Note: This was supposed to be published in the November issue of The SPARC, the Boston Amateur Radio Club newsletter, however, due to unforeseen circumstances, it was never published, so here it is for the first time in print!
It was a busy public service month for
me. First off was MassJam 2023, the multi-state scout jamboree that
is held every five years at the Cape Cod Fairgrounds in Falmouth.
While the communication staff was made
up of entirely of hams, the event did not use amateur radio for its
operation as obviously, while there are hams in Scouting, not
everyone is a ham and therefore, commercial band radio was a must for
the event. Using radios provided by DC Rentals (who seem to provide
the commercial radios for practically every large event in Boston)
MassJam got underway. Net control was a 24/7 operation with shifts
scheduled in blocks and food for the net controllers was cooked on
site. Despite some hiccups, the event itself was mostly successful,
including exodus from the campground was went really well and
finished practically on schedule.
After a week and a half off, it was
time for the next major public service event, the 2023 Head of the
Charles Regatta. I was stationed all 3 days at the Attager (which is
Regatta spelled backwards) Row First Aid tent. A ham’s job at the
regatta is to be the primary link for the first aid tents to net
control and from there to the event’s roving bike teams on
commercial radio (again, provided by DC Rentals) and if needed to our
public safety partners such as the Massachusetts State Police (who
provide their command post for the weekend where a ham is stationed
as a link between net control and them), Boston EMS and Cambridge
Fire. Joined by a rotating motley crew of hams, including our very
own public service chair, Ethan KC1OIP, we made the best of it
despite pouring rain on Saturday and cold winds on Sunday.
All in all, a good month of public
service. I recommend the Regatta as a good place to start if you’re
interested in the public service side of this great hobby. Now to
look forward to next year’s public service season with the Boston
Marathon!
Jim Fisher, AJ3DI passed away a few weeks ago. I met Jim at Winter Field Day in 2022 down in Pennsylvania. I followed him on Twitter. He was a real helpful ham, especially to my friends down in Philly who now miss his dearly.
I can't really say much more because I didn't Jim that well, but to measure his impact he had on the Philly ham scene, here's a few others posts and his obituary.
Back in May, I went to my first Hamvention, the largest ham radio convention in the world, held in Xenia, Ohio. I was originally planning on going in 2020 with Jim, KB1KQW, as we were discussing at that year's Boston Marathon training but then COVID happened.
I flew out of Boston Logan on May 19th with Jim to Columbus, Ohio, where we met up with former Massachusetts native Carl, N1FY, who had settled down there after traveling the world until COVID struck.
From there, we drove to Dayton and checked into a Doubletree hotel in Miamisburg, Ohio. Then the next day it was off to Hamvention!
There I was inducted into SLARC among other things, met some new people and came across those I knew. I also got to tour DARA's clubhouse!
All in all, a good time. We left on Sunday and drove back to Columbus, spent the night at Carl's and flew back home the next morning.
Sorry, for the delayed post, just been busy with work.
It's back! The Marathon is back! At last, we had a Marathon on Patriots' Day again! Although, COVID is by no means gone, it felt good to be back to somewhat normal. Speaking of COVID, this year all Marathon volunteers had to be vaccinated.
Anyways, this year I once again provided communications for a medical tent. In fact, the same medical tent as last year although with a different team, well actually, more like the some of the same team as I had in 2019.
This year was mostly uneventful, and I had a competent ham partner this time around. The last two times left something to be desired.
Yours truly participating in Winter Field Day. (Photo: N3JEC)
I've participated in the ARRL's Field Day for the past couple of years, but never Winter Field Day until this past weekend.
Held at Nockamixon State Park in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, this Winter Field Day operation was done under the aegis of the Young Amateurs Radio Club (YARC) of which I am a member, and was overseen by Charlie, K3NOP who coordinated the whole event.
I left Massachusetts Friday morning and after a 5 hour drive, arrived in the late afternoon at the park. I helped to set up antennas as soon as I arrived. While the even didn't start till 2pm EDT the next day, I got up at 2am after failing to fall asleep and was joined by N3JEC with our respective FT-991As and started playing radio early.
W1PAC and N3JEC playing radio at 2am in the morning.
The next day the contest got underway and we were off and running doing digital and voice as a 4 India station. At some points we had 3 operators at operating at the same time. There were also technical glitches at times, such as stepping on each other when transmitting resulting in one or multiple radios getting a lot of noise on HF.
Also, we weren't the only hams in the park, it turns out, that another group was at the other end of the cabin area playing around. We happened by chance upon them when we heard my Anytone 868 which had one of the VFOs set to 146.52 simplex and heard someone calling out! We invited them down to check out our cabin at some point, which they did. We also invited other Philly areas hams to join us of which only a few did, mostly because of the snowstorm (which was a blizzard here back in Massachusetts) left the roads a little less to be desired.
