KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

Making hams of hackers

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Since I retired three years ago, I’ve made it part of my mission to help hackers get ham radio licenses. Thanks to an ARDC grant, I have been able to teach one-day Tech classes at hacker/cybersecurity conferences around the country.

August is a busy month for me, as there are two big hacker conferences at which I teach. DEFCON, which is arguably the largest hacker conference with 30,000+ attendees, takes place the first week of August in Las Vegas. Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE), which is run by 2600 magazine, takes place in New York City the week after. For someone who’s kind of a homebody that’s a lot of traveling, so I am glad to finally be back home.

DEFCON: The big one

DEFCON doesn’t release official numbers, but various sources estimate attendance to be more than 30,000 people, making it the world’s largest hacker convention. So, it’s no surprise that my one-day Tech classes are well-attended. Two years ago, we held the class in a large auditorium-type room at the Clark County Library, and we had more than 90 people in the room. This year, we were able to pack 66 hackers into the room at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Ham Radio Village, which is the organization that handles all the logistics for this class, pre-registered more than 40 people for the class, but shortly after I arrived Thursday morning, people started queueing up for seats that might be available once those that pre-registered had checked in. All in all, we were able to shoehorn in 66 total. Honestly, I’m always overwhelmed that so many would want to take this class.

Overall, the class went pretty well. It was the first time teaching the updated question pool, so there were a few spots where I stumbled a bit. For example, they removed the question, “What is the approximate length, in inches, of a half-wavelength dipole antenna?” So, I had to talk around that when I got to the section on dipoles.

The biggest problem was the room layout. It was long and narrow, and I don’t think that the people in the back of the room could see the white board very well. They probably had a hard time hearing me, too. Next year, we’re going to have to make improvements.

Overall, I had a fairly good result. After the class, 58 took the test and 46 passed. Over the course of the next few days, four more folks who were in the class took and passed the test. 50/58 is a pass rate of 86.2%

There’s always HOPE

HOPE logo.Last week, I taught a class at Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE). This conference, while addressing many of the same topics as DEFCON, has a completely different vibe. For one thing, it’s held in New York City, which is very much different from Las Vegas. The attendance is also an order of magnitude smaller than DEFCON.

This year, the conference was held at the New Yorker Hotel in midtown Manhattan. The hotel opened in 1929, and was the residence of Nikola Tesla, until he died in 1943. They even have a small Tesla museum with some artifacts from his apartment.

I had a nice room on the 35th floor. It was kind of small, but it had views to the north and west. From our room, we could see Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Hudson River, and if we really craned our necks, the Chrysler Building. And, it cost about the same as my room at the Sahara in Las Vegas.

It was our third time at HOPE, and the first two years, we did the class in a single day. this year, though, they asked if we could split it up into two, four-hour sessions. I was a little hesitant at first, but it worked out OK. The class was much smaller than the one at DEFCON—the first day there were 15 people in the room at some point or another—and some people didn’t return for the second day. But, some people showed up the second day who didn’t attend the first day, so it all evened out. Those that did attend asked a lot of great questions, and I really enjoyed teaching this particular class.

13 out of 14 students taking the class passed the test, and over the next two days, 12 others took the test. All of those passed.

On top of all that, I had a great time in New York City. My wife, Silvia, came with me, and we got to see some of the sights. We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and wandered through Time Square. We also took the Staten Island Ferry and visited the 9/11 Memorial. We didn’t do much at night, but maybe next year, we’ll make plans to go see a show or listen to some jazz at a club somewhere.

Changes forthcoming

After teaching two classes using the updated version of my study guide, I think that I’m going to make some more changes. The text for several of the questions could use more explanation, and I think that I’m going to add some more illustrations as well. I’ll be teaching my next class on October 10, here in Ann Arbor, and I’m hoping to get these changes done by then.

Recent SKs: NU2J, K3SHD, K7AJM

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These three SKs all shared our passion for amateur radio.

