Icom tried to get hams talking about the new IC-7760 by displaying a bunch of prototype board under a plexiglass case at the Dayton Hamvention. It generated some buzz, but in general, most hams here in the U.S. took a wait-and-see attitude.
When it was finally unveiled, many were disappointed, mostly because of the price, I think. DXZone reported that “the initial price in Yen was approximately $6000 or 5400 €. Just a few weeks later, European dealers began publishing the official IC-7760 price at around 6650 €, significantly higher than the original estimate.” None of the U.S. dealers has published a price for the radio yet.
The radio does have some interesting features, including:
200 W output
Separable control head and RF deck
In-house remote operation through a wired LAN
Two displays, 7-inch wide and 2.4-inch
The question is whether theses features justify the high price. Members of the IC-7610 mailing list don’t seem to think so. One of them noted, “I think the biggest competition to the 7760 will be the 7610, at nearly half the price and with very similar features, my guess is that few will opt for a 7760 unless they ‘just have to have one….'”
Yaesu FTX-1F
The FTX-1F is Yaesu’s replacement for the very popular FT-817/818. Its features include:
SSB, CW, AM, FM and C4FM digital modes
SDR technology and 3DSS (3-Dimensional Spectrum Stream) on a 4.3-inch high-resolution full-color touch display panel
Two independent receivers for true simultaneous dual-band operation, whether in the same band or in different bands.
USB ports support CAT operation, audio input/output and TX control
9 hours battery life on HF bands, 8 hours on V/UHF bands
Like the IC-7760, it’s not currently available from U.S. dealers, so the pricing isn’t set yet, but the word is that it’s going to cost around $2,000 when it’s finally released sometime in 2025. That’s quite a bit higher than the price of the FT-817/818, but it does have more features, and presumably, better performance.
Like the IC-7760, the question is whether these features justify the higher price. There are lots of interesting comments about this on qrper.com.
Kenwood mobile transceiver
The last announcement from the JARL Ham Fair is a new mobile radio from Kenwood. Details on this radio are sketchier than for the other two, but hamlife.jp reports the following:
Compatible with D-STAR and APRS.
Separate controlunit and RF deck.
Built-in GPS receiver
USB ports on both the control panel and the radio body.
Currently developing it for release in 2025.
They also report that, “Price is expected to be higher than the TH-D75.” That puts the price north of $750.
The question that I have with regard to these new radios is are they making ham radio better? This is only a partly-baked idea, but please stick with me on this. I can see where these new radios might make Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood more money, but I don’t really think that they make ham radio better.
First, how many hams can actually afford a $6,000 radio? And of those, how many will actually buy one? I’d love to see Icom’s marketing study for the IC-7760. Same goes for the Yaesu FTX-1F and the yet-unnamed Kenwood radio.
Second, I teach a lot of ham classes, and work with a lot of new hams, so I have a particular point of view here. That being the case, I’m not so sure that I’d counsel a new ham to buy one of these three radios. These are not radios for people just getting started in the hobby.
I think that what we need are more radios like the HF Signals sBitx. The sBitx is a reasonably-priced radio that offers reasonable performance at a price that’s affordable. And, it’s hackable, too! It’s not the perfect radio, but it’s certainly more accessible.
As I say, this is just a partly-baked idea, so I’d love to hear what you think. What features should a radio have to make the hobby better for all radio amateurs.
When CY9C began operations back on August 26, there were huge pileups. On 30-meter CW, the pileup was at least 5 kHz wide. One of the reasons for this, of course, is that St. Paul Island is part of Canada and not that far from most of the United States. That made it a lot more accessible to hams here in the U.S.
CY9C operated from St. Paul Island from August 25, 2024 to September 5, 2024.
I waited, and on the evening of August 31, I actually heard them calling CQ on 30 meters managed to work them on the second call.
As it turns out, I probably could have skipped it entirely. I just checked Logbook of the World (LOTW) and see that I worked CY9C on August 21, 2016; CY9SS on July 5, 2005; ;and Cy9A on July 31, 2003.
VUs in the log
For some reason—maybe because I don’t really have a DX station—I had never managed to work anyone in India. Well, in the last month or so, I’ve managed to work two Indians, VU2GSM and VU2TMP. VU2TMP has QSLed via LOTW, making my current DXCC count 174.
Several months ago, the University of Michigan Amateur Radio Club (UMARC) upgraded their repeater system (145.23-, 100Hz). As part of this upgrade, they became a node on the AllStarLink network, which they have been proudly announcing on their Sunday night net.
After last Sunday’s net, I decided to find out how to access the network. The first thing I did was to take a look at the UMARC website, or I should say websites. UMARC actually has four different web pages. Unfortunately, none of them had any information on how to access the AllStarLink network.
Then, I asked one of the club’s advisors. He wasn’t really sure how to do it either, and advised me to search for the information on the web. I did this and found a Beginner’s Guide, but this isn’t really what I was looking for. The Beginner’s Guide directs someone on how to set up their own node, not really how to use the network.
I kept looking and found the page AllStarLink Standard Commands. This is exactly what I was looking for. This page describes the DTMF sequences a user needs to connect and disconnect from nodes. Fortunately, the UMARC repeater uses this standard command set.