Not only did we have radios operating, but we held a Volunteer Examiner session that anyone could attend. We had at least one person upgrade to Extra! Congrats KC3SAI!
Anyways, I had an awesome time, and I hope to do it again next year! Here's the list of operators:
K3NOP, Charlie
WX0A, Amelia
N3JEC, Johnathan
W1PAC, Patrick
KC3SAI, Sean
Also in attendance and a great help were:
AJ3DI, Jim
K3CL, Charlie
W4KEK, Grant
N1LC, Lamonte
W4GMN, Dan
Lastly, YARC had a claimed score of 4,020. Let's see what the final results say!
Well, it took a year and half, and it wasn't in April on Patriots' Day but the Boston Marathon is finally back in person, after last year's "virtual" Marathon due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In my 3rd year of service to the Marathon, I was stationed at the same Medical tent as 2019, Medical Tent 6. To be a medical tent volunteer at this tent, you had to be vaccinated against COVID-19, no exceptions. Hydration stations also checked in at the tent and were tested for COVID if they weren't vaccinated. There was also no meetup at Babson College or Newton North High School this year. Although, our convoy of hams including the Course Coordinator, Jim Palmer, KB1KQW, enlisted me to help do some last minute preparations at Babson involving getting jackets ready.
Although, it was in a different location than last year and that caused me some headache as it appeared to be a last minute change that wasn't properly communicated, leading to me searching and calling on my net control channel to find it. Turns out it was moved down the road a bit next to Wellesley College.
Which was fun because it was just a bit down the road from the famous Wellesley "Scream Tunnel." What wasn't fun was the porta-potties weren't close to the station, which required a small hike, maybe a quarter of a mile, from the medical tent to the porta-potties which was inconvenient for me and everyone else at the tent. For me, it was because I would be out of earshot of the station staff if something needed to be relayed back or forth. And at one point, the doctor assigned had gone to use the bathroom when our first patient of the day showed up and her presence was required.
Other issues cropped up, such as missing supplies which required to requisition some supplies from another medical tent which had supplies to spare after talking with the ham at the next tent down.
Another issue was of my own doing, that being, I kept my radio attached to my hip all day instead of getting it off my hip and up in the air for better signal coverage. There were times were I didn't hit the repeater well and that probably could have been solved by getting the radio off my hip.
Also, there was issues with the sweep buses at some points as there was one sitting at my station for a quite a while but that was mostly due to only having one runner who dropped out on board and apparently the sweep bus will only move when there's a certain number. Eventually, the station captain had me advocate on her behalf and the bus finally took off.
But not all was bad, I helped to relay a call from our Division Supervisor to the Team Lead about a down runner a tenth of a mile from our station. Although, it did require some more transmissions to find out which part of the course they were on.
But it felt great to relay that message, as it shows that we're still relevant in providing public service to our partners.
After my shift was done at my tent which was around 3:00pm, I made my way over to the Course Net Control Operations Center is and helped out there, it was my first time visiting Course NCOC in the years I've volunteered and it was great to see what was going on the other end of the radio behind the scenes.
All in all, I had a good time, despite the differences this year due to the pandemic and I'm looking forward to going back in six months when the 126th Boston Marathon happens on it's regularly scheduled day. But now, it's time to prepare for NEAR-Fest and the Head of the Charles Regatta!
I have a Yaesu FT-991A, it's a great radio and it's served me well on HF, since replacing the broken FT-900, however, it's also a VHF/UHF rig too! That was one of the reasons I settled on it over the Icom 7300. Anyways, I finally got around to setting up a VHF/UHF antenna and getting on the air.
I ordered Dr. Ed Fong's (WB6IQN) DBJ-1 antenna back in May. Just this past week I finally got the antenna set up and on the air.
With my dad's help, we tried to first run the LMR-400 I ordered earlier this month through the wall like how the coax for my HF antenna is setup.
However, up in the attic we ran into some issues drilling through the wood, so we tried a different approach and drilled a hole right in the ceiling. It's not pretty, but it got the job done.
The hole drilled in the ceiling
We took a break for a few days because it was muggy and humid and I had to work anyways. Then yesterday, after cutting the PVC pipe recommended by Dr. Fong that I picked up at Lowe's and piecing it altogether, it was time to go up in the attic.
Up until last week, there was an old TV antenna that was installed when the house was first built by my grandfather, we removed that and tossed it in the trash since it was of no use as this house has long been wired for cable. You can see the TV antenna in some of these photos.
And up went the new antenna.
My dad hooking the antenna into place.
Originally the plan was to mount this outside and I brought an antenna bracket for that purpose off Amazon. But so far, I seem to be hitting the repeaters I want, so I might hold off on putting the antenna outside.
That's all for now, sorry I've been lacking in updates here, there hasn't been much going on with me and ham radio anyways aside from operating FT8, but that will hopefully change! You can always find me on Twitter though, I tend to update that more often this blog.