Marc F. ToussaintMarc Toussaint, NU2J, NU2J

Marc Toussaint, 73, passed away at his home in Bloomfield, NJ on August 5, 2026. Marc shared his father’s love of ham radio and received his amateur operator license from the FCC at age 15. Eventually, he advanced to the Amateur Extra Class Operator License, and also became a volunteer examiner who administered exams to prospective new amateur operators. Marc was a member of the Nutley Amateur Radio Club, serving as treasurer, secretary and club trustee for many years.

Read complete obituary

Casimir “Vic” Bak, K3SHD

Vic Bak, K3shdCasimir “Vic” Bak passed away peacefully at Hospice House in Coeur d’Alene on August 2nd, 2026. Vic was born in Philadelphia and raised in Felton, Delaware. Growing up, he became involved in ham radio, Scouting, Civil Air Patrol, and ROTC……Vic parlayed his lifelong enthusiasm for amateur radio into an illustrious career as an Air Force officer, where he specialized in communications….Vic’s passion for ham radio continued after military retirement. He remained on the airwaves with his callsign K3SHD, connecting with friends near and far.

Read complete obituary

Arthur Movius, K7AJMArthur Movius, K7AJM

Arthur James Movius III-known to all as Jim-passed away peacefully at his daughter’s home in Idaho on June 17, 2026……Throughout his life, Jim’s devotion to ham radio never wavered. From his home on Montana’s Stillwater River, he continued hosting weekly sessions with the Alaska-Pacific Emergency Preparedness Net, remaining an active and respected voice in the amateur radio community.

Read complete obituary

 

 

Question pools should make teaching classes easier

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Last week, I taught a one-day Tech Class at DEFCON, arguably the premiere cybersecurity/hacker conference in the U.S. It was my fourth year teaching this class under the auspices of the Ham Radio Village. This year, there were 66 people in the class.

It was my first class with the updated question pool, and somehow, they’ve made it even more difficult to teach classes with this question pool. For example, they eliminated the question that required an applicant to calculate the length of a six-meter, half-wavelength dipole antenna, but kept the questions:

  • T9A10: In which direction does a half-wave dipole antenna radiate the strongest signal?
  • T9A05: Which of the following increases the resonant frequency of a dipole antenna?

What this means is that I have to basically teach the same material that I taught last year, but now this amount of class time covers only two questions instead of three. And, I’d argue that knowing how to calculate the length of a half-wavelength dipole antenna is more relevant than many other questions on the test.

On top of that, they kept a bunch of irrelevant or obsolete questions, including:

  • T7A02: “Which term describes the ability of a receiver to discriminate between multiple signals?”

I’d argue that in the era of software-defined radio (SDR), the selectivity specification is hardly relevant any more. Obsolete questions like this one make it more difficult to teach the class because I have to apologize for teaching irrelevant topics. There are other obsolete and irrelevant questions in the question pool.

In my humble opinion, the question pool needs to become less of a random collection of questions and more of a teaching tool. The question pool should not only test technical knowledge and knowledge of rules and regulations, but also make it easier for ham radio instructors like me to teach newcomers what they need to know to become successful radio amateurs.

Ill be making some suggestions on how to do that in the future, too.

 

One lump or two (or three)?

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If there’s anything that radio amateurs like to kvetch about it’s licensing. How many license classes should there be? How difficult should the tests be? What kind of privileges should each class get?

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the debate was incentive licensing. Incentive license was supposed to be an effort to get radio amateurs to upgrade their technical skills. As you progressed up the ladder from Novice to Extra, you received more operating privileges, mainly on the HF bands. In practice, however, it stripped privileges from General Class hams, and so many of them got upset with the ARRL—which backed the program—that I believe it was the start of the ARRL’s demise.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the debate was about whether licensees should be required to pass a code test or not. In 1991, the first no-code Tech licenses were issued. In 2003, the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) in Geneva voted to allow International Telecommunication Union (ITU) member countries to eliminate the mandatory Morse code proficiency requirement for amateur radio licensing. In 2007, the FCC eliminated the Morse code testing requirement for all amateur radio license classes in the U.S.

