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Welcome to Handiham World!

Recently I had a nice visit with another operator, and what do you think we talked about?

That’s right – we talked about our stations! The conversation took a turn to receiver performance, and he mentioned that one of his radios has a much more sensitive but quieter receiver than the other. I wondered how he knew that, and he said that he had performed an “A-B” test. That’s what today’s essay is about – not receiver performance.

When we compare two pieces of equipment, we want to know which one performs the best. How many times have you heard someone make a claim on the air for one rig’s superiority over another one? Or that one antenna works better than another? Whenever I hear such claims, I wonder if they are really backed up by testing. I know that most of us will never have a test lab full of instrumentation to run tests the way they are done at the ARRL product review lab, but that doesn’t mean that we have no way to perform simple, but more meaningful testing.

Imagine these situations:

Scenario 1: I have two HF antennas in my back yard. One is a vertical and one is a dipole. The dipole is connected to my Icom IC-706M2G and the vertical is connected to my Icom IC-7200. I decide to see which antenna works best for DX, so I listen on 20 meters and I hear a European on 14.060 MHz. The station is easy to copy on the vertical antenna, and the S-meter reading shows S9. I listen on the dipole and the same station on 14.060 is only S5. Do I conclude that the vertical works better?

Scenario 2: I have two HF antennas in my back yard. One is a vertical and one is a dipole. I have both of them connected to an antenna switch, so that I can switch from the vertical to the dipole by turning the antenna switch. The antenna switch is connected to my Icom IC-7200 transceiver. I start my test by listening on the vertical. I hear a station on 14.060 MHz, and the S-meter reading is S9. Then, without changing anything on the radio, I flip the antenna switch to the dipole. I now have an S-meter reading of S9 + 10 dB. I quickly change the antenna switch back to the vertical and the signal drops back down to S9 again. Changing the switch once more to the dipole brings the signal back up. Do I conclude that the dipole works better?

In both situations, I was listening on one antenna and then the other, but the results in scenario 2 were different than those in scenario 1. What could have caused the difference?

Here is a basic rule about comparing two things: You must try to eliminate as many “variables” as possible so that you are really only comparing the two things you want to compare. This is how scientists and engineers perform tests related to theoretical concepts or engineering projects. To make this as simple as possible, let’s make up a very basic example. Let’s say we have a family argument about which sibling is taller. One brother says that he is growing faster and is taller than his brother. Of course as a parent you can easily make the two kids stand side by side and then you can easily see which one is taller. But what if one stands on his tiptoes? Or if one wears shoes and the other is barefooted? Or if one wears a hat and the other doesn’t? As a parent who needs to be fair about deciding, you will have to insist that the variables of shoes, hats, and standing flat-footed are all eliminated so that the one variable you really want to measure, which kid is tallest, will not be affected by those other things.

Getting back to our scenarios about the antennas, we see that in the first situation we are using two different antennas, which is the variable we want to test, but we are also using two different radios. The difference between one radio and the other is a variable that we are not controlling, and that could account for the results we are getting instead of the choice of antenna. Perhaps the attenuator was turned on for one radio and not for the other. Maybe the antenna tuner was not activated for one radio. It could be that the run of coax between an antenna and one of the radios was defective. Do you see all these variables?

In scenario 2, we use only one radio, and we have an “A-B” antenna switch to make it easy to change from one antenna to the other, and to do so very quickly to eliminate changing band conditions or radio settings and radio performance as variables. Furthermore, we can change the switch back and forth several times to confirm our tests. Now we have performed a more scientific test, because we have eliminated as many variables as we could, at least the easy ones, so that we could really compare just the antennas.

I am convinced that there are a lot of folks out there who are simply talking baloney when they brag about how one piece of equipment is so much better than another one. As often as not, they have never performed a real A-B test and are relying on their impressions rather than empirical evidence. Building up a habit of eliminating variables and focusing on only the thing you really want to test is at the core of successful troubleshooting when you are trying to find a problem. It is essential to making sense of how things work in ham radio, as well as in so many other parts of life.