Next, I had to find a repeater to connect to. That shouldn’t be so difficult, I reasoned, since the network boasts that they have 34,720 users and 35,345 nodes. I started with the AllStarLink Node List. I was able to connect to a couple of repeaters, but most of them seemed either offline or inaccessible for some reason. One of the active nodes that I was able to connect to was WW8GM, the General Motors Amateur Radio Club repeater in Detroit, but I got no reply to my call there.
So, I asked on /r/amateurradio if anyone had suggestions for active or interesting nodes. I was directed to a list of “keyed nodes,” which I guess are nodes that are currently active. Currently, this page is showing 30-35 active nodes.
One of the nodes that looked promising was a repeater in Seattle. The page showed that it was connected to at least a dozen other repeaters. When I connected to that repeater, I heard a net with everyone giving weather reports! I didn’t find that very interesting, so I quickly disconnected.
I’m told that the UMARC repeater connects to a net of student stations on Saturday afternoon. I’ll be listening for that, but really would like to know of other interesting nets or nodes on the AllStarLink network. If you know of any, please comment below.
At an hour and a half, this video is kind of long, but if you’re interested in propagation, it’s worth watching.
W2AEW on how to use a NanoVNA to measure a filter’s characteristics
Alan, W2AEW, shows how to use a NanoVNA, which is one of the most useful tools for characterizing RF components and circuits.
Hallicrafters World of SW Radio
Back in the day, Hallicrafters was arguably the biggest name in amateur and shortwave radio. Unfortunately, this is just an audio file, but I guess, radio is audio so just close your eyes and imagine that you’re listening to this on a Hallicrafters receiver.
One of the things that makes Parks on the Air (POTA) so successful is the way that they use their database to keep folks involved. It’s very easy for activators to upload their logs, and once uploaded, the website takes it from there, generating myriad awards for participants. There are awards for all kinds of things including activating or hunting early in the day (Early Shift) and later in the day (Late Shifter). There are “rover” awards for operators who like to operated from many different parks and “repeat offender” awards for those that tend to operate from a single park or a small handful of parks.
And, if you’re a repeat offender—which I tend to be—there are awards for making at least 1,000 contacts from a particular park. They call these the “Kilo” awards. Earlier this year—June 20, to be exact—I earned my first kilo at Island Lake State Recreation Area, US-3315. Today, I earned my second at the Pinckney State Recreation Areas, US-3322.
I worked fairly hard to do this. Since June 20, when I completed my first kilo, I activated US-3322 14 times, making a total of 667 contacts, almost all of them on CW. My most productive activation was 82 contacts on August 2. My least productive activation was 11 contacts on August 17.
This picture was taken on August 17 after it started drizzling and just before it started to pour. Photo: Silvia Ruiz.
This activation was a short one because of the weather. Just after I made the seventh contact, it started to sprinkle. Thinking that it might blow over, my wife handed me an umbrella (see above). Just as I made the ninth contact, however, it started to pour. I was just able to squeeze in two more contacts before I decide the best course of action would be to shut everything down before it was drenched.
My 51 contacts today put me over the top.
What’s next?
Now that I’ve made it to 1,000 at two parks, I’m pondering what I should do next. I could go for 2,000 at US-3315 or US-3322. US-3322 is really a pleasant place to operate.
I could also expand my park selection. There are several nice parks that are only a little further away than Island Lake or Pinckney. I have, for example, 52 contacts from Waterloo State Recreation Area, US-3331, and Maybury State Park, US-1518, is purported to be a nice place to operate from.
Something else that I’m working on is coming up with some new gear for POTA. I’m currently working on building a QRP Labs’ QMX transceiver kit. Last night, I managed to wind and install the first toroid, T501 (see below). Only 10 more to go!
Assembling and installing T501 is a lot harder than it looks in this photo.
I’m also going to have to purchase or assemble a tuner to go along with the radio. Maybe once I get it all built, I can start on my first 1,000 using only gear that I’ve built. Maybe I could suggest that POTA add an award for making so many contacts with homebrew or kit rigs.
According to BleepingComputer.Com, “On Wednesday, ARRL revealed that it had indeed paid the attackers a [$1 million] ransom not to prevent stolen data from being leaked online but to obtain a decryption tool to restore systems impacted during the attack on the morning of May 15.”
A member bulletin detailing the situation was sent to members on Wednesday, August 21. The text of this bulletin can be read online.
Las Vegas hacker convention attendees complain of harassment by Resorts World staff
The hotel of Resorts World Las Vegas played host to many attendees of the convention this year, which ran from Thursday to Sunday at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and attendees of the cybersecurity conference complained that they were being treated like criminals by security.
In notices from Resorts World shared on social media, the casino-hotel warned guests of “room checks on all stay over rooms” in the block reserved for DEF CON attendees. Guests have also shared their own personal stories to social media, complaining of harassment by overzealous security staff with the intention to intimidate.
…
Some DEF CON attendees shared their negative experiences on forums, such as Hacker News. One, known by the username FickleRaptor, said security demanded their ID and threatened to have them arrested for trespassing. “The issue was that my colleague was one of the amateur radio VEs for the Ham Radio Village and happened to have his handheld with him,” they explained, adding that the guard was “aggressive, entitled, and arrogant.”
OM80SNP celebrates 80th anniversary of Slovak National Uprising
While listening to the August 21, 2024 podcast of Radio Slovakia International’s daily English show, I was surprised to hear a report on OM80SNP, a special event station commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising (Slovenské Národné Povstanie).