In April 2000, the FCC stopped issuing new Novice, Tech Plus, and Advanced class licenses, leaving just Technician, General, and Amateur Extra as the classes available to new applicants. Being an Advanced Class licensee at the time, I was hoping to get Extra Class privileges, but unfortunately, that was not to be. I remained an Advanced Class license until 2005, which is when I started publishing study guides. After all, who would want to buy an Extra Class study guide from a guy with only an Advanced Class license?

Fast forward to today

Steve, N8GNJ, the fellow behind the Zero Retries newsletter, is trying to re-ignite this debate.

(By the way, if you haven’t already subscribed to Zero Retries, you really should, at least if you’re concerned about the future of the hobby. Despite the way he capitalizes “Amateur Radio,” a la the ARRL, it’s well worth reading. And, it’s completely free, although Steve is very happy to accept donations.)

In issue #258, N8GNJ published an article titled, “Fixing the US Amateur Radio Licenses.” The article, which references a blog post by Bob, K0NR titled “How to Fix the Technician License,” In it, he says that many new hams aren’t all that interested in HF, and consider the current license structure, which is a holdover from the old incentive licensing days, to be a disincentive for upgrading only to obtain more HF privileges. He says that the current licensing structure, “smacks of gamesmanship / hoop jumping / jerking them around, and simply, [new hams that Steve calls “new tech hams] have no patience for such things.” I think that he’s right, up to a point, about this.

Steve proposes that we combine the US Amateur Radio Technician and General Licenses into a single license that has all the privileges of the current General Class license and to promote all of the current Techs to this Standard Class. He would make the test for this Standard Class a bit more challenging technically, adding questions about digital technology and software-defined radio, topics which he feels are more relevant than “arcane radio circuits or formulas that aren’t necessary to operate with current off-the-shelf equipment.”

This article has started an interesting discussion on the ZeroRetries discussion group. There, the idea of a two-tier license structure is quite popular, although the form of that structure varies from person to person.

Several advocate for just a single license class and test. I’m not sure that’s a good idea, as you’d have to make that test quite difficult, and that would discourage many people. One fellow suggested a single class of license with endorsements for things such as “VE/VEC stuff, spread-spectrum operation, high-power operation, encryption, and Operational Compliance Observer (Radio Police).”

All of these ideas deserve discussion. Unfortunately, as in many other areas of amateur radio, the current version of the ARRL lacks both the vision to and leadership necessary to move this forward. Personally, I’d like to stop kvetching and really start working on how to improve ham radio.

 

 

More QSLs: N7FAN, AD7HI

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These QSLs are a bit different than the other QSLs I post here. Not because they don’t spell words, but because they are from stations west of the Mississippi. Because of the way I have to mount my HF antenna, I don’t do very well to the west. Also, the N7FAN card is for a rare FT8 contact.

More POTA notes, 7/30/26

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Here are a couple more POTA notes:

  • I’ve discovered the limits of my 9 Ahr BioEnno battery. I used it for the following activations:
    • July 22, 1 hour, 15 contacts
    • July 24, 1.5 hours, 31 contacts
    • July 25, 1.5 hours, 60 contacts
    • July 27, 2.5 hours, 52 contacts
    • July 29, 1.25 hours, 40 contacts

    About midway through this last activation, my KX3 began limitng the power output to 10 W. I guess that the battery couldn’t supply enough current to output the full 15 W. It did continue to work at 10 W, though, for the remainder of the activation. I recharged the battery overnight, and it worked just fine this morning.