So think to yourself, “When I test my equipment, am I really testing just one thing?”

If you can answer yes, you are well on the way to solving all of your ham radio mysteries!

For Handiham World, I’m…

Patrick Tice, [email protected]

Welcome to Handiham World!

As we head into the longer daylight hours here in the Northern Hemisphere, band conditions will begin to favor the higher frequencies of the High-frequency (HF) spectrum and thunderstorm static and absorption will get worse with more hours of solar energy hitting the “D” layer of the ionosphere. HF radio waves are not reflected by the D layer but do lose energy as they pass through.

As explained by Wikipedia, “This is the main reason for absorption of HF radio waves, particularly at 10 MHz and below, with progressively smaller absorption as the frequency gets higher. The absorption is small at night and greatest about midday. The layer reduces greatly after sunset, a small rest remains due to galactic cosmic rays. A common example of the D layer in action is the disappearance of distant AM broadcast band stations in the daytime.”

This, of course, means that amateur radio operators will have to stay up late into the night to make contacts on bands like 160 and 80 meters once the long days make those bands difficult to use for all but a few hours out of 24. That same solar energy heats the ground, causing convection and building thunderstorms that make those same bands crackle with noise all summer long. On the plus side, the conditions are still acceptable on 160 and 80, so you still have some time to collect some DX contacts. Don’t wait too long though, because the days are getting longer by a few minutes each day. (Exactly how many minutes depends on your location.)

Fortunately, 20 meters is coming back to life and will improve with the upcoming season. Sunspot numbers are up. Today, we see four groups: 1045, 1051, 1052, and 1053. Higher sunspot numbers are associated with better long distance propagation conditions on the higher frequencies of the HF spectrum. 20 can be a crowded band, but soon 17, 15, 12, and 10 will open up for DX and the fun will really begin for a lot of our newly-licensed Generals. These operators have never experienced the fun of a solar maximum!

When conditions are good on 14 mHz and above, you can work great distances with low power and surprisingly simple antennas. Even that plain vanilla wire antenna that never seemed to hear much of anything on 10 meters can come to life with DX. Mobile antennas can be used to work the world. QRP, or low power operation, becomes practical for daily use. Furthermore, because the length of an antenna like a vertical or dipole is inversely proportional to the frequency at which it will be used, the return of the higher frequencies means that you can perhaps finally fit a shorter, but highly effective, antenna into limited space. A dipole for use on 3.925 mHz is around 120 feet (37m) long, whereas a dipole for use on 28.310 mHz is only about 16 and a half feet (5m). This makes balcony and attic antennas practical.

As conditions begin to pick up on the 10 meter band, Handiham members who hold Novice or Technician licenses can take advantage of SSB phone operation between 28.300 and 28.500 mHz. Since most will be Technicians whose only experience on the air will have been with 2 meter FM repeaters, it will be a fantastic change for them – and a lot of fun! Imagine not having to depend on a repeater to talk to other stations far from your own location. Imagine not having to wait for drive time to be over before you can use a repeater. Imagine being able to tune with your VFO up and down the band instead of being stuck on a single repeater frequency. Imagine making new friends around the world and collecting QSL contacts for Worked All States and DXCC.

With the additional fun comes new responsibilities. Working the HF bands is different than repeater operation in other ways that newcomers might not realize. For example, while a repeater is silent for a period of time, that means that the repeater is not in use and you can usually just throw out your callsign to look for a contact. On HF, just because you don’t hear anything on a given frequency does not automatically mean that the frequency is clear. In HF operation, you may not be able to hear both sides of a QSO because of propagation conditions. If you just grab the frequency and start calling CQ, you may be informed that the frequency is already in use! On HF you have to listen even more than usual, and once you are fairly sure the frequency is probably clear, it may be prudent to ask, “Is this frequency in use?”, after which you give your callsign.