This station has been operating since August 1 and will continue through August 31, 2024. A special QSL card is available.
Being Slovak-American, I wish I’d known about this sooner. I still have a chance to work them and get a QSL card, though.
I attended DEF CON 32 a week or so ago, and like many “hacker” conferences, attendees got an electronic badge. This year’s badge was built around the new Raspberry PI microcontroller, the RP2350. It actually works like a GameBoy, and you can add games like you would a GameBoy. Here are a couple of videos that talk about the DEF CON 32 electronic badge:
Some of the “villages” or special interest groups, such as the Aerospace Village created their own badges.
At DEF CON, I attended a talk by a fellow who’s created an open-source design—both hardware and software—upon which you can build a badge for your event. He calls his badge OpenTaxus, and you can find the documentation here.
Since these things are so popular at hacker conferences, I wonder why they aren’t more popular at amateur radio events? Is it because hams are just too cheap to buy something like this? Or, maybe, it’s because hams are just not as “creative” as hackers.
At any rate, I’m thinking about coming up with some kind of electronic badge for the 2025 Dayton Hamvention. If any of you have ideas for the badge—or would perhaps be interested in working on the badge hardware or software—let me know. If we are going to do a badge, it would probably be a good idea to get started on it now.
Here are three interesting things I found on mastodon last night. If you’re a mastodon user, you can follow me at @kb6nu@mastodon.radio. If you primarily post about #hamradio, I’ll follow you back.
Electronics at Work: 1943
In 1943, electronics was all about vacuum tubes. This video is a good introduction to how vacuum tubes work and how they were used in industry.
Open Source in Amateur Radio Wiki
The Open Source in Amateur Radio Wiki provides information about open-source software and hardware as well as free home-brew projects for radio enthusiasts and promote the use of open source software and hardware in amateur radio. The wiki’s founder, Michael, DK1MI, writes, “This wiki cannot be filled and maintained by one person alone, which is why I call on people to register on the wiki in order to correct errors, add information, translate articles and/or create new content.” Check out the how to contribute page for more information.
Amateur Radio Community Operating System (arcOS)
arcOS is a bootable Linux system on a USB drive. arcOS is founded on the belief that digital communications within communities of operators can be accessible and easy to use for ALL, regardless of license class or experience.
The author of arcOS is KG4VDK. He writes, “By minimizing the number of included applications and complexity, arcOS strives to avoid overwhelming new or inexperienced users, while offering ambitious users the ability to configure additional features and functionality.”
I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like something to investigate.
Last week, I attended DEFCON, where I gave my “Ham Radio for Hackers” talk and mingled with a number hacker types. This talk seems to have struck a chord. It was featured on Hack-a-Day, and recently, Steve Stroh, N8GNJ, commented that I am “fast becoming the Amateur Radio Evangelist of techies / hackers / makers.”
All this has got me thinking, though, that perhaps I’m not really walking the walk, so to speak. After all, I’m using an Icom IC-7610 in the shack and an Elecraft KX-3 out in the field. I am using a K3NG keyer that I built as my main keyer, and I have been building my own antennas and baluns, but to really earn the title “ham radio hacker” perhaps I need to step up a little more.
The VU2ESE sBitx is very hackable.
So, how do I really earn that title? What comes to mind is that I could sell my current closed-source gear (dare I say appliances) and go with all homebrew and/or open-source gear. For example, for the shack, I could sell my IC-7610 and purchase an HF Signals sBitx. The sBitx is a 40 W, fully open source, high performance HF SDR transceiver with built-in digital modes, including FT8, RTTY, PSK31, and more, in addition to CW and SSB. Based on a Raspberry Pi 4, this radio is very hackable.
For VHF/UHF operation, I could go with any of the radios that support OpenRTX. Open RTX supports M17 on some radios, too. There’s also the Quansheng UV-K5. There are many open-source firmware hacks for this radio.
Antennas I pretty much have covered. I bought a Buddipole about 15 years ago, but aside from HT antennas, that’s the only commercial antenna that I currently own.
These are all just partly-baked ideas at this point. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually do this, but now that I’m retired, I certainly have the time to do it. Please let me know what you think. Are there other cool open-source/homebrew projects out there that I should also consider?
I’m not a real fan of Las Vegas, but DEF CON is held in Las Vegas, so if I wanted to teach a one-day Tech class there, I just had to go. It was a fun, but tiring trip.
Getting there
I kinda made my travel arrangements last minute because the Ham Radio Village (HRV) folks weren’t sure that they were going to be able to secure a room for the class. That being the case, the only flight I was able to get was a late afternoon (4:50 pm) flight from Detroit. Same with the return. Instead of an early morning flight, I had to opt for the 1:15 pm flight, meaning that I wouldn’t get back to Detroit until after 8:00 pm. I managed to keep myself busy—there’s always something to do—but Wednesday and Sunday were mostly wasted.
I flew on Spirit. Enough said, I guess. It was packed. It was cheap, though, and the flight was direct to and from Detroit.
The flight out was fine. We even arrived about a half hour early. The return flight, however, was a real mess. We pushed back from the gate about 15 minutes late, but then, we sat on the tarmac for another hour and 45 minutes. I never did get a good explanation for what was happening. We arrived in Detroit an hour and a half late.
What a circus!
