix digital voice and data, designed in from the beginning!!! Kudos to Open Research Institute for sponsoring this project, and to the developers who have pulled this off! I have previously not studied Opulent Voice very deeply because I was unaware of the data capability, only that it was higher quality digital voice system for Amateur Radio. But now, I will investigate Opulent Voice more deeply.
Also, it’s probably kind of assumed / understood that Opulent Voice is open source… from the Open Research Institute… but in Opulent Voice, like M17 / FreeDV / Codec 2, there’s no dependence / usage on a proprietary CODEC (chip) as there is with DMR, D-Star, System Fusion, etc. That factor is a third significant differentiation, beyond high quality voice and integrated data capability, of Opulent Voice from DMR, D-Star, SF, etc.
Gosh I look forward to sitting down at my Amateur Radio station, tuned to the local repeater, seeing a dashboard of who was recently on the repeater realtime… and reading my emails and bulletins that have queued up waiting for me… all on the same system! That will be a dream, realized.
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.
Kits are available at our eBay store at this link https://www.ebay.com/itm/364783754396
Be a part of the future with a prototype Batch 2 kit build of the RFBitBanger, a low-power high-frequency digital radio by Dr. Daniel Marks KW4TI. Presented by Open Research Institute, this kit is designed to produce 4 watts of power and opens up a new digital protocol called SCAMP.
SCAMP Is now available in FLDigi!…
SCAMP is a new protocol that allows keyboard-to-keyboard contacts with a digital protocol that has excellent connection performance. See Dr. Marks presentation [link added to original text] about RFBitBanger at QSO Today Academy in September 2023 to learn more about SCAMP and the RFBitBanger project.
Open Research Institute has been busy lately, between Opulent Voice and now making RFBitBanger widely available… with the new SCAMP data mode! And as you’ll read at the link, a significant present at DEFCON32.
The biggest news by far is that I finally was able to submit my large PCB order for manufacturing. It was put off a lot longer than I was hoping for, because I kept finding small changes that I needed to make. However, I didn’t want to fall into the trap of analysis paralysis, so I had to commit to getting it pushed to manufacturing in order to not completely lose momentum.
I’ve been following Jason Milldrum NT7S’ progress on this ambitious project of a new low power HF radio, completely from scratch, fascinated by the detailed explanations of his design choices and the results (and sometimes, non-results) of his development process. I’m learning a lot from the insights into his development process that other developers don’t offer - NT7S is a great writer. NT7S’ newsletter Applied Ethics is Zero Retries Interesting, and recommended!
This is an impressive archival collection of packet radio software, and some other categories. They’ve done a great job of archiving and making available a lot of historical (and often still relevant) Amateur Radio data communications software. I haven’t explored much of what they offer yet, but doing so is yet another thing that’s in my queue.
I decided this was needed so as I develop the archives of Zero Retries, and new issues, I had a single repository to mention all the interesting Zero Retries Interesting hardware products and projects I discover and consider worth mentioning. It’s certainly not complete (done), but it is usable so I decided to mention it this week.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out
Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
Zero Retries Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) — In development 2023-02.
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RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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Other Substack Amateur Radio newsletters recommended by Zero Retries.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
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Thanks for reading!
Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His)
These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-07-12
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I did a brief web search for this story but didn’t find any references. This story is not related to Job’s famous commencement speech about “looking back and connecting the dots”.
AllStarLink definitely falls within the scope of Zero Retries Interesting subjects… but there are so many such subjects, and KJ7T covers it so well.
Yes, there are a few exceptions of special handling of different types of data within TCP/IP such as IP Multicast. And there are also Quality of Service (QOS) mechanisms that can be used.
In the linked article, radios supporting DV Fast Data include the ID-52A/E, IC-705, and IC-9700, and hopefully VHF / UHF radios introduced since those radios such as the IC-905.
Again, there are exceptions - there have been RTTY repeaters, and some data repeaters such as the Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Network, Icom D-Star DD mode data repeaters (many still active), and even 56 kbps data repeaters based on the WA4DSY 56k modem.
I've often got multiple things plugged into my computer, for example a USB to serial cable for the TNC and a different USB to serial cable for CAT control of my HF radio. These usually show up as something like /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1.
The problem is that the order is not always the same. Sometimes a reboot results in the devices swapping number and suddenly your software can't talk to the radio anymore.
Let's fix that!
(I'm doing this on Debian 12)
We need to know which device is connected to what, the easiest way to do this is use lsusb then plug or unplug the device and see what appears/disappears.
For example
Loginlsusb
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 08bb:29c6 Texas Instruments PCM2906C Audio CODEC
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 067b:23a3 Prolific Technology, Inc. ATEN Serial Bridge
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 10c4:ea60 Silicon Labs CP210x UART Bridge
Then I unplug the CAT cable
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 08bb:29c6 Texas Instruments PCM2906C Audio CODEC
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 067b:23a3 Prolific Technology, Inc. ATEN Serial Bridge
Now I know that 067b:23a3 is the TNC and 10c4:ea60 is the CAT.
Create or edit /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usbtty.rules and populate it with something like this:
SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="ea60", SYMLINK+="ttyUSBIcomCat"
SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="067b", ATTRS{idProduct}=="23a3", SYMLINK+="TNC"
We're tell it to look for a device with the vendor id 10c4 and product id ea60 and then create a symbolic link called ttyUSBIcomCat to point to the actual device.
This way we can tell our software to always look for /dev/ttyUSBIcomCat and it doesn't matter if it's number 0, 1, or 6352528.