Another difference between repeater operation and HF is that you can generally count on being able to complete the contact on a repeater, because the system is set up to maintain solid copy as long as both stations remain in the repeater’s coverage area. On HF you can begin a QSO with excellent copy, only to find that changing band conditions suddenly cause you to lose the other station or sometimes cause other stations to “skip in” from far distances and cause QRM. Under such conditions, you have to be sure to trade essential information about yourself and your station before conditions change.

Contests are another feature of HF operation that will be new to those who have cut their teeth on repeaters. On contest weekends, the band can literally fill with stations eager to rack up points, making it either really hard to enjoy a long QSO with a friend or, to make the best of it, a fun way to make a lot of contacts and improve your operating skills. You can find out what contests are going on at any given time by visiting ARRL.org and following the “Operating Activities” link.

So to those of you who have not been on HF, let me extend a warm welcome to a whole new kind of operating. We are going to have a lot of fun in solar cycle 24!

For Handiham World, I’m…

Patrick Tice, [email protected]

Welcome to Handiham World!

If there is any theme that runs through publicity about amateur radio these days, it is generally one about the reliability of our communications in an emergency situation. In story after story that I see ferreted out by Google News, ham radio operators tell the press and the public about the way amateur radio operators can stay on the air to provide vital communications when cellular phones are overloaded or down altogether and other communications infrastructure has failed. The training and volunteerism of amateur radio operators are also highlights of these articles, and the very best of these stories also include some human factor – a volunteer operator who has helped the community, a team of operators who have worked in tandem with emergency personnel to provide backup communications, and sometimes even a victim who owes a debt of gratitude to amateur radio. These are themes that the ARRL has taken a leadership role in promoting, and the evidence is that the strategy has worked. More new hams than ever joined the ranks of amateur radio here in the United States last year.

Quoting from a story on ARRL’s website, “A total of 30,144 new licenses were granted in 2009, an increase of almost 7.5 percent from 2008. In 2005, 16,368 new hams joined Amateur Radio’s ranks; just five years later, that number had increased by almost 14,000 — a whopping 84 percent! The ARRL VEC is one of 14 VECs who administer Amateur Radio license exams.”

Of the many reasons people become interested in amateur radio, the one I have heard most often in recent years is that new hams want to earn a license so that they will have the means to help in emergencies and to be of service to the community. This, among the other themes, has been expertly promoted by ARRL in special websites, publicity releases, articles, and videos. Taking on the erroneous image of ham radio as an “outdated technology” that has been all but replaced by the internet, ARRL answers the questions of why we are relevant in the 21st Century on its WordPress “We Do That Radio” and “emergency-radio” websites.

Well, with all of that in mind, we turn to the large cardboard envelope I received from Matt Arthur, KA0PQW, this week. Matt had told me he was sending me an article, but I was surprised and delighted to see that it read:

Honored by President Obama

Local ham radio hobbyist recognized

The story appeared in the February 18, 2010 edition of the Star-Eagle newspaper, and featured a photo of Matt, KA0PQW, in his well-equipped ham shack. In the article, staff writer Jody Wynnemer explained that when a letter arrived from the White House, Matt had learned that he had been selected to receive a President’s Volunteer Service Award.

“Congratulations on receiving the President’s Volunteer Service Award, and thank you for helping to address the most pressing needs in your community and our country”, the letter began.

Matt was recognized for his work with the Community Emergency Response Team in Steele County, Minnesota. He recalled how he volunteered and handled communications during a flood in 2007. It had been nine hours until the National Guard could relieve him, and in the meantime he handled traffic in and out of the flood zone, passing messages to authorities in Winona.

Those of us who know Matt as a Handiham leader and volunteer understand what a great spokesman he is for amateur radio. To paraphrase a familiar saying about politics, all good ham radio work is local – at least that’s how it begins. Local ham radio classes, local Skywarn training, local ARES exercises, local club meetings and programs – and local news stories, just like the one that features Matt. Of course ham radio is worldwide by its nature, but getting the word out about the things we can do really does begin right at home.

