KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

I’ve been thinking for a while about building an Elecraft K1 or K2 transceiver. The K2 is really a full-blown rig, especially now that you can add on a 100W amp, but I’m not sure I want to spend that much or take on the more complicated building project.

Well, about a week ago, I worked Bill K4KSR. He was using a K1, and we struck up an e-mail conversation about the K1 vs. the K2. He sent me a nice comparison of the two rigs, which he agreed to let me share with you:

K2

• Evidently a world class, awesome receiver. This matters if you are a serious contester.
• Can upgrade to 100 watts, thus using RX for really serious DX. Evidently trickier to do than meets the eye, however.
• Fully digitally controlled. Can add DSP and other cool RX things.
• Can add SSB board and thus PSK-31 or other computer controlled modes.
• All HF bands, entailing antenna expense thereof.

K1

• About half the build time compared to K2
• 4 band filter board a must choice unless 80 meters critical to you. Can only do 80 with the 2 band board. Changing between 2 band and 4 band boards doable, but not easy. Non standard band combinations can be conjured, but 80 requires the 2 band board.
• Microprocessor controlled single conversion analog radio. Very careful attention to IF freqs and premix. All mixing done on main board. All premix osc, bandpass filters, low pass filters on plug in filter board.
• Latching relays control all the choices.
• Extremely clever 3 stage xtal filter with 3 selectable bandwidths (800-200 Hz), each of which is tunable from panel in setup.
• Filter tuning is touchy, but DOES work.
• Having to choose between 15 and 17 meter bands is tossup, but choose you must. You must also choose between nominal 80 KHz and 150 KHz tuning range.
• Only advantage to 150 KHz is that you can hear WWV on 30 meters, but that calibrates only one band.
• Each band calibrated separately, but super easy.
• RX will hear a lot more than you can work.
• RIT/XIT range enough for ordinary splits, not enough for those demanding huge splits.
• ATU board (extra) said to be awesome. Am building. Don’t really need with current dipoles, but it opens up all sorts of possibilities. The ATU plugs on top of the filter board, worsening the task of changing filter boards.

Bill’s obviously a big K1 fan. He also notes that Elecraft’s customer service is world-class.

I think I’ll tackle the K1 first, and depending on how that goes, sell it at some point and then tackle the K2.

In the 60s and 70s, when I got into ham radio, clubs thrived. The Hazel Park Amateur Radio Club, for example, used to hold its general membership meetings in an elementary school gymnasium and 100 or more people would show up for the meetings.

Lately, however, many clubs have fallen on hard times. Membership is down, and consequently, so is attendance at meetings. This phenomenon, brought to light in the book Bowling Alone, is not limited to ham radio, but it’s especially disappointing to those of us who remember how much fun attending ham radio club meetings used to be.

At the recent ARRL Great Lakes Division Convention (Sept. 6, 2003 in Findlay, OH), the ARRL Affiliated Club Coordinators for Michigan and Ohio, Sanra KG8HM and Brenda KB8IUP, conducted a session aimed at helping clubs attract new members and increase attendance. Instead of giving a presentation, the moderators decided to just let the attendees talk about what was working (or not working) with their clubs. Although the session lasted only an hour, a lot of good ideas were discussed.

Reeling Them In
Perhaps the most important thing a club can do is have interesting speakers at its meetings. One thing that was surprising to me is that several people mentioned that the topics don’t have to be related to amateur radio. One club, for example, had great attendance the evening they scheduled someone from the state transportation department to speak about the construction of a local bridge. Others were successful when inviting representatives from the local fire department or police department to talk about their communications systems.

Another attendee brought up the idea of having a speaker’s bureau. One of the moderators noted that this had been tried in the past, but with limited success. Another attendee noted that they had tried one time to get a speaker from the bureau, but that the speaker never seemed to be available. There was always some reason that the speaker had to excuse himself.

One thought that occurs to me is that a list of topics posted on a website somewhere would be a good resource for clubs searching for ideas. This would be relatively simple to implement, so I’m putting it on my list of features to add to the ARROW website.

Classes Bring In New Members
I mentioned the Hazel Park ARC earlier. One of the reasons they are so successful is that they have been conducting ham radio classes for many years. The graduates provide a never-ending stream of new members for the club. They’ve been so successful at training new hams, that they say that they have practically exhausted the local population, and have started reaching out to neighboring communities.

Other folks mentioned that they also hold classes and do things to attract the graduates to their clubs. One club, for example, mentioned that they treat graduates to a pizza dinner. Other clubs–including ARROW–give graduates a one year free membership.

