context: Kyle AA0Z invited me to a roundtable discussion on his youtube channel] this evening, and it stirred up some discord and stoked the ongoing controversy grinding old-school contesters’ gears since his W1DED interview, the K5ZD N6MJ KL9A contester panel followup, his reaction, and the 2024 hamvention contesting forum call-out by K1AR. I wrote this to try to help clear some murky air, and posted to the Ham Radio Crash Course discord #radiosport-contesting channel where the fun was taking place. To a regular reader, this might seem out of place, so sorry about that. I hope you can read through that, and gather some ideas and discourse on the subject of contest modernization i.e. RadioSport2.0.

also long time no see lol

***

ok i got fired up and started typing and wrote a bunch so sorry, but #offmychest…

I wasn’t a big fan of the 1984ing on the stream bc i wanna hear out and debate the hot takes. During the stream I was typing that whole time with @QROdaddy (W4IPC) because he got quieted and I wanted to hear the discord (haha pun). I really don’t like echo chambers, and I really don’t like stuff that doesn’t take holistic perspectives from all points of view, so I think we, the radiosport2.0 community need to take some better care hearing it out. Whether it’s from current youth, young and old, seasoned or noob contesters, non-contesters, or QRZ lol. With that being said, here’s my dissertation on the whole radiosport thing that’s been bouncing in my head since 2011 (https://www.arrl.org/news/youth-hamradio-fun-what-is-radiosport-and-why-do-we-do-it) and opined since 2016 (https://n0ssc.com/posts/320-contest-modernization also rip cqcontest.net but today’s is https://contestonlinescore.com)

I think we want the same thing – we contesters all want to contest, and for there to be people to contest with well into the future. I think the ideas we’re tossing around formulates an inviting, fertile ground for new contesters just coming into ham radio and contesting for the first time. Out of this, I hope we discover and create novel in-roads for normies to get into the next level. Current young contesters may think it’s great right now, because it is, but you are a lucky few who had some kind of magical unmatched personal dedication, brilliant elmering, ham family, or just ADHD hyperfocus (it me) to get hooked for life. And i’m v proud of that. But without pushing for some kind of modern, mainstream aligned ideas, environments, activities, overlays, categories, and just straight up new stuff, radiosport will stagnate as the VAST BULK of contesters pass away, out leaving behind a fraction of today’s young contesters for tomorrow. That’s facts based on statistical projections based on numerous demographic surveys and data, and you can see it plainly in Craig’s K9CT interview. So as content creators, visionaries, and rabblerousers, we’re gonna go in hot and heavy, get complainy, and poke at the hornet’s nest to bring this to the light throughout the ham community to find people interested in making it a thing, only to see if it’s a thing. Might want to work on the delivery, but the point stands.

I also think we are miscommunicating the intent of radiosport2.0 becasuse of all the “reeeeee your killing my contests get off my lawnnnn nothing is wrong why do this nooo reeee” type comments . and I don’t disagree there might be some misinformation, or really just ignorance and misremembering on our (my lol) part. There’s also the weirdness of the K9CT folks, ARRL/CAC people, and log developers keeping their radio sport 2.0 plans close to their chest (compared to us who are baring it all and at least showing somebody is out there thinking “it would be cool if…”in hopes we can garner some grassroots perturbations in the community and do something cool for the sake of the fun of it, and maybe for the sake of the hobby). But imagine things like saving the contest committee 100 hours out of their thousands to check logs by, i dunno, posting every log submission and qsordr capture carte blanche to an academic database and letting the database wizards poke at it to see how close their solutions come to the traditional methods? Or giving those connected to the internet an opt-in option to cryptographically sign their QSOs that get posted to a blockchain ledger as a smart contract for realtime, verifiable adjudication (and figure it’s vulnerabilities to nefarious players? Or let there be a new button in their log’s score reporting menu that says “send to realtime ledger” or “report [entire QSO/band-mode/freq/rotator] data to blahblahblah db/server” for beta testers and early adopters to futz with while also not ruining or even remotely changing their experience as a contester doing a contest – they’ll still be valid (depending on what they’re opting in to send they might need to change to a different category e.g. CQWW Explorer), they’ll still submit a cabrillo, they’ll get a real score in whenever time, meanwhile 99% of people probably won’t notice that button until HRCC hosts a livestream of a radiosport tournament battle royale with your hosts Kyle AA0Z and Sterling N0SSC, backed up by your experts in the field N0AX and N6MJ – all enabled by that button, only just now realizing they too can get in on that action ALL THE WHILE on the air it just sounds like regular contesters contesting; just with more of them doing this goofy livestreamed tournament thing.

