KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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A busy weekend at KB6NU

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This last weekend was a very busy on here at KB6NU. I attended the QSO Today Virtual Expo, chatted with some local ham friends on Zoom, and worked three state QSO parties.

On Friday night, I checked into the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo. There wasn’t a lot going on, but I sat in on the live streaming of the Ham Radio Workbench and Ham Radio 2.0 podcasts and wandered around the booths a bit. As you might expect, there weren’t many people in the booths. The busiest one that I dropped in on was the CWops booth. I think there were four or five of us in there.

On Saturday morning, before the Virtual Expo got started, I dropped into a Zoom meeting that takes place every Saturday morning. Before the pandemic, this meeting used to take place at a local bagel shop, but now we do it online. For some reason, it’s called “The Clinic.” The Clinic got started when some guys would join Dik, KC8UXT, at his favorite breakfast spot, Barry Bagels, every Saturday morning.

Sadly, Dik is now an SK, but the Clinic continues. We get started about 9 am Eastern time and BS about ham radio for a couple until about 11 am.  Feel free to drop in and join the Zoom meeting.

This Saturday, I left the Clinic at 10 am to make some contacts in the Oklahoma QSO Party, the first of three state QSO parties over the weekend. By the time I got set up it was 10:15, and over the next half hour, I managed to make five QSOs. That was enough to qualify my participation for the State QSO Party Challenge.

At 11 am, it was back to the Virtual Expo. Over the next 5-6 hours, I attended presentations and did some booth duty in both the ICQPodcast booth. I say booth duty, but it was really just chatting with the ICQPodcast guys and the occasional listener.

As you may have heard, there were some software problems with the Virtual Expo. Some attendees had problems with their login credentials and some of the sessions didn’t work quite right. The sessions on ionospheric propagation and machine learning were two that I wanted to attend, but unfortunately, they never started.

Several sessions did work correctly, though, including the session on amateur radio branding. That session was moderated by Martin, M1MRB, of the ICQPodcast, and was quite a good discussion. Fortunately, all of the presentations were pre-recorded and will be available to attendees for the next 30 days on Virtual Expo website. After that, they’ll be uploaded to the Virtual Expo YouTube channel.

After eating some dinner, it was back to the shack, to make some contacts in the Idaho QSO Party. After making a couple of contacts on 40m, I switched to 80m and made a third one. Since I don’t do very well to the west, I figured that was enough, and shut down the station for the day.

More troubles on Sunday

At 11 am Sunday morning, it was back to the Virtual Expo. Unfortunately, the Expo’s software woes continued. I think that what happened in the session that I was “hosting” was a great example of how things went wrong.

I’m not sure exactly why the organizers did this, but they decided to tack on a title screen to each video and run that screen along with some elevator music for three minutes. That got old pretty fast, so the speaker and I decided to start the video before making the session go live, then making the session live after it had run for two minutes. Bad move. When we did make the session live, no one could see the video. Stopping and re-starting the video did not work.

Someone in the audience suggested ending the session and restarting it. That sounded good, but I didn’t have a good feeling about this. One of the sessions that I had wanted to attend on Saturday had ended prematurely, and I was guessing they had a similar problem with their video and tried the same maneuver. That session never took place. I said as much, but the speaker wanted to try it so we did. Of course, we couldn’t get the session re-started after doing that.

The speaker had a link to the online support, so we tried that. I was going to say that these guys were pretty clueless, but would be unfair. They were being asked to support a system that was poorly designed and had lots of bugs. They did the best they could, but they just really couldn’t do much. After about a half hour, they decided just to add a session with the same title. A little more than 35 minutes after the session was to start, we were able to start the second version of the session. The rest pretty much went off without a hitch.

EXCEPT, my presentation on teaching online classes was to start an hour after this session that I was hosting. Since the session started late, I told the speaker that I was going to have to cut out early and head over to my session. WRONG! A host could not leave a session that he or she was hosting until the session ended. Nor, could the support people transfer the host status from me to the speaker. I even tried quitting the browser and then signing in to the Virtual Expo again. As soon as I signed in, the software put me in the session that I was hosting. ARRRGGGGHH.