I stayed at Circus Circus because that’s what came up on booking.com as being close to the convention center. It was definitely close, but I really should have looked around some more. Circus Circus was built in the early 1960s, and it’s really showing its age. My room was clean enough, but the furniture was kind of banged up, there were spots where the wallpaper was peeling from the walls, and the air conditioner was very loud. Ugh.
There are many hotels around the convention center, and I think that if I shopped around more, I could have found a place with better rooms and a lower price. I took notes, and when I go back next year, I’ll be looking into those places as well.
Que rico!
Like everything in Las Vegas, the food is expensive. I lucked out, though, and found a place that was affordable, close to the Las Vegas Convention Center and my hotel, and delicious: Tacos El Gordo on Las Vegas Blvd.
The food at Tacos El Gordo are worth the wait.
The tacos at Tacos El Gorda are the real deal. They advertise that the tacos are made Tijuna style, and you’d be hard pressed to find better tacos there. They’re made with handmade corn tortillas and homemade guacamole and salsas that are made from scratch daily.
When you enter Tacos El Gorda, you get into one of six lines, depending on the type of taco you want. On my first visit, I opted for the pork (adobada) tacos. In some places, they call this type of of taco a taco al pastor. The meat is sliced from a rotating spit, much like gyros is made, directly onto a tortilla. It really was excellent and only cost $4.12 per taco.
My second visit I decided to get a little more adventurous. I got into the line featuring organ meats, and after waiting in line for about a half hour, I ordered one taco de suadero (beef brisket—not so adventurous), one taco de cabeza (beef head—a little more adventurous), and one taco de buche (pork stomach—really adventurous). I liked the suadero and cabeza, but the buche not so much.
I’’m not really a gambler, but…
I’m not really a gambler, and in 2022 and 2023, I didn’t gamble a single cent. Many years ago, though, I bought some blackjack books and learned some basic strategy. So, this year, when I found a couple of blackjack machines in the Circus Circus casino that would accept $1 bets, I decided to give it a go.
Friday night, I fed a $20 bill into the machine and started playing. This machine was a little complicated in that it had a lot of side bets that you could make, such as whether you were dealt a pair or dealt 19+. I lost three of these sucker bets at a buck a pop before I figured that out.
Once I got that straight, I started playing plain old blackjack using the basic strategy. Using this strategy, your odds about 50-50, and that’s about how it played out. I pretty much broke even over the next half hour. Right at the end, I had a bit of a lucky streak, and when my total hit $20.80, I cashed out.
I say “cashed out,” but what the machine does is print out a ticket that you then have to take to a cashier to actually get cash. I thought that I might play a little again, so I just pocketed the ticket.
Saturday night, I did indeed decide to give it another go. There were only two machines that were working when I got to the casino, so I wandered around for a bit, visiting the circus stage and watching the hotel visitors try their luck at games on the midway. When I got back to the machines, one guy was just getting up, so I took his seat.
At first, I had a run of bad luck, and my total dropped to $15.30. But then, I got on a little bit of a roll, and built my total up to around $20 again. At that point, I played even with the machine for about 10-15 minutes. After a lucky streak bumped my total up to $25.50, I hit the cash out button again, and took the ticket to the cashier to collect my winnings.
My biggest class yet
The class went pretty well. Because we were only allowed to have 100 people in the room, HRV limited the pre-registration to 75. Despite the late start in publicizing the class, it filled up quickly. After getting all the pre-registered people in, they started accepting walk-ins, and we ended up with a class size of 90, making it the biggest class I’ve ever taught!
Since it was a bigger room than the one I taught in at HOPE, the setting wasn’t quite as intimate. The students had questions, but not as many as the HOPE class. Perhaps the size of the room had something to do with that. I’m not sure.
Unfortunately, we only had the room for seven hours, meaning that the students couldn’t test right away. Instead, they would have to take the test at DEF CON itself.
As a results, I’m not sure how many of the 90 students eventually passed the test. I know that over the course of the next couple of days I ran into several students who had passed the test. My guess is that a very high percentage did pass.
Mind-boggled
DEF CON is a truly amazing event. It’s a “hacking” conference, but the definition of hacking is about as broad as it can be. There were special interest groups, or “villages,” for a wide range of activities including hardware hacking, voting, lock picking (physical security), embedded systems, Internet of Things, and many more. And not only were there a couple of speaker tracks designed to appeal broadly, each village had their own series of talks. The enormity of it all just boggles my mind.
On Friday, I checked in at the Ham Radio Village and dropped off some of my No Nonsense business cards. I offered to help out, but they seemed to be all set, so I wandered off to experience the conference. I had a fun day attending talks, including a talk on open-source hardware for conference badges. I’ll be writing more about this later.
On Saturday, I updated my Ham Radio for Hackers slides and spoke on the topic in the Ham Radio Village. Like at HOPE, I had a really good turnout, and it was standing room only.
Immediately after, I went to hear a talk by Cory Doctorow in the main room, where he talked about the “enshittification” of the internet. If you haven’t’ heard this talk or read his articles about the subject, you should.
My wife, Silvia, loved this “friendship bracelet” that I made for her.
After that, I dropped in to the Women in Security and Privacy Village to make a “friendship bracelet” for my wife. I had been wracking my brain for something to bring home for her, and I knew the moment that I saw the program description that this was the right thing. Basically, the bracelets are simply a number of beads strung together on an elastic band. There were some letter beads, too, so I was able to spell out “SILVIA.” My wife loved it because as you can see, she spells her name a little differently than most Sylvias, and has always lamented the lack of things she could buy with her name on it. I scored a lot of points with Silvia when I got home, pulled it out of my bag, and slipped it on her wrist.