And I’m not a “*real*” contester. I don’t put up high scores on 3830 because I cannot do a 24/36/48 hr contest. I go to N0AX/W0ECC/W0EEE, sit down for 2 hours, do my 200-300Q/hr rate, let the pile die, and give up for a while with a beer and a chat with the other’s on the bench, and come back at 4am when the grey line is approaching to listen to the world turn from 160m and 10m because that shit is cool. I don’t even have HF at home, and I don’t have the time to set up remote stations and be a basement dweller for a whole weekend. And I have gone a loooong time since I had my butt in a chair for more than a few hours that wasn’t at my day job. But I’ve worked at least 2 or 3 big contests every year since I was 15 years old, I’ve won plaques and paper as a sad teenage G5RV owner in nowhere Missouri, i’ve played in sweeps every year except one (not under my own callsign typically – usually under N0AX, W0ECC, and W0EEE), I drop in at random field day sites and fire through 100 QSOs in half an hour and disappear, and I had elmers like N0AX, Ed K0KL (SK), K0ZT (SK) K0ZH and the WA0FYA Zerobeaters ARC, W0EEE alumni, and K3LR and the Contest University crew who let me in free for like 3 years straight because I was the only one without gray hair. I really love contesting – it’s my favorite part of ham radio. And now as a 32 year old geezer, I do want something I can do in my tidbits of free time, that is just a bit different than a CWT or WWSAC, that isn’t just a 2 hour stint on a major contest – i want to be competitive and be ranked and scored with a pool of other contesters. I want team deathmatch, CTF, in-game perks/power-ups/items, and matchmaking lobbies. I think there’s an untapped reserve of potential new hams that would also be into that kind of radiosport. I don’t want the existing contests or methodologies to die or change, but as they stand now – as they have forever ago and forever on — are excellent grounds for trying out these new ideas unbeknownst to guys like VP5M with barely enough bandwidth for the cluster [thanks connor], the off-grid pacific islanders, africans, antarctic researchers, nordic polar bears all who make CQWW/WPX & IARUHF so much fun, or folks who just don’t do the internet and log with paper. Coexistance is a requirement, and so is the longevity of our hobby.

Tldr I want to play ham radio when I’m retired (25-30 years from now lol) so I have some ideas.

***

a few edits were made for profanity, clarification, correction to K0ZH’s call.

thanks W4IPC and KG5XR for inspo and AA0Z for sticking his neck out to get these ideas on the cutting room floor

73

No doubt about it - the internet is a double edged sword. There's a lot of fake news, garbage, hate, bigotry and plain ol' vanilla stupidity to be found on it, and particular that's true for social media. But if you know where to look, there's a ton of golden nuggets to be found as well.

For as long as I've been writing this blog (20 years now), I've always had the blog role listed on the right side. There have been blogs that have come and blogs that have gone - but each one that I list, I think has value for those of us who love Amateur Radio, and in particular QRP, Morse Code and Portable Ops. By the way, if you know of any real good ones that have escaped my attention, please drop me an e-mail, or bring it to my attention in the comment box. I'm always open to adding to the list.

Just the other day, I added a list with links to YouTube video channels that I think are worthy of your time to pay attention to. I do not have the equipment or time to develop my own video channel and you wouldn't want to risk listening to my New Jersey voice for more than five minutes anyway. The ones I have listed are IMHO, quite excellent. I could never do a job that would even come close to what these guys have done and continue to do. The same thing goes for my offer about blogs - are there really good YouTube channels that I have missed? Let me know!

The last topic that I'm going to touch in this post is about Facebook. Facebook is the double edged sword within the double edged sword. There is so much garbage on there that if you look at it for any length of time, you'd swear your eyes were starting to bleed and you'd also swear you'd never darken the halls of Facebook again. Yet, if you give it a chance, there are so many good Facebook pages that offer so much good Amateur Radio information.

