KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

Promotion & PR

Help me make a ham zine

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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)
  • Talk to each other using Morse Code
  • Back Page – Want to get your own ham license?

Heres a start I made on the “Cool things hams do” zine, and here’s a template in Word format if you want to get started on your own.

Let’s make this a community effort

I”d love to make this a community effort. Here’s how you can help:

  • If you can draw, perhaps you could make a drawing illustrating one or more points above.
  • Come up with other ideas for the zine.
  • Come up with ideas for other, more focused zines on particular topics.

Random stuff: Make your first CW contacts, subscribe to the ORI newsletter, FD publicity

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Get the ORI newsletter

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.

To stay informed on these and other projects, go to https://www.openresearch.institute/newsletter-subscription/ and subscribe to their newsletter. On that page, you’ll also find links to back issues.

Field Day gets many mentions

This year, Field Day got more publicity this year than any year that I can remember. My Google Alerts was almost overflowing with links to stories in local newspapers. One of the stories that got mentioned a lot was “Colorado’s ham radio operators are ready for an emergency—just don’t call them amateurs.” It’s worth reading.

 

Operating Notes: The sun giveth and the sun taketh away

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The good news about this point in the sunspot cycle is that the sun is more active, meaning that in general, band conditions are pretty good. Except when they’re not.

According to the NOAA:

There are several types of space weather that can impact HF radio communication. In a typical sequence of space weather storms, the first impacts are felt during the solar flare itself. The solar x-rays from the sun penetrate to the bottom of the ionosphere (to around 80 km). There the x-ray photons ionize the atmosphere and create an enhancement of the D layer of the ionosphere. This enhanced D-layer acts both as a reflector of radio waves at some frequencies and an absorber of waves at other frequencies. The Radio Blackout associated with solar flares occurs on the dayside region of Earth and is most intense when the sun is directly overhead.

This seems to be happening frequently in the last week or so. You can go to the NOAA site or SolarHam to learn more than you probably want to know about this.

Radio blackouts are no fun, but they’re especially disappointing if you’ve hauled your gear out for a POTA activation. I went up to the Island Lake Recreation Area (US-3315) on Saturday afternoon and fought the conditions for a while. I was also competing for calls from the Indiana, New England, and 7th Call Area QSO parties.

I started out on 20 meters, but after making only five contacts, I decided to try 17 meters, where I was able to scratch out a couple more.  I then tried 15 meters, but had absolutely non success there, so I went back to 20 meters.

By hunting around for some park-to-park contacts, I was able to make 20 contacts overall, but it took me two and a half hours to do it. I’m not sure if the conditions or the contest competition was the main culprit, but activating on a big contest weekend was probably not the smartest thing to do.

Activating the AACME

Conditions weren’t all that much better Sunday morning, when three of us—Joe AC8ES, James AE8JF, and yours truly—set up to demo amateur radio at the Ann Arbor Creativity and Making Expo (AACME).  Joe had brought his Xiegu G90 and Alex Loop, but we were barely able to hear anything.

Two hams standing behind a table demonstrating amateur radio.
Joe, AC8ES, and Dan, KB6NU, at the 2024 Ann Arbor Creativity and Making Expo. Photo: James, AE8JF.

We attributed this to two factors. First, we were trying to operate the loop inside the building. Second, there had been reports of solar flares that morning that were adversely affecting HF propagation.

Despite that, we had a great time. Joe had brought his latest project—a QRP dummy load/wattmeter—that’s going to be our club’s next build project. And, I brought various keys and code oscillators to demonstrate Morse Code and get kids (and adults) to send their names in Morse Code.

A little after 1 pm, I decided to set up my KX-3 and see what I could do with it. Before the event started, I had set up my 66-ft. doublet in the courtyard just outside where our table was located. Over the next hour and a half, I managed to scratch out eight contacts, all on 20 meters, and all with participants in the New England QSO Party.

