AmateurRadio.com

I discovered some free radio memory management software this morning. Called CHIRP, which is presumably an acronym that ends with “Radio Programming”, it is a free, cross-platform, cross-radio programming tool that is being developed by Dan Smith, KK7DS. CHIRP works on Windows and Linux (and MacOSX with a little work, according to Dan). It supports a whole list of radios from manufacturers such as Alinco, Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu and Wouxun.

As the VX-8R is listed, I thought I’d give it a try with my VX-8GR. Unlike the excellent but non-free FTBVX8 software from G4HFQ, CHIRP doesn’t prompt you with the steps you need to perform on the radio. If you just connect the radio, load the software and start the download nothing will happen. With the VX-8R you must begin with the radio turned off, then after starting the download press and hold the F/W button on the side while turning the radio on. When CLONE appears on the display, press BAND. The download will then start and the program will display its progress. With other radios different steps will no doubt be needed. Hopefully at some point prompts will be incorporated into the software.

My first download attempt did not complete. Instead an error message appeared near the end. But I tried again. This time the memories were downloaded successfully and displayed in the program as you can see. The “cross-radio” part of the specification means, presumably, that memories are saved in a unified format so you can download them from one radio and upload them to a different one.

I didn’t try uploading to the radio. I have heard of people bricking radios by using software that wrote unexpected stuff and I’d already seen one error message. Besides, I have the FTBVX8 software and I didn’t have any changes I wanted to make anyway. But if you don’t want to pay for memory management software, you want to maintain one memory file and upload it to multiple different radios or you want a program that will run on Linux or Mac OS, CHIRP is a development that’s worth keeping an eye on.

Details are yet to emerge about the nature of the misconduct that led to the dismissal of the RSGB’s General Manager Peter Kirby. However in one or two blogs and forums it is already being suggested that this should be an opportunity for root and branch change at the RSGB, a chance to get rid of the “old school tie brigade.” I don’t agree.

I may be an old fart now, but when I first joined the RSGB back in 1973 I was 20 years old and it was an even more traditional organization than than it is today. Most of the officers held two-letter calls that indicated they had been licensed since before the war. Radio Communication (it was years until it became the more trendy RadCom) had more of the air of a professional electronics journal. But did I feel that the RSGB was an old boys’ club that should be run by more know-nothing-but-think-they-know-it-all youngsters like me? Did I write letters asking for Radio Communication to be dumbed down to make it more understandable to newcomers? No I didn’t. The RSGB did have a bit of an air of being an elite group, but I was proud that it now included me. And instead of grumbling that the contents of Radio Communication were over my head I aspired to understand what was then a mystery. Unlike other radio services ham radio is a hobby with a long tradition and that is one of the things that is reflected by the RSGB.

I never attended an RSGB annual general meeting. But when these were held they were usually followed by a “black tie” dinner. I’ve seen Big Issue sellers more smartly attired than the average radio rally attendee and I have often wondered if these formal dinners were part of the same hobby. But the fact that I had no desire to attend such functions did not mean I felt they should not occur, or that the people who attended them could not possibly represent the interests of people like me.

I think the RSGB has done quite a good job so far, especially considering the differing and often conflicting demands of its members. Britain was one of the first countries to drop the Morse proficiency requirement and to introduce a licensing scheme that made it easy for the very young and those with limited technical knowledge to enter the hobby. These are hardly the actions of an RSGB dedicated to maintaining the status quo, to resisting change, to keeping ham radio an elite club of people who know code and understand circuit diagrams.

I don’t think the misdemeanours of one salaried officer should be allowed to overshadow that achievement. One bad apple doesn’t mean you must cut down the entire tree. We live in an egalitarian age where everyone’s opinion counts and it seems that many want an RSGB run by people like them. I just wonder where that would lead. If you look at history, the times when Britain was great was when it was run by leaders who were in their 60s and 70s. Now the country is run by political careerists in their 40s and 50s and look at the mess we’re in. We need an RSGB that can shape the future of the hobby but still respect the the past.

One of the problems with operating in the evening is that on most HF bands even a few watts of RF is enough to turn on the neighbours’ security lights. So there is an extra incentive to work QRP. This evening I tried JT65A at 2W on 30m, then moved to 20m with 5W. This map shows where my QRP signals were received.

The antenna on 20m was the multiband attic dipole. Stations worked included K3AXR (FM28), KF4NX (EM83), AB0DI (EN41), VA3WLD (FN03) and KD2A (FN13). By the way, whoever said JT65A is not a chat mode!

The Board of the RSGB has today released the following announcement:

Peter Kirby, RSGB General Manager, has left the Society’s employment after the discovery of financial irregularities on his part.

For the time being, RSGB Director Don Beattie, G3BJ, will act as General Manager.

At this difficult time for the Society can I ask that everyone supports Don in his role. He may be contacted at Don.Beattie at rsgb.org.uk or 01234 832 701/07802 922 219.

Dave Wilson
President
28 March 2011

Further comment from me would be inappropriate until we know the nature of the financial irregularities. But to say the news comes as a shock would be an understatement. I have been an RSGB member for nearly 40 years, barring a few years in the 1990s when I was inactive in the hobby. The Society will never please everybody and it has done a few things I don’t agree with but I think all things considered it does a pretty good job. I hope it will survive this crisis.

Alfred Wainwright said that he could not understand why anyone would want to walk round a Lakeland fell when they could walk over it. He never met my wife. Olga has always been a reluctant companion on my summit walks – except a few very easy ones.