To do it justice, I think I'll have to open another box on the right with links - but for now I'm going to list several Facebook groups that I really enjoy and have found useful and worthy of my time:

Morse Code Fans - https://www.facebook.com/groups/2109567972673278

Parks On The Air (POTA) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/parksontheair

Amateur QRP Radio - https://www.facebook.com/groups/qrpradio

CW Bugs, Keys and Paddles - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1232401453542260

Wire Antennas for Amateur Radio - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1014226582804314

QRP 14.060 MHz - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1576444765759000

QRP Outdoor Radio - https://www.facebook.com/groups/676090859094874

There are so many more! If you truly think that Facebook is a vast desert wasteland, with no redeeming value whatsoever, and you swore to yourself you'd never bother with it - I'd ask you to just do a search on your favorite aspect of Amateur Radio - you're sure to find something. Granted, even some of what you'll find is garbage, but you'll also be pleasantly surprised by the good groups, as there's a lot of good information and ideas being passed back and forth.

And OK, one final, final topic. While we're on the subject of the "plus" side of the internet, it also allows for greater and widespread publicity of the operating evenrts and contests that we all enjoy so much. A case in point,  Paul NA5N put out the official announcement for QRP To The Field (QRPTTF), which will take place on Saturday, April 20th.

The annual QRP TO THE FIELD (QRPTTF) will be held SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024  0800-1800 your LOCAL time (The 3rd Saturday in April).

RULES: http://www.zianet.com/qrp/qrpttf/pg.html (or http://www.zianet.com/QRP/  home page entry)

A few CHANGES and CLARIFICATIONS:

Operate from HOME, OUTBACK (your backyard) or in the FIELD

Scoring change: Bonus points for *working* OUTBACK or FIELD stations for a higher score.  SOTA and POTA stations worked count as a FIELD station.

KL7, KH6, KP4 and DX stations can work anytime they wish during the contest period for best local and time conditions.

Exchange is compatible with most logging programs.  Logging name optional.   

You may have to add up the Outback and Field stations worked manually.

Summary Sheets are a spreadsheet for calculating your score in both Microsoft Excel (.xls) or Open Office (.ods) formats.

Now to express my ignorance.  I do not have any Apple or Linux machines.  If you know of a program to convert between Excel and Apple NUMBERS, please let me know and I'll add the link to the rules webpage for Apple users.

Here in NM, it's been 73F one day, rain and snow the next.  Hopefully, we'll have a nice, warm Spring day for QRPTTF and favorable band conditions. QRPTTF is a fun day to get on the air and QSO fellow QRPers, old and new, at all skill levels, whether from your home shack or outside.  Not a 35wpm contest.  Chit-chat after the exchange is certainly allowed!

QRPTTF is administered strictly through QRP-L.

CU on QRPTTF,

72, Paul NA5N

Socorro, NM

______________________________________________________________________________________

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

 For me at least, there's no embed button on the share tab for YouTube shorts. I figured out how to get the videos in anyway.

Step 1:

Start with an embed iframe from any of your videos that aren't shorts. For example:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/idZ80-7WR4w?si=CFqyqDeqzq24OLVh" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Then, grab the web link to your short from the sharing tab that you can access

https://youtube.com/shorts/5D1Bue0KSss?si=3MnCtoyuuxqOJbdh

Copy the portion of the link that follows 'shorts/'. In the above example, you'd copy:

5D1Bue0KSss?si=3MnCtoyuuxqOJbdh

Paste it into your usual iframe over the portion o the link that follows 'embed/' like so:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5D1Bue0KSss?si=3MnCtoyuuxqOJbdh" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Update: You might also  want to update the size of the player specified in the iframe. I like using 480 for width and 640 for height as shown here:

Hey everyone- been a busy few months lately. Between bad health, travelling, and then working hard just take care of Live Stuff, I’ve hardly had time for the Ye Olde Blog! I’ll try to write more regularly. A lot of my attention has been going to YouTube and in this series, starting with the video …

Continue reading

The post QDX Revision 3 Build Begins in REAL TIME appeared first on MiscDotGeek.

Figure 1: The front of the Wards Airline 62-345 with its rather distinctive "telephone dial" tuning dial. It's powered up and running from 12 volts! Click on the image for a larger version.