HRV Meetups?
After my talk on Saturday, a guy in his 30s (I’m guessing here) came up to me to talk about his experience with amateur radio. He had recently gone to a local amateur radio club meeting and was not received very warmly at all. He was so put off by the experience that he wasn’t sure whether to bother getting his license. Does that sound familiar?
I tried to explain that ham radio was a big hobby, and he unfortunately had just found the wrong crowd. I went on to say that not all hams were like that and encouraged him to get his ticket. Yesterday, I received an email from him that he had indeed passed the Tech test, and with the help of my study guide, also passed the General. That made me extremely happy.
Of course, he still needs to find his people. As I sympathized with him, it occurred to me that we need to create a way for hams like him to find other hams like him. I’m thinking of something along the lines of the 2600 meetups that used to happen around the country before Covid. Maybe we could even piggyback on existing 2600 meetups. I’ll be blogging about this soon, so if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.
Thanks to ARDC!
Thanks again to ARDC for funding this trip. The more I teach these classes, the more I’m convinced that we need to continue to reach out to this community. We need more people like the folks that attend DEF CON in amateur radio.
On the spur of the moment, my wife, Silvia, and I decided to head up to East Tawas, MI on Lake Huron for an overnight excursion. It was a nice change of pace, and it helped us beat the heat a little.
One of the things I most enjoy about East Tawas is being able to operate at Tawas Point State Park (US-1545). It’s a two-fer in that operating from there is not only a POTA activation, but also a lighthouse activation, as the park is home to the Ottawa Point/Tawas Point Light (ARLHS USA-837). And, as a little bit of a bonus, last weekend was National Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend.
My operating position at Tawas Point State Park, US-1545. Note that I’ve started using the 4:1 current balun that I built recently with my doublet antenna.
It’s about a two and a half hour drive from Ann Arbor to the park, but it took us at least 30 minutes extra, due to construction near Flint. We got there about 1:30 pm, and enjoyed the lunch we had brought while we looked out over Lake Huron.
I then found a nice shady spot to set up the rig. Last time I was here two years ago, I set up in the sun, and my KX-3 got so hot, I thought I’d damaged it. This time, in the shade, the radio stayed nice and cool.
I was on the air for a little over two hours and made about 30 contacts. Most of my contacts were on 20-meter CW, but at the end, I ventured into the phone portion of the band and was able to make four park-to-park contacts. I figured—correctly, I think—that I’d have better success hunting than calling CQ on phone. One tactic that seemed to work very well is to add “park to park” to my call. That got the activators’ attention even though my 15 W was certainly not the strongest signal on the band.
A noisy activation at Tawas State Harbor
We stayed at the Tawas Bay Beach Resort that night. It’s a nice hotel, has its own little beach, and is close to downtown East Tawas. It’s also right next to Tawas State Harbor (US-6812).
The view from my operating position at Tawas State Harbor (US-6812).
Since we had to check out of the hotel by 11:00 am, I decided to get up a little early and make some contacts in the morning. That way, my wife could stay in bed and not have to sit out in the park while I operated. I left the room a little after 7:30 am, hiked over to the park, and was set up just before 8:00 am.
When I turned on the radio, though, I was quite dismayed to hear all the noise. It was peaking at S5! When I conjured up the plan to activate this park, I hadn’t realized that it was right next to an RV campground. My guess is that all that noise was coming from the campers. I tried re-orienting my doublet antenna, but that didn’t help at all.
Not only that, band conditions seemed quite poor yesterday morning. There were only a few strong signals. Couple that with having to operate with the noise reducer on means that I’m sure that I missed a few calls just because they were below the noise floor and I couldn’t hear them. If one of them was you, please accept my apologies.
I operated until about 8:30 am, when I decided to give up fighting the noise and band conditions. Overall, I managed to make 16 contacts in about 35 minutes, so actually not a bad rate.
I packed up and headed back to the room. When I got back, Silvia was ready for breakfast, and so was I. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, then took a walk out to the end of the breakwater at Tawas State Harbor. It was a little bit warm out there in the sun, but quite enjoyable looking out over the lake. From the shore, you could just spot the lighthouse, which had to be at least a couple miles away.
After our walk, we packed up the car and headed home. There were no major traffic holdups on the way home, and we made it in two and a half hours.
Question T3C07 in the Technician Class question pool reads:
What band is best suited for communicating via meteor scatter?
33 centimeters
6 meters
2 meters
70 centimeters
The answer, of course, is B. 6 meters.
I make a big deal out of this question when I teach my one-day Tech classes because I think meteor scatter is probably one of the coolest things that Techs can do. Have I ever done it? Well, no, at least not yet.
Two months ago, I came across this video:
After watching this video, I said to myself, “Hey, that looks simple enough that even I can do it.” Not only that, after looking around the shack, I realized that I had all the parts necessary to make it. I had a piece of PVC pipe that I bought for some other antenna project, and I had a terminal strip in my junk box to connect the loop to the coax.
I also had a bunch of 75Ω coax that was installed back in 1985 when the house was built to distribute cable TV to the living room, bedroom, etc. I’ve never had cable TV in the nearly 25 years I’ve lived here, so I just cut a length from one of the cable runs. So, not only did the antenna look easy to build, I wouldn’t have to spend a dime on it.
