Results from the 2021 RAC National Survey

Author’s note: a version of this appeared in the May 2024 issue of The Canadian Amateur, available to members only. I retain copyright to the material. After numerous requests from non-members of RAC, I have posted the material here for all to read.

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What are the most popular activities among Canadian hams? Each one is likely to say it’s what they do. Now we have national survey results to give us a more complete picture rather than a collection of comments at the local ham radio club or convention.

The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) periodically conducts surveys to obtain objective information on the current status of amateur radio in Canada. The national RAC Survey of 2021 focused on operating patterns among radio amateurs, including how active they are in various specific aspects of the hobby and some key demographics. Paul Coverdell VE3ICY constructed the survey instrument (see his TCA article in the January 2021 issue). I completed a full report of my analysis of these data, along with data from Statistics Canada and ISED, which is published on the my FoxMikeHotel.com website as Operating Patterns Among Canadian Amateurs: Results from the RAC Survey 2021. This article is taken from that full report. Future papers will contain other elements of this survey.

Here I show how central some operating activities are and how others, and while ardently pursued by some, are much more niche concerns in the overall ham radio community. These results are important for both RAC and the rank-and-file amateur in Canada to know. It also helps define markets for product manufacturers (e.g., satellite equipment, etc.) as well as provide a benchmark for survey data collection in other countries on their amateur radio population.

A total of 39 operating activities were presented to respondents during the survey, asking the respondent for a declaration of their involvement. These specific activities widely ranged from casual operating to sophisticated telemetry data modes.

I sorted these responses into a bar chart from highest to lowest percent participation in the survey (Figure 1; click image for larger version). Here are the results by importance to hams in the survey. Note that individuals engage in more than one activity.

Dominant Operating Activities. While the median percent participation in all these activities is about 17 percent, the activities with the highest engagement are clear relative to this baseline. It should be little surprise that casual operating and voice modes are the top activities. Three activities reach a majority level of participation: casual operations, using traditional voice transmissions, and digital modes. This is not shocking but the level of use in digital transmission might be a surprise to most readers.

Over two-thirds (70%) operate in what they consider a casual style. Traditional voice modes, like SSB, AM or FM, are second (59%). What may be a surprise is where digital modes rank: in third place (52%). Fully one-half of Canadian amateurs now operate digital modes. This considerably out-ranks the venerable and original mode of CW (32%) where only a third say they now use Morse Code for communication. With local (46%) and HF rag-chewing (37%) registering at double the median participation rate, it is clear that hams in Canada, at times, just enjoy chatting with others. A more formal style, Net participation, is engaged in by some 43 percent.

Contesting and Chasing DX. Contesting as a pursuit is popular among a smaller group of less than one-third in size (29%). But new forms of “contesting” have emerged through portable operations such as POTA, SOTA and related activities outside the usual shack (37%).¹ Fox-hunting is followed by almost one-in-ten (9%) Canadian hams. Low power QRP operations, regardless of location, is popular in about one-fifth (23%). Mobile operation is on par with local rag-chewing in popularity (47%). Operating Special Event Stations gets about 15 percent (14.9%) engaged. Thus, the emergence of portable operating, especially in combination with formal log-submissions via Parks or Summits on the Air, has surpassed in numbers of practitioners in the traditional contesting operations. This may be a shock to some in the contesting community who have been part of the establishment of amateur radio activities for decades. These objective survey results document evidence to the contrary.²

Pursuing distant contacts (DXing) is as popular as, for instance, checking into various Nets. Some 42 percent identify as DXers. The related activity of collecting QSL cards per se falls in at only a 20 percent level of engagement. (The electronic QSL records, such as LoTW, eQSL, etc., may have supplanted paper cards for many hams.) As could be expected with the investment in money and time commitment, being involved in DXpeditions themselves is rare (5%).

Public Service. Public service in emergency communications engages about a third (37%) and more general similar activities (30%). Related to this includes weather and storm monitoring (14%). Formal traffic handling (6.2%) maintains a small but dedicated group. Drone operations might be considered in the public service arena. While it’s a new technology for amateur radio, there is a nominal set of hams in the survey (5%) who say they use it. The venerable APRS network is used by a quarter of operators (25.2%).³ Taken together, there is a significant share of Canadian amateurs engaged in emergency and related public service activities.

Building Devices.Designing and building amateur radio equipment, especially antennas, captures a surprising share of activity. Antenna construction is the third most popular activity result at 47 percent. Homebrewing and kit-building is an activity of over a third of these respondents (36%). The restoration of classic rigs and putting them on the air attract a small group (13%) but one more highly attractive to hams than a dozen other aspects of the hobby. The homebrewing roots of the hobby appear to remain alive and well.

Elmering and Coaching. The mentoring and coaching of other hams, especially newly licensed ones, is a practice that takes time. It may not be for every amateur operator. Only 17 percent (17.3%) report engaging in this activity. Related engagement for youth involves several activities, such as JOTA, TDOTA and YOTA, and garners about 8 percent of hams in Canada into their support.

Space and Satellites.Various aspects of amateur radio in space are popular. Contacting the International Space Station (ARISS) is now an attraction for many (14%). Satellite operations in general are comparable in their share of practitioners (16%). Bouncing signals off of the moon (EME) is a specialty of some 5 percent of these hams. Using amateur radio for radio astronomy, a crossover field for astronomy proper, has a small contingent (3%) of followers.

Shortwave Listening. Many amateur operators began as shortwave listeners. Over a quarter (27%) in this survey report being engaged in SWL activities. This is on par, by comparison, with formal contesting or QRP operations. Perhaps the reader is somewhat surprised by this result. SWLing is nonetheless as or more popular than contesting, public service or QRP operating.

Niche Activities. A number of miscellaneous activities may not fit into these broader sets of activities. These include: remote operations (10.2%), VHF/UHF weak signal operations (17%), off-road communications (8.2%), high altitude ballooning (2.6%) and telemetry (2.4%). Each of these may fit into other larger activities but stand on their own in this survey. These results serve as a baseline for future surveys repeating these activity questions so that their growth may be objectively determined.

A related question is just how many different activities do Canadian ham operators engage in? In other words, how specialized is the hobby? The total number of activities that RAC Survey 2021 participants reported reflects just how active each ham operator is regardless of the activity’s specific focus. It can theoretically range from 0-38 in total.

Total Number of Activities. A sum of all activities by age group is shown in the accompanying chart as a histogram (left) and by age group (right) in a bar chart (Figure 2; click image for larger version). Since we have no data with which to compare the total portfolio of an amateur operator’s activities, it’s important to examine how Canadian hams vary in pursuing them.⁴

Survey respondents say they participate in as few as one and as many as 29 different activities. The median number is nine. The left panel shows that there is a skew to the right side of the distribution where the most highly active hams are located. This shows that may hams do just a few things while a smaller group do very many activities. One might ask is this extreme activity related to the age of the amateur operator?

The right panel shows that the medians (dark bar in the box) do not vary much across each age group. There is some change from the teens to the thirty-year-old group but the pattern smooths out from there.

These hams are not followed as they “age,” so we cannot truly speak about more specialization occurring from the teen years into middle age. It could be the historical period in which each ham got licensed and socialized into the hobby, perhaps by an Elmer coach, that shapes the specific activities. The results here, however, show little change in the overall average portfolio of activities by hams of all age groups. The top group (at 10) is only three higher than the bottom group (at 7). This is a good sign for continuing engagement regardless of age as measured in 2021.

Conclusions

These nationwide survey results show that amateur radio activities in Canada are more than simply alive and well. Some hams are very highly engaged in a wide variety of activities. While it is often remarked that ham radio is a hobby-of-hobbies, the well-entrenched activities of casual QSOs with fellow hams is clearly a common core pastime. These are predominately using voice or digital modes although CW operation is practiced by one-third. Building things, especially antennas, is a very popular activity so the homebrew culture remains active today. Emergency communications and contesting tend to round-out the traditional operating areas.

It also seems clear that Canadian hams may be a diverse lot in terms of how they spend their time in the hobby. Some engage in many more activities than others. I will examine the amount of time spent in the hobby in a future article.

The overall activity levels are not lower among older age groups than younger ones. Age does not appear to impact the average of the simple number of reported activities. But it may be that Canadian hams of different ages do vary in the specific sets of activities which may shape the contours of the hobby in the decades to come. That will be the focus of my next article using these national survey data collected by RAC which will provide a clearer picture of how age-graded some activities are today.

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Notes:

1. It is debatable by many as to whether these constitute “contesting.” The participants and supporting organizations do keep score of contacts and submitted logs. They issue milestone awards. I consider them akin to contest activities because of these shared characteristics regardless of their recognized status as such.

2.In the Appendix of the full report, it is shown that about two-thirds of QRPers operate portably (64%) but a similar percentage of portable operators say they do not operate QRP (62%). We cannot be sure within this survey instrument whether these are simultaneous activities or not so keep that in mind.

3. We note that, somehow, the oft-heard critique that an amateur activity “isn’t real ham radio” if the Internet is involved skips over APRS. This activity is not possible without the Internet’s role in the system.

4. I will examine the time spent on specific modes by frequency band in a following article. This will complement this section on activity participation.

Listening to the shortwave commercial stations (along with CB radio) has been a key gateway activity for entry into amateur radio. That was back when commercial shortwave was vibrant and perhaps in its heyday. There is still a very active set of SWLs contributing to the popular SWLing.com website and the legacy work by the well-known Van Horn family to just name a couple. The Spectrum Monitor publishes information about shortwave listening, too. Of course, the Grand Daddy publication, the World Radio TV Handbook is still around. But do amateur operators still listen to the shortwave radio bands? In this article, I want to address the question I just raised with a clear answer: They still do in Canada!

The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) fielded a national survey of Canadian hams in 2021. A total of 2,089 responses were received, of which 1,630 (78%) were from RAC members. Approximately one-third of all RAC members took the time to complete the survey. This is an example of “voluntary response sample” and is not a probability survey. The final report compared responses to known population characteristics which suggested that the realized sample data is generally representative of Province and license characteristics. I’ve just completed a full report from the data which is available on my FoxMikeHotel.com website. The results on shortwave listening are the focus of this article.

The results show that indeed Canadian amateurs listen to the shortwave frequencies outside of ham radio bands. Out of 38 specific operating activities, over a fourth (28.8%) of Canadian amateurs said they are involved in shortwave listening in a typical month. This was ranked 16^th out of 38, ahead of QRP operations, Elmering, weather spotting, and other activities thought to be popular in amateur radio. This result may be surprising to the reader. But my further analysis shows a clearer picture of how traditional shortwave listing activity is integrated with other ham activities.