Fortunately, I had the phone number for the host of my session. I phoned him and told him to start the video, and I would join the session as soon as I could. Fortunately, there were not many questions in the first session, and as soon as I ended the session, the software transferred to my session, where the video was just finishing up. So, I was able to field questions there. All’s well that ends well, I guess. :)

After giving my presentation, I hung out in the ICQPodcast booth for a while, but I had one more QSO party to work this weekend: the Wisconsin QSO Party. Over the next hour and a half, I logged nearly 50 QSOs for a score of just over 3,000 points.

At that point, I’d had plenty of ham radio over the weekend. My wife had been itching to wash our car, so we hopped in and went to one of those wash-it-yourself places. After getting the car looking like new (well, almost like new), we got some takeout and had a nice dinner. All in all, it was a great weekend!

Amateur radio in the news: lots of hams in eastern IA, Winter Field Day in MA, reaching out to law enforcement

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Who’d a thunk it? But, eastern Iowa is where Collins is located……Dan

2nd-largest per-capita group of amateur radio operators in the world call Eastern Iowa home

When a derecho packing winds of 80 to 100 miles per hour — and gusts topping 140 miles per hour — hit Eastern Iowa in August, about 400,000 Iowans were left without power and many had no cell service. That meant no television news, no cable updates, and for many that rely heavily on cellphones rather than landlines, limited phone access. The Cedar Valley Amateur Radio Club has a motto for those times: “When all else fails, radio.”

…read more

Local radio club braves cold to compete in international contest

On Saturday, people huddled around radio transmitters in Community Park in Effingham to participate in a worldwide competition put on by ham radio enthusiasts. The event is called Winter Field Day and was organized by the Winter Field Day Association. Running 24 hours, from 1 p.m. on Saturday to 1 p.m. Sunday, the event is centered around making connections with other people. Throughout the event, radio operators turned their dials to different frequencies, searching for other radio operators. If they find someone calling “CQ,” which is a radio-style invitation to talk, they briefly exchange information like their call sign and location and then get back to hunting for others.

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Reaching out to community groups is always a good idea….Dan

President and VP of Lawrence County Amateur Radio Club speak at BRTC

Glendall Floyd and Ray Maynard, president and vice president of the Lawrence County Amateur Radio Club, were guest speakers for the Law Enforcement Training Academy at Black River Technical College on Jan. 11. Floyd and Maynard discussed the uses of amateur radio, also known as ham radio, and provided a list of “22 things you can do with amateur radio.” Among those listed, the speakers emphasized that ham radio can be used for public service.

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Amateur radio in the news: Santa on the air, Sea Road students to talk to ISS, Villager built ISS ham power supply

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Longmont (CO) club puts Santa on the airwaves with hope of transmitting interest in amateur radio

The coronavirus has altered the way that communities are celebrating this year’s holidays, meaning Santa Claus may not be able to make his Christmas list through in-person visits. One Longmont club, though, is giving Kris Kringle some air time so that he can still hear from Boulder County’s children in a safe-distanced way.

FIRESTONE, CO – NOVEMBER 12:Chuck Poch, call sign K0ITP, poses for a portrait in his “ham shack” at his home in Firestone on Nov. 12, 2020. Longmont Amateur Radio Club operators will be giving kids the opportunity to Santa from Dec. 1 to 5. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)

The Longmont Amateur Radio Club will host On Air with Santa from 6 to 7 p.m. Dec. 1 to Dec. 5. The club is encouraging licensed ham radio operators to give their children and grandchildren a chance to connect with Santa in a safe, distanced way.

Firestone’s Chuck Poch, president of the radio club, said this is the first time that the Longmont Amateur Radio Club has hosted the event. While the Longmont Amateur Radio Club wants to give children a chance to connect with Santa, members also hope to transmit an interest in the next generation of ham radio operators.

Sea Road students to radio orbiting astronauts

KENNEBUNK (ME) – The students at Kennebunk’s Sea Road School are getting ready to talk with astronauts aboard the orbiting International Space Station (ISS). The Sea Road School serves over 300 third, fourth, and fifth-grade students. NASA indicates the direct radio contact will likely take place this coming January.

The New England Radio Discussion Society, a Maine radio club comprised of federally-licensed radio amateurs, known as ham radio operators, is actively helping plan the contact.