Today, I finally got around to putting it all together. As you can see from the photo below, I used the military surplus fiberglass mast to get it up off the ground.
The photo below shows how I connect the loop to the matching stub using a terminal strip.
Troubleshooting the antenna
When I first connected my antenna analyzer to the antenna, I was a little dismayed that the SWR was 14:1! I hadn’t expected it to be perfect, but I did expect it to be a lot lower than that.
The first thing I did was make sure that the wires were connected to the terminal strips properly. When that proved not to be the problem, I thought that maybe it was too close to my other antennas, so I moved it to the other side of the yard. That didn’t change a thing, either.
My next guess was that perhaps the coax was bad somehow, so I disconnected the matching stub and measured the SWR again. At 50.1 MHz, the SWR was now a much better 1.76:1. Since the feed point impedance of just the loop is supposed to be about 100Ω, I knew the problem was the matching stub.
In another video, I’d seen the coax used for the matching stub coiled around a PVC pipe. The theory behind this is that not only the stub matching impedances, but also acting as a choke. I didn’t have any PVC pipe big enough, so I simply coiled the 75Ω coax and taped it together. WRONG! When I uncoiled the matching stub, the SWR came down dramatically, measuring about 1.1:1 at 52 MHz. Down at the bottom of the band, where I planned on playing, it was a bit higher, but it was still less than 1.5:1, and that is easily handled by my IC-7610’s antenna tuner.
Of course, now that I have the antenna, the band is just dead. I’ve been monitoring for the last hour or so, with nary a signal received. That’s just how it goes with 6 meters, I guess.
Meteor scatter here I come
I think that to be more successful on 6 meters, I’ll need to make some improvements to the antenna. For example, I’ll have to figure out a way to make the connections more robust and maybe add a little wire to the loop to bring the resonant frequency down a little. I probably should get the antenna up a little higher, too.
Building this antenna has been fun, and even though I still haven’t made any contacts, I’m looking forward to operating 6 meters in the future. Maybe I’ll even get lucky and make some meteor scatter contacts. Then, when I cover that question in class, I can say that I’ve operated meteor scatter and it’s pretty cool.
As you may know, there will be an election shortly for ARRL Roanoke Division Director. The Roanoke Division includes Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I would like you to consider supporting and voting for Jim Talens, N3JT. Jim has a unique blend of experience and training, including 22 years as an FCC attorney, BSEE and MBA degrees, and many years of law firm and consulting experience – all of which he will use to improve the ARRL.
In addition to his experience and training, he is an active radio amateur. He was first licensed in 1960, has won the ARRL DX contest, and has written articles for QST and the National Contest Journal (NCJ). In addition, Jim co-authored ARRL’s Morse Code book, and co-founded the 3,500-member CW Operators’ Club. He also supports the League financially as a member of the Maxim Society and Diamond Club,
Jim believes that key to the future of ham radio is change in the current leadership of ARRL. In his opinion, our member-centric organization needs:
Transparency (too much is done in secret)
IT competence and protection
An aggressive school program to entice young people into the hobby
More work on spectrum preservation
Continuing lobbying in Washington, DC
Reduced internal drama (politics) at headquarters (approx. 50 staff members have left in the past few years)
A more focused effort to push federal legislation assuring that virtually every ham can put up an outdoor antenna
To achieve these objectives, he needs your vote! For more information about Jim and his positions, visit his QRZ page. And, if you feel as strongly as Jim does and I do about the ARRL board needing some new faces and some new ideas, please consider donating to his GoFundMe campaign. I”ve made a small donation, and I don’t even live in the Roanoke Division!
Last night, on Mastodon, I came across a post that just made me say, “Wow!” It contained a link to a post by Susan Kaye Quinn, who is a speculative fiction author with a PhD in environmental engineering, who writes hopepunk climate fiction & solarpunk. The post on Quinn’s webiste includes the following video on how to make an eight-page “zine” from a single sheet of paper.
I love this idea so much that I now want to make my own ham radio zines. The first could be something like, “Cool Things that Hams Do.” Off the top of my head, I have come up with the following eight pages:
Title Page: Cool Things that Hams Do
Build Radios
Operate from parks and lighthouse and…
Bounce signals off meteor trails
Set up our own communications networks
Talk to astronauts on the ISS (and other hams via satellites)
In the June 2024 issue of IEEE Spectrum, the article, “The LEO Satellite Industry Needs More Engineers,” pointed out the need for more engineers to work in this burgeoning industry. It points out that the LEO satellite market is expected to grow from US $4 billion in 2022 to US $7 billion in 2031.
The article then focuses on the efforts of the IEEE Low-Earth-Orbit Satellites and Systems (LEO SatS) project. The article points out that it has held a number of workshops and other events to educate engineers and students about opportunities in the industry, but it makes no mention of amateur radio. I think that’s a mistake, and I’ve just emailed the leader of the program, Witold Kinsner, reminding him of the role that amateur radio could play.
Where else can students get actual experience with LEO satellites? Not only is there AMSAT, but many student groups have sent up their own LEO satellites in the past.
The article points out that LEO SatS has also sponsored a workshop on ground stations. I would refer them to the SatNOGS, which is building a network of open-source ground stations.