I have included in Figure 1 a map of all license-holders in Canada from the amateur radio regulator, ISED. The provided licensee address was georeferenced to the street-level for the vast majority and city-level for the remainder. There is also a bar chart showing how SWLing varies by Province.

Amateurs in Canada are concentrated all along the Southern border and in the urban centers of the Southeastern seaboard. There is another concentration on the Western coast near Vancouver. For the survey results, the bar chart in the bottom panel of Figure 1 illustrates how shortwave listening varies. A majority of hams in Newfoundland and the Northwest Territory use shortwave radio for listening. Those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba round out those Provinces above the overall survey mark of 28.8 percent. Excluding Nunavut Province with only 2 survey respondents, the lowest engagement in SWLing is Alberta. The remaining Provinces are about equal, in the lower twenty-percent figure.

Do these results make sense? The physical isolation of the two highest Provinces makes using shortwave broadcasts very practical in many ways. But there is more to it as I investigated whether SWLing is a more obscure activity in ham radio or is it more integrated into portfolio of things that current amateur operators do today?

In Table 1, I summarize my crosstabulation of shortwave listening by other activities (some 37 tables). The three groups summarized in the table reflect whether there was a statistically significant relationship between the two activities and, if so, whether SWLing was greater or less when the ham said they participate in the comparison activity. If there is no significant relationship, then shortwave listening is about the same whether the other activity is engaged in or not. If shortwave listening is a surprising yet obscure activity, there would be few other activities associated with it. Or, perhaps there might be no relationship at all with a random assortment of hams tuning into to those bands.

What the results in Table 1 demonstrate is how significantly integrated shortwave listening is with a number of activities central to the hobby. There are only seven activities without an association and one with a negative relationship. Contesters tend to pursue SWLing significantly less. This is the opposite, however, of what DXers report. Ham operators who listen to shortwave bands also practice a variety of popular activities in their practice of the hobby. These findings tend to remove any doubt as to whether listening to shortwave radio bands is fully an integrated part of contemporary amateur radio in Canada.

Another question about these results is whether it is simply a residual activity of the large Baby Boom cohort? Should this be the case, SWLing is likely to age out of existence over the next couple of decades. If so, shortwave listening would be highest among the most senior survey respondents and lowest among the youngest.

In Figure 2, I constructed a line chart of shortwave usage by age group. There is a clear downward trend as SWLing is highest among younger hams than more senior ones. The significance test suggests that this overall age pattern is not significant. The result is that the survey result of a quarter or more of Canadian hams engaging in shortwave listening is not a holdover of amateurs from a previous era of the hobby as younger hams.

Even with there being a non-significant trend in opposition to the Baby Boomer remnant hypothesis, I examined how long these hams had been licensed (tenure) and a complementary question in the survey regarding long many years they had been active. Perhaps it is not age per se but length of experience as a licensed or active ham that might influence whether nor not shortwave listening is attractive. These results, too, showed almost no difference regarding shortwave listening and length of experience or activity in the hobby. This are positive findings for shortwave band usage outside of amateur radio.

To further assess how shortwave listening might be linked to other factors, I compared the rural-to-urban locations of amateurs in the survey. There are no significant differences even when compared within these Provinces. The rural-to-urban locale does not explain why some Provinces have higher shortwave listening levels than others.

To conclude, these are somewhat unexpected findings based upon the rhetoric that ham radio operators tell themselves in the public sphere. We frequently hear that shortwave listening is passe, that the commercial and government broadcasters are retreating, and so forth. These may be factually the case from the supply-side of non-ham shortwave transmissions. But the hams in Canada do listen to shortwave broadcasts or one type or another in addition to participating in the core set of activities that comprises amateur radio. Contesting is the sole specialty that is negatively related to such listening. By contrast, DXers are more likely to listen (30.2% vs 23.6%). There are Provincial variations in listening but no patterns within any of them that vary along the rural-to-urban continuum.

The relationship of SWLing to the rest of the amateur radio hobby’s activities appears well-integrated. While the broadcast sector of the shortwave industry is at a low ebb right now, amateur radio in Canada still embraces listening to the non-ham bands. We do not know how this national survey of Canadian amateurs may compare to those of other nations. However, it is the sole survey of which I am aware that measures the activities of amateur radio operators in such detail. Until we do have comparative surveys, the RAC Survey 2021 is our only objective insight into ham radio activities.

Some readers may view these surprising results through their own “personal windshield” of listening experiences. “Why, I don’t know any hams who listen to shortwave broadcasts,” they might say. Others could counter, “Well, we need some “good” survey data on this issue.” I’ve spent a career conducting surveys, teaching survey research methods to PhD students (and fellow faculty), and advising some of the largest survey organizations in the world, such as NORC at the University of Chicago, the SRC at the University of Michigan, and the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service to name a few. The RAC Survey of 2021 is not a high quality statistical probability sample costing a few hundred thousand of dollars. But it is the best one I’ve seen to date on a national scale with behavioral measures of amateur radio operators. So while the reader’s experiences on SWLing might indeed be differ, it is the aggregate picture that we have never had national level results like those in the RAC Survey 2021. Do they apply to the U.S.? Well, would you rather go just with your personal windshield to generalize or take the picture these results present as our best guesstimate for similar behavior in the States?

Since the previous blog post got out and syndicated via AmateurRadio.com, I’ve had inquiries about how to go about building an effective relationship with a local library system. Some clubs have already done this but focusing on emergency communications activities. The ARRL tends to call these “served agencies.” This may be with a local Emergency Management Agency, hospitals, area Red Cross agency, or local governments. As I’ve written here before, why not think of other organizations as educational “served agencies”? That might be a good start!

Back in January (2024), I led a Forum at the Capital City Hamfest in Jackson MS on developing strategic partnerships with public libraries. We had representatives from the Madison County (MS) Library System and the Director and Vice Director of the Delta Division of the ARRL on the Panel. Here is an updated slide deck of that Forum discussion. The interested reader might use this as a jumping-off point to take the ball and start dribbling (see last slide!).

Download PDF here.

Strategic-partnerships-with-public-libraries-by-ham-radio-Updates

The partnership of the Jackson (MS) ARC and the public library system in the northern suburb of Madison County took another step last month. JARC donated two 3D printers valued at $3,000 to the Madison County Library System in late May. This adds to the library system’s capabilities to serve patrons who are engaged in “maker” activities. The library policy is to only charge for the actual resin used to print the object file submitted by the patron. I’ve had custom shells for PC power supplies that I had converted to ham radio use as well as a number of other things. The most expensive thing I had printed was about $8 or so. Why would I buy a 3D printer unless I just wanted one? (If I could find the space….).

Back in February at the Capital City Hamfest, I chaired a Forum on building partnerships with public libraries. The MCLS technology staff was on that Panel, along with staffing a booth on the floor. It was easily one of the most visited booths at this hamfest of about 900 attendees. Building a relationship with an organization, I said in my talk, was more than just buying ARRL books and dropping them off. It’s about finding mutually-beneficial activities that help both the library achieve its goals as well as the goals of the amateur radio club. It’s too bad that so many ham operators tell me that they’ve not been to a public library in ___ number of years. Two groups that hams say they want to recruit — young people and women — do go to public libraries. So much so that it’s twice as frequently as they go to the movie theater in a given month, leading the Gallup Organization to call public libraries the most common “cultural crossroads” in America.

The Jackson ARC has taken another step in building this partnership between them and the MCLS. See the Press Release below. Can your club build something similar with your area library system?

JARC-3D-Printer-Donation-MCLS-Press-Release

Our first Get S.M.A.R.T. @ the Library event last Saturday (March 2, 2024) was a success. The Jackson ARC is holding quarterly Get S.M.A.R.T. events at the Madison (MS) Branch over 2024. Held at the Madison (MS) Branch of the Madison County Library System, we had 13 participants. Four declared that they were committed to getting their Technician license. After Library staff welcomed the group and introduced me as ARRL Assistant Director for the Delta Division and JARC President, Jim AK5J, Board Member Clay AC5Z served as the EmCee for the session. As the picture below illustrates, some were on the edge of their seats learning about today’s amateur radio story!

We used the ARRL slide deck for the basic overview during the first hour. This material is very good for introducing amateur radio to the public from my reading. We did not use the video but will use that to review in our third event, as explained in more detail below. Clay AC5Z was the lead speaker for the first hour’s information. He began with a personal “war story” but his details made the point of our theme: this is NOT your father’s radio! Here’s a snippet of that segment.

This broad overview from the ARRL material was followed up in the second hour by localizing amateur radio to the Madison area. Using the map of hams created by Ross  KT1F, we first showed the famous Herman Munster segment operating in his basement as a ham. All in attendance had some recollection of this cartoon-ish description of hams. Afterwards, the point was made that licensed operators aren’t likely to be very scary. Many live nearby, often in an audience member’s own neighborhood! While all knew that Herman was a fictional character, this attacked head-on the notion that hams are “different” in negative ways. But no, they are a lot like you and may well live next door. This map localized the some 250 licensed hams in Madison County in a way that is not possible with mere words alone. It clearly and emphatically made the point that we needed to make with a high degree of audience enthusiasm. Here’s a screenshot of that map, centered on the Madison Branch Library.

This second hour was largely spent on several hams giving brief explanations on one of their respective specialties. Mike K5XU, a blind since birth ham of over 50 years who has a career in broadcasting, explained his use of Morse Code in his CW operations. He related his early experiences in the Mississippi School for the Blind where a librarian helped him get amateur radio materials to learn CW. Rick N5ZNL extolled his love of working satellites as the audience piled on the questions about this segment of the hobby that is growing in popularity. Rick’s enthusiasm was contagious in the group in attendance. I (Frank K4FMH) discussed my activity in building things, emphasizing transceivers packaged for portable operations. These include various transceivers, ranging from QRP-ish rigs to a 500w station in a Gator Case, and battery boxes to power them. Clay AC5Z discussed his using Arduino-based tools to construct an automatic satellite tracker device for a light-load satellite antenna. This set of brief (and I emphasize brief) comments about various specialties that local hams participate in were very effective tools to give public attendees a clear sense of what we do. Many had questions, asked with enthusiasm. I believe that they will tell others before the next meeting.