Congratulations to Matt, KA0PQW, on this wonderful honor!

For Handiham World, I’m…

Patrick Tice, [email protected]

Welcome to Handiham World!

This week has been a challenging one for the Handiham Echolink net. Jim, WB4LBM, a regular net control station, is in the process of moving and is not available to take several net sessions per week as he sometimes does. Of course this has left the net control duties to a small group of stations, and I have heard some grumbling about how the net is run and how the few net control stations really could use some more help. We have attempted to schedule regular net control stations for given days, but that has not worked. Howard, KE7KNN, our net manager has been willing to assist operators who need help learning their net control basics, but he has not been able to recruit enough qualified stations to fill net control positions through the week. Believe me, I have also gotten plenty of advice about how the net should be run. Since the net is a Handiham Radio Club activity, I think it is reasonable for club members to weigh in at the next club meeting, which will be at radio camp in May. Until then, my advice would be to “lead by example”, by which I mean that if you have specific ideas about how the net should be run, you should feel free to contact Howard and arrange to take a net day, even if it is not every week. Perhaps you would like to simply be available from time to time to fill in as a net control station, which is certainly helpful. In fact, operators who are flexible like this can be very valuable to any regular net. After all, we never know when a scheduled net control station will be unable to take his or her regular session due to other commitments, equipment failure, illness, or emergency. Every net has this need for flexible operators who can step in. If you do so, you have an opportunity to showcase your ideas on how the net control station should run the net.

We have few rules, which makes stepping in to run the net relatively easy. It helps to have a preamble describing what the net is about and what your expectations as net control station are. One of the best preambles I have heard is from net control station Paul, KD0IUA. When you hear him taking the net, listen to his clear, concise preamble. When you have heard it, you certainly know which net is on the air, who is the net control station, and what the net control station expects of you as you check in. These are preamble basics that you can use to help set the tone of the net. As I said, you may have your own ideas about how to run a net and your specific preamble can reflect those ideas. Some people will find it necessary to write their preamble down so that they don’t forget anything. Others will be able to rattle off their preamble from memory. The key is to figure out what works for you.

Perhaps we should consider simply having fewer net sessions each week. Yes, I know this has been brought up before and it has not been resolved. One concern that I heard is that the regular daily net format is a social gathering that is now well-established and has its own momentum. Having fewer net sessions would break that momentum and make it difficult for our members to remember to check in. When something happens every day, it just seems to be easier to maintain a regular schedule, doesn’t it?

One thought that I had was that we might abandon the daytime net schedule and instead have a daily evening schedule. Matt, KA0PQW, pointed out that the repeater schedule is pretty well booked up in the evenings, so we would not be able to have a daily net at all unless we stick to the daytime schedule. The Wednesday evening net time is very good from the standpoint of working people, many of whom cannot take time from their jobs or be close to their stations during the daytime net. The Wednesday evening net allows North American stations whose operators work regular jobs to have an opportunity to check in weekly with us.

For example, our 7:30 pm Wednesday net plays out around the world at these times:

Eastern: 8:30 pm

Central: 7:30 pm

Mountain: 6:30 pm

Pacific: 5:30 pm

Hawaii: 3:30 pm

GMT: 01:30 am the next day

Tokyo: 10:30 am the next day

Middle East: 4:30 am the next day (Qatar)

Australia: 12:30 pm the next day (New South Wales)

You can see from this schedule that the Wednesday evening net offers completely different opportunities for stations around the world and here in North America to check in and share their comments. I like the idea of offering the evening net on Wednesday, which appears to be the only practical day from the standpoint of available repeater time here in the Twin Cities. We need to put our best foot forward with experienced and dedicated, preferably scheduled, net control operators on the Wednesday evening shift. This is the net that is going to earn the most listeners and participants around the world. It won’t do to have a newbie running this net and making mistakes. Let’s save the daily daytime net for those stations who need a little bit more practice. Yes, this will be a change from our previous philosophy of having training going on on Wednesday evenings. The way I look at it, we have the potential for many listeners in North America on various repeater systems able to tune in because they are home from work. If we have our most tightly-run net sessions on Wednesday evenings, we will earn a good reputation for ourselves. Does this make sense?