Significantly, NASA is celebrating its 20th anniversary of Amateur Radio operations on the ISS. The new crew includes Commander Bill Shepherd, with American ham radio call sign KD5GSL, Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko, and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev, with Russian ham radio call sign U5MIR.

Just a few days after the new ISS crew arrived, they set up the Amateur Radio equipment. ISS crews will now use the new gear to talk to schools as they orbit the Earth.

Villager built power supply for space station

If you can communicate with an astronaut using an amateur radio, you can thank Ed Krome for it. Krome, K9EK, a self-described experimenter and builder, was involved in creating what’s known as a Multi-Voltage Power Supply, which is used to power a next-generation amateur radio system on the International Space Station. The first of four power supplies for this system launched March 6 as part of a SpaceX commercial supply mission to the space station.

When he watched that rocket launch, Krome, of the Village of Amelia, thought it was awesome to have something he worked on go into space. “Going to the launch, it happened to be the clearest night ever over at (Cape) Canaveral, we could see the end of the fueling, the takeoff,” he said.

Minutes from the July/August 2020 ARRL Board Meeting

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Here are the minutes from the July/August 2020 ARRL Board of Directors meeting. I scanned through them, but didn’t really find anything that exciting. Please have a look at them and let me know if there’s something controversial that I missed.

A couple of the things that I did like:

  • The ARRL Foundation awarded $267,000 in college scholarships.
  • Several clubs were recognized for reaching the 100-year milestone:
    • Radio Club of Tacoma (WA)
    • Fort Wayne (IN) Radio Club
    • Marietta (GA) Amateur Radio Club

Amateur radio in the news: Peek inside Baofeng factory, club hold socially-distanced demo day, American Legion posts connect via amateur radio

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Walkie-talkie industry in south China’s Fujian adapts to market amid COVID-19 outbreak.

Every year, about 20 million walkie-talkies are manufactured in Nan’an, accounting for more than 55 percent of the global production. Over the past few months, the city’s walkie-talkie industry has given active response to the changing market environment amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

…..read more

Here’s something that might be possible for other clubs to try….Dan

Radio’s ‘official initiators of social distancing’ to host demo day in Campbell River.

Now in his late 50s, Pritchard (amateur radio call sign VA7UO) is helping others discover the timeless magic of amateur “ham” radios as the relatively new president of the Campbell River Amateur Radio Society (CRARS). The club will be hosting a physically-distanced field day at the Tyee Spit Sept. 5. They’ll be demoing some “really cool radios” including military equipment and satellite antennae from about 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or whenever they get tired, says Pritchard. It’s all battery-operated too, so no generators needed.

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Three Kentucky posts form a relationship through ham radio clubs

Tony Cromwell, commander of Boyle American Legion Post 46 in Danville, Ky., recently authored a report to his District 8 commander about how his post’s ham radio club has been helping other posts around it to start ham clubs of their own.

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KB6NU regales the Denby Dale ARS on the pleasures of operating CW

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Yesterday, I had the pleasure addressing the Denby Dale Amateur Radio Society (DDARS), delivering my talk, “Having Fun with Morse Code” to them. In this time of quarantining and social distancing, the DDARS has done a remarkable thing. Not only have they set up Zoom meetings, but they meet weekly, and they’ve managed to get some great speakers. For example, Bob Heil, K9EID, of Ham Nation fame, preceded me. Next week, one of their members, Ken, G4VZV, will talk about pedestrian mobile operation; and he’ll be followed by someone from the Long Island CW Club.

According to Nick, G4IWO, everyone’s welcome to attend. They meet on Wednesdays at 1830 UTC. You’ll find a link to the Zoom meeting on the DDARS website. If you can’t make it that early, you can see the recordings on the DDARS YouTube channel.

Remote testing: a contrary opinion

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Remote license exams have been a hot topic lately. I’ve blogged about it, the ARRL reports that remotely administered testing is promising, and the W5YI VEC in conjunction with HamStudy.Org has also conducted some remote testing. I think that it’s safe to say that before long remote testing will be widely available.

Not everyone is thrilled by this idea. Jeff, KE9V, tweeted the following yesterday:

Not a fan of remotely administered tests. It puts even more distance between newcomers and other hams, mentors, and clubs. I doubt it will cease when life goes back to normal so this feels like yet another self-inflicted wound. arrl.org/news/remotely-… #hamradio

He’s got a point. I think that we already have a problem mentoring the next generation of hams, and going to remote testing is only going to exacerbate this problem. The flip side, of course, is that this is inevitable. I replied:

That’s certainly a concern, but it’s been my experience that many, if not most, new hams don’t take advantage of mentors and clubs anyway. Whether for good or ill, they’re getting their mentoring from YouTube, reddit, and other online forums, or just foregoing it altogether.

Jeff went on to say, “I get that, but ceding this function renders local radio clubs a little more unnecessary, and most are in a tenuous position as it is.” Jeff is right on again, but the saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” comes to mind. Even with local testing, most newcomers don’t attend local radio club meetings or take advantage of the mentoring that club members could provide. For example, I offer to help every single student that attends my one-day Tech classes. and over the past dozen years or so, I’ve had hundreds of students. My guess is that less than 10 percent of them have ever asked for help.

I still think it’s time for remote testing, but Jeff’s point is well-taken. There are lots of good YouTube videos on different amateur radio topics, but I don’t think any of them are designed to help a newcomer discover what he or she might like best.

I hope the VE teams that do remote testing will at least point the newcomers at some resources to help them get into amateur radio. Hopefully that would include links to the ARRL’s Find a Club page so that they could find some one-on-one help, if they need it or want it. And, it might be time for the ARRL to actually get serious about a mentoring program. Many folks do just fine on their own, but I’d guess that many more would benefit by having hams they can rely on for advice and a helping hand.

Amateur radio in the news: Fulton club learns about its history, high school kids earn licenses, Motorola wins lawsuit

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Fulton ARC learns about its history.

At the February meeting of the Fulton Amateur Radio Club (Oswego, NY), John Darling, K2QQY, presented a program recounting the history of our club over the past 60 years. In the late part of 2018 Darling was delivered a few boxes of photos and news articles regarding the Fulton Amateur Radio Club, which was formed in 1957. These boxes contained a wide array of smelly, dusty and damp items that needed to be arranged and categorized into some semblance of order. This took several months of reading old minutes, scanning over old newspaper articles and the many, many photo albums to deconstruct and label with who, what, where and when.

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Sussex Tech electronics students earn FCC ham radio licenses

Electronics students at Sussex Technical High School recently earned their federal amateur radio operator technician class licenses, a new step along their career pathway.

Eight sophomore students earned the Federal Communications Commission certification, which allows them to operate an amateur, or “ham,” radio station and communicate with other operators worldwide.

Earning their licenses were Bonnie “Abby” Gerhardt, of Greenwood; Jack Blatz, of Laurel; Shaun Stanton, of Milford; Chase Horton, of Millville; Kenneth “Jack” Morris and Alexander Horan, of Milton; and Austin Drace, Seaford; and Callum Neely, of Selbyville.

“Amateur radio is a great entry into the world of radio frequency engineering, as well as a useful asset in emergency communications for the community,” said Sussex Tech electronics teacher Anthony Carmen, himself a licensed ham radio operator.

Volunteers from the American Radio Relay League, the Sussex County Amateur Radio Emergency Services, and the Sussex Amateur Radio Association all assisted with training and preparing students for the licensing exam.

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Motorola Solutions Wins Trade Secret Theft and Copyright Infringement Lawsuits Against Hytera

CHICAGO – February 14, 2020 – Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI) today announced that a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has decided in favor of Motorola Solutions in its trade secret theft and copyright infringement case against Hytera Communications Corporation Limited (SHE: 002583) of Shenzhen, China; Hytera America, Inc.; and Hytera Communications America (West), Inc. (collectively, “Hytera”). In connection with this verdict, the jury awarded Motorola Solutions $345.8 million in compensatory damages and $418.8 million in punitive damages, for a total of $764.6 million. Significantly, Motorola Solutions was awarded the maximum amount it requested. Following this verdict, the company will seek a worldwide injunction preventing Hytera from further misappropriating Motorola Solutions’ stolen trade secrets and infringing its copyrights.

As previously announced, the trade secret theft complaint, initially filed on March 14, 2017, asserted that Hytera’s two-way radios and repeaters are utilizing stolen Motorola Solutions trade secrets. The company amended its complaint on July 30, 2018, to include copyright infringement allegations, asserting that Hytera also unlawfully copied Motorola Solutions’ source code into the source code used in Hytera products in violation of U.S. copyright laws. The evidence presented at trial demonstrated that Hytera stole over 10,000 Motorola Solutions confidential documents, millions of lines of Motorola Solutions’ highly confidential source code and took steps to conceal its theft to avoid detection. Remarkably, after steadfastly denying any wrongdoing in the years prior to trial, Hytera admitted during trial that in fact it has those thousands of Motorola Solutions confidential documents in its possession and that even today some of its products still contain stolen Motorola Solutions source code.

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Ham radio clubs, COVID-19, and “social distancing”

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I don’t know about you, but I dislike the term “social distancing.” The distancing part is fine. We do need to keep a safe distance from one another, but don’t want to distance ourselves socially from one another. If anything, we need to come together more now than before this pandemic hit.

So, the question is, what can we do about it? Well, in a way, ham radio offers a perfect solution—communications! Ham radio lets us keep in touch with one another without being in physical contact.

Here in Ann Arbor, members of our club, ARROW have been congregating at 10 am and 7 pm on our 2 m repeater (146.96 MHz), and at 2 pm on the Brandmeister MI Talk Group (TG 3126). Please feel free to  join us, even if you’re not an ARROW member. The nets are conducted in a roundtable format, with one of the participants (often Jay, WB8TKL) acting as the ringleader. We babble on about how we’re coping with this situation, including what projects we’re working on and what bands and modes we’re operating.

Another solution would be to hold club meetings online. Gil, N7GIL, emailed me a couple of days ago, describing how his club, the Ogden (UT) Amateur Radio Club, is keeping their members in touch. He writes:

Due to the concerns of the COVID-19 and “social distancing,” our monthly club meeting as well as other club meetings have been cancelled until further notice. Our club views this as an opportunity to show how amateur radio can solve problems. We will replace our “face to face meeting” with an “Over The Air net”.

I realize the idea of a net is not new, however, I am surprised that other clubs are not considering this option. Holding meetings on the air in this way has been met with great enthusiasm. This is as close to an actual emergency we can get. What a fantastic opportunity to exercise our privileges and show the world how creative hams really are.

We are planning an over the air meeting this following Saturday on our local club repeater. I will be net control and present the topic. My station consists of a FT3DR handheld at 300 mw feeding an Elk log periodic. In order to make the net more personal, it has been suggested that members submit a selfie for the club newsletter.

I would be happy to share details of what we are planning with you or any of your readers who are interested.

This sounds like a great plan to me. What, if anything is your club doing to keep club members close in your area?

Amateur radio in the news: Australian hams track fires, club doubles hamfest attendance, club awarded $1,000

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Tech tracking Australian fires

The BBC’s Digital Planet radio show reports on how WICEN, a volunteer emergency communications service organization whose members are primarily licensed amateur radio operators, is providing emergency communications when mobile masts and internet connections are disrupted.

A related part of this report describes how one organization is measuring air quality using low power LoRa networks. Hams aren’t doing this, but this is certainly something hams could support.

…listen to the report

Bowater Credit Union donates to Isaiah 117 House, McMinn County Amateur Radio Club

CALHOUN (TN) – Bowater Credit Union members Joyce Johnson and Bill Luecken have each won a $1,000 Pay It Forward prize for their favorite nonprofits doing good in the five counties eligible for credit union membership, Isaiah 117 House and McMinn County Amateur Radio Club (MCARC), respectively.

…

The McMinn County Amateur Radio Club “in addition to serving as a venue for promoting amateur radio has a core value of community service and providing emergency communication,” writes Luecken.  “As a testament to the critical need provided for by these services is the fact that after the Nov. 30, 2016, tornado in Athens the MCARC emergency radio repeater network was the only communication system capable of county wide communication.”

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Ham Fest 2021 planned for Wadena

The Wadena Area Amateur Radio Club succeeded in doubling their attendance at the recent third annual Arctic Blast Ham Fest event in Bertha, Jan. 11.

Looking forward to an even bigger and better event next year, the organizers plan to host next year’s event in a larger venue in Wadena, according to a news release from the club. The club hopes to bring out enthusiasts from the region and reach out further to operators from Fargo and Minneapolis.

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