You'll need to reboot or kick udev somehow, then check and see if it's worked:
ls -lh /dev/
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 1 Jul 12 21:08 /dev/ttyUSB1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Jul 12 14:41 /dev/ttyUSBIcomCat -> ttyUSB1
You're looking for something with whatever name you specified (ttyUSBIcomCat) followed by -> pointing to ttyUSBsomething. If it's there, it worked. If it didn't ... I don't know, check the IDs or something.
WSJT-X didn't give the new symlink as an option for me. However you can just type the path in, you don't have to pick from the drop down list.
I’m here at Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) XV, the hacker conference run by 2600 magazine. Earlier this afternoon, I gave a talk entitled “Ham Radio for Hackers.” See my slides below. I’ll be writing more about my experiences here in a future post.
On July 10, 2024, AllStarLink.org announced the release of ASL 3.02. Details of what changed are in the release notes. This is a significant update and if you are already running ASL 3, updating is recommended.
For those running ASL 3 on a Raspberry Pi, you’ll use the new Cockpit to update ASL 3. I’m running ASL 3 on a Debian 12 virtual machine so I updated from the terminal. The usual “sudo apt update” and “sudo apt upgrade -y” commands work to update ASL 3 to ASL 3.02.
The only problem I ran into was AllScan lost track of some of the configuration settings. I suspect this was because PHP was also updated as part of the update/upgrade process (but not as part of the ASL update), and something changed from my earlier manual installation of PHP. Not to worry, though — a few edits to the config set things right. Allmon3 worked fine before and after the update was installed.
CONTEXT: I started writing this about three weeks ago…just moments before AllStarLink.org announced a major update to ASL that includes support for virtual machines. That announcement completely changed the foundation for this content!
You can now install ASL on a virtual machine! I am super excited by this development. Read the announcement at https://community.allstarlink.org/t/asl3-beta-announcement/21240, review the new user manual at https://allstarlink.github.io/, and check out this installation video from Freddie Mac KD5FMU:
I recommend this video. If you’ve never set up a node before and you want to use ASL 3, Freddie Mac walks you through every step to get your node up and running on a Raspberry Pi. He mentions that ASL 3 Beta supports AllScan, something that is important to me. You can also find Freddie Mac’s website at http://hamradiolife.org/.
Some of the great changes in ASL 3 include:
Ability to install on a Raspberry Pi 5
Ability to install into a virtual machine
Asterisk version updated and no longer runs as the root user
Can install to Debian 12
A more complete list of changes is available at https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/allstarlink-org-new-asl3-version-released.919910/#post-6907463.
I want to give ASL 3 a try, especially on my node-in-the-cloud. In the meantime, though, I decided to do an experimental install into an Oracle VirtualBox virtual machine on my home server, configuring ASL 3 as a hub running DAHDI. (My node-in-the-cloud number 57945 is configured that way — it’s simply a hub with no radio.)
However, I encountered some hiccups. I did get them resolved, but I’ll describe what they were in case you run into them, too.
I started with a minimal installation of Debian 12 in a new virtual machine. This becomes important later when I found that some services were not working correctly.
After installing ASL 3, I discovered that the update node service was not running. I had to search for, and install, an updated .deb file to get that going. I found that on GitHub at https://github.com/AllStarLink/asl3-update-nodelist and manually installed it. If I recall correctly, I had to explicitly start the service from the command line after installing it.
After installing ASL 3, I did confirm that allmon3 was not installed. I followed the directions for installing allmon3 on Debian 12 found at https://github.com/AllStarLink/Allmon3. Once I did that, I could see the Allmon3 page and log into it, but it gave me no data whatsoever: no icons, no colored transmit bar, nothing. I also found I could not execute commands. Hmmm.
I banged my head on the keyboard for a bit on this issue. All of the required packages are installed. I tried to manually configure /etc/allmon3/allmon3.ini to reflect the IP address and authentication details needed by Allmon3 and that broke it. After an hour or so of fiddling — including comparing the allmon3.ini file to a known-to-work allmon.ini file running on a Debian 10 node, I finally got it to work…kind of. Then I cleaned up my ufw firewall settings and added some port forwards to my router.
Stepping back for a moment, this was all a a bit discombobulating because the new manual for ASL 3 Beta said that allmon3 and asl3-update-nodelist are installed as part of the ASL 3 package. If they are installed, why wasn’t I finding them? That sent me down a rabbit hole for a few hours. (UPDATE: One of the maintainers acknowledged this was incorrectly stated in the manual. That part has been clarified in the online manual.)
At this point, AllStarLink.org could see node 588411:
I could now connect my cloud node 57945 to 588411:
That’s easier to see with the bubble map:
And Allmon3 on 588411 now does show the correct dashboard icons:
But Allmon3 did not show the connected node, nor do I get the colored transmit/receive bar. Another hmmm moment.
I set that problem aside and moved on to installing AllScan. The software author, David Gleason NR9V, very recently modified the installation routine to work with the ASL 3 Beta and I’m glad he did. I use AllScan far more than Allmon or Supermon. It’s a great piece of work by David. (You might also be interested in his node building page at https://allscan.info/!)
This is when I recognized the root of my problem with the Allmon3 installation. I tried to install AllScan and at the final step when the command tries to run the PHP file, the file wasn’t found. I could see it. It was right there! But PHP couldn’t see it. That was the moment when I realized PHP probably wasn’t installed. Remember that I did a minimal install of Debian 12, meaning that if you need a package, you’ll probably have to install it. To install PHP 8.3, I followed the instructions at https://tecadmin.net/how-to-install-php-on-debian-12/.
Once that was done, I was able to complete the installation of AllScan. It worked immediately and showed my connection to 57945.