Overall, I think our participation in the AACME was a success. We were able to spread the word about amateur radio and our club. I passed out some flyers for my June 1 Tech class, and met some other interesting people.

Get publicity for your club with a PSA

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Over the years I’ve built up quite a pile of amateur radio magazines, and I’ve decided that it’s time for them to go. Before pitching them, however, I’ve been paging through them to see if there’s anything of interest. I found this article in the June 2006 issue of World Radio. I contacted the author, Kelly, K7SU, and he’s given me his permission to re-publish it here.

This seems like a great way to get publicity for your club. I emailed a couple of local stations this morning, and I’ve already received a positive reply from WCBN, the student-run, alternative broadcast station here in Ann Arbor, MI.

How to “Spread the Word” about Amateur Radio

Kelly Klaas, K7SU

I have been in radio broadcasting since 1969 and an amateur radio operator since 1966. During my time in broadcasting I have learned a few things about how the public can use the media to its advantage. It’s not as difficult as you may think.

The trick is to think of your local, amateur radio club as a non-profit public service organization. And in fact, that’s exactly what it is. Every commercial broadcast station must justify its license to operate by broadcasting in the public interest and providing a certain amount of public service. That public service includes local programming dealing with issues of local public interest and availability to local non-profit organizations. The best vehicle for amateur radio clubs to use that broadcast stations have to offer is the Public Service Announcement, or PSA.

A PSA can come in a couple of forms. It can be a brief announcement of an upcoming club event or it can be an announcement of normally fifteen, thirty, or sixty seconds in length describing your club and the benefits it has to offer. If you listen to the standard broadcast stations very much you undoubtedly have heard them. These announcements are free of charge to non-profit groups. But the key here is “non-profit.” Commercial broadcast stations are required to air a certain amount of public service ads to remain in the good graces of the FCC.

PSAs can benefit your local ham club in at least three ways. First, they let the local hams and the public in general know that there is a local club and about the various activities you may have going. Second, for those who may be interested in becoming a ham, it lets them know that there is help nearby. Third, even if the listener is not interested in becoming a ham, it boosts the awareness that there are ham radio operators in the vicinity ready to pitch
in if emergency communications should be needed.

But how do you go about getting a PSA for your very own amateur radio club on your local stations? It’s quite easy, actually. Most radio and TV stations have public service directors, or at least someone who coordinates the PSAs and other public service programs. Some stations do a better job at this than others. A representative of your local amateur radio club should contact the area stations and find out who that person is. Then they should contact this person and see what the requirements are for sending in the information. Then DO IT!

Most any ham club activity is certainly a valid reason to get an announcement on the air. Many radio and TV stations have a “daily calendar” type of program. This is the perfect place to start. Send to the appropriate station personnel the “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” and “why” of the club activity for inclusion in these types of programs. Keep it short and to the point and always include an email address, web site or local phone number so the listener can get more information. Do NOT send in a multi-page document and expect the PSA director to go through it and pick out the pertinent information. That’s NOT going to happen. Use short and “to the point” descriptions for each of the categories. One or two contacts are enough. You don’t need a list of all the people in your club along with emails and phone numbers. Also, leave your contact information for the station personnel in case they need to contact you. You never know, they might want to pass it along to the news or public affairs department if it’s a good subject for a story.

Another type of PSA is simply a short message, similar to a commercial, for your club. These vary in length but are usually 15, 30 or 60 seconds long. These take a little more thought in order for them to be of interest to the local radio/TV station.

Depending on the radio/TV stations in your area it will be more of an effort to get them interested in running this type of announcement. But if you wrote the PSA for them and offered to help in any way you might find they would be agreeable to running your announcement as a  stand-alone ad. If they would rather have station personnel voice the PSA then let them. If they would rather have someone from the club voice it with their help, then that should be fine also. The name of the game here is to get the message of your local amateur radio club on the air and to the public. Don’t be discouraged if you are not as successful with this level of cooperation at first. It will vary from station to station.