If you're curious how I made it, I used a Photoshop template made by AB3DC, Dinesh Cyanam. He has open sourced it and uploaded it to GitHub. I followed his directions, made a few changes of my own and used GotPrint to print my cards, as the printing guides for GotPrint are included in the template.
Note, despite what it says in the GitHub readme as not conforming to USPS standards to be sent as a postcard, I have had no issues sending it as a postcard so far.
There's one thing I forgot to mention during my 2020 update. And it's important one at that.
I was finally able to get on HF!
Yes, during May 2020, me and my father went into the attic and hooked up the QuirkyQRP Slinktenna I have. It was quite the challenge as not all of the attic over the room where my station is has floorboards to step on, just studs. It also necessitated drilling a hole in the wall because despite our best efforts, the electrical fish tape kept falling behind the the metal junction box that was already in place in the wall.
The hole in the wall that was drilled to properly snake the cable through the junction box below.
The Slinktenna hung up behind an old TV antenna.
Nevertheless, we persevered and I was able to start using HF via FT8. So far, SSB hasn't been successful but I believe that's due to the high noise floor I have. But still, I've had luck so far with FT8 and have made at least 20 QSOs so far with some QSL cards to boot.
My station setup
Getting ready to send one of my QSL cards.
Some of the QSL cards I've received so far.
Unfortunately, the FT-900 died during a session of FT8 and I haven't been able to get it to turn back on. So I am in the hunt for a new radio because the FT-900 has long been discontinued. Right now, I'm deciding between a Yaesu FT-991A or an Icom IC-7300.
Yes, I know. It's been a while since I posted, just under a year. Unfortunately, as we all know, 2020 is not a normal year.
Aside from attending the amateur radio training session for the 2020 Boston Marathon, the Marathon was delayed until September and ultimately cancelled and replaced with a virtual event. The same goes for the 2020 Head of the Charles Regatta.
I was planning on going to my first Hamvention, but that too was cancelled. As was the May and October editions of NEAR-Fest. My last hope for some ham action was the Northeast HamXposition, but alas, it was also cancelled. As have all the monthly MIT Fleas for the year.
It's not all bad though, we've still had NSRA meetings via Zoom and continued them into summer, which usually is a break period for the club. Also, there have been virtual ham expos and fests online, such as the QSO Today Ham Expo and the HamXposition is going virtual too.
I just recently got back from a 3 month work deployment on Nantucket, I didn't really use their repeater much to do be being busy with work and mic shyness, but it was good nonetheless, and I did do alot of shortwave listening while I was there. I did manage to check in the NSRA's Sunday Night Net via Echolink a lot.
Now that I got back home, I turned my virtual scanner back on, which I've migrated to a Raspberry Pi 4 because of Wi-Fi issues with the Lenovo ThinkCentre.
But that's been my year in ham and radio in general in a nutshell.
On Saturday, October 19th, 2019 and Sunday, October 20th, 2019, I participated as a volunteer in my first ever Head of the Charles Regatta, I visited the Regatta a few years prior to becoming a ham, but this was my first time being there long term.
This was the fifty-fifth edition of the Head of the Charles, which first began in 1965. The Head of the Charles Regatta (HOCR) is the world's largest two day regatta. Outside of the major league team sports and the Boston Marathon, the Head of the Charles is probably one of the biggest sporting events in Boston.
To quote rowing coach Susan Saint Sing:
Regattas such as the Head of the Charles in Boston and the Head of the Schuylkill in Philadelphia are to the rowing world what the New York Marathon and the Boston Marathon are to running.
Myself and two volunteers on a walking team.
The job of the amateur radio operators at the HOCR is to be the radio communications for the volunteer first aid teams on shore and on the safety launches on the Charles River. There are various things that can happen during the regatta such as boat collisions, oars to the face, distressed rowers and even spectator injuries. Thankfully, the first aid teams are well equipped and well trained to deal with it, from Red Cross volunteers to EMTs to actual doctors of varying experience.
Generally, one ham and some first aid members will remain on station at a first aid tent while other hams will proceed out with a walk team to do a patrol along a designated section of the course looking for anyone who needs assistance or to respond quicker to medical incidents.
The regatta is officially two days since the races take place on Saturday and Sunday, however, practices do take place on Friday also, so there are some hams and first aid members on site, but at reduced coverage.
Net control's trailer
The call sign for event and net control is W1R and has been since at least 2012 according to the 1X1 callsigns website. Net control runs a hybrid net similar to the Marathon, which means that locations can call each other direct if needed and not need permission from net control.
Also on site are rented commercial radios for HOCR staff to use. However, unlike the Marathon, the first aid stations do not have a commercial radio assigned to them, it is strictly amateur radio. Just make sure you don't lose them to the "dirty water" of the Charles River, as happened twice over the weekend.