There was one other hiccup along the way with manager.conf. Before I installed PHP, I was watching messages in the Asterisk CLI. I kept getting errors about manager.conf not being able to authenticate so I went into manager.conf with nano and manually changed the user and password (called the secret in manager.conf) to match what I was using for Allmon3. After restarting Asterisk, I saw no more error messages.
Now that I had PHP running and my manager.conf problem was resolved, I went back to look at my Allmon3 instance and sure enough, it was now working, too!
I also installed Tailscale, xrdp, a desktop environment (xfce), and mlocate. I use Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) over Tailscale to connect to the node desktop. I can also use Tailscale as my SSH backbone. I usually install mlocate as that allows me to find files. (For example, when sleuthing about PHP, I searched for PHP using the locate command and the paucity of files suggested immediately that I did not have PHP installed!)
My takeaway from hitting these speedbumps is…yeah, you can get ASL 3 running. It’s a tremendous piece of work by the AllStarLink team. However, if you are installing to a Debian 12 platform, it may be best to wait a little while for the installation process to get a bit smoother. I think there are a large number of people interested in ASL 3 on Debian it won’t take wrong this to get better.
ASL 3 announcement: https://community.allstarlink.org/t/asl3-beta-announcement/21240
ASL 3 user manual: https://allstarlink.github.io/
Freddie Mac’s review and installation video: https://youtu.be/aeuj-yI8qrU?si=t5K6M_lOw_Z1oKZK
Freddie Mac’s website: http://hamradiolife.org/
List of changes with ASL 3: https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/allstarlink-org-new-asl3-version-released.919910/#post-6907463
Minimal Debian 12 installation: https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
ASL 3 update nodelist instructions: https://github.com/AllStarLink/asl3-update-nodelist
Allmon3 installation instructions: https://github.com/AllStarLink/Allmon3
PHP installation instructions: https://tecadmin.net/how-to-install-php-on-debian-12/
Tailscale: https://tailscale.com/
xrdp: https://www.xrdp.org/
xfce: https://www.xfce.org/
mlocate: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mlocate
Windows RDP: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-remote-desktop-5fe128d5-8fb1-7a23-3b8a-41e636865e8c
This was a bit more convoluted than I expected but I muddled through until it worked.
You are going to have to crack open the new manual at https://allstarlink.github.io. The way SIP connections are made has changed in ASL 3 (presumably because of the substantial upgrade in Asterisk) and the manual has vital information to help guide you.
I also used content I had previously published:
https://www.randomwire.us/i/106468240/configuring-asterisk-on-the-tiny-pc
https://www.randomwire.us/p/using-vox-with-allstarlink-and-an
The load command load = chan_sip.so in /etc/asterisk/modules.conf needs to be replaced with noload = chan_sip.so. because chan_sip is deprecated.
While you are in /etc/asterisk/modules.conf, you’ll need to add a whole new section that loads pjsip and related required elements. The manual says “add the following at the bottom of the file” but I modified that slightly. The bottom of my modules.conf file ends with [global]. If I put the pjsip content below that, it would be in the context of global, so I put the pjsip stuff above the [global] section.
Apologies for the small print in the screenshot below. I had to zoom out the view in order to get the entire list into one window!
Since I have a desktop installed in my 588411 virtual machine, I simply opened the new manual using the VM’s browser, allowing me to easily copy and paste the long pjsip section right into my modules.conf file.
I like using nano as my Linux editor. In nano, hit Ctrl X on your keyboard and answer Y to save.
I hit a bit of a brick wall making the required changes to /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf. You’ll see in the new manual that some variables are included in the new [sip-phones] section: ${EXTEN}, ${NODE}, and ${NODENUM}. When I married the new [sip-phones] section with what I had used before, it didn’t work.
(Also, I note that there are a few references in the new manual about lines or content being highlighted in color, but I don’t see any highlighting, no matter what browser I use. My guess is the manual was written in some other system that showed highlights but those highlights were lost when the content was copied to the website.)
Pasted below is a screenshot showing the configuration suggested in the new manual on the left and my actual changes on the right. My changes are working for me but may not work for you because your phone is likely set up differently. I use a speed dial button. When I push the speed dial button, it connects to node 588411. Line 4 on my SPA 525G is set as extension 211, and the phone listens for a call to 300. Hopefully, that helps explain why my working [sip-phones] configuration looks so different than the recommendations in the manual.
One stumbling block for me was ${NODE} is set at the top of /etc/asterisk/extensions/conf as NODE = 588411. Leaving the ${NODE} variable in the recommended [sip-phones] configuration got in the way of the node authenticating to the phone. I noticed the potential problem when the announcement over the phone was telling me that ${NODENUM} was 300 and ${EXTEN} was 588411. That wasn’t right so I started fiddling by replacing variables with static values.
I did find it very helpful to go to open the Asterisk CLI and monitor what pjsip was seeing. In a terminal window, start the Asterisk CLI with asterisk -rvvv. Then type in pjsip set logger on and hit Enter. To exit, type exit and hit Enter. The pjsip logger is where I saw that what I thought was my node number, pjsip was seeing as my extension, and vice versa.
Of course, none of the above worked until I configured /etc/asterisk/pjsip.conf per the manual’s recommendations. My UDP port is 5062 so I changed that in the Basic UDP transport section of pjsip.conf.
Farther down in the pjsip.conf file, you configure your endpoint in the “Endpoint Configured For Use With A Sip Phone” section. Here’s a side-by-side view, with the manual content on the left and my configuration on the right:
And then the auth section needs to be changed:
I prefer using sudo systemctl restart asterisk to restart the system but sudo astres.sh works just as well.