The daily daytime net happens at a time that does not really earn it a “prime time” following. Therefore, why not schedule net control operators who are newer to the hobby for daytime sessions to help us fill all of the available sessions? Furthermore, if a net control station cannot be found, why not simply start a QSO on the net frequency and make it a completely informal roundtable of Handiham Radio Club members and anyone else who simply wants to join in?

Suppose, for example, it is a Thursday and time for the daily net, but there is no net control station. Anyone listening on that frequency would then be free to call “CQ Handiham roundtable” and simply start a conversation with anyone who wants to join them. In a roundtable situation the stations checking in don’t have a net control station to report to. Instead, stations typically check in when they want to and then remember the order of the stations checking in and the conversation is simply passed around the circle from one station to another. So let’s say that I am listening on frequency and there is obviously no net control station. I might decide to put out a call like this: “CQ Handiham roundtable”. Jerry, N0VOE, comes back to me and we start talking. During a break in the conversation, Ken, KB3LLA, throws out his callsign. If Ken throws his callsign out just as I have finished speaking, Jerry might then acknowledge Ken and finish what he has to say before then turning the conversation over to Ken, KB3LLA, for his comments. Now we have established a three-station roundtable. The order is as follows:

1. Pat, WA0TDA

2. Jerry, N0VOE

3. Ken, KB3LLA

When Ken, KB3LLA, finishes speaking, he turns the conversation over to me like this: “WA0TDA, this is KB3LLA”. I then say what I want to say, which is probably going to be related to what Jerry has mentioned and any topic that Ken has brought up. When I am finished with my comments I am ready to turn the conversation over to Jerry by saying, “N0VOE this is WA0TDA”. Jerry then takes his turn as the conversation develops on whatever topic is being discussed and he turns the conversation over to Ken when he is finished talking. Thus, the round table proceeds in this same order with three stations until someone else enters the conversation by giving their callsign during a break. The thing to remember in Echolink operations and repeater operations is that it will be necessary to leave enough time for more stations to join the roundtable. You may have to discipline yourself by counting mentally until you learn to leave enough break time in the conversation before you take your turn. If a fourth, fifth, and sixth station join the conversation you may think this can become confusing. Well, all you have to remember in the roundtable is the station that comes before you in the conversation and the station that comes after you. The station that comes before you should always turn the conversation over to you. The station that comes after you will expect you to turn the conversation over to them. So it really isn’t rocket science, but it does take a little bit of practice.

So I would like to propose the concept of a Handiham roundtable to take the place of the daily net when a net control station is not available. In some ways, a roundtable can be even more fun than a regular net session. In a roundtable, one thing that you have to expect is that it may take a while for the conversation to come around to a point where you can check in with the group. For stations with little time to spare during lunch hour, it may be difficult to wait around for the right time to get in. On the other hand, a short-time station can still check into a roundtable to say hello and state that they cannot remain in the group conversation. In those cases, the short time station simply checks in with the group and right back out again and does not take a place in the rotation.

Some roundtables will run quite smoothly while others will be plagued by operators who can’t keep the order straight or who talk far too long, monopolizing the conversation. Believe me, this goes with the territory and you simply have to expect a few bumps in the road like these when you participate in a roundtable. On the positive side, the roundtable situation is friendly, informal, and often more fun than a controlled net. A controlled net may be able to check in far more stations, but this is done at the expense of interesting and meaningful conversation. There is nothing wrong with this; it is simply a trade-off that we have to understand and learn to live with.