Of course, just like the Marathon and any large event, public safety radio is also on hand for obvious reasons and since the Charles River is the city line between Boston and Cambridge, their public safety is on hand, along with the State Police as the majority of the Charles River basin is state parkland controlled by the Department of Conservation & Recreation. For any major medical emergencies, public safety is on standby.
All in all, the Head of the Charles Regatta is a great two to three-day event for any ham to participate in. I'd say it's a more relaxed environment compared to say the Boston Marathon and a great way to get your feet wet (literally in some cases, although, we really don't want that to happen) in amateur radio public service.
Just make sure your radio is programmed properly please. Unless you want to see an angry tweet from me about it.
At our September meeting of the North Shore Radio Association, it was brought up that NEAR-Fest was just under a month and that something should be organized to sell off some of the silent key stash we had (including me with three boxes of books).
At the end of September, on our usual Sunday night net, I called in via EchoLink to see if I could round up some help. Then a few days later, at the start of October, I posted on our Yahoo Groups mailing list to see if I could enlist some more help.
In the end, the club treasurer, Eric, KA1NCF, a ham friend of his who lives down the street from him, Joel, N1KTH and myself went to Eric's shed to go through the pile of SK stuff (not counting the boxes of books I had) to see what we could take up.
The boxes included a box full of kit radios such as Heathkit and one small Ramsey kit.
Also in the pile, was the Pilot A.C. Super Wasp seen in the box in my post about the initial discovery of W1OCY's hidden treasure.
On the evening of Thursday, October 9th, we met at Eric's and packed up the boxes. Next morning, I woke up early and made the hour-fifteen trip to Deerfield Fairgrounds. Brian, WO1VES, another club member who runs the Nut Net every night on our club's repeater set aside some space for me and Joel next to his Nut Net tent. However, since we didn't have a current club pass and and Joel left late, we weren't able to get in during the 8am club hour and had to wait for general admission entry at 9am.
The line to get in
Our setup early on the first day.
Within minutes, we had already sold an entire box of vacuum tubes for $100. We were selling books for about one dollar; one of the boxes being extremely heavy, nearly throwing my back out carrying it and pricing everything based on how much we felt it would go for. I printed out my January blog post about W1OCY's background and finding the hidden stash. I also chatted with some other members of the NSRA who made the journey up on their own.
We made a good amount of money the first day and realized we might need more stuff as the day winded down, including the Super-Wasp which we didn't bring up. (Including one ham who recognized what it was) As I wasn't staying overnight like Joel was, I decided to make the trip back to Eric's house and pick up more stuff after letting him know I was coming.
Myself in the front and Joel behind me
Driving back through a slight rain storm from a pitiful subtropical storm Melissa, I stopped at Eric's house and loaded up the back of the Jeep with more boxes of items, aside from the books which I brought with me to keep from getting wet. Then I headed home and got some sleep.
My Jeep loaded up for the second day
Our tent next to the Nut Net tent on the second day
I arrived the next morning around 8 and brought the items over to the tent to sell. The day progressed nicely, I popped on the RedditNet IRC chat from time to time as Internet was very spotty, dropping between LTE down to HSPA and sometimes EDGE and very often no signal. One of the others in the IRC let me know he was coming up to NEAR-Fest later the day. He did eventually stop by our tent. We sold the Super-Wasp. And we made some more money for the club. I also managed to pop in the commercial vendor buildings. Eventually, the end of the day came and we broke everything down and headed home to put what we didn't sell back in Eric's shed for the time being.
This was the heaviest box and I nearly threw my back out carrying it over to our table
Thankfully by the end of the day it was empty.
The first commercial building.
The second commercial building.
I'm already looking for NEAR-Fest XXVII in May. Hope to see you then!
73!
P.S.
For an album of photos from the first day of NEAR-Fest, click here.
For an album of photos from the second day of NEAR-Fest, click here.
Before I begin though, I must go over Sensitive Security Information or SSI. SSI is a designation used by TSA which is coded in federal regulation that states that SSI "is information that, if publicly released, would be detrimental to transportation security."
SSI is essentially sensitive but unclassified information. As I work for TSA, I am automatically a "covered person" who is required to protect such information. Therefore, I am limited in what I can I use and say on anything that is considered SSI.
However, most of the sources I'm using for this blog post are publicly available third-party sources which are not SSI or if it is a TSA source, was not marked SSI.
History of TSA
TSA was founded in the aftermath of the destructive September 11th terrorist attacks which showed how weak and complacent the aviation security industry had become in the United States. I say industry because it was a literal sub-industry of security companies usually subcontracted by the airlines to provide screening services with weak oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration and it's sub-office, the Office of Civil Aviation Security.
For the first couple of months, TSA was nothing more than a dozen people in a small basement office at the Department of Transportation (DOT) headquarters until February 2002 when TSA more or less absorbed the FAA's Office of Civil Aviation Security and continued until November 19, 2002, the one year deadline imposed by Congress to have all aviation security activities overseen by TSA.