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Librarians as Hams, Libraries having amateur radio “shacks”

In addition to hosting these Get S.M.A.R.T. events, the MCLS has announced a goal of having at least one library staffer at each county library branch licensed in the near future. Coinciding with this licensure plan, they will be obtaining a ham station at each branch with a licensed amateur radio operator on staff. We hope to assist MCLS in obtaining equipment for operating on both VHF/UHF as well as HF as this effort matures over the year. This addition to their “maker space” facility development is huge.

This commitment by the Library System was unexpected on my end. But it underscores the interest by libraries to catalyze their STEM programming efforts. With homeschooling being a significant and growing trend, local public libraries are also school libraries for some. STEM programming is a “thing” these days for public libraries as they try to better serve their market. In Madison County (MS), they see a local amateur radio club like JARC being a highly valued partner in this effort. So much so that they are willing to get staff licensed, equipment acquired and installed, and give demonstrations for library patrons. Add bringing in JARC members for enhanced instruction and there’s a winning combination.

In our next Saturday Morning Amateur Radio Time (S.M.A.R.T.) event at the Madison Branch Library, we will conduct an activation behind the library using their Garden area. It has a permanent Gazebo and fixed picnic tables with seating. There are tall trees. This is planned for early May when the weather is more predictable here in Central Mississippi. We may promote this as a field test for “Libraries on the Air (LiOTA)” but I haven’t firmly decided on that. This activity will give attendees a chance to see amateur radio in action and participate themselves under a control operator. We will have HF stations operating CW, SSB and FT8 along with a VHF/UHF rig talking to local repeaters and Rick N5ZNL waving his Arrow antenna toward the sky for satellite contacts. Rumor has it that hot dogs, potato chips, and a cold drink may be available. Hmm. Should the event be titled, “All that Ham Radio—and a Bag of Chips“?

The final two Get SMART events will be back in the Library meeting room during late summer and fall. I’ll have a better sense of the topics that will be most effective then, after the activation event. We hope to have a summer Technician training and testing class in the Library, as four declared their commitment as well as library staff who are interested.

This year-long cycle, managed by the Jackson ARC in concert with my efforts as ARRL Delta Division Assistant Director, will tell us a great deal about how to partner with public libraries as a “served educational agency” to reach the public. Thus far, I could not have asked for a better partnership than with the MCLS and the JARC.

Churches and Chapels on the Air (CHOTA) 2024 will be held on Saturday, 14th September, 2024. John G3XYF, organizer of CHOTA in the UK, has announced the date for this year. For a roster in an Excel spreadsheet of the churches in the UK and US that were registered in 2023, go to this link.

Churches and Chapels on the Air (CHOTA) 2024
will be held on Saturday, 14th September, 2024

https://wacral.org/chota-2024/

In 2023, I took a leadership role in promoting participation in this low-key event here in the U.S. John G3XYF welcomed this idea. We had about a dozen on this side of the Pond to join in the fun. For 2024, I’ve floated this idea to John for his review and consideration.

What if, at a specified time each hour, every church team QSYed to a specified 20 meter frequency and tried to work each other across the Pond? Of course, propagation and equipment will rule the day. But by incorporating this 10 minute or so period into the framework, it will continue to build a bridge between the two sets of ham operators, no? I’ll post later if this idea has merit with the organizer.

Consider fielding a team at an area church this year! I’ve had several inquiries that I’ve sent along to John G3XYF as the organizer of the event. This has been underway in some fashion since 1957 so isn’t it high time we got in gear on this? Pass this webpage along to other hams whom you might think would be interested.

My church Senior Pastor and Church Administrator quickly button-holed me after the event to please organize it again in 2024. It was a great activity with the stress-to-fun ratio definitely being in the operator’s favor! Food availability tends to draw a crowd…

I’ve included a previous story I published on the Vicksburg (MS) ARC website below so readers can see how it went at my church in Ridgeland, MS for the 2023 event.

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Some of our members participated in the first annual special event of CHOTA in the United States. This was at the Highlands Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland, MS on Saturday, September 9, 2023. CHOTA is Churches and Chapels On The Air, an event of the World Association of Christian Radio Amateurs and Listeners. That organization began in 1957 in England by the Huddersfield South Methodist Radio Club. It’s been ecumenical since 1978. (See https://k4fmh.com/2023/07/12/chota-2023/ for details on CHOTA and planning for this event.)

The Jackson ARC managed the Welcome Tent uponr the invitation of event organizer Frank K4FMH and his church administrator, Larnie Shinnick. JARC invited members of VARC to attend, operate and exhibit satellite communications. Eddie Pettis N5JGK was joined by an area ham, Rick Largent N5ZNL to showcase this activity. All area hams were invited to attend the event through the dissemination of an announcement flyer and ARRL MS Section emails.

Four stations were set up to work Phone, CW, FT8, and satellites. The HF stations used wire antennas hung from trees on one corner of the church’s sixteen-acre campus. Stations were limited to these to avoid RF interference. The SSB and FT8 stations each had bandpass filters to help in this regard. VARC member Eddie Pettis N5JGK used his HT and Arrow antenna, as did Rick Largent N5ZNL, to work satellites. Mike N5DU used his Xiegu G90 station at 10 watts to work FT8 on 10 and 15 meters, reaching Europe, South America for several contacts that really excited TV reporter Walt Grayson in his story. Frank K4FMH brought his HF station built into a large Gator Case featuring an Icom 7300, Ameritron amplifier, MFJ ATU, Array Solutions Bandpass System, and BHI DSP speaker. Tom Brown AE5I brought his Yaesu FT-897 transceiver and CW bug where he and Mike Duke K5XU worked the meager options available on a very ragged 40M band. A total of over 100 contacts were made throughout the US as well as around the world. Two SSB contacts were with other activated churches in the US although those in England were not heard here.

The church provided a food truck on site and added ice cream. Both were free to those in attendance. We greatly appreciate Highlands Pres for being such a gracious host for this event! Truly, a good time was had by all in attendance.

The news media was present and gave great coverage of the event, including a front-page story in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger on Monday (see pic). The Clarion-Ledger has a gallery of pictures taken by reporter Ed Inman with a front-page story in the paper’s Monday, September 11th edition. Legendary TV news reporter Walt Grayson of WJTV Channel 12 in Jackson published a video feature story for the Monday evening newscast. Jim Armstrong AK5J said that for as long as he has been a licensed ham operator, he has not seen as much publicity for amateur radio as this event has received.

Here is the coverage by Walt Grayson of WJTV Channel 12 in Jackson:

Below are some additional pictures of the event for you to enjoy.

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It’s taken me months longer than I anticipated but my full analysis of the national survey that the Radio Amateurs of Canada fielded in 2021 is now in completed form. RAC President Phil McBride VA3QR and Regulatory Affairs Officer Dave Goodwin VE3KG are reading it now.

Dave Goodwin had asked me to drop everything and do an extensive analysis of the 2023 RAC survey on amateur call signs for the regulator in Canada. They have published that report and the raw data themselves on the RAC.ca website. I hope they do the same with this one. It reflects RAC’s commitment to transparency in their work as the national organization for amateur radio.

I have placed a March 2024 date on the “final” version after any corrections in the final draft are completed. RAC will publish the report on their main website afterwards. I’ll put a copy at my complementary website, FoxMikeHotel.com, under this link.

There are some very significant findings in this report for amateur radio in Canada. These data are, from my experience, the most detailed measurements of operating activity for a national survey that is publicly known. Alan Griffin, Editor of RAC journal The Canadian Amateur, is interested in my submission of papers for their consideration. Stay tuned…

One of the most popular phrases from the dead language of Latin is Et tu, Brute? It is a Latin phrase literally meaning “and you, Brutus?” or “also you, Brutus?”, often translated as “You as well, Brutus?”, “You too, Brutus?”, or “Even you, Brutus?”. I’m sure we’ve all used the phrase at one time or another.

dead language
a language that is no longer spoken by anyone as their main language:
Latin is a dead language.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/dead-language

It’s largely locked in stone as to what the Latin phrase is but, as noted, there is some variation as to how it is translated into English. So even “dead” languages can have some variation in translation to other “living” languages. Ask any Biblical scholar on translations from Aramaic or Hebrew to English. It’s a critical part in setting apart various religious traditions. Part of this variation is because living languages are continually spoken, written, and otherwise propagated among people throughout a given culture. It’s how slang becomes mainstream. There is little in the way of formal grammar to stop this element of social change especially among newer generations. For the stern grammarians in the room: sorry, gag me with a spoon.

living language
a language that is still being used and spoken by people

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/dead-language

I was thinking about dead vs living languages recently when I read my friend Thomas K4SWL’s post on his popular QRPer.com blog. His post was encouraging low power operators to sign not with the famous “73” but “72” instead. To use a current slang term, what up with that? I’ll quote K4SWL directly on this:

“72” isn’t a new ham radio abbreviation but according to my light research, it doesn’t date back to the earliest days of wireless either (please correct me if I’m wrong).

The late and great George Dobbs (G3RJV) notes in his book “QRP Basics” that 72 has been in use since the late 1980s as a way some operators identify that they’re running QRP or low power (generally 5 watts or less).

Thomas K4SWL was not creating something entirely new. The QRP icon George Dobbs G3RJV had acknowledged that the practice originally had currency in QRP circles in the 1980s. That’s over three decades ago. This was hardly a shockingly new revelation but something that Thomas was advocating in today’s rising popularity of QRP operations, especially in parks and on mountain peaks. Use 72 to promote QRP operations!

I commented on his post, perhaps channeling my “inner Onno” from Aussie-Land. I teased Thomas that he was dangerously treading on the controversial “living language” paradigm in amateur radio. The Grammar Police will surely track him down online, lol. I added a few comments about this monkey business on the cultural icon of using “73” as a QSO closing (or in any other communication in ham radio). I thought I’d amplify those comments here. Don’t read if you aren’t willing to spend the time with the argument I present. It’s lengthy. Or if, as the old Tareyton cigarette commercial slogan stated, you’d “rather fight than switch.”

One of the persistently divisive themes in the culture of amateur radio, especially in the United States, involves language. Yep, words. How we use them and what others think they mean. The most divisive one emanates from a cultural artifact created at the beginning of “the wireless.” By importing some of the shorthand codes from the wired telegraphy industry, wireless ham operators started using 73 in the version of Morse Code they adopted to end a transmission. This was clearly for the sake of making transmissions more efficient. I’ll note that, frankly, there were many sets of “codes,” each reflecting what a sound should be interpreted as in terms of letters or numbers or punctuation:

A telegraph code is one of the character encodings used to transmit information by telegraphy. Morse code is the best-known such code. Telegraphy usually refers to the electrical telegraph, but telegraph systems using the optical telegraph were in use before that. A code consists of a number of code points, each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet, a numeral, or some other character. In codes intended for machines rather than humans, code points for control characters, such as carriage return, are required to control the operation of the mechanism. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_code]

In fact, there were many different sets of codes! An extensive number of the early “code books” can be found in the website page below. I must say, wow, what a “living” language they were creating! From 1880 thru 1957 — some 77 years — there were continually new sets of codes and modifications of previous ones. Latin, it wasn’t!