  • My 40 contacts yesterday gave me 940 from the Iron Belle Trail (US-13184), so this morning, I decided to work the remaining 60 to get my “kilo” for the park. I made my first contact at 8:35 am, and for the next hour and a half, did pretty well. I made contact #59 at 10:05, which is close to 1 contact every minute and a half. Then, the band went south on me. Over the next half hour, I only managed 7 contacts.Even so, that put me over 1,000 QSOs for US-13184, so I’m happy about that. My 1,006 contacts and 29 activations don’t, however, get me onto the leader board, though. KE8VC leads with 117 activations and 6234 contacts!
  • After lunch, it was such a nice day that I managed to cajole my wife to head out to the Pinckney State Recreation Area (US-3322) with me. The bands weren’t as cooperative as they were in the morning, but I did manage to make 40 contacts over the course of two hours. I would have liked to make more contacts, but it was fun just chilling by the beach and enjoying the day.

    Towards the end of the activation, a young man and his son came up to me and started chatting. He mentioned that he was planning to take the Tech test soon. I gave him my card and encouraged him to download my free study guide. I also gave him a demo of my POTA setup and explained what POTA was all about. I hope that he will get his license soon and join us on the air.

POTA notes, 7/27/26

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Since the POTA gods (or in this case, a goddess) designated the Iron Belle State Trail (US-13184) a. POTA entity, this spring, I’ve been working a lot of POTA. The park is less than a mile from my house, and I can be on the air within 20 minutes of leaving my house. After this morning’s activation, I have a total of 900 contacts from US-13184.

This has given me a lot of time to make some observations about POTA operation. Here they are in no particular order:

  • I’m hoping to hit the kilo mark at US-13184 sometime this week, so that I can hit some of the other parks in the area again. Specifically, I want to head out to Pinckney State Recreation Area (US-3322). There’s a nice little lake with a sandy beach there, which is great for warmer weather.
  • Although there is more activity on the weekends, weekdays can be good days for activating as well. On Saturday, I made 60 contacts in an hour and a half. This morning, I made 52 contacts in about two hours and 15 minutes.
  • If I’m out early (say before 9 am), I begin operations on 40 meters. This lets me work close-in stations before the D-layer gets too hot for ionospheric propagation. I’ve also noticed that ground wave propagation can be good on 40 meters early in the day.
  • When it seems as though I’ve worked all the hunters on 40 meters, or when propagation begins changing, I’ll go to 20 meters. You  don’t want to wait too long to to this, but you don’t want to be too quick, either.
  • Being a CW guy, I mostly operate CW. The last couple of activations, though, I’ve given phone a try. With only 15 W from my KX-3, I’m certainly not the strongest signal on the band, but I have made contacts, and phone is a nice change of pace. Who knows? I might even give digital a whack one of these days.
  • 18 or 19 wpm seems to be the optimum speed at which to call CQ POTA. Calling at higher speeds could put off slower hunters. Calling at slower speeds is a bit aggravating for me.
  • Listen for the weak signals. Because you’re not asking for a long contact, QRP stations will call you for a contact. Other park activators will also have weaker signals on average. I don’t actually do this myself, but I’d say that always using headphones will help you hear the weaker stations. I really should because it’s kind of comical seeing me lean in to hear a weak one on the less-than-great KX3 speaker.
  • In general, there seem to be a higher percentage of women operating POTA. It’s not an incredibly higher percentage, but it is something that I’ve noticed.
  • My 9 Ahr battery is good for at least 4 activations. I could have gotten away with a much smaller battery, but it’s nice not having to recharge after every activation.
  • Activations can be more fun with a second operator, even if you’re working CW. A ham friend stopped by the park this morning, just as  I was wrapping up. We shared some observations, and when I was done, he set up his station. Next time, I’ll bring my 40-meter contest filter so that we can both operate at the same time without interfering with one another.