Tapping the ARRL
Finally, the moderators pointed out that the ARRL does have some resources available to help clubs. One resource, obviously, is the Affiliated Club Coordinator. He or she can help if you’re club is in the doldrums.

Another resource is Club Companion page of the ARRL website. On this page, you’ll find news about other clubs around the country, which could help you plan events for your club, and articles about club promotion and putting out a newsletter. There’s also a pointer to the Active Club Online Primer, a new publication that combines and updates two ARRL favorites: The Club President’s Workbook and the Special Service Club Manual.

Having strong clubs helps amateur radio. They help bring us together in emergencies and help us to speak with one voice to authorities. They also make ham radio more fun, and that alone is a goal worth striving for.

If you’ve read some of the previous items in this blog, you know I’m not a big QSLer. (See the entry below “Tips for the Casual DXer.”) If someone sends me a card, though, I’m not going to refuse it.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I received and e-mail from Alan K6IPM, the new manager for the N segment of the 6 District QSL bureau informing me that seven QSLs were waiting for me. It was very nice of him to contact me, as I really never even considered that cards would be waiting for me. I never ask my DX contacts to QSL, and as I’ve said I normally don’t send mine out unless specifically requested to do so.

At any rate, after taking a look at the Buro’s website to learn the procedure, I sent Alan a check for $3. Saturday, I received my first batch of QSLs. They included cards from:

• Manfred DL3ALK, Mupperg Germany,
• Jose EA3BVT, Madrid Spain,
• Daniel F6IWD, a station in the Bordeaux region of France that I’ve contacted several times,
• Dan HK3AXY, Bogota Colombia,
• Waclaw SP9CTX, Bielsko-Biala Poland,
• Pavel UA4PT, Tartarstan Russia, and
• Igor UX5MZ, Lugansk Ukraine

All in all, they are a nice set of cards and a good start towards DXCC. At the rate I’m going, I might get it in another five years or so. :-)

I just returned from the 2003 Great Lakes Division Convention in Findlay, OH. This one-day event featured speakers on a variety of topics. The topics included PSK 31, High Speed Multimedia (HSMM), and a variety of other topics.

Jim Bridgewater, AA8JD, head of the FCC Detroit Field Office, kicked off the convention with an interesting talk about the work of the FCC. According to Jim, the majority of their work is investigating things like tower lighting and interference complaints by police and other public safety radio users. He does, however, spend some time on policing the ham bands, and explained the procedure when he does detect a violation.

The other sessions that I attended included:

• a seminar on club activities
• a talk on high speed multimedia (HSMM), and
• a demonstration of PSK 31.

. All of the talks were very well done. (I’ll be writing more about the clubs seminar later, so look for that.)

The final session of the day was an overview of the division, and included short talks by the Division Director, Vice Director, and the three section managers. It was a good way to get to know these guys. Following their short talks, Jim Haynie, W5JPB, ARRL president, got up to say a few words. He’s a great speaker and addressed some of the issues facing ham radio today. Afterwards, he also fielded some questions from the crowd.

Included in convention fees was a banquet that evening, at which both Jim Bridgewater and Jim Haynie spoke again. This time, we got the full treatment from W5JBP. By the full treatment, I mean his heavy duty speech on the ARRL, its activities, and the role it’s playing in shaping the future of ham radio. This speech is one that every amateur should hear. Jim is a great speaker, and has a solid vision for ham radio (imho). Perhaps if the League’s critics could hear it, they would be so ready to jump on the League and denigrate the work they’re doing.

My one (small) criticism was that the banquet festivities dragged on a bit too long. The speeches did not end till around 10 pm, and by that time, we were all ready for it to end.

Overall, though, the convention was a lot of fun and a great experience. I got to meet all of the mucky-mucks of the division, and found them all to be really great folks. I would encourage anyone reading this to attend this event (or one like it in your division) next year.

Last Saturday–a week after Blackout 2003–the board of directors of our ham radio club held a meeting to discuss what, if anything, we should do to be prepared for the next emergency. One of the members showed us how he had set up a store-and-forward repeater by connecting the 2m antenna on his tower to an HT. Connected to the HT was a Radio Shack device that recorded up to 20s of speech and then spit it back out. Being battery-powered, this system is immune to power blackouts.

Unfortunately, our repeater is not. Apparently, the fire codes forbid any batteries up in the space where our repeater resides, leaving it vulnerable to power outages.

In addition to the store-and-forward scheme, we discussed another option for emergency communications. Using the cross-band capabilities of modern dual-band rigs, it’s possible to set up a rudimentary repeater with two of them. As I live near the highest point in the city of Ann Arbor, I suggested that these radios be positioned somewhere up near me and offered the use of my IC-207.