So what do you think?

For Handiham World, I’m…

Patrick Tice, [email protected]

Welcome to Handiham World!

An EchoLink contact inspires some thoughts about radio clubs and your own expectations.

I had an interesting conversation last night on Echolink. While chatting with one of my friends, we got onto the topic of radio club projects. I’m going to paraphrase this, but I think we concluded that both of us had been in a number of different radio clubs and that whenever a club took on a project, the results were often less than satisfactory and the process of getting the project underway and completed was complicated by difficult to reconcile opinions on how things should be done and what the club goals should be.

Of course this is a common problem in any organization, but perhaps more so in a radio club where members have joined voluntarily and are not compensated or even required to stay focused on any particular aspect of club business. We all know that radio clubs have different purposes. Most of the clubs I have belonged to have been “social clubs” that have been formed simply to bring together amateur radio operators who share a broad common interest in ham radio. In that kind of club, you can expect several members to be interested in technology and building equipment, a few to be dedicated to particular modes of operation like Morse code or PSK-31, and a more or less general commitment to being helpful to one’s community as volunteer or emergency communicators.

In the social club, projects still need to be completed. The problem is that the club members have different ideas about what club goals should be, and this may make it difficult to get enough people on board as project volunteers. If, for example, the club has several members who are interested in Echolink communication, these club members may suggest that it would be a good idea to have a club program explaining Echolink, and perhaps even Echolink-enabling the club’s repeater system.

Details, details.

Like all good ideas, the devil is in the details. Who will put on the club program, and will there be Internet access available for the presentation? Even if there is Internet access at the club’s meeting location, will Echolink work through the firewall? Then there is the audience. Some of the members of the social club will not be computer users. It is simply a fact of demographics that many amateur radio operators are older and did not use personal computers in their work lives before retiring. Some will have learned computing and gotten online, while others have not. Almost anyone in the club who is in their “working years” will be familiar with personal computers in the workplace and generally have one or more of them at home, including in the ham shack. Teens and college kids will have grown up with personal computers and portable communications devices and will use them effortlessly.

All of this means that your audience at the club meeting will be pretty diverse, computing-wise. When you think about it, the Echolink presenter has the challenge of talking with at least three audiences: non-computer users, computer users at some intermediate level of understanding, and expert computer users. You can see that right off the bat starting a club project that will ultimately get the club repeater Echolink-enabled is going to be quite a challenge even at the first step of explaining what Echolink is all about. And this, mind you, is just the beginning. No one has even talked about building the Echolink infrastructure to make this happen on the club’s repeater! You can see that there will be quite a challenge for the few Echolink aficionados in the club to bring the entire club “on board” with their project.

It’s like herding cats!

No matter what the project, a small group of organizers within the club will face similar problems. Organizing a ham fest, planning a field day event, preparing for and publicizing Technician classes, you name it — the list is endless. In a given club, there may be a core of a half dozen really dedicated participants who are willing to put in extra time and effort — and sometimes even their own money — into getting projects like these off the ground. I guess where I am going with this is that we really have to have reasonable expectations of amateur radio clubs that exist primarily for social purposes rather than a single dedicated goal. If a club is dedicated to DX, that club is going to attract like-minded members who will be focused on that particular goal of keeping up with DX news, working DX and verifying contacts through Logbook of the World and QSL cards, organizing and promoting DX-related on the air activities, and so on. All of the club members are interested in the same thing.

Since this is not the case in the social club, our expectations should not be that the club can necessarily do justice to every single interest group’s project goals. Now, I am not saying that simply because you might be in a minority interest group within your social amateur radio club that you should not pursue your agenda and attempt to bring the rest of the club along with you on a club project. What I am saying is that you should expect that you will meet some resistance along the way and should not be disappointed or discouraged when a project seems to run into roadblocks, delays, and misunderstandings. Remember, the various interests within a broad-based social club will sometimes be quite different, and some members may see your project as not really good or bad, but not really benefiting them personally and therefore not worth supporting. Others may become interested in your project through your efforts at educating them through a club program or programs. Some may not be interested even after you have given your program presentation your best shot, but they may still see some benefit in not standing in the way of your project, simply because they know that there are benefits to a club that supports a variety of different interests.