You may be wondering just when the PSAs will be broadcast. Many radio stations these days carry satellite programming at various times of the day. These programs always have a certain number of two, three or four (maybe more) minute breaks for the local stations to insert their local ads. If there aren’t enough sold commercials to fill the breaks then they have to use PSAs. Many times these are national PSAs that deal with anything from teen pregnancy to housing discrimination. Quite frankly many stations run these national PSAs due to a lack of anything else to run and they may or may not even be applicable to their area. Many radio stations would much rather fill with LOCAL announcements. That’s where your local club could help.

Do not inundate the station with multiple pages of announcements. Start with a single 15- or 30-second PSA. It usually takes a very good PSA to keep a listener tuned in for over thirty-seconds. Besides, you don’t want the radio station thinking you are trying to take over their airwaves. And a clever 15-second announcement will be more effective than a boring, rambling 60-second announcement.

Keep in mind that it’s usually best to approach the radio/TV station first for this type of PSA. They may not be interested at all so there is no point in wasting your time preparing one. But, if they should show an interest, be sure you oblige them in a short period of time before they change their mind.

Due to the nature of the broadcast business you may find that one or two folks on the staff are also amateur radio operators. This is especially true in the engineering department. Many a chief engineer around the country is a ham. If you happen to know any radio engineers in your area you may want to start with them. They may have a fast-track and an inside shortcut to getting your PSA on the air. For that matter, if you know ANYONE who works at a local station, start with them. It’s not WHAT you know but rather WHO you know.

PSAs are free. The broadcast stations get no money for running them. Therefore a sold commercial always takes top priority. Your PSA may be scheduled to run, but at the last minute is booted out by a sold commercial. Don’t let this bother you. It’s the name of the game. Commercial radio/TV stations make their money by selling ads. If not for that, we wouldn’t have local radio/TV stations. Your announcement will eventually make it on the air. Use the “daily calendar” program to advertise scheduled club activities. Use the recorded PSA for a long-term method of promoting your club. It should be somewhat generic in nature without time-sensitive material. Also, be willing to change it from time to time to keep it fresh.

Be sure to let your local news organizations know about any public activities that may warrant a news story or a spot on the evening news. This can include public displays for Field Day or similar events. Stories of local amateur radio operators talking to the 188 are always interesting fodder that the local media would like to cover. Let them know about it.

You will find varying degrees of interest and cooperation with your local stations regarding announcements for your club. Again, probably the easiest and quickest way to get your announcement on is if they have a “daily calendar” program. The “commercial” announcement I talked about will be your most difficult hurdle, but don’t give up. You may not have any trouble at all. The idea is to use your local broadcast stations to your benefit as much as you can for as much as they are willing to let you use them. Even a little bit may be much better than what you are getting now.

If you would like more pointers or advice you can email me at [email protected].

Amateur radio in the news: Post Field Day 2022 edition

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It’s nice to see so many clubs get publicity for their Field Day operations. Here are links to a bunch of them that have passed through my inbox.

Is Field Day still relevant?

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I always enjoy Field Day, and this year was no exception.But, as I sat there, punching call signs into N1MM and watching my log and the logs of the other networked stations, it occurred to me that there were an awful lot of 1B, 1D, and 1E stations. I’m guessing that the majority of these stations were one-person operations operating from their back porch.

I know that Covid is still an issue, and some hams are just anti-social, but I think that these folks are really missing out. I mean, it’s nice to try something new once in a while, and the first year was fun. I operated completely QRP and battery-powered. The second year, however, was completely unsatisfying, even though we did manage to cobble together a small group.

Is Field Day still relevant?

This year was a lot better. Our club was 3A, but even so, attendance was way down. Noting that, and noting all the single-operator stations, I’m beginning to wonder if Field Day is still relevant. I’ve always described Field Day as a combination club social event, emergency preparedness exercise, and public relations event. With so many single-operator stations, it’s certainly not much of a club event, and I doubt that the 1B, 1D, and 1E ops are doing much public relations.