As the ARRL’s website claims, “The first authentic use of 73 is in the publication The National Telegraph Review and Operators’ Guide, first published in April 1857. At that time, 73 meant “My love to you!” Succeeding issues of this publication continued to use this definition of the term. Curiously enough, some of the other numerals then used have the same definition now that they had then, but within a short time, the use of 73 began to change.” I don’t think the Beatles used this meaning of 73 to pen, “PS: I love you“!

This rendition of the history of the shorthand code, 73, clearly places it in the domain of a “living language” artifact. The Dodge Manual listed it as a code for “Best Regards” which has become the point of divisiveness among far too many amateur operators, for far too long. The ARRL site tries to resolve the matter by ending with, “Today, amateurs use it more in the manner that James Reid had intended that it be used –a “friendly word between operators.” Hmm. Could those words be whatever the operator wanted as long as it was friendly?

As CBS TV News Anchor Walter Cronkite used to say at the end of his newscast, “And that’s the way it is!” Mr. Cronkite, as the reader likely knows, was a well-known amateur radio operator, too. Many hams do take the 73 as “Best regards” in the spirit of Cronkite’s newscast signature, seemingly prefering to fight rather than switch.

When my friend Thomas K4SWL posted his article, he was doing what many of those groups did at the outset of “CW” operations: proposing a new numerical shortcode with a specific reference meaning. With tongue-in-cheek, I pointed out that in the Comments section on his blog post that he had strayed into the “living language” territory for ham radio grammar. The 3rd rail of the “dead language” view is using 73 with a plural notation: 73s, 73’s, etc. Even though Maxim used 73’s at the time, the Dead Language enthusiasts (think Latin) tend to rage about this usage. I’ve continued to puzzle over why is this so?

I taught engineering students in statistics and related classes (GIS, remote sensing) over several decades. As they wrote research papers in my courses, I noticed a tendency for some to approach writing as an engineering problem with an equation-like process. As the TV character Barney Fife might say: Obey All Rules! Now, not all of my engineering students had this viewpoint but enough did for me to remember. (See, by contrast, Bob Witte K0NR’s wonderful writing as an engineer and ham operator. Or Rob Sherwood NC0B’s clear and well-written articles.)

Moreover, engineering students were not the only ones who had such an approach to writing, such as the social science student who told me that there was only one way to write a specific paragraph. Goodness. That flew in the face of this former radio News Director who rewrote news stories for the top-of-the-hour newscast back in the day. My gut told me that this hardening of the categories in writing came from previously struggling in English composition classes so the “rules” were clung to like a life raft. I have no way to generalize that so it’s just my impression based on my personal experience.

Here’s an example from a well-known ham operator who is an expert in propagation, certainly imbued with a clear background in things involving solar science (and one whom I read often and respect a lot). Here is Tomas NW7US’s blog post on this 73 grammar “travesty”:

My pointing out this post isn’t a personal criticism of Tomas NW7US. It’s an intellectual statement about language use in amateur radio with Tomas’s public post as only one clear example. Merely reviewing the Forums on eHam.net or QRZ.com reveals many others who make the very same argument. It IS a strongly held belief by a significant group of hams. But why? Especially since the history of these two-digit codes were so dynamic during their development and for years after.

Here are my observations as a professional sociologist and statistician. Scientists and engineers may well understand the grammar training they received but they are not experts in social linguistics. Those professionals are indeed schooled in how language is organized, operates, and changes over time. Sociologists often use social linguistics when they study social change as cultural shifts are always part of that process. And how these beliefs are stratified across a social group like the ham radio community is prime intellectual real estate for us. Many sociologists who specialize in analyzing social action (using dramaturgy) carefully analyze the meanings sent and received by social actors in a setting or context.

Why the strongly held beliefs today about how the two-digit code “73” should be used in oral and written communications? These ham operators invariably impose grammatical substitution rules to take the original shorthand definition of 73 as “best regards” to infer that 73s/‘s is the same as saying “best regards’s,” a silly thing to do as Tomas NW7US says. Something that only the Cat in the Hat might do, for instance. This rigid grammar logic assumes that early telegraphy shorthand is a completely dead set of denoted abbreviations. Dead such that the only meaning imputed to them has been fixed and, therefore, cannot violate the substituted grammatical expressions held by these ham operators. Somehow, the Soup Nazi episode from the TV show Seinfield comes to mind. For it is not a dead expression of telegrapher’s codes as there were indeed many varying expressions associated with this two-digit code. Thomas K4SWL’s declaration about 72, reflecting some quarter century in use, is just one example that our hobby language follows a “living” model.

I’ve searched high and low in the academic world of linguistics about what are common understandings about the grammar of such symbolic representations. The Linguistic Society of America told me that they have NO members who claim expertise in the grammar of such symbols. Not one. Even my social media contact Grammar Girl declined to weigh-in on this matter! She said she wasn’t not aware of any grammatical rules that would apply.

What is Linguistics?
In a nutshell: Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguists apply the scientific method to conduct formal studies of speech sounds and gestures, grammatical structures, and meaning across the world’s 6,000+ languages.

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/what-linguistics

Thus, THERE ARE NO ACCEPTED RULES for conjugating ancient telegraphy symbol representations by anyone who has actual expertise in the matter of linguistics or grammar. These “substitution rules” used by some ham operators are created out of thin air. And they ain’t in Strunk & White either! To repeat, these hams are treating two-letter codes as if they are part of a “dead” language whereas they may have never been, given the dynamic history of telegraphy ciphers.

So, are these codes actually part of a living language set of cultural artifacts in today’s amateur radio?

I’ve done keyword searches periodically in eHam and QRZ for “73” versus “73s” or “73’s”. I was careful to isolate 73 without the s or ‘s. The results always show between 40-55% of the post authors use a plural form of 73. This is clear evidence of a living language usage pattern by contemporary amateurs in those Forums. While not necessarily representative of all discourse by ham operators, it is enough evidence to demonstrate the differing patterns of usage existing in modern times for the two-digit symbol of 73. Even the icon Hiram Percy Maxim used 73’s in his QSL cards back in the period where this symbol was beginning to be used frequently. Note, too, that he writes “Best 73’s” which, if we used the substitution rule would be “Best Best Regards’s,” no? Silly Old man, he was. (Or not.)

From the outset, it seems that even prominent hams had grammatical issues with how to express the underlying meaning in written language using the two-digit code, 73. Once more, how come? There appears to be a straightforward answer that has not been presented heretofore from my extensive reading in the amateur radio literature.

One academic social linguist who didn’t want to go on record with an official quote because of the lack of published evidence in the matter offered me an interpretation that as a professional sociologist I agree has merit. It ties together the existing cultural conflict and the dead vs living language distinction into an explanation.

The original use of 73 was not intended for spoken or written language but solely for the mode of Morse Code communication efficiency. It has various meanings associated with it in various “code books” early on. But it was never meant to always be a literal translation, only a shorthand for a common closing, much like the gentle wave of the hand to generally acknowledge another person. To illustrate a distinction by converse, try using SSB in a QSO but only saying letters instead of enunciating full words. Clearly, this would be a different language format, one that would likely end the QSO with the other ham quickly! Why? It’s not meant to be communicated that way in voice modes.

Another useful reminder is how common “symbols” in the form of gestures have certainly changed wildly over time. And we now think nothing of it, losing the connection to the original meaning. Take the simple handshake. It’s global in use, typically exchanged as a greeting or departing message. But that message originally formed around demonstrating no threat or possession of weapons. It was also used to seal an alliance. But today we do not invoke the handshake as a statement that we mean no threat and do not have weapons upon ourselves. (Should we not shake hands today if we are packing heat?)

But once in common usage, the SYMBOL of 73 began to stand on its own, only mildly tethered to the original cheat sheet reference for these early shorthand representations. Recall the ARRL’s version of the history of 73, regaling us with the meandering underlying interpretations of the cipher. Remember, they were created solely to save the poor telegrapher’s ligaments and reduce time hogging the party-line telegraph circuit. Thus, the substitution method invoked by some hams has NO grounding or support that I can find from professionals in linguistics or the most famous grammarian of the day, Mignon Fogarty (aka Grammar Girl). It truly is an argument made up in whole cloth by would-be grammar police. (Hmm. I wonder if they’d try to correct the rock band, Police, in their 1980 hit song, “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da”? But I am up for a CW rendition with De Dit Dit Dit…)

The fact that many proficient CW ops don’t “hear” letters but words or abbreviations in the dits-and-dahs underscores the living vs dead language distinction. The dits and dahs are mostly heard as clusters of sounds representing a letter, number or punctuation mark. Moreover, there are “pro signs” that supercede the use of formal words in order to be more efficiently transmitted and received, the original intent of all of the telegrapher’s ciphers. So when the symbol, 73, is used, other hams understand the “positive feeling” being expressed, not strictly one specific example used in the past, such as best regards.

A contemporary analogy is the emoji. It’s a symbolic, cartoon-like figure that represents a expression, sentiment or other cultural objects. How “should” we conjugate an emoji symbol? There is no grammar syntax for doing so now or perhaps in the future because these symbols are very much only VAGUE representations of “emotions.” Any claims right now by supposed emoji grammar police would quickly get rebuffed as illegitimate. This is an analogy for the two-digit cipher of 73 conveying a “positive feeling” being expressed.

Emoji are a slightly more recent invention…If it’s a little cartoon figure that is free from the binds of punctuation, numbers, and letters, it’s an emoji.

https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-emoji-and-emoticons

I’ve facetiously written from time to time, just to aggravate the Grammar PoPo: 73’s, one to each of you! This ties in knots the logic of the substitution method since each and every single person technically gets one “73” (by substitution, best regards) while acknowledging that there are many recipients being spoken to. (This method in the sociology specialization of ethnomethodology is a well-known procedure of intentional rule-breaking to identify the taken-for-granted structure of meaning in communication.) Clearly, this is nonsense that only Dr. Seuss would embrace.

But Hiram Percy Maxim embraced the distinction between CW symbols and their use in written form as stand-alone terms in his widely reproduced QSL cards. As a stand-alone symbol, it is understandable that he would make it plural, much the same way that the formal word “regard” is used as “regards.” From the keyword searching results I cited above, about half of the hams today understand that it’s a stand-alone symbol, detached from the specifics of “Best regards,” much as it was in the original period where these codes were formulated. It’s a grammar that largely never really was.

To conclude this set of thoughts, behavior over time will eventually override previous rules. Ain’t isn’t a proper contraction according to grammar books. But it is in frequent use. The use of 73 to end a communication has not had in practice an explicit and sole connection to the telegrapher’s code list for a century now. As James Reid had intended that it be used, “friendly word between operators,” it has become just that. No more and no less.

So in my post comment, I gave congratulations to Thomas K4SWL on promoting the use of 72 to represent QRP transmissions. Symbols like this are living language artifacts based on the cultural change of a century now. Thanks K4SWL for helping to move this along! Viva le 72! (Hmm. Is this really gendered?)

To the Grammar Police: be like Elsa and let it go!

Best Regards’s,

Frank K4FMH

Agent 86 in the 1965 NBC Television comedy, Get Smart, was a raging success during the years it was on network television. The phrase, Get Smart, became a water cooler slogan in the United States. While it was a comedy of errors on the part of the “smart” agents, the phrase has continued on for a half century.

We are reviving that phrase but it’s no comedy! As part of the Plant the Seed, Sow the Future initiative with the ARRL, I have resurrected an acronym that I created some years ago. S.M.A.R.T. stands for Saturday Morning Amateur Radio Time. Saturday morning is a time when many amateur operators and the public are away from their weekly schedules and attend to other matters. Like hobbies.

David KC5AAW used that phrase to organize a couple of outings in local parks in Madison MS before the ARRL’s National Parks on the Air program was created and, of course, prior to POTA^(tm) becoming popular. It fizzled out after a few highly enjoyable outings due to KC56AAW entering graduate school while maintain his professional career but I had not forgotten the acronym.

My resurrection of S.M.A.R.T. is this. The Gallup organization has found that women and youth frequent public libraries twice as often as they do movie theaters. It’s the most common cultural crossroads for these two demographic groups in the United States. Supporting the newly-approved program by the ARRL to assist affiliated clubs to partner with local public libraries, the concept is for a local club to organize periodic ham radio activities at area public libraries on Saturday mornings. These programs are not directed at fellow amateur radio operators but to the general public. Patrons can thus Get S.M.A.R.T. at the library!

To kick this off locally, I’ve been working with the Jackson Amateur Radio Club to implement a formal partnership with the Madison County (MS) Public Library System. The JARC is securing funds to donate material and equipment to help build-out the MCLS “maker spaces” for STEM programming. JARC recently donated $2,000 of books and posters to the MCLS as described on the ARRL News feed. They are attempting to secure funds to donate the first of several 3D printers to the system, among other “maker” equipment.

A Get S.M.A.R.T. at the Library series will begin on March 2, 2024 with an introduction to patrons about today’s world of amateur radio. In May, when the weather is more predictable, a live activation of the Madison MS Branch Library is planned. It will be in a garden area behind the building, containing a gazebo and several permanent picnic tables. There are large, tall oak trees for antenna placement! We will setup portable stations so patrons can see and participate in today’s amateur radio action. (I’m looking for a hotdog vendor…) All of the Library System Administrators are anxious to attend and get a turn operating a radio. The flyer I’ve developed for the first event is shown at the end of this post.

Activities like these are planned to continue. The JARC will gauge the interest for a Technician Class during the year. The STEM programming from these activities will significantly enhance the Library system’s offerings to the public. We expect that new hams will become minted as a result.

Here is the standardized logo for branding the concept. It’s designed to be reusable with new dates, times and places. This will help build logo recognition for the program over time. If you’d like to use this concept at your local club, just drop me a note at my QRZ.com email address for permission to use the copyrighted logo. I’ll send you a blank one for your artwork and non-commercial use.

Amateur radio clubs should consider “getting smart” at their local libraries as an educational outreach program. The future viability of the hobby may just depend on it. Plus, it’s fun to share what you do in amateur radio with others who are already at a place because they want to learn stuff.

The Get S.M.A.R.T. at the Library concept has now gone international. The Sutton & Cheam Radio Society in South London has adopted the program (with express permission). Martin M1MRB and Chris M0TCH will lead an eight-week series at a local library, teaching the public about today’s amateur radio scene. Martin has created a website for “smart radio” in the UK to support the efforts. It’s exciting to see this idea gain traction across the pond!

This program concept can easily be replicated wherever there are ham radio groups and public libraries. It is far, far easier to get into libraries, who actively seek outside groups to provide content programing, than it is schools. Both are important for training a new generation of hams. Public libraries are the place where “home schooled” children frequent to get educational resources. So “schools” are not the only place where children are getting “schooled” as the home-schooling movement is significant in terms of size. A Washington Post article claimed it is the fastest-growing form of education outside of a conventional school setting in the U.S. Most estimates of the total numbers range from 3-4 million children nationwide.

See my previous blog articles on engaging with public libraries as another “served agency” for amateur radio. Libraries want ham radio clubs there for STEM programming. Just build a relationship with the Library System Director, much like an Emergency Operations Center relationship. Similarly, this is not a “drive by” donation to a library but a served agency relationship that is built over time.

The ball is in your court. We are already dribbling here in Central Mississippi!

Recently I ran across an intriguing notice on the RSGB website. It was a notice to “prepare for CHOTA” back in 2021. CHOTA is Churches and Chapels on the Air, a product of the World Association of Christian Radio Amateurs and Listeners (wacral.org). That organization began in 1957 in England by the Huddersfield South Methodist Radio Club. It’s been ecumenical since 1978. Intriguing! Another institutional space for using amateur radio as outreach to the public. If you are a church member, it reaches out to the public who may be unaware of your existence.

I wrote to John G3XYF (jhwresdell (at) gmail.com), asking him about the prospects of my assembling a team to activate my own church in order to get the US involved in this long standing event. He quickly replied and encouraged me to do so. John only asks for activators to merely drop him a line with the call sign being used and the location of the church or chapel (or other religious institution) being activated. John will be using the call GB0LOW from his local church in the East Riding of Yorkshire. If you’re in England, contact John ahead of time for an SES callsign. And don’t forget to obtain your church leaders’ permission!

This year CHOTA is on Saturday, September 9, 2023. After contacting John G3XYF, who manages CHOTA, I learned that there has been no participation from the States in this unique event. With the dramatic rise in Parks OTA participation, getting churches on the air in a similar “non-contest” style would be enjoyable.

From the WACRAL website: There is an award available for working any CHOTA stations on the Saturday of the event – . Let’s hope the conditions are good! Those claiming the award must contact eight (8) or more CHOTA stations. Copies of the logs must include date, time, frequency, call sign of station and operators name and call sign. To claim your award, send this information to Alistair McGoff (2E0TGF) amcgoff4 @ gmail.com

This year CHOTA is on Saturday, September 9, 2023.

It’s not a contest but more of a POTA-style event.

Consider putting your church (or any church) on the air in September from here in the US. Not every one will be blessed with the space that my church has (see below) but we hams are creative in fitting our operations into the space that is available. Don’t forget to drop John G3XYF (jhwresdell (at) gmail.com) a note letting him know of your activation.

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My moderate-sized church, Highlands Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland MS, sits on a 16 acre campus. In the Southwest corner, there is a small meadow with full oak and pine trees on a small ridge. It is directly across from the Township at Colony Park retail and residential complex. After doing a walk around, my church administrator and I saw it as a very useful space, both for CHOTA as well as future outdoor youth and young adult social events (think concerts, movies, and so forth). An aerial photograph illustrates the layout.

But would RF noise make it impossible on HF? I took my Icom IC-705 and a 40-10M EFHW antenna with me and threw the far end of the antenna up in a tree. There was almost no RFI detected on 20, 17 or 10 meters. That doesn’t mean that none might not suddenly appear but it’s a good omen, nonetheless. Here’s a snippet of the low noise floor I heard on 20 meters. It was very similar on 17 and 10 meters.

If we stage four tents with stations, that will give us one each for SSB, CW and Digital modes. A fourth would be a Visitor tent for those who stop by. The Jackson ARC has agreed to attend and manage the Visitor tent. The Vicksburg ARC has agreed to have Eddie N5JGK and Chris AF5OQ on hand to work satellites. Eddie is an old hand at working the Sats. He will provide us with anticipated passes in view of the ISS and other birds workable by a handheld with an Arrow dual band antenna so we can advertise the estimated times. Chris AF5OQ is President of VARC who will drive some of their members over to this event. This spot is a great spot for our planned activation with plenty of room for visitors.

My church administrator mentioned having a food truck on hand for the event. The JARC is now working with the Madison County Library System. Their adult and youth services director is dying to talk to the ISS. She can drive library patrons to the event. The options for wire and vertical antennas in the pictures below are readily available (even if we wanted to put up an antenna for 160M). See the pan-around video beneath them for a better view. Can you spot the bonus item we discovered in this video? Some of our young people are making the rounds on the recent disc golf course established on the church campus. One of them designed the course.

Did you spot the electrical meter and service panel left from a previous construction staging site? My church administrator is getting it reactivated. It will not only assist our CHOTA 2023 (and beyond) activation but be critical for other outdoor activities held in this beautiful space. While we operate battery and solar powered on our portable ops, having mains power will just make things easier for the whole event.

Food. Retail shopping across the street. Public officials. Library staff. Entire church invited, especially the young adult and youth groups. Get a successful satellite activation or two with area club members dropping by to participate and this could be an event!

As readers of my blog have likely observed, I’ve been promoting a “served agency” partnership between the ARRL-affiliated clubs and local public libraries. I’m told by my Division Director, David K5UZ, that the Plant the Seed, Sow the Future Initiative was formally adopted by the ARRL Board of Directors in a recent meeting. I’ve had virtual meetings with ARRL HQ staff on advising them regarding technical details of adding maps, databases, and other material to the arrl.org website pages pertaining to clubs. The entire website was recently revised (again) so this is taking some time. Need I say, LoTW?