Now, here are a couple of observations directed at hunters:

  • If an activator doesn’t repsond to your first call, don’t get discouraged. Be patient, especially if you’re running low power.  If you hang in there, the activator will eventually get to you.
  • Hunters don’t need to repeat exchange, unless asked to do so. If you’re giving an activator a 559 report from Michigan, simply send “559 MI”, not “559 559 MI MI.”

Having said all that, I’d love to hear some of your observations. Please leave a comment below or email me directly.

ICQPodcast Episode 487 – A Taste of Ham Radio Friedrichshafen

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ICQ Podcast logo.In this episode, I joined Martin Butler M1MRB, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss:
  • Germany Likely to Get Full 4 Metres Band Back. The Brits on the podcast seem to love the 4-meter band. Unfortunately, I doubt that we’ll ever get access to it here in the U.S.
  • Eyeball-to-Eyeball Off-the-Air QSO Party. The Eyeball QSO Party is a weekly Zoom meeting that got started during the pandemic that continues to this day. Hams from different countries attend every week to share their opinions and activities.
  • Canada Reviewing Policy on Antennas, Towers. Although this effort isn’t specifically meant for radio amateurs, the Radio Amateurs of Canada thinks that the proposals will give hams much more latitude when it comes to putting up antenna structures.
  • Researchers Create Space ‘Wall’ to Weaken Solar Storms. Researchers believe they have developed an effective line of defence against geomagnetic storms that would protect radio communications, GPS systems, electrical grids and satellites from disruption. This is, however, all theoretical at this point, and the panel was dubious that this would work in practice.
  • YOTA Camp Region 1 – Austria July 2026. A highlight of this year’s YOTA Summer Camp is that every attendee will go home with a QMX+ they built, with the help of Hans Summers G0UPL of QRP Labs. Hans is also donating endfed antennas, power banks,  microphones, and Morse keys. I want to be like G0UPL when I grow up.
This episode’s feature is a Taste of Ham Radio Friedrichshafen.

Today’s POTA activation: A nice change of pace

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This summer, I have been activating the Iron Belle Trail, US-13184, a lot.  This is a newly-added POTA entity and it runs through Bandemer Park, which is less than a mile from my house as the crow flies, and less than a mile and a half by car. I can be on the air in 20 minutes or less from the time I leave my house.

I popped over to the park this morning for a quick activation. I got all set up and made some CW contacts on 40 meters, but the action was kind of slow. I QSYed up to 20 meters, only to discover that there was some kind of contest going on. :( I made a contact or two there, then switched to 30 meters. I made a couple of contacts on 30 by hunting, but that still wasn’t all that satisfying.

Then, I thought, why not give phone a try? I QSYed to 40 meter phone, found a guy operating a special event station and worked him. He gave me a pretty decent signal report, so I decided to try calling CQ POTA. I made seven contacts calling CQ. As I was getting close to the hour that I allotted myself to operate this morning, I decided to try hunt a few more.

The first activator that I came across had three operators in North Carolina. Tuning down the band a little, I found another multi-operator activation that wasn’t even listed on the spots page. There were five ops there in Georgia. So, out of a total 29 contacts, 16 were SSB contacts, which I made in the last 23 minutes. Not too shabby for only running 15 W and a nice change of pace! My average report was 5-7.

A nice surprise

By the way, I had a nice surprise yesterday when I arrived at the park. The picnic table I’ve been operating from at Bandemer was in pretty bad shape. The wood had warped and gotten quite soft, and one of the benches even had a hole in it. I reported this to the city on the SeeClickFix website on Monday, and when I arrived at the park on Friday, the rotting wood had all been replaced.

Picnic table at Bandemer Park.
The newly restored picnic table that I operate from at Bandemer Park. You can see the Iron Belle Trail, US-13184, in the background.
I don’t know if this had anything to do with their prompt reply, but when I reported the issue, I noted that the hole in the bench could be a safety issue! At any rate, it’s even more of a pleasure to operate at Bandemer Park.