How high voltage was made from low voltage DC in the 30's

As the technology of the time dictated, this radio has what's called a "vibrator" inside - essentially a glorified buzzer - that is used as a voltage chopper along with a transformer to convert the 6 volts from the battery to the 130-150 volts needed for the plates of the tubes within.  Not only did this vibrator do the chopping for the high voltage, but it also performed the duty of synchronously rectifying the AC waveform from the transformer as the pulses from it would naturally be in sync with the motion of the moving reed, briefly connecting the output of the transformer to the input of the high voltage DC supply when the voltage waveform from it was at the correct polarity.

These devices, as you would expect, don't have a particularly long lifetime as they are constantly buzzing, making and breaking electrical contact and causing a small bit of arcing - something that will inevitably wear them out.  Even if the contacts were in good shape, the many decades of time that have passed will surely cause these contacts to become oxidized - particularly since these devices are in rubber-sealed cans (to minimize noise and vibration) and the out-gassing of these materials is likely of no help in their preservation.

Figure 2: The chassis of the radio.  The vibrator is in its original can in the far right corner. Click on the image for a larger version.

The solid-state replacement

As mentioned earlier, the job of the vibrator was to produce a chopped DC waveform, apply it to a transformer for "upping" the voltage and then use a separate set of contacts to perform synchronous rectification - and our solid-state replacement would need to do just that.  That last part - rectification - was easy:  Just two, modern diodes would do the job - but chopping the DC would require a bit more circuitry.

The owner of this radio also had a few other things in mind:  He changed it from 6 volts, positive ground to 12 volts, negative ground so that it could be readily operated from this more-common power scheme.  The change to 12 volt filaments required a bit of work, but since all of the tubes were indirectly heated, the filament supply could be rearranged - but some tubes had to be changed to accommodate different filament voltages and currents as follows:

• Oscillator and detector:  This was originally a 6D8 (6.3v @ 150mA) and it was replaced with a 6A8 (6.3V @ 300mA).  Other than filament current, these tubes are more or less the same.
  

• IF Amplifier:   The original 6S7 (6.3v @ 150mA) was retained.
  

• 2nd Detector/AVC/1st Audio:  The original 6T7 (6.3V @ 150mA) was retained.
  

• AF Output:  The original 1F5 (2.0v @ 150mA) was replaced with a 6K6 (6.3v @ 400mA).  The latter is a pentode, requiring a bit of rewiring and rebiasing to replace the original triode.

• Magic Eye tube:   The original 6N5 (6.3v @ 150mA) was replaced with a 6E5 (6.3v @ 300ma) - which is also more sensitive than the 6N5, giving a bit more deflection.

The 6T7 (150mA), 6A8 (300mA) and the #47 dial lamp (6.3v @ 150mA) are wired in parallel on the low side with one end of the filament grounded while the 6K6 (400mA), 6S7 (150mA) and 6E5 (300mA) are wired in parallel on the high side with one end of the filament connected to +12 volts.  You might notice a current imbalance here (600mA on the low side with 850mA on the high side) but this is taken care of with the addition of 30 ohms of resistance between the midpoint of the filament string and ground to sink about 200mA getting us "close enough".

He also did some additional rebiasing and other minor modifications - particularly for the rewiring of the AF Output from the original 1F5 to a 6K6 as he swapped a triode for a pentode - which was then  wired as a triode.  The total current consumption of the radio at 13 volts is 1.6 amps - a bit more than half of that being the filament and pilot lamp circuits meaning that about 10 watts of power is being used/converted by the vibrator supply and consumed by the idle current of the audio output and other tubes.

The other issue with the 6 to 12 volt conversion is that of the primary of the high voltage transformer:  This transformer is center-tapped with that connection going to the "hot" side of the battery (which was originally at -6 volts) - but what this really means is that there's about 12 volts from end-to-end on the transformer at any instant.  We can deal with this difference simply by driving the transformer differently:  Rather than having the center tap "hot" with the DC voltage and alternatively grounding one end or the other as the vibrator did we can simply disconnect the transformer's center tap altogether and alternately apply 12 volts to either end, reversing the connection electronically to preserve the original voltage ratio between primary and secondary.

This feat is done using an "H" bridge - an array of four transistors that will do just what we need when driven properly:  Apply 12 volts to one side and ground the other - or flip that around, reversing the polarity.

Consider the schematic below:

Figure 3: Solid state equivalent of a vibrator supply.  This version uses an "H" bridge, suitable for the conversion of a 6 volt radio to 12 volt operation as detailed in the text. Click on the diagram for a larger version.