You can use standard DTMF commands to manage connections to other nodes. I prefer the convenience of using AllScan by David Gleason NR9V. AllScan makes connecting to another node very, very easy. A few days after ASL 3 was released, David published an update to AllScan that works with the new system. AllScan is Random Wire Recommended!
As an aside, I have Tailscale installed on the virtual node 588411 (running Debian 12) and on my laptop named TomBook (running Windows 11 Pro). With Tailscale, you can use Taildrop to copy files from one system to another.
I discovered that Taildrop allows the use of wildcards, so I was able to transfer the several screenshots I captured on the VM while preparing this piece with just one line in a terminal window on 588411:
tailscale file cp *.png tombook:That was a slick discovery!
I used to avoid YouTube videos of people showing others how to do something. Now I don’t. I am finding it easier to find a very focused demonstration of what to do to fix or modify something by simply searching for videos on it.
And yet, amateur radio is an audio medium so I feel a bit more comfortable approaching it from the podcasting side instead of making videos. I suppose there may be times when I want to show something that I can’t describe with only words or photographs, but that seems unlikely at the moment.
Why do you want to do a podcast? It’s important to know because it can be a lot of work. That means time taken from other things you might rather be doing. Without knowing your why, you may not stick with it if it begins to feel like a burden.
Do you want to teach? Video might be a better medium. However, audio and the written word can also be used very effectively.
Do you want to reach a certain age group? Audio cuts across most demographics, while video and written material seem a bit more segregated when it comes to reach certain audience segments.
Are you comfortable speaking into a microphone? Podcasting might be a great tool, but if you are just as comfortable in front of a camera, video might be right for you.
My why was simple: a desire to grow my community by reaching people who would rather listen to audio than read another email. I chose not to use video because (a) I’m not very comfortable in front of a camera and (b) video is more difficult to produce (i.e., less forgiving).
I did not appreciate audio as a medium until my aging mother lost most of her sight. An avid reader all her life, the dimming of her vision came as a major blow to her. Audio books became a lifeline for her, and as my wife and I were helping to care for her, we listened to some of the books, too. I found that I enjoyed hearing content at the narrator’s pace instead of at my reading speed. With the frequent long drives involved in my work, audio books became a staple for me.
Also, I wanted to grow my skill at narration, something I have always felt could improve. How to do that? Well, do more of it!
For these reasons, adding an audio component to my newsletter felt like a natural step for me.
One upside is I get to explore a new medium. This is all new to me so I get to learn a lot, quickly. That is usually a lot of fun for me. I also get to hear feedback that helps me become a better speaker, something I very much want to do.
I anticipate that the podcast will allow me to reach more people and that may equate to some new subscribers. Or it might just be a value add for existing subscribers, but that’s a positive if it strengthens my subscription base.
Producing audio takes more: more equipment, more effort, and more time. I went looking for information and didn’t find much that was clear and unequivocal. (Well, that’s not completely true. I found very clear guidance when a vendor wanted to pull me into their own walled garden of hardware and software!) And you know why? Because vendors want to sell their products and everyone’s situation is different.
I’m still at the point where I write out a script of sorts for each podcast and you can hear that in my spoken delivery. It’s not where I want to be but it is where I’m at now.
My point about the lack of clear guidance seemed especially true when it came to selecting microphones. Every source seemed to conflict and I finally began to recognize that there was no crystal clear, right-or-wrong answer because every situation truly is different. So I did what I usually do: I made mistakes and learned from them. If you have unlimited time and money, go for it. I don’t, so I tried to be a bit more judicious and economical in my experimentation.
An example is the Blue Yet Nano microphone. I have a Yeti microphone that I picked up at a thrift store, but the thing is simply huge on my small desk. It gets in my way. I liked the sound it captured but not how much real estate it consumed. Some people like the Blue Yeti Nano and some detest it — just like many microphones. Still, it wasn’t much money to try the Nano and I am finding it to be a hot little mic.
Therein lies one of the downsides of the Nano: it tends to pick up more than I want it to. It picks up more because it is a condenser microphone. It would benefit from being in a more controlled environment. I don’t have a sound studio, nor do I have space to create one. I might love it more if I had a quiet space, but I don’t.
I also tried some dynamic microphones because they are less sensitive than condenser mics and so they might be better in places where there are background sounds you don’t want recorded. My first episode was using a dynamic mic and a few people told me it sounded too quiet. My second episode was with the condenser mic and a few people complained about the hissy sounds in my speech. For the third podcast, I ended up recording into a Zoom H4n Pro handy recorder while sitting in my pickup truck. I’ve also picked up an Elgato Wave 3 mic and it seems hotter than the Nano! For this episode, I’ll try recording with the Elgato mic and if it is too noisy, I’ll revert to the Nano or the H4n.
As you can see, this is still an active area of experimentation for me. Once I settle on a few approaches, I can spend more on a better microphone as my daily driver.
(By the way, I fell down this rabbit hole because I was looking for a desk microphone I could use with my FTM-300DR radio that I’m using on my desk as a Portable Digital Node over WIRES-X. There were no obvious choices and so I started to learn more about kinds of microphones and which ones might work with my radio. Along the way, I discovered that even some worldwide microphone vendors were a little mixed up about what might work with the FTM-300DR!)
I’m recording into my computer, except when I record into the Zoom H4n Pro. Any day now I’ll start recording through the computer to an external SSD to save my onboard storage space.
This topic could easily consume an entire newsletter. I looked at many options over a few months and finally decided to keep it as simple as I could. Since Substack (the service that hosts the Random Wire newsletter) also offers podcast hosting, I chose to host at Substack.