Moving on without feeling guilty.

Okay, you have been a member of your radio club for a year or more, and you still feel that the club isn’t really going anywhere, at least as far as your interests are concerned. You have tried volunteering and putting on presentations, but there simply isn’t a lot of interest in your project area. Furthermore, there seems to be little interest from the other members in forwarding other projects. Perhaps the time has come for you to say goodbye to a club that has simply not met your needs. There is no shame — and should be none — in leaving a club that doesn’t provide a satisfying experience for you. On the other hand, before you make a decision to leave, you really have to ask yourself whether you have been open-minded toward other club members’ ideas and whether you have made a genuine effort to educate other club members about your area of interest and your project. No one should have the expectation that club projects, especially ones requiring investment of club funds, will gain quick acceptance and universal approval.

Yes, it is all about finding the right club for you and having reasonable expectations. Doing some research on the ARRL Big Club List can be a good place to start if you are looking for an amateur radio club, whether it be a general interest social organization or one that has a specific interest area. Since the ARRL list can be sorted geographically, you can find a club close to you. If a local radio club sponsors a repeater system, listening on the club repeater can give you some insight into that club’s interests and sense of purpose.

Club websites are a good place to research more in-depth about each club’s specific mission. I don’t know about you, but I am always wary of club websites that have not been updated and whose recent newsletter information is several years old. Websites with mission statements and up-to-date resources about club nets and meetings are an indication that you are looking at a club that “gets things done”, so you might want to put that club down on your list for a visit during a regular membership meeting.

Should you belong to more than one radio club?

Well, perhaps. You may decide to belong to a special-purpose club that shares your amateur radio interests. You may also enjoy belonging to a social club where expectations are entirely different. Matching your interests and goals to the radio club as you do your research can make your experience in the club a pleasant one. After all, amateur radio is a hobby activity as well as a communications service. You are not in it for frustration and aggravation — you are in it for fun, and finding the right club and having reasonable expectations will go a long way to making sure that you and everyone else in the club will have a great ham radio experience.

For Handiham World, I’m…

Patrick Tice, [email protected]

Welcome to Handiham World!

See you in May

That’s what Dr. Dave Justis, KN0S, writes. Just look at Dr. Dave standing by that big snowman. You would never guess that he lives in Virginia, and that the snowfall there has been most unusual for that southern State!

Dave is planning to be at Minnesota Radio Camp at Camp Courage, May 21 through 28, 2010. A long-time Handiham volunteer, Dr. Dave is a veteran of many radio camp sessions at locations in California and Minnesota. The return to Camp Courage, which is a big change for us, actually brings the Handiham program closer to its roots.

Dr. Dave remembers when the first radio camp sessions, then called “convocations”, were held at Camp Courage. For the past 20 years Minnesota Radio Camp has been at Courage North, deep in the pines of Northern Minnesota, near the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Camp Courage, founded in 1955, is just an hour west of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, in southern Minnesota.

The new location will provide campers like Dr. Dave excellent accommodations and much more convenient transportation options.

Find out more about camp or download an application on handiham.org – Just follow the radio camp application link.

For Handiham World, I’m…

Patrick Tice, [email protected]

Welcome to Handiham World!

Heard on the air this morning:

“Nothing like an emergency to find out what works and what doesn’t.”