Incorporating amateur radio into the work of LEO SatS would be a win-win for LEO SatS and amateur radio. Aspiring satellite engineers would get hands-on experience with the technology, amateur radio satellite projects would get access to the latest technology, and the satellite industry would eventually get some trained engineers and technicians.
Yesterday, the ARRL published a report on the second board meeting of the year. There’s a lot to like here:
I like the new mission statement. “ARRL’s mission is to promote and protect the art, science, and enjoyment of amateur radio, and to develop the next generation of radio amateurs” is short and to the point, and I like the emphasis on developing the next generation of radio amateurs.
The report notes that the president will “appoint a study group to review the current structure of ARRL governance and the Field Organization.” This is long overdue.
Of course, there are some things that I would rethink:
It almost seems like they’re giving up on increasing membership. Instead of increasing membership, the report says that they will be trying to , “develop new sources of revenue and seek support from donors and grants from both public and private organizations.” Without more members, I don’t think the ARRL will be successful.
Targeting middle- and high-school STEM education programs is a good thing, but I think that targeting a little older and more technically sophisticated audience, like those I encountered at the HOPE Conference might be a more effective strategy for developing the next generation of radio amateurs.
Aside from the mission statement, there’s nothing in the report that points to the ARRL taking a leadership position in technology development. This is a technical hobby, and the hobby’s “national organization” should take a leadership role in the technology.
That’s all for now. Here’s the complete report. The bolding was all done by the ARRL
ARRL Board Completes 2024 Second Meeting, Approves Report to Advance a 3-Year Strategy
ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR, gaveled in the 2024 Second Meeting of the ARRL Board of Directors on Friday, July 19, in Windsor, Connecticut. The Board meeting was preceded by standing committee meetings held on Thursday, including Administration & Finance chaired by Rocky Mountain Division Director Jeff Ryan, K0RM; Emergency Communications and Field Services chaired by Great Lakes Division Director Scott Yonally, N8SY, and Programs & Services chaired by Dakota Division Director Bill Lippert, AC0W.
President Roderick recognized new Officers and Board members including First Vice President Kristen McIntyre, K6WX (January 2024), Second Vice President Mike Ritz, W7VO (January 2024), Hudson Division Director Ed Wilson, N2XDD (July 2024), Northwestern Division Director Mark Tharp, KB7HDX (January 2024), Northwestern Division Vice Director Michael Sterba, KG7HQ (February 2024; not present), Pacific Division Director Tony Marcin, W7XM (January 2024), and Pacific Division Vice Director John Litz, NZ6Q (April 2024).
Here are highlights of some of the actions taken at the meeting:
Strategy
The Board unanimously accepted a report establishing a 3-year strategy for ARRL, and recognized the efforts of the Strategy Working Group. They authorized CEO David A. Minster, NA2AA, to proceed with further planning.
The report included a revised mission statement: ARRL’s mission is to promote and protect the art, science, and enjoyment of amateur radio, and to develop the next generation of radio amateurs.
The strategy articulates continued commitment and enhancements to our existing advocacies:
Promoting Amateur Radio
Protecting Amateur Radio
A new advocacy is being created, committing ARRL to develop the next generation of radio amateurs through the expansion of existing programs and the creation of curriculum-based initiatives targeted at middle and high school STEM education programs:
Inspiring and Educating Youth
The strategy calls for investments in Information Technology to continue along the path of ARRL’s Digital Transformation. This will include evaluating membership models, content delivery methods, and next generation software products along with the infrastructure improvements required to support them:
Serving Members and Driving Growth Through Technology
In committing to dramatically expanding our capabilities and activities in the STEM education space and investing in upgrades and additions to our Information Technology platform, we recognize that revenue from membership dues is insufficient to fund these initiatives. In fact, dues contribute less than half the revenue required to operate ARRL. Efforts are required to develop new sources of revenue and seek support from donors and grants from both public and private organizations:
Expanding Our Means and Financial Capability
The Board requested the President establish the ARRL Information Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC), acknowledging the importance of providing information technology-based services to ARRL members, and to improve and protect ARRL systems. The ITAC will engage experts in the field of IT to help oversee the development, operations, and evolution of the ARRL IT system infrastructure and applications.
The Board reassigned the Logbook of The World® (LoTW®) Maintenance Committee to the newly established Information Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC). ITAC will support the Maintenance Committee’s responsibilities with LoTW® development, including technical changes and future upgrades to the system.
Advocacy
The Board recommended and authorized the creation of additional publications, including books and online resources, and products, such as antenna kits, to help expand ARRL’s commitment to help hams who are faced with limits on station building capabilities due to space limitations and/or limited resources.
Governance
The Board requested that the President appoint a study group to review the current structure of ARRL governance and the Field Organization and suggest changes that would improve the organization and better support the membership.
The Board requested that the President establish an ad hoc committee to review the ARRL Director’s Workbook and establish an annual review process to keep the document up to date with Board practice and procedure.
The Board approved expanding the policy for recording roll call votes to being required for any pending motions pertaining to ARRL governance documents.
Trademarks
Following recent review of ARRL’s trademarks and the completion of related registrations and trademark renewals, the Board requested the CEO to provide a report at its next meeting consisting of efforts and actions taken during 2024 to identify, remedy, and protect the use of its trademarks by other parties.
The complete minutes of the 2024 Second Meeting of the ARRL Board of Directors will be available soon on the ARRL website.
The next meeting of the ARRL Board of Directors will be January 17 – 18, 2025.