This diagram shows a fairly simple circuit.  For the oscillator we are using the venerable CD4011 quad CMOS NAND gate with the first two sections wired to produce a square wave with a frequency somewhere in the 90-150 Hz region - the precise value not being at all critical.  The other two sections (U1c and U1d) take the square wave and produce two versions, inverted from each other.

Figure 4: The top (component side) of the circuit.  This is built on a piece of phenolic prototype board. Click on the image for a larger version.

The section of interest is the "H" bridge consisting of transistors Q1 through Q4 wired as two sets of complimentary-pair Darlington transistors.   Here's how it works:

• Let us say that the output of U1c is high.  This causes the output of U1d to be low as it's wired as a logic inverter.
• The output of U1c being high will cause the top transistor (Q1 - a PNP Darlington) to be turned OFF, but at the same time the bottom transistor of this pair, Q2, will be turned ON, causing the connection marked "PIN 1" to be grounded.
• At the output of U1d - being low - we see that the bottom of this pair of transistors, Q4, is turned OFF, but the top transistor Q3 is turned ON causing V+ (12 volts) to appear at the connection marked "PIN 5".
• In this way, the low-voltage primary of the transformer has 12 volts across it.
• A moment later - because of the oscillator - the output of U1c goes low:  This turns off Q2 and turns on Q1 - and since this also causes the output of U1d to go high this, in turn, turns off Q4 and turns on Q3.  All of this causes "PIN 5" to now be grounded and "PIN 1" to be connected to V+ - thus applying the full 12 volts to the transformer in reverse polarity.

Also shown are D1 and D2, the solid-state replacements for the synchronous rectifier of the original vibrator.  While this could be a pair of high-voltage diodes (>=400 volts) we simply used half of a full-wave bridge rectifier from a junked AC-powered switching supply.  Finally, resistor R3 and capacitor C2 form a filter to keep switching noise and high-voltage spikes out of the power supply of U1 to prevent its destruction - a sensible precaution!

Now some of you might be concerned about "shoot through" - the phenomenon when both the "upper" transistors (Q1, Q3) might be on - if only for an instant - at the same time as the "lower" transistors (Q2, Q4) as the switching is done.  While this may happen to a small extent, it has negligible effect - particularly at the low switching frequency where this effect would constitute a very minuscule percentage of the switching period:  This circuit is efficient enough that no heat sinking is required on transistors Q1-Q4 and they get only barely warm at all.  Were I to build it again I might consider ways to minimize shoot-through, but this would come at the expense of simplicity which, itself, is a virtue - and since this circuit works just fine, would probably be not worth the effort.

Figure 5: The bottom (wired side) of the circuit with flying leads connecting to the original base socket. Click on the image for a larger version.

These days one might consider building this same type of circuit using MOSFETs instead of Darlington transistors (e.g. P-channel for Q1 and Q3, N-channel for Q2 and Q4) and this should work fine - but the Darlington transistors were on hand at the time that this circuit was built and very easily driven by U1 - and the bipolar transistors are - at least in this case - arguably more rugged than the MOSFETs would be - particularly since there was no need to include a "snubber" network to suppress switching transients that might occur.  It's also worth noting that while standard MOSFET transistors would work fine for a 12 volt supply, you'd have to be sure to select "low gate threshold" devices to work efficiently at 6 volts or lower - something that would not really be an issue with the bipolar Darling transistors shown here.

This circuit is simple enough that it was wired onto a piece of phenolic prototyping board, snapped down to a size that will nicely fit into the original can that housed the vibrator.  To complete the construction, the top of the can - which was originally removed by careful filing and prying - was glued into its base using "shoe goo" - a rubber adhesive - keeping the board protected, but also allowing it to be easily disassembled in the future should modification/repair be necessary.

To be sure, the Internet is lousy with this same sort of circuit, but this version has worked very well.

What about the center tap version of the solid state vibrator?

You might ask yourself "what if we don't want to rewire a 6 volt radio to 12 volts?"  As noted previously, the boost transformer in the radio had its center tap connected to the "hot" side - which, in this case, would have been the negative terminal (because many vehicles had 6 volt, positive grounds at the time).  This circuit could be easily modified for that as you'd need only "half" an "H" bridge and the resistors driving the transistors would be changed to a lower value - perhaps 2.2k.  Depending on whether the it was positive-ground or negative ground, or whether the center-tap was grounded or "hot" - this would dictate whether you needed the PNP or NPN halves of the H-bridge.