I had turned on my 2 meter rig, which was tuned to my club’s repeater, and I soon learned that a widespread data outage had occurred in northeastern Minnesota when a fiber optic line was damaged. A bit of web research filled in the story a bit more. The outage began yesterday, January 26, when Qwest fiber optic cables were damaged at a site outside Duluth, Minnesota. A steam pipe in a manhole burst, and the hot gas damaged the fiber optic line. The stations I heard on the repeater were being ported into the Twin Cities via Echolink, thanks to our repeater’s continuous connection to a wide area repeater network serving the area around western Lake Superior, the LSAC, or Lake Superior Amateur Coalition, system of linked repeaters. The stations were discussing what areas might still not have data service, even though it was now Wednesday, January 27. Of course a data outage meant that internet and 9-11 phone service were down. What was the response of a local TV station in the area? Why, to proudly announce that they posted outages and service status reports… on the internet!

By gluing my ear to the radio, I learned from the repeater conversation that the LSAC repeaters kept working throughout the emergency. A fire at an auto body shop happened during the outage, but had been put out safely.

Well, all of this puts me in mind of some basic truths about emergencies:

1. You never know when they will happen. They are by their nature unexpected in a given moment, even though we understand intellectually that emergencies will happen.
2. You never know what kind of damage may result or what other problems may be set in motion because of the original failure. There is often collateral damage extending outward along unpredictable paths.
3. You never know exactly where they will happen. Oh, we may be able to say with some feeling of confidence that our basement ham shack will not flood from a burst dam, because we are on a hill and there is no dam for hundreds of miles, but just as we turn the key in the lock and leave for a week’s vacation a water pipe bursts and we come home to a flood of our own.
4. The media may not report the incident correctly.

The point is that we just never know. Understanding this does require some knowledge of probabilities, and that in turn helps us to manage the risk.

Take this communications outage, for example. Looking at the three basic truths, we see that it was completely unexpected, happening at a rather inconvenient time. It was the result of another infrastructure problem altogether, since the fiber optic cables would have been just fine if a steam pipe hadn’t burst nearby. Thus, the steam pipe failure constituted the first emergency, and collateral damage to wide area communications quickly followed. There are steam pipes and cables running underground all around the world. Since the underground conduits place these two systems together, and probably also close to high voltage electrical distribution wiring, you can see that a catastrophic failure might well spread to other systems.

Who knew that a steam pipe failure would kill the internet? And 9-11 emergency service? And who could predict exactly where the conjunction of these various types of infrastructure would experience the failure?

Then there is the media. How many times have you listened to a story that has turned out ultimately to have been reported incorrectly? We know when the weatherman is wrong because we can tell when the rain falls and the sun shines, but what about when the media say things that are just not true? The reporters are well-meaning but often no not understand the technology or infrastructure that they are reporting about. This can lead to some rather silly stories making it out onto the air.

Where does amateur radio fit into the picture?

It is obvious to those of us in amateur radio: We provide a communications system that is redundant and separated from other communications infrastructure. There is nothing like redundancy to overcome the first three basic truths of when and where emergencies will happen and what collateral damage may result. Repeater systems can be located at different sites with overlapping coverage. The failure of internet connectivity will not bring down any individual repeater. A repeater that does go down will leave the others up and running. Individual operators will still have their own mobile and fixed stations. Compare that to a system where stream pipes, high voltage power lines, and fiber optic data cables all run in close proximity!

One problem area remains media coverage and perception of amateur radio. In story after story, I keep reading about the “old technology” of amateur radio being pressed into service in one emergency or another. To me, this is like saying that the telephone is old technology. Everyone knows that the phone system incorporates new, cutting-edge technology. The same is true of amateur radio, but somehow the media never seem to understand this. Furthermore, once a perception gets out there, it is hard to erase it. We know that amateur radio is cutting-edge in its new technology, and incorporates digital systems throughout. My suggestion is that you never miss an opportunity to let people know how modern and up to date ham radio is. We have to chip away at the perception that our activity is old-fashioned, a pastime of yesteryear.

Even so, we will be out there – waiting and ready for the next communications emergency.

For Handiham World, I’m…

Patrick Tice, [email protected]