I suppose that the 1B and 1E stations are exercising some of their emergency communications capabilities, but a lot of training is now required to really take part in emergency communications. I’m not sure that knowing that your generator is working and how to start it would be all that valuable in a real emergency situation.

Even with all the 1B, 1D, and 1E stations on the air, it seemed to me that participation was down. At least it was down on CW. After searching and pounding a bit, I had no problem at all finding a clear frequency on which to start calling CQ.

Should Field Day encourage more VHF/UHF operation?

Another reason that makes me wonder about the relevance of Field Day is that  operation mostly takes place on HF. Sure, some clubs have VHF/UHF stations, but I’d say that those are the exception rather than the rule. And, since the majority of licensed hams are Techs, how appealing is it for them to come out and participate in Field Day?

Also, most emergency communications now take place on VHF, UHF, and above. How is making rapid-fire CW contacts on 80 meters training people to be better at emergency communications?

I mentioned this to my friend Mark, W8MP, who happened to wander into the CW station while I was pondering this idea. He said, “Well, at least this is getting people on the air.” That’s true, I guess, but there are all manner of contests and operating events that get people on the air.

I’m not exactly sure what we can do to increase Field Day participation, but here are a couple of ideas:

  • Give more points to VHF/UHF and up QSOs to encourage more operation on those bands.
  • Require every club operation to have a GOTA station, or give more points to GOTA contacts. It seems to me that GOTA stations are one of the really good things about Field Day and it should be promoted more.
  • Give points for activities specifically directed at Tech licensees. I’m not sure what that would be, though.

I’m certainly interested in hearing what you think about this? Am I off base here? If not, how would you make Field Day more relevant to the situation that amateur radio finds itself in these days.

Get bonus points for writing a press release for Field Day

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Yikes! I just read the rules for Field Day 2022, and the rule about getting publicity for  your Field Day operation has changed. In years past, you scored bonus points if you just submitted a press release. This year, however, you must actually get some publicity. The Field Day 2022 FAQ page says:

In order to claim the media bonus, you must obtain publicity with the media. This is a rule change for 2022. Proof of the publicity must be provided in order to claim the bonus points.

I know time is short, but can still do it. Here are som examples of publicity that other clubs have already obtained:

And, finally, here’s a PDF of the press release that I have submitted to our local media.

Governor proclaims Amateur Radio Week in Michigan

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As many governors around the country do around Field Day, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has proclaimed June 19 – 25, 2022 to be Amateur Radio Week in Michigan. Kudos to my friend, Ralph, AA8RK, the Michigan Section Public Information Coordinator (PIC) for making this happen.

While this is just one of many proclamations issued by governors across the U.S., they don’t happen unless someone asks. So, if no one has yet done so in your state, there may still be time to have a proclamation issued before Field Day.

And, remember to follow up that proclamation with a press release. Send that press release to every media outlet in your state that you can think of. It’s great publicity for amateur radio and a nice way to recognize radio amateurs in your state for their service to the
public in times of tornadoes, floods and other emergencies.

Below is the text of the Michigan proclamation. Please feel free to use it as the basis of your proclamation.

WHEREAS, amateur radio operators are celebrating over a century of broadcasting the human voice over the airwaves; and,

WHEREAS, amateur radio has continued to build bridges between people, societies, and countries through the sharing of ideas and creation of friendship; and,

WHEREAS, amateur radio operators have provided countless hours of community service to other local organizations throughout these decades; and,

WHEREAS, the state also recognizes the services amateur radio’s people provide to our many emergency response organizations, including local and government-served agencies; and,

WHEREAS, these amateur radio services are provided as a free service to the public; and,

WHEREAS, these same individuals have further demonstrated their value in public assistance by providing free radio communications for local parades, bike-a-thons, walk-a-thons, fairs and other charitable public events; and,

WHEREAS, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the leading
organization for Amateur Radio in the USA; and,

WHEREAS, the ARRL Amateur Radio Field Day exercise will take place on June 25-26, 2022, and is a 24-hour emergency preparedness exercise and demonstration of the Radio Amateurs’ skills and readiness to provide self-supporting communication without further infrastructure being required;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, do hereby proclaim June 19-25, 2022 as Amateur Radio Week in Michigan.