(If you have a specific need, feel free to contact me by leaving a comment.)

* * * 

This page stolen from ka7oei.blogspot.com

 

 [END]

 

Ham Radio With K0PIR

Will this petition before the FCC bring an end to amateur radio as we know it?  I am an avid listener of Jim, W6LG and his YouTube channel and that’s where I got the heads up from. There is a...

The post End To Amateur Radio As We Know It? appeared first on Ham Radio with K0PIR - Icom 7300 and 7610 SDR Transceivers and now Elecraft!.

Author's note: I use - and  this is a real quote from an angry reader - the language of the devil that I should be ashamed of using - in this post. Steer clear if you're offended by profanity. If you don't, and you message me about it, I'm just going to ignore it like I've ignored the other 12 messages I've gotten since publishing...smh. 

I…uh…haven’t blogged in a long time.

How have you all been?

I have been very busy. I’m on a plane so I found time to write a thing I’ve been thinking about.

I was watching YouTube (I watch a lot of YouTube) and I scrolled past a video with hardly any views, a creator with not many subs, and a title and thumbnail that wasn’t very attention-getting. However, something in my head just said give it a chance.

Update: unfortunately, the video that was posted here was removed by its creator. I assume he received a lot of backlash from it and subsequent critical videos he made and removed his videos from the internet. The video highlighted ham radio "poseurs" who post videos on YouTube in order to gain an audience and views, ONLY to gain an audience and views. In other words, their motivations are selfish, wherein the creator seeks attention with drama and unsubstantiated clickbait, rather than altruistic (seeking to share knowledge or a worthwhile experience) or generally neutral.

First of all, poseurs isn’t a misspelling; I thought it was, but turns out it’s just another way to spell posers. In my middle and high school, posers were people who posed as people who they weren’t. Everyone was one at some point, unless you were popular. I was a goth poser, an emo poser, a nerd poser…point was that I didn’t really fit in for a while. I struggled to find my friends until I hit a wall, got depressed, and…joined the high school marching band lol. And at some point I became a ham, and the rest was history.

Randon, KN4YRM, actually had a good point in the video. There is a new kind of poser in the ham radio YouTube space, and it’s causing problems for seekers of amateur radio knowledge on the platform and, in my opinion, ham radio in general.

As we may or may not be aware, ham radio, in general, has a significant demographic cliff ahead of itself. And if nothing is done to address that cliff, the hobby (and service) will die. One of the best “boots on the ground” are the growing body of Ham Radio YouTube Creators (a.k.a. HamTubers). They are bringing amateur radio to a whole brand new audience and generation of hams right into their phones and devices.

More generally, YouTube posers (I like to call them douchetubers) are very common on the platform. These aren’t the kind of poser I remember in middle school. Instead of being a wayward teen looking for their place in the world, the YouTube posers he’s referring to are a sort of morally bankrupt opportunistic fame chaser, and in this case, they’ve coalesced upon ham radio. Maybe they really are wayward souls, and deep down are desperate to find a hobby or an ingroup to call home, but I’m not so sure after knowing and talking with some over the last few years.

Douchetubers are sort of an indicator species. They are proof that the OG YouTubers are doing something right insofar that they have made their topic become so mainstream that it is now profitable for the douchetubers to swoop in, make effortless superficial unboxing videos, paid reviews of cool gear and services they didn’t buy or even use, without ever actually participating in the vocation that supports the wares they are peddling, while utilizing skills and techniques that are optimized for The Algorithm – high-energy thumbnails, click-bait titles, precise ad placement, belaboring the point (or never even getting to it) to increase watch time, consistent scheduling, optimized viewer retention and engagement, and the oh so beloved “LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE” call outs.

And if that wasn’t enough, they will even start pointless drama and consternation (sometimes conspiratorially coordinated) with other douchetubers and OGs just to pump up activity and engagement so that the YouTube algorithm catches on – and that is a tried and true tool used by douchetubers the world around. KSI, Logan Paul, Pewdiepie, GradeAunderA are a few that come to mind that all bickered about each other while they all enjoyed the gains due to polarization.