TSA Field Operations
Before I begin describing radio infrastructure, I should probably give you an overview of how TSA's field operations work. TSA oversees about approximately 460 airports, the number fluctuates because many of the smaller airports are seasonal or see irregular air service that comes and goes based on the airline.
Airports are divided in 5 categories of security, at the top end is Category X, these are your major international airports in major metropolitan areas, below that are Category I airports, these are airports in say smaller cities or secondary commercial airports in a major metropolitan area say like Dallas Love Field (DAL), Houston Hobby (HOU) or Chicago Midway (MDW). At the other end of the spectrum are Category IV airports; these airports are essentially your small Podunk general aviation airport that has commercial service through say the Essential Air Service.
Just like the airlines, TSA field operations are based on a hub-spoke model. Most Category X and I airports have Category II, III and IV spokes. For example, here in Massachusetts, my airport, Boston Logan International (BOS) is the hub for the rest of the state such Worcester Regional (ORH), Hanscom Field (BED), Westover Metropolitan (CEF) and the airports on the Cape and Island (ACK, HYA, MVY and PVC), and since 2014 also oversees Maine's airports.
At these hub airports, there is a small operations center known as the Coordination Center, which is essentially the clearing house for all information in the area of responsibility. If an incident happens at a checkpoint or a baggage area, the TSA officers (TSOs) will call it in and the Coordination Center will make the proper notifications to local or state law enforcement, our explosives specialists or our regulatoryinspectors if needed.
The TSOC Watch Floor
These Coordination Centers in turn report to TSA's national operations center, the Transportation Security Operations Center or TSOC. TSOC is essentially the national clearinghouse, all incidents reported go to TSOC. Unlike the Coordination Centers which are just staffed by TSA employees, TSOC has TSA employees along with employees from various other government agencies, such as other DHS agencies, the FAA and FBI serving as liaisons.
TSA's Frequencies and Radios
Frequencies
Since TSA and the FAA were essentially under the same department at the beginning, that being the Department of Transportation. The FAA gave away a chunk of their land-mobile VHF frequencies to TSA, so it could set up it's land mobile network. It should be noted, that even though the frequencies maybe the same at many airports, each airport land mobile radio system is an independent system, they are not interlinked into a national network or even regional networks.
The large airports will have repeaters, but smaller airports might not need one and just run simplex.
Radios
(Note: I started at TSA in 2008, so what they used for radios prior to me starting is hazy and I can't find much on the Internet, unless the radios we were using in 2008, were there since day one.)
The first radios used were MotorolaXTS5000 P25 radios in Model I and Model III versions, along with XTL5000 consolette base stations and Motorola Quantar repeaters.
In 2009, as part of a major TSA project known as "Checkpoint Evolution", one of the sub-projects was introducing "Whisper Radios" to "quiet" the checkpoint. These "Whisper radios" were analog Icom F50V radios using voice inversion scrambling in an attempt to mask the communications.
In 2015, TSA completed a contract with RELM Wireless (now BK Technologies) to purchase their KNG series of P25 radios to replace both the Motorolas and the Icom "Whisper" radios. This acquisition only affected the portables and repeaters, which also came from RELM/BK. The Motorola consolettes remain, although most have been replaced by ones from Motorola's APX series of radios.
In 2018, TSA posted a request for information on FedBizOpps looking to once again upgrade their LMR infrastructure. However, there was something different about this solicitation, instead of once again requesting VHF radios, the TSA was requesting UHF radios instead.
It seems that TSA is going to give up the VHF frequencies for UHF frequencies, returning them to the FAA or having the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) reassign them.
700/800 MHz Bands
I have seenoccasionalreferences on FedBizOpps to TSA acquiring radios that can be used in the 700 & 800 MHz public safety bands.
My scientific wild-ass guess is that it has to do with radio interoperability purposes allowing TSA and requisite airport and public safety authorities to communicate if need be.
TSA on Shortwave
Unlike many other government agencies, like some of the those in DHS, such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) or the U.S. Coast Guard, TSA never had the need for high frequency spectrum.
For example, CBP has COTHEN, the Customs Over The Horizon Enforcement Network, mostly for air and marine assets under CBP's Air and Marine Operations division. The Coast Guard has plenty of HF spectrum from being a military service. FEMA has the FEMA National Radio System (FNARS) and DHS' new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) runs the SHARES (SHAred RESources) HF network.
However, that all changed with Hurricane Katrina, TSA had communication problems with getting information between headquarters and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY). Landline, mobile and even satellite phone service was impacted, according to former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley's book, Permanent Emergency.
In fact, TSA has three specialist positions dedicated solely to emergency communications for this purpose located strategically across the country, along with hundreds of other employees who possess an amateur radio licence and MARS training to operate the equipment TSA uses to participate in MARS.
Private Radios for Private Companies
When TSA was established, that previously mentioned sub-industry of aviation security companies didn't disappear. A pilot program was established that took five airports of the five security categories and had private security companies provide the screening personnel with TSA oversight. That pilot program evolved into the Screening Partnership Program or SPP.
As there are various private screening companies (and one airport itself handling screening, that being Jackson Hole Airport [JAC] in Wyoming) under contract and those contracts change every few years with new bids (or in one case revocation for performance), it's hard to keep track of what the private companies use for radios. Being that they want to keep things cheap, I'm assuming they use cheaper radios and from what I've heard, it's mostly been of the Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) variety.
In February of this year, using a leftover Lenovo ThinkCentre M73 Tiny, that was original intended to be used a home theater PC, I made a "scanner" using it and 3 RTL-SDR USB dongles.
Trunk Recorder is open source software written by Luke, that using various SDRs such as the HackRF, RTL-SDR-based USB dongles and Ettus USRPs among others, allows the capture and recording of Project 25 (P25) and Motorola SmartNet trunked radio systems plus conventional systems that are P25 or analog too.
It runs on Linux, macOS and even on a Raspberry Pi (although it's recommended to be a Pi 3 because the rest probably won't be able to keep up). You can either build it yourself from the source code or use Docker like I did to get it up and running.
After configuring a JSON file that sets all the parameters for the instance you plan on running, a CSV file that defines the talkgroups you want to record, you should be good to go.
OpenMHz
Luke also runs OpenMHz, a website that hosts the recordings you make if you so desire. It's not like Broadcastify where it's a continuous stream, it's more of an on-demand style although it autoplays the next recording when it comes online, making it almost stream-like. There is a script that can be executed also using Liquidsoap to allow you to stream to Broadcastify and other providers.
My setup
I setup an instance of Trunk Recorder to record the Massport P25 system, which is part of the greater Commonwealth of Massachusetts Interoperability Radio System (CoMIRS). Specifically, the airport side of Massport's operations, specifically the public safety and aviation operations, which consists of Massport Aviation Operations, Massport Fire Rescue and Massachusetts State Police's Troop F which covers Logan Airport.
Using the ThinkCentre and the three RTL-SDR USB dongles and mag-mount antennas, I am to capture what I want.
It's taken some tweaking but I think I finally found the right configuration because if the audio doesn't decode, it results in 44 byte, 0 second files that are unplayable, although it will take time.
I've participated in the Boston Marathon for the past two years and here's some survival tips for new hams. This is inspired by W3ATB's original Survival Guide. (Although it should be noted that the guide has been superseded by newer documentation.)
Be prepared
As the Scout Motto goes, BE PREPARED. The Boston Marathon is probably the preeminent public service event in all of amateur radio. (My opinion, of course.) Mind you, the course spreads over 26.2 miles from Hopkinton, Massachusetts to Boston, Massachusetts.
You need to be prepared in various ways.
1. Make sure your radio is programmed beforehand. Whether you have a top of the line Kenwood or a bottom of the barrel Baofeng or somewhere in between, make sure it is programmed with the various repeater and simplex frequencies before the event. Make sure you have the offsets and tones correct also. You don't want to be hand punching in frequencies and tones on the front panel at the volunteer meetup, it wastes valuable time. You may get lucky and have another ham with a programming cable for your radio or you may not.
The ICS-205 form with all the frequencies and tones. is usually released a few weeks beforehand on hamradioboston.org, so check it out and start programming. Usually, one of the hams will release a CSV which you can load in the radio programming Swiss army knife of a program known as CHIRP or whatever software you use to program your radio. Take advantage of it. In closing, I'll say it again, make sure your radio is programmed beforehand.
2. Make sure you have adequate radio accessories. What do I mean by adequate? You should have the following:
A headset and shoulder mic. The Marathon is a very loud event, you're going to have lots of cheering spectators yelling, screaming and ringing cowbells and the lot. You need to be able to hear your radio and what others are saying.
Extra power. Depending on your assignment you could be on your station for a couple of hours up to dozens of hours, your battery may not make it all the way, so bring a fully charged back up battery. Or better yet...
Extra radio. Bring a backup just in case something happens with your primary, if your radio goes down and you don't have a backup, you're essentially useless.
No stock antennas. An aftermarket antenna for your radio is highly recommended. Stock "rubber duckies" are a compromise, they work well when you're near a good, strong repeater, but you may not have that luxury on the course due to coverage or a weak spot. So go and get one.
3. Dress for the weather. Even though Spring begins every year on March 20th, New England weather is a strange beast in April. It could 32°F and snowing, it could 50°F and raining or it could be 85°F with sweltering heat and humidity. You need to dress for the weather. Take it from me, I learned the hard way my first year when it was a monsoon of freezing rain, I just wore cargo pants and non waterproof boots, with a fleece jacket underneath my volunteer jacket along with a poncho. My upper half stayed warm and dry, the lower half did not and my boots got ruined. Dress for the weather.
4. Pack light. 2013 changed everything. The days of any type of backpack are over, unless it's see through. Bring a small waist pack and carry as much as you can on your person, cargo pants are highly recommended. If you bring a backpack, you're liable to be searched or stopped by local law enforcement which takes away from your listening watch. The only slight exception is if your doing transport on the medical sweep bus, because a mobile radio with a mag mount is recommended for those assignments. Nevertheless, transport buses could be boarded and searched so be prepared for that and cooperate with law enforcement. Pack light.
5. Read the documentation. Even with all my advice, this is not official guidance. Everything official is posted on hamradioboston.org, by the BAA Communications Committee staffed by fellow amateurs. Everything you need is there. Plus, there is a forum where you can ask questions. I highly recommend checking it out.
In closing
Again, these are just tips. The official documentation is what you should rely on. Nevertheless, don't be daunted by all this. Step up and make yourself available. The Boston Marathon is an exciting event and helps you get baseline of what amateur radio public service is all about, and what better way then on the biggest stage of them all.
Yesterday, I participated in the 123rd running of the Boston Marathon. Not as a runner mind you, but as a volunteer; specifically an amateur radio communications volunteer. Amateur radio is one of the three radio systems going during the Marathon, operating along aside public safety radios that are interoperable for the event and the commercial DMR radios that the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), the race organizers, have rented for the duration of the event.
There are various roles amateurs play at the Marathon and it is divided into four segments, Start, Course, Finish and Transport. Start and Finish work obviously the start and finish line. Course, which was the segment I was assigned to, is split among the hydration and medical stations along the course and Transport works the sweep buses to pick up runners who have dropped out. Course and Finish also have Net Control Operation Centers that serve as the focal point of relaying operations for their respective segments.
There are also amateur radio operators assigned to other roles such as shadowing VIP race officials to provide information and there is even a ham or two assigned to the MEMA Bunker in Framingham.
Most of this came about due to the after effects of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The BAA setup a Communications Committee which created standard operating procedures for hams to make everything more organized.
The sheer amount of volunteers makes this one of the biggest, if not the biggest ham radio public service event. One of my fellow hams from reddit who contacted me for help said he was amazed the amount of ham radio volunteers alone, not to mention the medical and hydration volunteers needed.
The race
Last year, was my first year and I was assigned to a hydration station in Wellesley's College Sqaure, where I promptly got soaked in a monsoon of freezing rain, but at least I had convenient parking to park in the parking lot of the library right there and duck into my car from time to time.
This year I wasn't so lucky parking wise, as I was on a side street due to the station being located on the Natick/Wellesley line. However, it was a medical station, which means a bit more shelter should the rain come pouring down.
It did, but only before the race began, a thunderstorm came plowing through leading to us being held at our volunteer meeting location of Babson College's auditorium. The same went for other volunteers down the course who were held at Newton North High School. Luckily, the storm passed and the all clear was given to proceed out.
The race began, and other than having some radio trouble with my partner not being able to hit the repeater, it was mostly uneventful for the first couple of hours as the wheelchair runners came through followed by the elite men and women and eventually the first waves of regular runners.
One of our main jobs was to report the hour stats of how many runners are being treated which was thankfully zero, so the medical staff mostly handed out water and Vaseline on sticks for the runners, some of whom had to be reminded it was Vaseline and not to eat it. (My opinion is I think some of the runners mistook it for energy gel which was also being handed out.)
However, towards the end of the race, we started to see runners coming in with various ailments, some minor but some major. I started getting reports from the hydration stations from the east and west of me that we had runners in distress who couldn't make it the medical station and required pick up. I relayed this information to medical station lead who had a Gator cart dispatched to each location to pick up the runners.
Thankfully, that was the most excitement I had as one of the other fallback tasks an amateur radio operator has at a medical station is to make EMS requests should all other methods of requesting help fail.
My only major gripe is the location of the station as their is a minor radio dead zone where I am because while I could receive net control, it was very hard to hear the hydration stations next to me with many garbled transmissions until they could into a clearer area.
Conclusion
All in all, a great time, a great Marathon and I hope to return next year and do it all over again. But maybe sit down a bit more because my legs and body were gassed by the time I got home... and I didn't even run! But I did sleep like a baby.
Back in January, I posted about silent key ham W1OCY and his trove of old ham radio items plus other odds and ends that went undiscovered for 8-9 years in a warehouse in Peabody, Massachusetts.
I missed out on our club's February meeting due to work commitments, but got an update at our club's March meeting.
At the time, we hadn't sold anything, but now I can report, that we've sold a lot of stuff and made a nice profit for the club, which is important because we just installed a UHF DMR repeater through the New England Digital Emergency Communications Network (NEDECN).
We're still not done, I have still have some of the books in storage as do others. If you need more information or are just interested, email me here.
I'm an avgeek, so I recently setup my own Automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast or ASD-B receiver. There are plenty around. The most common setup is to use a Raspberry Pi with a PiAware image on an SD card, an RTL-SDR and a 1090 MHz antenna. There are also more dedicated setups using hardware provided by the major ADS-B tracking websites such as FlightAware and Flightradar24.
I went the Pi route. However, instead of using the FlightAware PiAware image that's commonly available; I choose to run the ADS-B Receiver image by Joe Prochazka.
My setup consists of a Raspberry Pi 3B, a FlightAware Pro Stick Plus and a cheap $7 1090 MHz antenna. The Pro Stick Plus is nice because it's essentially a RTL-SDR USB dongle with a built in 1090MHz filter and RF amp. FlightAware also offers the regular Pro Stick which does not include a 1090 MHz filter.
I used the dump1090-flightaware version of the image, although it is available with another dump1090 version called dump1090-mutability. However, mutability himself says that version is outdated, deprecated and recommends using dump1090-flightaware.
I like the ADS-B Receiver image because not only does it include FlightAware feeding, but also includes clients for Flightradar24, Planefinder and what I think is the best of all the tracking sites: ADS-B Exchange which does not filter/block flights so you can see some pretty interesting results such as military flights and private jets that FlightAware and others have blocked because of requests by the owners of said jets.
It also has built in ADS-B UAT 978 MHz tracking using dump-978, something which I haven't set up yet. It also has a built in web portal, so I can make the setup publicly available, although it does rely on some port forwarding, but luckily Duck DNS is included on the image.
I was a little leery at first about setting it up because only the GitHub page was available and not the website that Joe had set up for it. However, a few days before I set up the Pi, it seems to have come back online and Joe says he's working hard on version 3.0 which will have it's own custom map optimized for both desktop and mobile instead of relying on the dump-1090 maps generated by the mutability and FlightAware versions.
Anyways, I've gotten pretty good results so far despite having a somewhat compromised location geographically and topographically as I've mentioned in a previous post.
Those weird squiggles are my line of sight range for the setup I have, plus a regular line of sight range. According to my FlightAware stats, most of the ADS-B packets received occur to the south of me, I get very little to the north.
So if you want to view my setup online, here's the links for the FlightAware map and the Planefinder map.
W1OCY, Everett E. Chapman, is a silent key. He died in 2010, just two days shy of the new year at the age of 85. He was born on April 30, 1925 in Glen Cove, NY and grew up in Vermont and New Hampshire.
He served his country in the United States Navy during World War II and was part of the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Dartmouth College. He was at least an Ensign based on items we found in this "treasure." I don't know if he reached any higher ranks, I've tried searching through US Navy Registers online and so far, I haven't found anything.
He graduated from Dartmouth in 1948 with an A.B. and entered the business world in 1955 working for Dynatrol and other places in the aerospace industry such as Raytheon based on his collection of papers we found.
He didn't have much family, didn't marry, at least from what I can tell and obviously no kids. He was survived by brother Donald, who is still alive and will turn 90 on April Fools' Day this year.
He was an Extra-class ham. In fact, his license just expired in May, but hasn't been cancelled because no one has brought his passing to the FCC's attention yet.
And it seems that's how this "treasure" trove of old ham radio equipment and books went undiscovered for nearly 8 years before it was found.
I am member of the North Shore Radio Association, and it appears maybe at one time, so was Mr. Chapman based on a empty binder that was found with a tab labeled North Shore Repeater Association, the club's old name.
Anyways, one of club members, Jim Palmer, KB1KQW, works for Peabody, Massachusetts' public access cable station, Peabody Access Telecommunications/Peabody TV. PAT is based in an old industrial park, known as the Foster St. Complex, located next to the Eastman Gelatine plant.
Jim was asked by the landlord to take a look at stash of old radio equipment found in one of the adjacent buildings.
What was found could be nothing short of "hidden treasure."
W1OCY had tubes galore, old radios that are older than most of us, homebrew equipment and books, books galore. I was told it was on six pallets, but it was managed to get condensed down into four pallets.
I've only taken a brief look at the radios as so far my only night helping (due to my work schedule) was sorting the books.
Everett was an interesting and eclectic ham, suffice to say. He had many, many books on amateur radio and electronics, but also books on the Civil War, military uniforms, military horse saddles, military belt buckles, woodworking, machining, model trains and various types of engines. Not to mention the piles and piles of periodicals such as Science and Mechanics and good ole' Popular Mechanics.
So what do we plan to do with this "treasure"?
Auction it and sell it and raise funds for the club. We plan to list some of the stuff on eBay, we also plan on hitting up the local ham fests and fleas to sell it such as NEAR-Fest and Boxboro, the ARRL New England convention. I suggested the Flea at MIT. Some stuff will probably be bought to Hamcation and Hamvention too.
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