To be honest, I’m not that hot on emergency communications and fail to see that we would have that much to offer. The last time our capabilities were needed was, according to one member, 15 years ago, when we had a big snowstorm. In addition, there is an ARES/RACES group here in Washtenaw County that has its own repeater, which has its own generator and can be used when the power goes out.

Still, I think it’s probably a good idea for ARROW to appoint an Emergency Communications Coordinator, who would keep us up-to-date on emergency preparedness around here. It would also be his or her job to coordinate our efforts with those of the county and the Red Cross. One possible scenario is that should a problem arise with the county repeater, the emergency crews could use our store-and-forward repeater system. Emergencies happen so infrequently here, however, that I doubt the system would see much use.

The 30 meter band is pretty dead right now, so I thought I’d use the general coverage capability of my ICOM IC-735 to do a little shortwave listening. The first thing I did was tune down to 10 MHz to get the time from WWV. Not only did I hear WWV, but some SSB station with the operator saying over and over, “Mirando, mirando.”

Then, in tuning back up to the 30m band, I came across some music on 10.085 MHz. I listened to ragtime piano music for about 15 minutes until 0130Z, when an announcer came on and in English gave a station ID. Unfortunately, the station was not strong enough to actually copy the ID.

Now, they’re giving some news, but the noise is so bad, that I can’t really copy it. I’m just getting snippets. For example, they gave a weather report, but before I could figure out the location, the signal faded out again. Even Google searches on 10085 kHz and 10.085 MHz don’t turn up any information.

Yesterday, I seemed to have the big signal on the band. The first station I worked was SP2EBG in Poland, who gave me a 579 report. Later that evening, I worked a station in Florida who said I was “booming in.”

Well, tonight, it’s just the opposite. I must have called CQ 15 times without a responses, and all around me other stations are calling CQ and making contacts. I guess it’s just the yin-yang of ham radio.

As you can imagine, there’s been much consternation on the FISTS mailling list about the move towards eliminating the CW requirement. After beating this around for a while, the list then started focusing on the number of current operators who send poorly. While I’m not sure that there are more poor operators now than in the past, one theory is that the reason one finds so many slow operators and operators with poor fists is that there is no longer a Novice class.

In the past, the first license that most hams got was the Novice class license. For a while, Novices had some phone priviledges on the 2m band, but for the most part, they were restricted to CW on 80m, 40m, 15m, and 10m. They were able to hone their CW skills there, and by the time they upgraded, they had some solid CW experience.

Now, however, General class licensees need only pass a 5 wpm code test and then have almost full run of the CW bands. Many, if not most, of these new General class licensees have little or no CW experience. Is it any wonder, then, that these operators are not as polished as some?

Some of the guys mentioned that they simply were not answering calls from these inexperienced operators anymore. It just wasn’t “fun” to work these guys, they said. I certainly sympathize. I, too, have shunned contacts with these operators in the past. BUT, I now feel that we should do all we can to help these folks have fun and become good CW ops.

One reason for this is that we’re going to need all the CW ops we can muster in order to keep at least part of the shortwave bands devoted to CW. There’s going to be increasing pressure to reallocate these sub-bands to phone operators when no-code licensing becomes a reality.

Then, the question becomes how do we help these operators become better operators. Well, one way is to set a good example. Pay attention to how you operate and try to be the best you can at all times.

One fellow mentioned that early in his ham career, a guy sent him a copy of the article, “Your Novice Accent, and What to Do About It” by Keith S. Williams, W6DTY. Originally published in November 1956, it’s become somewhat of a classic. You can find it on at least two websites:

• http://home.satx.rr.com/kcomm/Article.html
• http://www.qsl.net/wb7rht/novice_accent.htm

What I might suggest is that when you work a ham whose operating technique could use some improvement, you find out his or her email address and send one or both of these URLs. To be diplomatic, you might want to say, “I read this back when I was a Novice (and when they actually had Novices!) and found it to be a big help. Also, offer to answer any questions that they may have.

You may p*ss off some guys doing this, but I think that most will respond favorably, and we’ll get a better group of CW ops out of it.

Lately, I’ve been amused by calls whose suffixes are short words or common abbreviations. For example, about a month ago I worked W8GND (ground), and on the FISTS mailing list, W8FAX is a frequent contributor. Scanning my log, I also find TA3AX and K4IR(infrared).

I kinda think I’d like to have a call like that, maybe K8HAM or W8ANT or the call that my wife would probably give me: W8BUM.

I ran across a call the other day while perusing the QRZ.Com database that I definitely would NOT like to have: KD6UMB.