Open Research Institute, Inc. (ORI) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) research and development organization which provides all of its work to the general public under the principles of open source and open access to research. Their projects include, but are not limited to, amateur radio projects. The amateur radio projects include Ribbit, a new digital text messaging mode for VHF/UHF simplex and repeater communication, and RF BitBanger, a low-power high-frequency digital radio.
I got this short review from my friend, Mike, K8XF. Mike is a former ships radio electronics officer, a great CW operator, and has a collection of dozens of straight keys, paddles, and bugs. Recently, he purchased a CT-73MX from Yury, UR5CDX, and I asked him to do a short review. As you’ll see, he highly recommends this key.
The CT-73MX from Yury, UR5CDX.
I enjoy using well built paddles that wont move around your desk. If you do as well, consider the CT-73MX from Yury, UR5CDX. This Ukrainian paddle has a square base and is chrome plated. I chose this model because it is heavier than the brass model. The plating is excellent, and this paddle can be adjusted for sending easily.
This paddle is not as expensive ($178) as a Begali and is built very well. For an additional charge, you can have your call inscribed on a small plate placed on top of the base in front of the paddle. I did not do that.
Yury makes several other models, so be sure to visit his website. His QTH is in the center of Ukraine and so far has not been hit by Russian drones. Yury ships all orders via Poland due to the war. Via Poland, it took over three weeks to receive this paddle.
Earlier this afternoon, I looked out my office window and noticed that something didn’t look quite right. For one thing, there was an odd shadow on the office window. So, I put on some shoes and went out to investigate.
What I found was that my cobra antenna had come down. Further investigation showed that the problem was with the end insulator. After being up in the air for nearly nine years, it just gave out. I’d say that nine years is decent service life for an insulator made from a Dollar Store cutting board.
As a temporary fix, I think that I’m going to stick the support rope through the hole at the bottom of the photo and get it back up in the air while I ponder how to replace it. Any ideas for the type of material that I should use?
Last fall, under the aegis of Ham Radio Village, I was awarded a grant to take my one-day Tech class on the road. Ham Radio Village believes that more people in technical fields should have amateur radio licenses and that amateur radio is underrepresented in the hacker, STEM/STEAM, and maker communities. Currently, there is little outreach to these communities about the benefits of amateur radio in their fields.
Enter the “ham radio evangelist.” In October of 2o23, we applied for and were awarded an $18,000 grant to reach out beyond the boundaries of traditional amateur radio communities, including scientific, engineering, hacker, maker, and STEM/STEAM focused conferences where attendees might have an interest in amateur radio (e.g., DEFCON, GRCon, Maker Faire, IEEE Communications Conference).
This grant provides funding to both educate these communities about amateur radio and to streamline the process of obtaining an amateur radio license. If accepted, HRV will give a talk about amateur radio, teach a one-day Technician Class license course, and offer a Volunteer Examiner test session at an event. These activities will provide these new hams with a lifelong hobby that aligns with their professional and technical interests. And, it will also enable these new hams to bring their experiences and ideas to amateur radio, thereby advancing the hobby.
HOPE couldn’t have gone any better
HOPE XV was the first event at which we evangelized ham radio. In my mind, it couldn’t have gone any better.
On Friday, I gave a talk entitled “Ham Radio for Hackers.” (Click here to see the slides.) I wandered in about 10 minutes before the talk was to start at 1:00 pm. There were already so many people there that I thought I was in the wrong room.
Adding to my confusion, was the fact that the slide announcing the previous talk was still up on the screen. I turned around and started heading out, but caught myself before I left the room. This had to be the place, and indeed it was.
In the talk, I explained some of the basics of amateur radio, discussed some of the projects that radio amateurs are currently hacking on, and then how to get a hacking, errrr ham radio license. I probably could have gone into a little more depth on some of the projects, but in general, I think that the talk was very well-received.
Tech class yields 25 new hams
On Saturday, I held my one-day Tech class. I was concerned that attendance would be poor because:
They scheduled the class on Saturday, and there were lots of other interesting talks being held that day.
They scheduled the class to start at 10:30 am, which could have thrown off my timing.
As it turned out, the class went really well. The students asked lots of questions—which caused the class to run about an hour longer than usual—but they were all good questions. 25 hackers passed the test and got their licenses. There were some failures, but it’s unclear whether those people were in the class or not. We invited anyone to show up at 5:00 pm and take the test, whether they were in the class or not. I’m going to claim that 100% of the students passed the test.
I can say that all those who passed the test were very excited that they did. Many of them came up to me after the class and thanked me. I can also say that this group was much younger than normal. I’m guessing that there were only two students over the age of 50. There was a good number of women, too. I counted at least six women.
I really want to thank the VE team. Without them, this couldn’t have happened. They were:
Seth, N2SPG
Nicole, AD2IM
Ed, N2XDD
Grant, W4KEK
Vlad, AF7QV
A great start
I think that this is a great start to the ham radio evangelist program. Not only did we license 25 new hams, they all seem very interested in the hobby.
I also talked to a lot of different people about the program. One fellow, a young guy working with the Philadelphia Maker Faire, invited me to contact him about doing a class next spring.
So, onward and upward! I think the hackers at HOPE are just the kind of people we want to get into the hobby. They’re young and interested in hacking ham radio. It will be fun to see what they can do.
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The FTX-1F is Yaesu’s replacement for the very popular FT-817/818. Its features include:
