One major dealer is advertising widely (the RSGB must really value this income) and I could not help noticing a major antenna manufacturer selling antennas (on the centre pages) via this dealer for £3899.99 and £4199.99!
If this major UK dealer decided to "hang up his boots" and leave the amateur market then RadCom would have to radically change. It would probably have to shrink and come out less often. The only remaining amateur radio magazine remaining on newsagent's stands would really struggle.
Now, I am not able, nor wish, to say how you spend your money. However, for me, these antennas are not amateur radio. A fan dipole covering all the higher HF bands could probably be made for the cost of a few coffees out. So you might be a few dBs down on a big tower with one of these antennas on the top, but you will probably save a 4 figure sum in the process.
In the end, we have to understand what our hobby is really about. To me, there are 2 major sorts of radio amateur: (a) those who just get out their credit card and (b) those that experiment. I prefer the latter.
In my view, the writing is already on the wall. I personally see a battle looming between the credit card operators and experimenters. In my view appliance operators will merge with CB. Experimenters?
WIA Director Chris Dimitrijevic VK3FY. - ALARA Contest Manager Lesley VK5LOL. - 2 POLICE STATIONS TO WORK VI7POL and HB20SP. - and THREE G or not 3G, THAT IS THE QUESTION.
I wish I could make this one simple, but we are getting into complex territory. Please read the instructions and follow along carefully. This is not something I recommend doing without knowing your way around Linux, and so the basics are not covered(it would be too long). this should let you share the same soundcard between direwolf and other apps like VARA, and FLDigi as well. I ran into this when I wanted to have VARA and Dire wolf share a soundcard for my BPQ32 node on Linux. By default, Dire wolf takes complete control of the sound card interface, as well as VARA when ran within wine. There are several tweaks and changes needed to make this work, so buckle in. In this guide, I’ve used this post to install VARA within wine on Debian 12. I’ve used this post to install dire wolf.
Splitting the Interface
First, we need to grab your sound cards device name. Enter cat /proc/asound/cards to get a list of sound cards, pay attention to the “Device” or “Device_1” relating to your radios digital audio interface card. I my case, I needed both (one was used for 2m, the other for HF). Note the name somewhere, paying attention to the case as well.
Now, we need to open the “asound” configuration file (or make a new one if it doesn’t exist), and enter some information. First, check if one exists for your current user with : cat ~/.asound. If you get file does not exist, that’s fine. If you instead see file info, enter rm ~/.asound to get rid of it. The reason we did that was because the user configuration file overrides the global (which is the one we will now create/edit).
Enter sudo nano /etc/asound.conf to create/edit the existing global configuration. If your file is empty, awesome. If it contains content, remove everything.
What we will do now, is name our new split soundcard interface. In the following example, I’ve taken the soundcard listed as “Device” from above, and now named it “digirig” in this new interface, and split it into “digirig-rx” for the receive(audio in), and “digirig-tx” for the transmit (audio out)
We will now paste the following template:
Take care to replace the word “Device” with the name you found above (probably the same), and if you would like to rename the interface to something other than “digirig” like I have here, replace all instances of it with something lowercase and simple you will remember.
If you have 2 sound card interfaces, such as I do, you will just paste the above twice, one after the other. You will need to rename all instances of “digirig” (or whatever you called the first one) to something else (to refer to the second card). You will also need to replace “Device” once more with the name of the second sound card (probably “Device_1”).
Great, save that file. Issue the following command to have the changes take effect.
sudo alsa force-reload
If you get command not found, you’re better off rebooting before continuing.
Now, we will now make sure we’ve done this part right. Open up your direrwolf configuration file (probably nano ~/direwolf.conf) and find the “ADEVICE” line and remove it.
Replace it with the following. (Obviously replacing “digirig” if you’ve renamed it in the asound file we made/edited above.
ADEVICE digirighf-rx digirighf-tx
Save the file, and restart Dire wolf. Dire wolf should start fine, and your audio device should be working as it did before. If not, stop here, somethings wrong.
Getting VARA to use the Split interface
Now that dire wolf is using our split interface, we now need to get VARA on board, which is a little more involved.
First, we need to get your wine prefix to be configured using ALSA. If using VARA in the default prefix, this could be as simple as running “winetricks sound=alsa“. Give it a try, as it won’t hurt either way. Otherwise, you will run the following command, replacing “.wine32” with the wine prefix you’ve made for VARA.