Copies of the proclamation text are available on the proclamation
website in order to display the document on field day sites throughout the state.

IARU R1 wants you to #BePartOfTheFuture

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More and more, I’m impressed by what IARU R1 is doing for amateur radio. The latest is their Ham Challenge 2022. The challenge is for hams to come up with game-changing idea that will attract more people to amateur radio and make amateur radio more fun for those already involved.

According to the official rules,

[IARU R1] expects you to come with new ideas that we will help you to bring to reality. The winning teams or individuals will bring their ideas to life in partnership with the amateur radio community. The International Amateur Radio Union Region 1 (IARU R1) will provide guidance for these projects and will support them financially.

The ideas will be judged according to the following criteria:

  • Increases the fun and enjoyment of amateur radio.
  • Serves the global ham community.
  • Is experimental in nature.
  • Is innovative.
  • Increases radio amateurs’ knowledge.
  • Is valuable to society.

Unfortunately, this challenge is only available to amateurs in IARU R1, but I do have some readers in R1, so I hope that this message gets to them. I also hope that the IARU R2 folks get a good look at this and perhaps come up with something similar here.

The deadline for submitting ideas is May 31, 2022, and applicants must submit an abstract of their idea with short bio and a brief motivation statement. A committee will review and select the best proposals by June 10, 2022. The participants will then have 15 more days to prepare a more detailed presentation of their idea to be presented in person or virtually during HamRadio 22 in Friedrichshafen.

Cash prizes for the winners are as follows:

  • 1st place: €500
  • 2nd place: €200
  • 3rd place: €100
  • Youth prize (under the age of 26): €200

You’ll find the complete rules on the IARU R1 website.

Another crazy idea for an amateur radio video

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A couple of weeks ago, the Veritasium video, “The Big Misconception About Electricity” created quite a stir. If you’re interested in the physics of electricity, you might want to watch this yourself.

I’m not going to discuss the technical merits of this video here (although feel free to do so in the comments below). Instead, I’m going to mention that some hams suggested that we get the guy behind Veritasium to produce a video on an aspect of ham radio. The idea would be to attract those who are interested in the science behind radio—presumably younger people—into amateur radio. After all, if he can make mundane scientific topics seem cool, shouldn’t he be able to make amateur radio seem cool?

Also, he has almost 12 million subscribers on YouTube. If we could somehow convince him to do a video on amateur radio, it would get a lot of play. I’ve emailed him about this and am now waiting for a reply.

My question to you all is are there other video producers out there like Vertiasium who are doing something similar? I’ve been browsing YouTube for the last hour, and while there are a ton of videos on radio waves, for example, they’re all pretty dry, academic stuff. I want to find someone that can not only explain a topic, but spur a viewer’s imagination as well.

I know we have a bunch of amateur radio YouTubers, and they all do some great videos, but their audience are folks who already have amateur radio licenses. They’re preaching to the choir. I want someone who can produce a video that people outside the church will watch and convince them to join the congregation.

What do you think? Do you have any favorite video producers who might be able to pull this off? To sweeten the pot a little, let me remind you that I’m the Communications Manager for ARDC. We make grants to organizations and projects that promote and support amateur radio. If we find the right producer, funds might be available.

By the way

Dave Jones, of EEVBlog fame, has done a video on this topic, tackling it from an engineering point of view. It’s worth watching, if you’re interested in the topic.