You can find free podcast hosting and paid podcast hosting. I lean toward paid because the free versions often limit how much you can host, how long they’ll keep your podcast episodes online, and may include advertising of their own choice in your podcast. Paid hosting tends to give you more time with fewer or no ads.
But there is more, a whole lot more. Having your podcast hosted in one place doesn’t get your podcast “out there.” You need to distribute your podcast, as in: have others carry your podcast. I’m using Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, and Pocket Casts.
You have a choice: promote your podcast, or not. Promotion means spreading the word. I’m using Facebook a little bit but mainly depending on my Random Wire newsletter subscribers to increase my podcast listeners. I have multiple social media accounts but I’m trying to stay away from those tools because I find some folks in the social media realm tend to be a bit more vocal without always exercising much discretion. I don’t really want a subscriber base that goes up and down a lot. I want subscribers willing to travel this train with me.
Make sure your amateur radio club knows you have a podcast. That is a great way to reach people who might not be able to attend club meetings. The spoken word connects with people in a way that the written word does not. That’s important, particularly when we have so many in our radio community who need those connections.
If your local school has a ham radio club or a STEM program (science, technology, engineering, math), it may not hurt to let them know you have a podcast. That gives the club advisor or a teacher the opportunity to review your material and consider using it in some lessons. You might even get invited to present a topic, and there are few better feelings that helping people learn about amateur radio!
OK, that’s enough. That was a shallow dive but if you’ve not thought about this before, it probably felt deep. Let’s call it “deep enough” and move on to another topic.
If you’ve been with the Random Wire for a while, you’ve probably noticed that topics can be a bit, well, random! I started this writing experience by journaling. And then I started writing a runbook (that’s an information technology term) for my various radio platforms. A runbook, in nontechnical terms, is a collection of how-to recipes for common tasks. In my case, I wanted to document some of the tasks I found myself engaged in — things like installing AllStarLink on a Dell Wyse 3040 thin client machine, upgrading Debian on an ASL node, extending a node number, and more. That’s right: this all started for me with AllStarLink.
Along this two-year journey, subscriber numbers grew pretty steadily:
Meanwhile, my topics rambled along on a random walk, covering old gear, new equipment, making some deeper dives into digital modes, and resurfacing a few times on other topics, sometimes with actual RF-based radios. It’s been a bit of a dog’s breakfast, in my view. I’m not entirely happy with that, but at the same time, I have come to realize that a lot of hams have wide-ranging interests that are hard to present in a discrete set of topics contained in a focused, targeted newsletter. To this day, the Random Wire newsletter remains a somewhat messy collection of topics and observations.
Subscribers are great. But there are two problems with subscribers: first is not having any, and second is getting caught up in the subscriber numbers game. When you start a blog or newsletter, you are alone. You write the very first post and publish it and then…nothing happens. It takes other people. It takes partnerships and mutual support. It takes connecting with real humans to grow your subscriber base. But there is an inflection point in this process because you start to watch the subscriber numbers change with each issue of the blog or newsletter, and the watching ends up influencing what you choose to write about.
I’m trying not to do that. I’m trying to keep it all a bit messy and rambling, true to the title: the Random Wire. I’m thrilled to have more than 950 subscribers following my work. I’m actually astounded by this number. When I started, I thought maybe my little niche in our huge amateur radio universe might capture the interest of a hundred or two hams. It is growing beyond anything I expected. Color me continually surprised.
I’ve been told my writing exhausts people, as in: Tom, there is too much detail. I’ve been told I’m not writing about real radio, meaning: the content isn’t appealing to some folks. I’ve been told my topics have no order, and to that I say: true. I’m a mess, just like many of my radio friends are!
But as noted, subscribers do influence content and style. In response, I’ve written summaries instead of detailed recipes. Feedback: not enough detail. I rolled in a bit more about “real” radio, only to hear from some that this wasn’t the content they wanted. I’ve tried to organize a bit better by at least having a table of contents in each issue, and the feedback on that change has been: silence.
And yet…and yet…I feel the Random Wire evolving. It is certainly growing, but as I look back on the nearly 100 publications in two years, I see the content beginning to intersect more and more about radio and technology, where technology often means computers, routers, networking, etc. A confluence of big topics opens up an even wider universe of things to write about. I’d really like to stay anchored in amateur radio but I feel some pull toward ideas and products that are outside that limited realm.
I’m grappling with this tension as I think about the Random Wire this summer. Should I give in and expand my topics or should I try to stay more focused on my admittedly messy, random ideas and activities about amateur radio and tech? I’m more comfortable not changing but at the same time, I do want to expand my knowledge and interests. I truly do not know where this will lead. It’s a rambling journey, not a destination.
Let me also address paid subscriptions. I just don’t see that for the Random Wire, partly because my content is a jumble of ideas and partly because I want content to be free. I remember being an early amateur radio licensee and having that awful epiphany that everything cost more than I could afford. I lean more toward helping people get involved with amateur radio and trying some things that are new to them rather than dwelling on detailed analyses of circuits and antennas. The Random Wire, when it speaks to me, says: I need to be free to people.
At the same time, I’m spending a lot of time planning, buying equipment, writing about it, and thinking about what to capture next. It becomes a bit costly and so I now include affiliate links on my Support page as a no-obligation way to generate some revenue from this work. It’s not intended to provide much but every little bit helps with internet cost, website hosting, recording gear, and amateur radio equipment. It is always a humbling moment when I see that someone has bought me a coffee or purchased a product using one of my affiliate links. Thank you!