In ham radio world, these are the youtubers who make videos just for the clout, influence, or revenue – without ever hitting a PTT button, melting a single blob of solder, or sharing a conversation with experienced hams and elmers – essentially doing nothing to show or share their true passion for the hobby, because they really have none, or, what passion they did have became usurped by the chase for clout (views, likes, and influencing power) and perhaps advertising revenue (but as someone who receives advertising revenue and knows people in the ham radio YouTube space that do, it isn’t very much).

This is especially becoming apparent in the preparedness realm. PrepTube is chock full of douchetubers who have capitalized on right-wing FUD, civil distress, and the deluge of climate change induced disasters by performing paid gear reviews of things like cheap Chinese ham radios to use when SHTF, and making ill-informed recommendations to their audience that we hams scoff at. Buy a Baofeng and put it in an ammo box? Do you even know how to program those things?

But, good for ham radio! Right? Well, yes and no.

Yes, because douchetubers have an incredible talent at putting information in front of lots and lots of eyeballs. Because ham radio is on a demographic cliff, the exposure they are helping create by making YouTube videos that are highly optimized to attract larger audiences and make revenue is a net good thing for ham radio since YouTube is a perpetual audience of billions and billions of people, especially youth.

On the other hand, it’s bad for a few reasons:

1. They are really bad at sharing their passion for amateur radio, such that they encourage their audience to watch more of them on YouTube, instead of play more radio themselves.
2. They are really bad at promoting the hobby (either as a hobby or a service) to the public in general. Their superficial view of it to the masses are…
3. …diluting the technical breadth and depth of amateur radio (in other words, they are promoting unskilled and untrained appliance operators, especially in preparedness communities.
4. Randon’s point – it saturates the YouTube ham radio space making it way harder for hams and hams-to-be to find useful, helpful information, and to support legit non-douche YouTube elmers.

What it means for the OG youtubers is that they need to step up their game to compete for views. This brings the playing field back into their favor, at the expense of sounding like a douchetuber themself. “SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON” is a common phrase among all of us now, because non-DoucheTubers still need to inform their audience that if they don’t like and subscribe, then videos made by douchtubers of low quality and high viewing rates will eventually overpower even the best creations from the most morally enriched and didactic creators – people like Dave Casler KE0OG, Ham Radio Crash Course, Mr. Carlson’s Lab, KM4ACK, Ham Radio 2.0, K8MRD, K6ARK, Signal Path Blog, K5ATA, TheSmokinApe, W2AEW, just to name a few…they all have to compete with the scum of the YouTube earth with the same techniques they do.

Great content does not automatically mean more viewers. Just ask how many times I’ve given presentations on youth in ham radio to near-empty rooms and worked my butt off on videos for all of a few hundred views (while 5 of my top ten videos are awful, unscripted, seat of the pants reviews of popular gear…seriously I still think my Solar Eclipse QSO party video was the moment when I proved to myself I could tell a Neistat-style story through video, but it’s only got 200 or so views despite it being one of my hardest videos to make.)

And the same is true for many hobbies; I’ve seen it happen with flying quadcopters over the last 7 years, and I’ve seen it happen with disc golf over the last year, where douchetubers will review a disc or gear sent to them from Chinese companies without even knowing what the ratings on it mean, never admitting to never having actually thrown a disc in their life, just because so many eyeballs are looking for that information out there, and they have a matching charismatic ability to disseminate useless information while maintaining an audience of people willing to give them their attention.

I would like to add, that while douche-HamTubers are starting to oversaturate the YouTube ham radio space with bad content, that there is no shortage of brilliant didactic (I love that word) ham creators making excellent videos and actually engaging with their passions and audiences while sharing knowledge in a fruitful manner that is well in alignment with the spirit of amateur radio. I wish that wasn’t discouraging to anybody wishing to make videos on YouTube (I had just given a talk to W4DXCC to promote everyone with a smartphone to give it a shot!), but I know that to be true as well.

Randon’s advice to spin the dial works here just as well as it works on the bands. Just spin the dial, and give your attention to those who really deserve it.

Here’s a looooong list of ham radio YouTubers curated by Kyle AA0Z. Do you see any douchetubers on this list? Or is there anyone missing that should be on here? Let us know!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BiqqCvRnzNx-iuH9R5ghyfRFomOWkh59zuZ6OrWy7Is/edit?usp=sharing

I curated a YouTube playlist that contains over 130 videos of ARRL Field Day action. Check it out here, or in the convenient embedded player below.

It’s surprising how many videos have popped up already; just a little fewer videos than last year, despite COVID-19 concerns. Many were single or few-op, but I did see a few larger operations, but I was sad to see a lot of multi-operator stations where not everyone was wearing face coverings and not distancing themselves.

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG8UQxewXrtaflA-FeM7kEXnv030APAvh

Here’s something to help alleviate your post-partum ham radio convention funk.

The YouTuber’s Hamfest features a whole bunch of the biggest YouTubers in Ham Radio with some of your favorite names in amateur radio, LIVE!

And you don’t even have to drive halfway across the country to see it – it’s all hosted on YouTube for you, for free.

The YouTuber’s HamFest starts May 23 at 8am Eastern time. It starts off with an introduction and instructions on following the action with Jason from Ham Radio 2.0, right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiylTCUA33c

He will finish his stream with Flexradio, AREDN, and Ham Radio Deluxe and pass it off to K5ATA’s YouTube channel to talk with Becky Schoenfeld W1BXY and Kris Bickell K1BIC from the ARRL. Then he’ll hand it off to me, and so on and so forth.

If you start late, or you get lost (it’s kinda like the real thing, isn’t it?) no big deal. Just catch the YTHF schedule here: http://youtubershamfest.com/

You can also follow a YouTube playlist here with all of the pre-planned livestreams listed: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG8UQxewXrtYykTpyQL3iPxKzdBrp-MW2

The playlist and links in the schedule will work even after the YouTuber’s HamFest is over. All presentations are recorded and will stay up indefinitely for your later viewing pleasure.

You don’t need a YouTube account (which is the same as a Google account) to view, but you will need one if you want to participate in the real-time chat to interact and ask questions with vendors and representatives from Icom, FlexRadio, Packtenna, Bioenno, ARRL, MFJ, and much, much more.

And to, of course, Like, Comment, Subscribe, and hit the bell on everyone’s YouTube channel!

I’ll be bringing you news from Youth on the Air with Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, talk about a new Youth initiative from Remote Ham Radio, and chat with Dustin N8RMA who runs the State of the Hobby ham radio survey.

See you Saturday, bright and early at the YouTuber’s HamFest!

The pastime of Learning Morse code has been on a huge upswing these last few months. Reddit posts have increased, LCWO usage is at an all-time high, and Google trends are showing an obvious bump in interest in “morse code” during the last 6 months. It seems that people have taken a liking to learning or getting better at Morse code. It might have to do with renewed interest in ham radio, COVID-19 stay-at-home impacts, or just people looking for something fun and interesting to do.

It’s definitely translated into quite a bit of on-air activity, but what I’m more impressed with are people across the Internet asking for advice learning the code.

I for one am glad to be a part of what seems to be a Modern Morse Code Renaissance.

I’ve neglected to write about my progress on becoming proficient in Morse code, but thankfully that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped practicing. I’m too busy trying to get good to write about it!

Some background for new readers – Back at the start of the 2020 (before it turned into the worst year ever), I embarked on a journey to practice Morse daily. I streamed every session to Twitch.tv and YouTube (you can see some goofy highlights and bloopers here).

It’s been several weeks since then, and mostly thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, I’ve been able to find the time to not only stay (somewhat) consistent with practice, but to also commit my Monday and Friday evenings to CW Academy. I’m in the basic class with Dave W8OV, who has been an excellent instructor, with a group of hams that are right there with me trying to improve our ability to translate Morse code in our head, without writing, instantly.

I have definitely seen a massive improvement in my proficiency. I’ve completed all of the letters, numbers, and symbols. But still, I learned last night that I still have a long way to go before I have a FB QSO at 20-25WPM, but I can hold my own at an effective WPM (a.k.a. Farnsworth speed) of around 10 WPM. Not bad. But a ways to go.

Now I just need to get on the air.

True Morse code proficiency comes from on-air practice, not from LCWO drills or even classes like CW Academy or Long Island CW Club. It comes from the grueling embarrassment of flubbing your first QSO and getting better with every QSO after that. Absolutely nobody will disagree with that (unless you’re one of those super-human High Speed CW wizards like Fabian DJ1YFK).

I wonder who is going to be the lucky ham on the end of my first real CW QSO? If you’re reading this, sorry in advance for my awful copy.

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