Another way you can try to achieve this is by running “winetricks” within desktop mode, selecting the prefix where VARA is installed, choosing “Change Settings”, finding “sound=alsa” and pressing “Ok”
Next we need to set some registry keys on the Wine prefix to identify our split interfaces. Similar to the above, we will enter the following command to open the registry editor for the VARA prefix:
You can also reach the Registry editor using the “winetricks” command, selecting the prefix, and opening the regedit from there.
You will navigate to the following key and leave it it open:
HKCU->Software->Wine->Drivers->winealsa.drv
Just as in the above screenshot, you will right click the empty space, and select new -> multi-string value.
Create one key called “ALSAInputDevices” and another called “ALSAOutputDevices”. In each of them, for the value, make a list of the relative -rx or -tx devices we made before in the asound file. (If you only have 1 sound card interface to use, you only need the one here). (-rx being in the Input devices, and -tx being in the Output.)
Save, and close it all out.
Starting VARA
Now start VARA as you normally do in WINE. In the soundcard settings, now chose the interface we specified in the registry relating to the one we created in the asound configuration file.
Direwolf and VARA should now be able to share the sound interface this way!
First, I want to give all credit for this blog post and script to this website(blog.radioartisan.com), and the ham who created it (K3NG). The only reason I am posting it here is to walk through the database installation portion, and show how the database can be expanded onto to include extra information, as well as add some more detailed documentation. His mission seems to align with mine in making database lookup tools for logbooks for accessible, instead of taking user data and selling it back (such as what QRZ does). As such, most of the information here is ripped from his post, and presented in a different way.
This guide is going to assume you are running Debian 12, or Ubuntu 22.04
Creating our User
This section is Linux 101, but I usually go over it anyways just in case. We will be running mostly everything here as a non root user, that is in the sudo group. As such, the following commands below will create our new user, install sudo, and swap to it. If you already have a user created that you would like to use, you may skip this step.
As Root:
add user your-desired-user
apt install sudo
usermod -aG sudo your-desired-user
su kn4mkb
Installing and Configuring MariaDB Database
The following will perform some updates, and install MariaDB. Everything else from here on should be done under the user we just created, not root.
Now we will configure it for best security practices:
sudo mysql_secure_installation
You will be asked several questions. As we are running the command as root, press [Enter](none) when asked for the root password, as we haven’t configured one. We can answer ‘n’ for most of the others until asked if we want to remove anonymous users. From here, we want to say ‘y’, for the rest of the questions.
Enter current password for root (enter for none):
Switch to unix_socket authentication [Y/n] n
Change the root password? [Y/n] n
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y
Creating the Database User
We will now create the user which will be used to update the database with the latest information from the FCC database. We will start the sql prompt as root, and use the prompt to create the user, giving it privileges to create new databases.
sudo mysql
Replace “hamdbuser” and “SECURE_PASSWORD” with your desired username and password for the database user. Enter the following 3 commands at the MariaDB prompt:
CREATE USER hamdbuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'SECURE_PASSWORD';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'hamdbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'SECURE_PASSWORD';
quit
We now have the database and a user ready to go. Next we will proceed with K3NGs database updating script.
Installing HamDB
First we will install wget, which will allow us to pull the most recent version of the hamdb script form github. unzip is also needed as hamdb uses it for database downloads. We will then pull the script into our current working folder and run a full database build.
The script will ask you a few questions. Would you like to create a config file (y), what is your Database sser, database password. afterwards, it gets to work pulling the current database in full.
Using HamDB to lookup Ham Radio Callsign Information
You can use HamDB in a few ways to lookup information. But the true power will be building third party or external tools to extract information from the database.
Look up a callsign: ./hamdb k3ng Wildcard Search: ./hamdb like k3ng% Search for amateurs in a zip: ./hamdb zipcode 17701 Search by last name: ./hamdb lastname Jones
./hamdb -h will give you all of the lookup options built into the application.
Maintaining and Updating the Database
You will want to run and update daily on your database to keep things current. You can use cron to accomplish this. Take note of where you have downloaded the hamdb script (mine is at /home/kn4mkb/hamdb)
Enter the following command. If you are unsure with what editor to use when asked, go with nano.
crontab -e
Enter the following line at the end of the file to update the database every day at 2:30 am. Take care to replace /home/kn4mkb/hamdb with the path of your hamdb script.
30 2 * * * /home/kn4mkb/hamdb update
Ctrl X + Y to save (if using nano), and you should be good to go!
As a last post to the BBS portion of the packet radio series, I wanted to give a few ways you can actually connect to a BBS node within Linux and windows. If you want to setup your own node with BPQ, you can follow the guide here.
Connecting to a BBS Node in Windows OR Linux with Paracon
Thanks to a recommendation by a commenter, I’ve added a program called Paracon to the top of this list of programs I recommend to use to connect to radio BBS nodes. Paracon is a cross platform python application used to connect to AGWPE enabled TNC’s. It does not support KISS TNC’s, which means this option limits you to the use of software TNC’s like dire wolf or AGWPE. If you are using a hardware TNC, please see one of the below options instead. If you don’t yet have a TNC, check out this guide to setup Dire wolf.
You will need python 3.7 or above installed. If you are on windows, grab the latest version and install it from here. If you are on Debian/Ubuntu or Raspberry PI OS, you can install it with:
sudo apt install python3
Grab the latest release of Paracom from the release page here. You will want to download the ‘pyz’ file. Linux users can grab it headless by running the following commands:
Go ahead and start your chosen AGWPE application (such as direwolf) and note the port. Open a command prompt (on windows) or a terminal (on linux) and run the following command to open Paracon.
You may need to modify the file name above if you have downloaded a newer version (obviously). The application opens with a terminal screen, F1 will show you the help menu, and the mouse can be used to also click various buttons. The Setup screen should appear. Here you will enter your AGWPE server IP and port. If running dire wolf on the same system, the IP will be 127.0.0.1, and probably the default port, 8000.
Connecting to another node is as simple as Pressing “Connect” and then entering your desired NODE/BBS Callsign.
In the end you should be connected to your desired node!
Connecting to a BBS Node in Windows with QtTermTCP:
My choice here without python or Paracon is a program called QtTermTCP by John Wiseman G8BPQ. Although it isn’t perfect, and does crash sometimes, for the most part it works as long as you don’t try anything funny. Grab the download link from here and unzip the file. At this time, your TNC should be started or plugged in, depending if you are running a software TNC or a hardware one. Keep the packaged version, as I’ve noticed when crashes occur, it’s best to delete the extracted folder and replace it with a fresh version. Open the contents, and you should see a “QtTermTCP.exe” file. Open it up.
Once open, navigate to Setup, and choose your desired communication mode. The most popular options are going to be either VARA or KISS. If you don’t yet have a KISS network or serial interface, go check out The Ultimate guide to Direwolf to setup a KISS TNC.
Once open, you will see a few options. either way, we want to check the box to “Enable KISS Interface”. If you are using a hardware Kiss TNC, make sure it’s plugged in, and select the correct port and speed from the “Serial TNC” portion. On the other hand, if you are using a network KISS TNC such as direwolf, select “TCP” under “Select Device”, and enter the IP where it’s running. If direwolf is running on the same windows computer, it will be “127.0.0.1”
Great, click “Ok” and we should be ready to get connected. If all is tight, you should see “KISS Connected on the bottom of the program. Now, Naviagte to the “Connect” button on the top left, and press “KISS Connect”. In the “Call To” Field, enter your destination , and press “Ok” to get connected.
Connecting to a BBS Node in Linux with Kissattach
Linux can be a little more evolved that Windows, but don’t worry it’s not too bad. The instructions are going to assume you are running Debian/Ubuntu or Raspberry Pi OS. If you are using Arch Linux, I’ve already made a guide for this here. If you intend on using a hardware TNC, go ahead and get it connected. If you are using direwolf make sure it’s configured, but don’t start it just yet as we will make a slight change. If you don’t yet have a KISS TNC, check out this to get dire wolf up and running.
Install needed tools
sudo apt-get install ax25-tools ax25-apps
Now we will create a new “ax.25 port” which we will use for connections. Open the file at /etc/ax25/axports as sudo. Add a new line at the bottom below the comemted lines like the following example.
# /etc/ax25/axports
#
# The format of this file is:
#
# name callsign speed paclen window description
#
#1 OH2BNS-1 1200 255 2 144.675 MHz (1200 bps)
#2 OH2BNS-9 38400 255 7 TNOS/Linux (38400 bps)
ax0 KN4MKB-8 19200 236 7 144.675 MHz (300 bps)
Replace “KN4MKB-8” with your own call. Replace “19200” with your TNCs serial connection speed (you can leave it as 19200 if using direwolf). The “236” is the packet length. If using HF, you may want to use “64” here. 236 is fine for VHF. The “144.675 MHz (300 bps)” at the end is just text, and does not really matter.
Save it.
If you are using a hardware KISS TNC, you will need to gets it’s serial path from /dev. If you are using dire wolf, you will now start it like this in a separate terminal:
direwolf -t 0 -p -c ~/direwolf.conf
Replace “~/direwolf.conf” with the dire wolf configuration file you would like to use.
You will see the following serial path, we will need that in just a moment:
Bind kissatatch to the TNC
Now run the following command, replacing “/dev/pts/4” with your serial /dev path from above.
sudo kissattach -l /dev/pts/4 ax0
If you are using dire wolf, additionally run this command:
sudo kissparms -c 1 -p ax0
Connect Away!
You should now be able to connect to a given callsign within your linux shell. Use the following format, obviously replacing “KN4MKB-4” with the call you’d like to connect to.
Conditions were rough but I've managed to get 16 stations into my log, including two from the Azores. It was great to sit on a dyke, watch people kite and enjoy the view of the sea while talking to stations all over Europe.
My rig was the usual: Xiegu G90 and a 5.4m long telescopic vertical antenna with four 5m radials.
Over on YouTube Baltic Lab has uploaded a video showing how he was able to successfully use an RTL-SDR Blog V4 and the included multipurpose dipole antenna kit to receive images from polar-orbiting NOAA weather satellites.
In the video, Baltic Lab shows how to orient the dipole antenna in a "V-Dipole" shape which optimizes it for receiving from satellites. He also shows how to use a VNA to confirm that the telescopic elements on the dipole are extended to the correct length, noting that he was able to achieve a VSWR of less than 1.2 between the target frequencies of 135 to 138.1 MHz, with a near perfect match at 136.5 MHz.
He then demonstrates receiving the NOAA APT signals with his laptop, and successfully recovering the weather satellite image.
Several recent articles examined the use of s11 port extension or e-delay in some scenarios that might have surprised.
Recall that s11 port extension adjusts the measured phase of s11 based on the e-delay value converted to an equivalent phase at the measurement frequency.
It is:
an exact correction for any length of lossless line of Z0=50+j0Ω transmission line;
an approximate correction for a very low loss length of approximately 50Ω transmission line; and
Of course 1. does not exist in the real world, but 2. can give measurement results of acceptable accuracy if used within bounds. Both departures mentioned in 2. occur in the real world, non-zero loss and departure from Z0=50+j0Ω. Provided these departures are small, port extension may give acceptable results.
Let’s analyse some example measurements based on a 10m length of ordinary RG58A/U from 1-11MHz.
Above, measurement of the first series resonance with SC termination.
Note that the curve is a spiral inwards from the outer circle, the line is not lossless.
A requirement for e-delay to work well is that phase of s11 is proportional to frequency. This plot wraps, but apart from that, the plot looks approximately linear… however scale prevents detailed analysis.
Above, measurement of the first series resonance with OC termination.
Note that the curve is a spiral inwards from the outer circle, the line is not lossless.
Again the plot wraps, but apart from that, the plot looks approximately linear… however scale prevents detailed analysis.
Let’s find a value for e-delay at 1MHz and analyse the result.
Above is adjustment of e-delay to 115ns for approximately s11 phase 180° at 1MHz with SC termination.
The phase is correct at 1MHz, but at higher frequencies, it departs. So, the assumption that this TL has phase delay proportional to frequency is invalid. If you look closely, it is not a perfectly straight line, there is a small oscillation superimposed which is a sign of Z0 error. For these reasons, e-delay correction will have error.
Above is adjustment of e-delay to 100ns for approximately s11 phase 180° at 1MHz with OC termination.
The phase is correct at 1MHz, but at higher frequencies, it departs. So, the assumption that this TL has phase delay proportional to frequency is invalid. If you look closely, it is not a perfectly straight line, there is quite an oscillation superimposed which is a sign of Z0 error. For these reasons, e-delay correction will have error.
Let’s proceed anyway and look at the error. We will connect the 50+j0Ω termination load to the end of the cable and measure with each of the e-delays above.
Above is measurement of a 50+j0Ω termination with e-delay calibrated using 100ns e-delay (calibrated to OC termination). Note that the curve is a small circle, a sign of Z0 error and a hint that actual Z0 is about the centre of the circle plotted. Note though that Z0 is frequency dependent at these frequencies for this cable, so you can’t pin a pin on the chart and say this is Z0.
Above is measurement of a 50+j0Ω termination with e-delay calibrated using 115ns e-delay (calibrated to SC termination). Note that the curve is a small circle, a sign of Z0 error and a hint that actual Z0 is about the centre of the circle plotted. Note though that Z0 is frequency dependent at these frequencies for this cable, so you can’t pin a pin on the chart and say this is Z0.
At 5.75MHz and:
e-delay from the SC calibration, Z=45.01+1.25Ω; whereas
e-delay from the OC calibration, Z=45.01-1.26Ω.
For some purposes, that might be sufficient accuracy, for others it might be unacceptable:
Z0 departure is more significant for lossier cables below about 10MHz; and
in any event loss of tenths of a dB leads to measurable error.
Conclusions
Port extension or e-delay can provide a convenient means of shifting the reference plane given suitable test fixtures, but it is subject to significant error if the underlying assumption of lossless 50Ω line is breached.
Remember yesterday when I mentioned the latest addition to my POTA setup, the Xiegu 5105 QRP rig….
Well this morning I decided to test it out and see how much work I would have to do with setting the parameters such as mic gain, processor, to make it sound like me… I was also testing out my EARCHI 9:1 unun with a 29.5 foot random wire to see how it would play with the built in AT of the 5105.
I figured I might as well do the testing at a POTA location just in case I was able to turn the test into an activation.
For this I chose Fort Frontenac POTA CA-5303. Its fairly easy to get there via the Kingston Transit system and its also close to downtown and all the amenities I might need. In the North East corner of the picture you will notice some white lines on the ground.
They are actually the walls of what’s left of that part of the Fort. Also the only parts of the Historic Site that is open to the public.
I leaned my MFJ 33 foot mast (supporting the 9:1 and wire in the vertical configuration) up against the tree.
And then ran the COAX over to the remains of the wall and set up my radio there and started operating.
My first contact was on 7.255 with the NCS of the ECARS net. He did hear me and considering I was QRP I was pleased. He did tell me that my audio seemed hot as if I was overdriving things. Lowering my voice seemed to help.
After that I looked at POTA Spots and managed to get W2IDG and VE3FI into the log from their parks and then finished up with the NCS of the MidCars net on 7.258.. All contacts were made on 40m SSB. I tried 20 SSB and was hearing lots of stations including a POTA Activation in VO1 but no luck breaking any of the pileups.
Then I figured it was time to get home and try to re configure the radio to my liking… I turned off the Speech Processor and lowered the Mic Gain from 60 to 40. Over the next few days I will get out again and see what else I have to do to get things sounding right.
- STARLINER ASTRONAUTS MAY RIDE HOME ON CREW DRAGON - HAARP RESEARCHERS SEEK HAM INPUT - HAMS IN INDIA GIVE FEEDBACK ON RADIO RULE PROPOSALS - NEW SHORTWAVE TRANSMITTER FOR RADIO NEW ZEALAND - ARCTIC CIRCLE BROADCASTS TO DEBUT AS LONGWAVE RADIO - US BUSINESS PETITIONS FOR EXPANDED USE OF 900 MHz - TWO CUBESATS GIVE SATELLITE FANS MORE OPTIONS - HAMS' WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY WORKSHOP ASSISTS POLICE - WRTC OPENS BIDDING FOR ENTRY OF SPONSORED TEAMS - WORLD OF DX - KICKER: HAM RADIO FAMILY EMBRACES SILENT KEY'S CALLSIGN
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AMATEUR and CB radio enthusiasts will converge on the Bendigo East Hall when the city’s... 
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National Hamfest – 27 and 28 September 2024 To read this edition, tap or click... 
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