So the content has been changing a bit over time and there are completely optional ways to provide some financial support if you wish. Another evolution is the addition of a podcast which has been, and continues to be, quite an adventure. I have to say that creating a new podcast from scratch is an order of magnitude jump up from writing a blog or a newsletter. It takes more equipment, more time, more thought. The time required for editing is greater than you might imagine.
I’ve started my podcasting journey at the smallest and simplest level that I thought might yield good-quality audio results. This is unnerving work for me. I am stepping outside my comfort zone to try to become more comfortable with the process of verbalizing ideas in front of hundreds of other people. Have you seen hams that can’t quite bring themselves to make that first CQ call, or who shy away from actually transmitting CW? That is the kind of reticence I feel in front of the podcasting microphone. I am exercising that weakness to become more capable at this.
Just as with the written word, I really don’t know where the spoken word is going to go. I’d like to do some interviews. I plan to capture sound clips of various modes so people can hear what different modes sound like. I want to get clips of some of the best practices I hear on the radio and clips of some of the worst, without embarrassing the people speaking. I hope the podcast evolves in this direction.
All this is to say: I started without a plan and I still don’t have a plan, other than to enjoy my journey in amateur radio, learn a lot, and share what I’m learning with others. Your time is precious. So is mine. I don’t plan to write or record on things that have little value but I’m sure I will. Along the way, I’m also certain we’ll find topics where our interests overlap. I’m glad you’re on this journey with me and hope you’ll have a good time on the Random Wire train. Next stop: unknown!
Do feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly with your feedback. I value all feedback.
As long as we’re dwelling on tech, interesting news about Raspberry Pi single board computers (SBCs) came to light a few weeks ago. Check out these stories:
All Raspberry Pi SBCs eligible for improved functionality thanks to new update
Raspberry Pi Connect gains wide release, brings support to all Pi SBCs
Raspberry Pi Connect expanded to provide SSH access, support for older models
Raspberry Pi's Remote Access Tool Now Supports All Pi Models
Available for every Pi ever made. This is interesting stuff for those of us who run several Raspberry Pi SBCs!
I ordered up a Kenwood PC-1 phone patch from eBay for a potential sound interface build to connect to an AllStarLink node. This would be similar to the ANR-series devices by David Gleason NR9V but packed into a vintage case. This would go well with my existing desktop node speaker, a Heathkit HS-1661.
That node has AllStarLink running on a Dell Wyse 3040 thin client machine and one of the early ANR units by David for interfacing the microphone and the speaker with the ASL machine.
I’ve tried to do something like this before but fell down when it came to the very fine soldering required on the CM108 sound fob. This time, I’m rolling the dice and ordering a couple of CM108 devices that have been modified by someone else. I have all the other parts I’ll need. (Somewhere I even have a Raspberry Pi 2 W that I might be able to shoehorn into the Kenwood phone patch case…but that will mean cutting some holes in the back.)
I can’t believe how inexpensive mini PCs have become. I got the Beelink Mini S12 Pro for $159. I installed VirtualBox on it and migrated a copy of my node 588411 to the mini PC. AllStarLink.org sees it and I can reach Allmon3 and AllScan on the new virtual machine. Next up will be reconfiguring this instance to access my ANR sound interface. Sometimes getting sound to move in and out of a VM can be problematic so this is very much a proof of concept. I’ll have more on this in issue 99 of the Random Wire Review next week!
On July 10, 2024, I recorded several minutes of the beginning of the Worldwide Friendship Net on the W7RAT repeater in Portland, Oregon. Most transmissions sound like they are via IRLP and Echolink, at least to me. Sound was captured on a Zoom H4n Pro handy recorder, handheld near the speaker of my Yaesu FTM-300DR radio in my pickup truck.
The purpose behind posting sound clips like this is to help subscribers experience other nets and other modes of radio.
Coming next week: C4FM audio from the Kansas City Wide network!
Thank you and 73 to all!
I’ve been pretty active on the Mastodon radio community for a while and I’ve noticed that there are a lot of operators using a mode called Single Side Band or SSB for something called Phone. Apparently, this is where you talk into the microphone (that box with a wire on it that comes with most radios) and converse with other operators as you might with CW or a digital keyboard mode. I decided to give it another try as I headed out to West Branch State Park – US-1999.
OK. Yeah.
I don’t do a lot of phone at the park because I don’t like being the weirdo sitting at a park bench talking to himself. Or even worse, sounding like I’m having the strangest telephone conversation ever. So I generally stick to silent modes like CW or digital. But today, I decided that I would take a few toys to the park that hadn’t been out in a while and just play for a bit.
The Hardrock-50 is a piece of gear that I usually reserve for OSPOTA and when we go camping in the camper. It’s a fantastic amp with wonderful performance. With it plugged into my 20 aH battery, I can run for quite some time at a staggering 40 watts or more! It’s crazy to think I have that much power at my disposal.
The HR50 was a natural accessory for doing phone at the park. 10 watts of SSB is like screaming into a pillow in my experience, so I usually just skip it. With the amp, I can actually get out and hit some other stations. I usually do fairly well at OSPOTA and I credit a lot of that to the Hardrock.
I also grabbed the Chameleon whip and extension out of the Jeep trunk and set that up as my antenna of choice. It’s really great on 20-meters and works really well with the amount of power I was planning to use. My QRP antennas were off the table (but still in the trunk just in case).
I had enough contacts to call it an activation in about 10 minutes. I had forgotten how quickly phone pile-ups set in and my smooth handling skills were a bit out of practice. Nonetheless, the generous hams out there managed to muddle through some weird shifts on the bands with me. I was getting reports that 40 was unusable and 20 was in and out. And it was. I had more than a couple of contacts drop out from under me just as we were finishing up our QSO. The wind noise at the park wasn’t helping matters either.
With 40-some phone QSOs in the log, I took the time to shift over to CW. With an amp, I was REALLY getting out. Grabbed about 17 contacts before I decided to pack it in and get some lunch. I did bring the tablet along with the intention of using ALL THE MODES but I got hungry and left my granola bar on the kitchen table. Next time!
There are few things I like less than being surprised. With my head down and deep in the pile-ups I was absolutely startled by a woman and her dog who walked up behind me to see what I was up to. It was a very, very friendly older pup and the nice lady had a lot to say about her podcast project that didn’t have a name yet. She was really nice and gave me a chance to pull my head out of operating long enough to explain myself and the weirdness she was seeing. It was a nice conversation.
After I’d moved over to CW it happened again. A young woman poked her head around me and asked if I fished here often. After finishing my QSO I said that I’d done a lot of fishing at West Branch, but no catching. I did point out where I see the bass boats with old dudes smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee all the time. Not that I ever saw them catch anything, but they must be in those spots for a reason, right?
All of this took me right back to late fall and how much I love this park when it empties out for the season. When it can be busy enough for visitors on a Thursday in July, well, it’s time to move to other parks until it gets cold again.
Lots and lots of contacts from coast to coast. A pile of park to park contacts are hidden in there as well. It’s awesome! Here’s the QSO Map.
It’s great to play with this hobby and cycle through things once in a while. Dusting off a mode I don’t often use can be a blast. The battery box and HR50 aren’t that cumbersome so I should toss them in more often. QRP will always be the most fun for me, but there’s no reason not to drag along a couple of extra watts now and again.
Thanks for reading along and 73!
This morning, I had a mis-click on the POTA site and ended up on the awards page. Lo and behold, I just got the Howell’s Spectacular Thelypody award for 500 unique parks hunted. Who knew?
I would like to thank all of the activators and the parks management services around the globe for this award!
In all seriousness, it’s kinda neat to stumble on these stats once in a while. It’s not what keeps me moving, but it does add a little spice to things from time to time.
I will go out on a limb and say that if we were to poll every person who purchased the Penntek TR-45L and those operators were honest in their answers, 90% or more would say that they bought it because it looks like what a ham radio should look like. It has switches and knobs and…oh yes…that gorgeous lit dial to indicate transmit power, SWR, or receive signal. This is the kind of radio you would make if you were asked to produce a radio for a movie. It has a lunchbox handle and is beautiful in every way.
The fact that it is a CW rig at 5 watts with 5 bands is just icing on the cake. This thing is a QRP devotee’s delight. There is nothing about its appearance that doesn’t inspire joy for me.
When I first got it, I described it as being a Sunday Driver of a rig. I stand by that. Everything about it just feels like it’s coming from another age. This is not to say that the performance isn’t top notch! Far from it! The receiver is quite good at pulling signals out of the noise and I’ve worked some serious distances on this continent with less than the full 5 watts. I got mine with the Z-match tuner add-on and love that thing so much. The more knobs and switches, the better!
My first activation with this radio was when it was just starting to get cold outside. I didn’t get much time in with the rig before the weather really settled in and I got into my Get-In-Get-Out winter activations with my IC-705. During that first activation with it, I could just imagine a warm summer day, a cold beverage, a picnic table, and all the time in the world to play radio. Everything about this rig makes me want to slow down and savor my time on the air.
So that’s what I did.
With an entire week to do whatever I choose (within certain limits, as one would expect) I decided to head out to a place I’ve not been since the snow disappeared: West Branch State Park – US-1999. I packed up the TR-45L, my Begali Traveler, the 40-20-10 EFHW and headed for the park. No time limits. No pressure. Just me and the radio.
The park was not particularly crowded, though there were families at the beach that I could see from my position at my Regular Spot. I got my throw line over The Branch on the second try and had the antenna deployed in no time at all. This is the kind of thing that comes from being relaxed and completely unhurried.
I spread out my tarp and set up on 40-meters.
The band conditions were back to the ones that I loved so much earlier in the year. No CMEs, no tantrums, just good propagation. Really, really good propagation. I was pulling in contacts fairly quickly. RBN was picking me up at 20dB which was a shock. With contacts rolling in steadily, I validated the activation in about 15 minutes. But again, I was in no rush. I settled in and kept calling CQ.
The scenery at the park is so different in the summer. The trees are full of leaves and the grass in this new pollinator area is high. So high that I could pretend that I was deep in the bush with my Jeep almost hidden behind the grass. The geese were menacing me for a bit and I maintain that they are QRM as they clearly have agency and intent.
I was also reminded – almost constantly – of the other park visitors. The Skidoos and Jet Skis were ripping up and down the reservoir. People were being pulled behind boats with dual outboard motors and screaming the whole time. I didn’t feel so bad about not using headphones as there was no way anyone could hear me over that. The park feels different in the summer. It’s less a silent and solitary space and far more communal. Both certainly have their place. I suppose if I want to have warm fingers, I will have to share the place. I’m fine with that.
A phone call with one of the several pieces of business to which I must attend this week interrupted me as I was closing out a QSO on 40. I took the opportunity to switch over to 20-meters. In no time, I was in an actual pile-up! It was just like old times at the park. At the end of the day, I’d hit from Washington State to Nova Scotia to Florida to California. It was a really, really good day to be throwing disruptions into the ionosphere.
With solid propagation all day, here’s what the QSO Map looks like with less than 5 watts.
There is nothing about the TR-45L that isn’t a joy. Again, it feels like what you think about when you think “Ham Radio”. It’s a mix of solid performance and physical interaction that is tough to find in a world of touch screens and SDRs.
Today was also a reminder that slowing down and really setting aside some time for True Recreation is pretty important. I left the park today feeling relaxed and content. We probably all need a little more of that whether it’s with radio or something else.
Thanks for reading along and 72!
Intro music: Positive Uplifting Music For YouTube Videos by UNIVERSFIELD — https://freesound.org/s/702873/ — License: Attribution 4.0
Fades between segments: Atmospheric, ambient fade by waveplaySFX — https://freesound.org/s/384695/ — License: Attribution 4.0
Closing music: Unforgettable Moments by UNIVERSFIELD — https://freesound.org/people/UNIVERSFIELD/sounds/698550/ — License: Attribution 4.0
Cover art: The cover art for the podcast stream is by Wallace Chuck — https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-headset-on-condenser-microphone-3587478/
The other cover: If you see a photo of a person with a headset, that is a selfie of Tom Salzer KJ7T using a Heil headset.
This 3 band "7 element" yagi has an important advantage. It has no coils or lineair loading. It is full size with a moxon as the 20m part.
This antenna would do quite good in my tower. However, I find it too big and too heavy (20kg). But I would like to see how things are constructed and do an overhaul because some parts seem to be damaged and/or worn. I started with cleaning everything today since the color of most of the parts were brown and green and that was no paint!
I quickly took this photo after the cleaning. It started to rain so no further progress was made. I found a heavily worn tube which I will replace. Like the previous EA VHF 3 band antenna I rebuilt there are parts made from POM which are getting brittle. Moxon isolators seems to be glasfiber which was not protected by tape, coating or paint, they seem to be usable but I wil certainly wrap them with tape. Hopefully the weather will improve a little this summer...
My interest in POTA and portable operation has evolved as I’ve spent more and more time in this wonderful hobby. I’ve said before, and I will say again, that POTA leads to QRP which leads to CW. As someone who started off in digital modes during a horrible solar cycle, I didn’t want to even touch phone modes while working portable. It took too much power and gear and that definitely diminished my enjoyment of time in the outdoors. So I stuck to FT8/FT4 and used the amazing digital capabilities of the IC-705 to their fullest. I had (and still have) a lot of fun.
But…
Once you come to terms with 5 watts of power, it’s very hard not to have an eye that wanders over the wide landscape of weird and wild QRP rigs. Most of this menagerie caters to the CW crowd for lots of technical reasons. Seriously, there are kits out there for $100 that can get an operator on the air if they have the ability to solder or the will to learn. It’s not the easiest way into the hobby, but it’s gratifying.
I’ve started a little collection of QRP rigs and one that I hadn’t had a lot of time with is the Penntek TR-35. The gentleman who made these kits has decided to retire. When I read that, as an owner of a TR-45L, I knew I needed to jump on this one. So I did! I opted for the assembled unit as my available time for kit building is extremely limited.
I’ve only had it out in the field twice and I wasn’t very successful in my activation attempts. With some free time on a Sunday and staring down a week of vacation time, I decided I’d best get that little guy out into the field and learn how to use it.
For this activation, I headed out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park – US-0020 as one might expect. This time around, I tossed my EFHW wire antenna into a tree. I love this antenna as it always delivers results. My skill with the throw line is still in question, but once the antenna is up, it’s usually all downhill from there.
With the antenna secured, I set up my TR-35 and hooked up my aluminum paddles from CW Morse. I plugged in my earbuds and got on the air.
Oh. The earbuds are from Sony. They’re…OK? I hate earbuds in general. I find them uncomfortable and of questionable quality from sound through to construction. However, this keeps the kit small and light and that was a part of this exercise. After all, this is a TINY rig. It’s the kind of thing that I could toss in a backback and not notice. So a test with some earbuds seemed reasonable for this outing.
With all of my rigs, I put rubber covers on the BNC antenna outs. I really hate the idea of moisture or dirt finding its way in there. The ones that I got were maybe $5 for 20 or so. I put them on everything.
I also took Thomas K4SWL‘s advice and put on some laptop feet so that the viewing angle of the rig is better. This seems so dumb, but it does make a world of difference. It’s much easier to read the display when it’s at an angle.
Maybe not an error, but definitely an artifact from NOT doing a little backyard portable with this rig. The sidetone level was set, well, at heavy metal concert levels when compared to the other audio. This was a pain not only because it was loud but because I had to jockey the volume knob so that I didn’t go damage my hearing any more than I already have. As I was sitting in the park, I found myself wishing there was a way to adjust it. And, because this thing is a kit, of course there is!
When I got home, I looked at the various bits of documentation (all of which is stellar!) and found exactly what I needed. There is a small adjustment knob between the power input and the paddle jack. It can’t be reached without opening the case, so I pulled it apart, cranked it down, checked the level, and put it back together. The only way it could have been easier would be to have a knob on the case itself. I’m going to look into drilling out a tiny hole for adjustments and 3d printing a plug for it. That’s a project for Another Day. For now, everything is great.
I only bagged 10 contacts in the time that I had available, but it was nice to be out when our local radiation source wasn’t throwing a tantrum of some kind. Here’s what the QSO Map looks like.
This is a great little transceiver. It’s so nice to have knobs and switches instead of touchscreens and infinite menus. The receiver is great and I got good reports from as far out as Texas. That’s not too shabby on under 5 watts. With the sidetone adjusted, it’ll be much more comfortable on our next trip out – even with the less than stellar earbuds. This thing is just what I need to toss in my bag for quick and easy CW operation. I’m glad that I grabbed it when I could.