Locally, I’ve been working with the Jackson ARC in their recent formal partnership with the Madison County (MS) Public Library System to enhance the emergent “maker spaces” in that library system. Over this year in my role as Delta Division Assistant Director, I’ve been doing club development work with the Vicksburg ARC who is refocusing their activities and initiatives, including some discussions with the Warren County Public Library System, whose slogan is “We’re more than just books!” VARC is interested in partnering with them on creating maker space activities. These meetings and conversations have universally been met with a very strong desire by the library administrators there to welcome amateur radio into their programming. How can this be effected in ways that allow amateur radio to reach the two key demographic audiences of women and youth that visit public libraries at twice the rate that they visit movie theaters?

I’ve created a new but common proposed activity to be just one of several such ways to operationalize this “served agency” relationship: holding periodic “on the air” events at public libraries. LiOTA, short for Libraries On The Air, is outlined in a concept memo I’ve submitted to my Division Director, David K5UZ. I’ve posted it here for transparency. We will see if the ARRL Board of Directors takes advantage of the concept. If not, there may be other groups who wish to implement it.

Below is the spatial distribution of the 9,215 libraries in the current (2021) public library database. Not surprisingly, they follow population settlements which generally reflect the spatial distribution of amateur radio licensee locations. It’s also not a shock to know that they are not dissimilar to the pattern of ARRL-affiliated clubs. In other work for Plant the Seed, I’ve created spreadsheets by club for each Division showing for which public libraries the club is the nearest one to that library. These market areas can be used to easily identify potential nearby LiOTA sites. And, yes, POTA participants, I’ve already created an exhaustive list of public library entity numbers in spreadsheet and map format, ready for the League to use on their website for LiOTA, should they adopt the program.

Because of the targeted-marketing concept driving this prospective program, the logo I created includes a female radio operator at a library. Using control operators, getting women and young people on the air at libraries is the key metric of outreach in this program. Passive options, such as planned programs, displays or kiosks, books donated on amateur radio, club meetings, at public libraries are further means to reach this audience. But getting non-hams on the air will likely be a key. (If not, why do we use GOTA stations at Field Day?)

Targeted marketing starts with defining “who” specifically is a good fit for a product or service and delivering personalized messages directly to that targeted audience.

Dun & Bradstreet

Here is the logo that I’ve created for the LiOTA Program. Hmm. It might look good on a spiffy tee shirt.

Here’s the brief memo that I submitted to David K5UZ. Time will tell as to it’s fate. Contact your ARRL Division Director if you support the program!

My two blog articles here from 2020 about the role that the Public Library System can play in reaching young people and women—two demographics that the ARRL says it wants to reach—have not fallen on deaf ears in Newington, CT. It has moved forward it seems. I’m told that the ARRL Board of Directors has embraced the concepts and directed the staff at HQ to implement it very soon.

My Division Director, David K5UZ, his Vice Director, Ed WB4RHQ, and Mike Walters W8ZY, Field Services Manager at ARRL, organized a video call with me last week to discuss steps to move forward with the Plant the Seed, Sow the Future program. I’ve been involved with program design and implementation for several decades via the US Department of Agriculture and state or local government. It’s a good sign that the BoD has issued a directive to the CEO in favor of this program. With all that’s been going on at the Board, I’m delighted that targeted actions like this are moving toward being implemented.

Mike W8ZY and I agreed that a map display would be a good tool to add to the ARRL-affiliated club search page. (They are re-thinking that page, too.) I’ll supply their IT staff with a file of public libraries in the U.S. and some attributes that are useful. Contact info for the Director, number of programs for youth and young adults, and so forth would allow clubs to target libraries that already have active programming in place and are near their location. But there’s more than just setting the table to ensure a meal that is well-enjoyed by all in attendance. Getting guests to the dinner table in the first place is one step! Engaging local clubs is that first step but they have to have access to the tools to make it efficient and effective for a longer term pay-off.

I prepared a memo some time ago to my Division Director, for whom I serve as an Assistant Director for the Delta Division. This memo recommends specific steps and stages for engaging affiliated clubs in this initiative. The Vice Director, Ed WB4RHQ, told us on the Zoom call how successful the Plant the Seed initiative has been in Tennessee already. Library Directors asked local ham club representatives if they would give programs at the library BEFORE hams could even bring it up! That’s a good sign.

It’s because programming for the public is the “new cheese” for library directors. I learned this while at the Board of Regents Office in Atlanta. The Public Library System reports to the college board in Georgia. I was tasked to work with the PLS and learned quite a bit about how local public libraries view their mission and operations. Programs are the key “cheese” that will move public library directors today.

Here are the steps I outlined in my member to my Director for implementing the ARRL program:

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This is a recommended game plan to engage public libraries in the United States as a portal for education and outreach regarding amateur radio. Here are my bullet-point steps:

• ARRL Board declare public libraries as new “served agencies” like Red Cross, not for emergency communication but for education and outreach. This makes it an official program with a League commitment. It also means it will not simply go away when some ARRL staffer decides s/he doesn’t want to deal with it anymore. Note to the skeptic: did you realize that for years the annual affiliated clubs forms that many club officers (including me) completed and submitted to HQ simply went into a file cabinet? And that the staffer who was leaving that position intended to put them in the trash dumpster out back when he retired, saying that “nobody cares about clubs anymore”? I didn’t think you did. It appears that the HQ Field Services Staff does care about clubs now. Board action can have that effect.
• Re-introduce the $200 ARRL Library Book Set to the ARRL website. It was removed by Bob Interbitzen NQ1R, ARRL Product Development Manager, a couple of years ago as being irrelevant, right after my blog post was being circulated. It has yet to be returned as a product. Perhaps the CEO David Minster NA2AA can change that. He wants members to write him with ideas such as this so fire away: dminster@gmail.com.
• ARRL make presentation at American Library Association conference in the Public Libraries Division (https://www.ala.org/pla) to point out how the League can provide a national network of STEM-related activities to local public libraries via ARRL-affiliated clubs. The ARRL should also have an Exhibitor Booth. The League’s national network of local groups and proven outreach can greatly assist libraries in the provision of STEM-related programming and activities to children and adults.
• ARRL negotiate an MOU with ALA-Public Library Division that parallels the one with Red Cross (and others) regarding emergency communications. This brokers an official organizational relationship between the League and its parallel organization for libraries in the United States. It also means that the Leagues means business in this educational outreach enterprise.
• Roll-out the Plant the Seed, Sow the Future program through Divisions (BoD members) and Sections (Section Managers) but with Field Services Staff providing technical assistance. This should be a one-year targeted effort to prevent a languishing promise to the ALA. A spreadsheet identifying area public libraries nearest each affiliated club with name, address, contact information, and so forth will be provided through the existing ARRL Field Services communication channels.
• Specific Objectives: each affiliated club create a standing written relationship with at least ONE public library in their area, negotiated through the Director of that library. This relationship must include: (1) donation of the set of ARRL books to the library that must be placed in their official holdings; (2) delivery of at least a quarterly program on some STEM-related subject at the local library by one or more club members; and (3) a display or kiosk in the library illustrating some aspect of amateur radio. This display should be changed out twice yearly.
• To maintain Special Service Club status, a club must meet these goals within two reporting years.
• Clubs that meet these goals within one reporting year will receive some reward from ARRL, to be determined. This will enhance the incentive for local affiliated clubs to engage with their local public libraries.

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Imagine that if only 25 percent of the 2,850 clubs listed in the ARRL Club Search database were to negotiate a continuing relationship with at least one local public library, that would be some 712 libraries offering both books and programs on amateur radio to two key demographic groups: women and young children and adults. The 25 percent figure should actually be a lower bound of what all clubs should attain. But it would be leaps-and-bounds greater potential exposure than what the Teacher Institute can reach in a single year with class sizes in the 25-student range.

In the spirit of radio sport, avid contester David K5UZ asked, “Which Section can get the most libraries served by constituent ARRL Affiliated Clubs donating the League’s 10-book Library Set to libraries near them?” That would be a national contest indeed. One yielding a greater common good than a plaque for a single radio contest.

Now, to be sure, there are alternative versions of these recommended steps that better dove-tail with the League’s operation, the Divisions and Sections themselves. Some will say it’s too fast. But the thrust should be consistent with these ideas.

Not every ham thinks that public libraries would be an effective organization for amateur radio education and outreach. My own Section Manager, Malcolm W5XX, said that “no one” goes to libraries any more. My fellow podcast Presenter on the ICQ Podcast, Dan KB6NU, says he is skeptical. About ten years ago, he asked a staff member at a local public library in Ann Abor, MI where he lives about donating ham radio books. According to Dan, the staff member said something to the effect that if they took book donations from the local ham club, they’d have to take books from organizations that they’d prefer not to have in the library. I guess, think neo-Nazi hate material or something of that nature.

There may be others who disagree with the thrust of this Plant the Seed Initiative. But it may well be that there is a disconnect between the source of information that I’m using and what others are basing their opinion on. I’m using very high quality national data collected by the Gallup survey organization. I’m a professional survey researcher analyzing their raw data. I’ve done this a few times over my career so I think that I’ve got a very good handle on the national picture of reaching targeted audience groups. (Years ago, I designed the evaluations of the Smoky the Bear and the 4-H Programs.)

I love my Section Manager and respect his service greatly but the demographics of the Gallup Organization’s survey show that he himself is in a demographic (80 plus years of age and a man) that truly does not visit public libraries. Mal W5XX also has mobility issues and is retired from the US Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg MS, their hub of management. There are things you do not see if you are not in a position to look.

Now, Dan KB6NU does visit public libraries. In fact, he teaches ham radio licensing classes at one in Ann Arbor. I like and respect Dan as I’ve gotten to know him on the ICQ Podcast team. But there are a couple of things I can point out here about the basis of his stated skepticism.

One is that it’s a single library in Ann Arbor, not a state or the whole country. Moreover, asking a staff member who is not the Director is always more likely to yield a “no” to most questions. A Director is the go-to person in the public library space for any inquiries about donating books or other materials or coming in to give programs. Why? They have the authority to say “yes” without checking with anyone with the possible exception of the Library Board. It’s a relationship that a ham should seek, not just the act of dropping off a set of books.

A second thing is that the Ann Arbor library already has a number of amateur radio books and a magazine in their online catalog so they have already passed judgment on the content and sources of these holdings. Here’s a link for a search there for the term “amateur radio.” They have the current issue of CQ Magazine as well as the British magazine, Radio User (now part of Practical Wireless). They have several of Dan’s popular No Nonsense study guides, popular titles by Ward Silver, and the ARRL Operating Manual. Getting the ARRL Book Bundle would give them the latest and more depth to the content they already have in their holdings. So I do not know why the library staff member replied to Dan’s kind offer that way about ten years ago. But I’m not sure that that one experience is strong evidence that public libraries are not viable outlets for outreach and education about technology like amateur radio.

In fact, the Gallup report shows with national data that the library is the single most commonly visited public space to find young people and women. Should we ignore this critical fact? I certainly don’t. This is just an example of why it is critical to approach this “seed planting” as a relationship not a simple donation, just like we do with any other served agency in the EmComm arena of service. For instance, imagine your ARES team NOT having a relationship with the local EOC or other emergency management agency. Then just “show up” with HT in hand saying I’m a ham operator and heard you could use some help in the tornado, flood, fire, recovery effort. You’d be asked to vacate the premises very quickly because they are busy with their demanding work and they do not know you or your group! That’s what just dropping off a set of books might be like for a public library. At least, this is my take on it.

Work with ARRL Field Services and IT staff is scheduled to continue. I’ll see how this progresses and report further on the project. In the mean time, (re)read my two original blog posts on this concept. More than ever, we need to Plant the Seed of amateur radio. And use something more efficient than a screwdriver antenna (apologies to hams who use these antennas as I did some years ago). Keep up the Teacher Institute but expand into where the desired market audience can demonstrably be found. That just makes sense if we are serious about addressing the Baby Boom population exodus with a rational, data-driven plan to do what the ARRL has promised the IRS that they will do in exchange for not paying taxes on donations: education and outreach.

Plant the Seed! Sow the Future

Public Libraries: New Served Agencies?

At a recent local hamfest, my ARRL Section Manager, Malcolm W5XX, held the annual ARRL Forum. As Division Director David Norris K5UZ was giving his update on the recent Board of Directors meeting. W5XX commented that a club in North Georgia had begun reaching out to licensees of the General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS). Why? There are some 8,000 of them in surrounding counties! Give a statistician a number like that and it’s catnip to a cat.

I had heard of GMRS and the lighter-weight Family Radio Service (FRS) as additional radio frequencies to the famous Citizen’s Band (CB) that I used as a teen. But I didn’t really know much about it. So, I spent parts of a week doing some searching, reading, and, inevitably, database building. I saw the wisdom of the club in question reaching out to this audience. Let’s do a thought experiment to flesh this out.

GMRS licensees use radios up to 50 watts on mobile stations and 15 watts in fixed stations in the mid-400 mhz region. There are limitations on the type of one-way communications (no whistling which would rule out most anyone in amateur radio tuning up an amplifier, lol). But in general, there are parallels to GMRS operators to those holding a Technician license in the Amateur Radio Service with the latter having much greater frequency access, power usage, and other aspects of the radio arts.

After doing some reading, I checked the FCC ULS GMRS license data. There’s an interesting comparison: the ARRL February 2023 numbers show 386,122 Technicians while individual GMRS licenses total 336, 513 after APO addresses and one Canadian are removed. Organizations and some other groups can obtain GMRS licenses. Roughly, there are about as many individual GMRS licensees as there are Technicians, give or take 50,000. Ok, I thought, this is surprising but how do they operate? Are they communicating amongst themselves as ham operators do? How many GMRS repeaters are there? The surprises just kept on coming!

The popular site, RepeaterBook.com, does list some GMRS repeaters. But the mother ship is the myGMRS.com website. One has to have a GMRS license to register but there’s enough information available to the public to show just how organized parts of the GMRS community already is. I’ve taken a screenshot of the map display, nicely done with clustering repeaters until a certain zoom level is reached, showing the GMRS repeaters in the U.S. Note those in Puerto Rico: I had recommended that the ARRL assist in getting a permanent repeater on the westernmost mountains near Mayaguez after a devastating hurricane. Perhaps even an HF ALE type station directed at Florida or North Carolina. Looks like the GMRS community has done some work here, too.

The map below illustrates the set of repeater hubs and their links around the U.S. There are national and regional Nets held regularly. An audio stream can be monitored using the website for each hub, not unlike Hoseline for the Brandmeister DMR Network. Hmm. If ham radio were only this organized, so quickly.

After downloading the February 2023 GMRS data from the FCC ULS ftp site, I processed it and filtered out the overseas military licenses. These records were then georeferenced to street addresses, with some that did not have street addresses geocoded to zip codes and a few to city centroids. The map below illustrates this: the GMRS individual license IS a compelling market for amateur radio recruitment.

It’s easy to see that the North Georgia region is part of the Appalachian Mountain range that is covered with GMRS licensees But so is most of the region east of the Mississippi River, the West Coast and the mountainous areas of the Southwest. Here’s another view zoomed in to the ARRL Delta Division where I live. Licensees in GMRS tend to follow population centers but note the areas, like Nashville, where the topography gives more height-above-ground than others. Northwest Arkansas is another such location. Interesting patterns!

We know little to nothing about the age distribution of GMRS licensees as year of birth is not contained in the ULS database released to the public (only 18 or over). But it stands to reason that GMRS licensees are likely to have a broader age range of adoption. From perusing the names on the licenses — license holders can authorize other family members to use additional radios in this Service — there are gendered-naming patterns. More women in GMRS than ham radio? Possibly.

Some interactive maps of these data are now available over at FoxMikeHotel.com under the Maps tab.

An important note is that an unknown number of those holding GMRS licenses today also hold licenses in the Amateur Radio Service. The FRN is not contained in the GMRS data so it would take “fuzzy matching” with less than perfect results to examine this idea.

The ARRL has taken an interest in my proposed initiative to treat public libraries in the U.S. as “new served agencies” for recruitment strategies, according to Division Director David Norris K5UZ. See my two blog posts here and here. Should the GMRS licensees be viewed as another direct marketing opportunity by the ARRL?

I’ve taken the GMRS data and spatially joined the ARRL Division and Section fields to the license record using GIS. These files were then split into separate spreadsheets by Division with the Section as a separate field. I’ve put them on my public folder in Dropbox for all to retrieve should they desire. This would make it easy for a direct-mailing to GMRS licensees. In a cover letter identifying the contact info for their ARRL Section Manager, a brochure should be inserted describing the much greater options available by adding the Technician license through a VE exam. It works for some yield rates for other membership services. (Check today’s mail if you doubt this isn’t used frequently.)

It would not be inexpensive with USPS rates. But it would be directed at a market that is already known to have some interested in operating radios for communication. Perhaps it should begin with GMRS licensees in areas where there are existing repeater operations. This would be a good test case to see the yield from such a direct mailing.

What won’t work is to simply send the information “down stream,” expecting SMs to do all the heavy lifting. It simply won’t happen. The League already conducts a commercial mailing operation which is where this activity should be situated.

This would be a third recruiting rail for the ARRL, including the Teacher Institute (getting in schools), the pending (I’m told) Plant the Seed initiative for public libraries, and the direct mailing to known radio communication licensees in the GMRS arena. Recruit the Generals, anyone?

In reworking a wire antenna around the edge of my shingled roofline that was installed 10 years ago as a (mostly) horizontal HF loop, I discovered a couple of things. After applying them successfully and preparing a draft of the principles, procedures and results, Don G3XTT decided to publish my work in the March issue of Practical Wireless magazine. Thomas K4SWL, Kirk NT0Z, and Scott K0MD gave me valuable advice on this journey.

One is that the current ARRL Antenna Book mainly parrots the wisdom of “just use 450-ohm ladder line and you’ll be fine.” Usually. OK, that’s the Cliff Notes version and they do have more to say than that. But they repeat that Philosopher of Knoxville, Larry Cebik, in his well done set of antenna models for HF loops as the main source of this wisdom. L.E. Cebik, to the surprise of many hams, was not an engineering faculty member at the University of Tennessee but a Professor of Philosophy. A good one at that.

The new English translation of Rothamel’s Antenna Book had references! It’s a more thorough and deep-dive treatment of HF loop antennas. It’s “grounded” in the published literature which “bonds” things together in terms of the reader’s comprehensive of what has been published about these HF antennas. (Sorry for the Ward Silver puns here!)

A second is that the problem with doing what most antenna texts say, measure the impedance of an antenna at the feed point, is that the loop needs to be up in the air where it’s going to be installed. This is a far climb on a ladder with an antenna analyzer!

It dawned on me that the new era analyzers with bluetooth connectivity that are light weight offer a way to measure the feed point impedance at the “bare wire” ends of the loop while keeping one’s feet on the ground. Here I am on a step ladder with my Rig Expert Stick Pro with a banana plug adapter to the bare wire ends of a loop being installed at Clay AC5Z’s house among four tall pine trees. I’m making sure that my iPhone has a good bluetooth connection to the analyzer before I attached the second bare wire end to the banana plug and let AC5Z hoist it up to it’s intended height above ground.

We used Clay’s IC-7300 set at the lowest power output (5w) to run a WSPR beacon for 12 hours on most HF bands. Below are displays from WSPR.Rocks for the fundamental 80M band (pounding Eastern Europe over night!), 20M (Europe, Australia and vicinity, Hawaii) and the 10 & 12M bands (getting to Australia and Japan).

This particular loop is nearing our final optimization. It can be optimized a bit more by raising the balun wind from 4:1 to 6:1 and taking about 3 feet off of the bare wire. This should situate the 80M band to Clay’s liking and bring the higher harmonics more into line with those bands, too. It seems to be working from the test phase.

I’ll cover it and perhaps another one being planned for Mike N5DU’s house soon. Read about the process I’m using in the March issue of Practical Wireless magazine. I cover it in detail for the loop at my HOA-based residence that didn’t just follow the conventional wisdom. It got a much improved optimization. Even being matched to 160 meters for an 80 meter fundamental design frequency!

In the January 2023 issue of CQ Magazine, there is an article I wrote introducing my Sherwood Tools page over at FoxMikeHotel.com. Didn’t make the cover but it is on page 50! It will introduce the reader to these new tools to further utilize Rob Sherwood NC0B’s test suite of bench measurements on over 50 years of radios. I appreciate Rich Moseson (CQ Editor) for wanting to further publicize these online tools that I’ve created with the significant assistance of Rob Sherwood NC0B. He is an international treasure to the amateur radio community!

I update this webpage as I’m able to digest and process new data from Rob’s Table. It does take some time for me to reanalyze these data segments, as even one new entry alters the patterns and analysis from the previous dataset. If I am in the midst of other matters, it can take me a month or more to get to this update. (Amateur radio is a hobby, not a lifestyle, for me, lol.)

This work on price, performance and satisfaction with HF radios has been very popular over the past couple of years as I’ve given many talks to groups via Zoom on the studies and results. The first results from this line of research was published by (then) Editor Scott Wright K0MD at the National Contesting Journal. I’ll be adding the latest Yaesu HF radios (FTDX10 and FT-710) to the mix soon.

Stay tuned because I’m completing the analysis of a subset of these modern transceivers that includes composite transmit noise base upon data from a group of European amateurs complemented with measurements by Rob Sherwood NC0B. I’m completing that work and associated manuscript in the coming weeks.

Dave Goodwin, VE3KG, RAC Regulatory Affairs Officer at the Radio Amateurs of Canada, has just posted the results of the 2022 RAC Survey on their website. It was my honor to work with RAC to analyze the data and draft the technical report. The executive team at RAC is a delight to work with: they just want to get the best answer from the data. That’s what every organization should desire so that effective policy can be made. That is why I volunteered a considerable amount of my time to work with this team.

The map above depicts amateurs in the current Canadian database of certifications (licenses), regardless of when it was granted. Thus, there are likely many Silent Keys represented in the map. But it is the universe that must be the starting point. They are quite spatially concentrated, no? But they are no doubt conversely as diverse as hams are in other countries as well. This means we must have solid, reliable data in order to make the optimal policy recommendations on their behalf. RAC takes this mission to heart.

The issues surrounding call signs in Canada is the focus of the 2022 RAC Survey. I invite you to use the links above to take a look, or even a careful reading, of the technical report. Dave Goodwin put a good Canadian spin on my Americanized spelling and offered questions that help any statistician improve a draft report. Otherwise, David and Phil McBryde VA3QR, RAC President, left the analysis to me, a professional survey researcher and statistician.

The Regulatory Team at RAC consists of Dave Goodwin, VE3KG, Paul Coverdale, VE3ICV, Bryan Rawlings, VE3QN, Glenn MacDonell, VE3XRA, Richard Ferch, VE3KI and Serge Bertuzzo, VA3SB. They have done great work here! I look forward to other collaborations with RAC. You can find out more about this team’s efforts on behalf of amateur radio in Canada at their YouTube presentation embedded below.

And, oh, I just renewed my RAC membership for 2023! I encourage you to do the same.

As an academic researcher, the term “authoritative source” is reserved for works deemed to be the standard by which other scholarship in an area is judged. As a U.S. ham, I’ve purchased the ARRL Antenna Book (both new and used) since I’ve been licensed. Good reading and reference. It’s been a go-to document not only for me but for many State-side hams. There is a new Sheriff in town.

I’ve read about Rothammel’s Antenna Handbook in other publications—Practical Wireless and RadCom, for instance—but it was in German. Alas…Ich spreche kein deutsch! Since 2019, there is an English translation.

On eHam, there is but a single review. James AD0YO says, “This book is amazing! It should be on the desk of any ham interested in antennas. And, that should be all of us. The first 270 pages cover theory. The rest cover all types of antennas.” OK. James loves it. What about others?

A website I often read, the Reeve Observatory near Anchorage AK, has a review: “The information in Rothammel’s Antenna Book appears to be taken from both amateur and professional literature and patents from around the world. Having this book generally will save readers considerable time when looking for details on a particular antenna type or for ideas on what antenna to build for a certain
application. Each chapter has an extensive list of references, so it may be possible to get to the original source document.”

The popular commercial vendor in the U.S., DX Engineering, carries this volume (although out of stock as I write this). It also has only a single review. Two years ago, Juan (no call) wrote, “This is a 1,600 (page) treatise on Antennas! It is more theoretical than the ARRL Antenna Book, but quite less than John Kraus classical textbook. It has a ton of data and practical information. It is a very good comprehensive reference book on antennas.” Another onesy but rave review. No gotchas yet.

Another source I enjoy, Radio User magazine, had this announcement. “The famous Rothammel’s Antenna Book is now, at last, available in English. At the 2019 Hamvention, DARC announced the availability of the wonderful Rothammel’s Antenna Book into English. This translation is of the 13th edition of Rothammels Antennenbuch.” Now I recall my friend, Scott K0MD, telling me that he picked up a copy of this impressive book at Hamvention. Great international reviews. A close friend who bought it and is impressed. Wow! This is getting close to my wallet.

The standard ham radio antenna reference.

James AD0YO, eHam Review

Rothammel. Who is (was) this guy? Wikipedia advises “was” is unfortunately the correct tense as he is now a Silent Key (1914–1987). After reading a short biography on Rothammel, it strikes me that he would be in league with Lawrence Cebik W4RNL, a professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, long revered for his antenna work and writing. From the German Wiki, translated to English by Google Translate:

“Rothammel had been a radio amateur since 1932 with his call sign “DE3040/L”. During World War II he served as an Air Force radio operator. Little is currently known about his stay after the war, except that he settled in the Soviet occupation zone – the later GDR.

After the war, he initially worked as a guest and farmer before moving to the postal service of the GDR for ten years. At the post office, he looked after the radio and television transmission systems. After ten years, Rothammel moved to the information and documentation center at the radio equipment factory Stern-Radio in Sonneberg, which later became VEB Stern-Radio Sonneberg . He did this job for 25 years until he retired. Since 1954 Rothammel was active as a radio amateur under the call sign “DM2ABK”, since 1980 under the call sign “Y21BK” or “Y30ABK”.

In addition to his professional activities at the post office and at VEB Stern-Radio, Rothammel was a long-time club station manager in Sonneberg, a member of the examination committee in the Suhl district and an authorized person for the radio performance badge in gold. For five years he wrote articles on VHF topics for the magazine Funkamateur. In addition, he contributed as an author to various publications on the subject of radio, for example the books “Ultra Short Waves”, “Practice of TV Antennas Part 1 and 2” and the “Handbook for Short Wave Amateurs”, etc.”

I ordered a copy of the 1st Edition English translation, copyrighted in 2019, directly from the DARC. Easy order. It took several weeks to arrive via DHL and final delivery by the US Postal Service. I was researching HF loop antennas for an article. I was thrilled at the depth of coverage and the detailed citations and patents included. It greatly helped me organize my thinking on how to improve the design and deployment of an HF horizontal loop antenna. More on that article in the near future as it nears publication in Practical Wireless magazine.

Here’s an illuminating example on a relatively unknown niche type of antenna. Here in the States, due mostly to posts on QRZ.com, the reader would conclude that fractal antennas were wholly invented by Nathan W1YW. As the sportscaster Lee Corso is fond of saying, “not so fast!”. Look at what I read on pp. 948-9:

In the same year (1995), two researchers filed patent applications for something they called, fractal antennas. In May, Dr. Carlos Puente in Spain filed his application which was approved in 1998. Later, in August, Dr. Nathan Cohen filed his patent application in the United States but it was not granted until 2000. As Rothammel states, the priority goes to the first filing. This small point may only matter on legal issues but it’s both enlightening and historically correct for the amateur radio community to know that there were indeed two “inventors” of the fractal antenna line. Lots of good stuff like this in the Rothammel Antenna Book.

In the same year (1995), two researchers filed patent applications for something they called, fractal antennas. In May, Dr. Carlos Puente in Spain filed his application which was approved in 1998. Later, in August, Dr. Nathan Cohen filed his patent application in the United States but it was not granted until 2000. As Rothammel states, the priority goes to the first filing. This small point may only matter on legal issues but it’s both enlightening and historically correct for the amateur radio community to know that there were indeed two “inventors” of the fractal antenna line.

Rothammel’s Antenna Book entry for fractal antennas

So does this book replace the need for the very popular Antenna Handbook by the ARRL? Not at all, as the ARRL book is geared more toward pedagogy and far less on being an authoritative reference. Rothammel’s book, for instance, does not include supplementary software, data files (antenna models, propagation projections, etc.), and such. Editions of the ARRL book do overlap greatly across adjacent editions so that’s caveat emptor for the buying ham. Me? I have quite a number of the ARRL Antenna Handbooks, as well as most things written by Joe Carr and other antenna scholars. Now, the Rothammel’s Antenna Book is on my bookshelf right beside them. I won’t have a problem finding it at 1,600 pages in length!

I can add my own superlative review to those quoted above. It’s not been fully read thus far but the spine and pages are certainly creased quite a bit! I’ve read deeply on loop antennas and through the theory section. It’s now my authoritative resource for amateur radio antennas.

This post is to lift up the recent editorial published on eHam.net by Onno VK6FLAB in Australia. His long running podcast, Foundations of Amateur Radio, is one of my favorites. I listen to it every time it drops in my podcast catcher. I’m slowly making my way through the previous 500 episodes. Not one has been disappointing. Onno has recently taken on the scourge of social bullying in our hobby. It affects everyone, not just the bullied.

Once the collective atmosphere of a group, however large or small, has become contaminated by the blind or even oblique tolerance of bullying behavior by even one member of the group, it is there for all to be potentially subjected. The tolerance of bullying will precede new members and succeed former ones. While “bad character” may be the original culprit, the social norms of the group become the active agents of that tolerance of it in the future.

To be clear, our community is a welcoming environment, filled with hope and joy, but there is a small rotten element in our midst that we need to rip out root and branch, much like we would if it was deliberate HF interference.

Onno VK6FLAB on eHam.net

Onno’s essay at eHam.net is available through the link below. I encourage you to read it with an open mind as to your own behavior and those with whom you associate. Being bullied through social media tends to begat your own negative response. I wish I could state that I have never responded in that way. But I cannot. My commitment is to reduce any such behaviors in response to those engaged in bullying of me and to defend those being bullied.

As a professional sociologist who has studied social movements, almost always involving violence, I wish that I could offer a complete answer to the problem. But I do know that Onno is on the right track: tolerance of the problem will only exacerbate it. If you value the amateur radio hobby, it is worth your time and consideration to see what Onno has to say.

To read Onno’s editorial at eHam.net, click HERE.

Have you ever been invited to visit with a group of radio amateurs and just felt like you’d dropped in at home? I’ve had the pleasure of that a few times. One of those groups is the Denby Dale Amateur Radio Society in England. Their Chairperson is Nick Bradley G4IWO. He’s invited me to natter about with the DDARS several times over the past couple of years. Last week, I spoke to them about my RadCom articles with Dr. Scott McIntosh that appeared this summer.

The talk is now on their Youtube Channel below. I hope they get back soon to meeting in Pie Hall, where they are served pie and peas. After all, Denby Dale is the home of the world’s largest meat pie! If the pie is as welcoming as the group that typically meets there, it’s very good indeed!