In fact, the scenery in this part of the world is spectacular even from the roadside, so it certainly isn’t necessary to climb summits to have a nice walk. Of course, you can’t activate any Wainwrights for WOTA unless you are on the top. But you can still work other people who are on the summits and claim the points for your chaser score. Olga has finally agreed to my doing summit walks by myself. But we still want to do walks together so some of the time I will go for low level walks.

This afternoon there was an excuse for such a walk. Phil, G4OBK had posted that he would be activating Rannerdale Knotts, one of the lowest Wainwrights and one that is hemmed in by higher hills so that it is probably not workable from home. So we decided to go for a walk beside Crummock Water from where Rannerdale Knotts would be in line of sight. As I would be out of range of any APRS digis or gateways I decided to leave the fancy APRS radios behind and take the little Jin Ma Tong JMT-228, a Chinese VHF radio I bought on eBay. As it has mainly been used to monitor my Echolink node the antenna was just a 2 inch long stubby duck. I thought that should be able to make the half a mile path across the lake. I intended to take a better antenna “just in case” but I forgot.

We arrived at the National Trust car park at Scalehill Bridge and I had just got out of the car and switched on the radio when I heard Phil calling CQ WOTA from Whiteless Pike, LDW-106. I stood the radio on the roof of the car while I put on my boots and waited for my turn to work Phil. The audio from the tiny radio was surprisingly load and turned a few heads! Finally I got my report, 5 by 9, and we set off on our walk round the lake.

It was a pleasant walk in the warm sunshine with skylarks singing overhead. I heard Phil working Derek 2E0MIX/P and telling him he would be on the summit of Rannerdale in about 15 minutes. We found a sunny spot looking across to the bumpy ridge and waited. Eventually a couple of figures appeared silhouetted against the skyline – Phil and his walking companion Geoff – followed shortly by CQ WOTA on the radio. I called Phil for the inevitable 5 by 9 report and that was that. Rannerdale Knotts, LDW-209, was on the list. We retraced our steps, not wanting to be out too late as Olga had dinner to cook.

Half way back to the car I heard another CQ WOTA, this time from Derek 2E0MIX/P who was on the summit of Grasmoor, LDW-020. I stopped and made contact and had a quick chat with Derek while Olga took the picture on the right using my phone.

Phil had said he was going to activate Whiteside, LDW-084 if he had the time, which he did. I was back home by the time he reached it. I was listening on the JMT-228 and stubby duck antenna from inside the house and Phil’s signal was 5 by 9. (The JMT has quite a decent S meter by the way, it isn’t all or nothing like many handheld rigs.) Phil didn’t hear me until there was no-one else calling him but when he did he gave me a 5 and 5 report. Not bad for 3 watts into what many people would consider a dummy load, over a distance of 10km.

Phil did comment that the audio from the JMT-228 was a bit low compared with my other radios. I don’t think that’s surprising as the radio is probably set up for 12.5kHz or even 10kHz channel spacing, and the level is not adjustable as far as I know. Still, I’m happy with this little radio and I think it acquitted itself very well on its first outing.

Yesterday I was out hiking round the back of Skiddaw in Wainwright’s Northern Fells to activate Great Sca Fell (LDW-114) and Brae Fell (LDW-134). One reason for being out and about in that area was that Phil G4OBK was planning to activate Great Calva (LDW-095) which is one of the three summits I need to complete the Northern Fells as a chaser. I’d have been less keen if the weather had been miserable, but Thursday was a glorious day, sunny but not too hot and without the breeze that can often make it icy cold on the tops even when it is warm in the valleys.

It is a long, steady plod up from Longlands and I reached the summit of Great Sca Fell around 12:30. I put up the WOTA Pole and then sat down to eat my lunch. To raise the height of the antenna I used my walking pole for the bottom section. This didn’t give me as much extra height as I’d hoped as the inner sections of the telescopic pole slid up inside the PVC tubing so I had to collapse it and just use the thickest, topmost section.

I connected the VX-8GR to the antenna to beacon my position on APRS while I ate the lunch Olga had made me. I tuned around whilst I was eating and heard a couple of distant stations. I observed their signals being desensitized intermittently. Clearly the VX-8GR receiver is not up to being connected to a good antenna in a good location.

After lunch I connected the Motorola GP300 – which has a much more robust receiver – to the antenna and began calling CQ WOTA. I worked 11 stations in all from Great Sca Fell, but they were all from the northen area as signals to the south were blocked by the great bulk of Skiddaw and Blencathra. I waited for Phil G4OBK to arrive on his first summit of the day, Bakestall, so we could have a summit-to-summit contact. I then called upon Mark MM1MPB and Colin 2E0XSD to help with my second objective of the day, which was to do some tests to see how much difference the WOTA Pole made to my signal compared to other antennas.

First I compared the signal between the WOTA Pole (which is a Slim Jim made of 300 ohm ribbon cable inside some PVC electrical conduit) and the 5/8 wave telescopic Black Whip antenna from jeepbangkok on eBay. I’d been pretty impressed with the 5/8 telescopic on previous activations but the reports from Mark and Colin suggested that the WOTA Pole was a couple of S-points better.

Unfortunately while extending the telescopic antenna to make the test I broke it! That’s the end of that, which is a pity because I’m sure there will be circumstances – such as on busy summits or rocky ones where there is no earth to drive the guy pegs in – where the telescopic would still be useful.

For an additional test I tried an 8 inch long single band helical “rubber duck” which I’d previously established to be comparable to a quarter wave whip and a noticeable improvement over the stock dual band antenna that comes with Japanese handhelds. Colin couldn’t hear me on the helical at all, while Mark’s verdict on my signal was “awful.” So the WOTA Pole is very definitely worth the trouble of erecting it and enables me to give points to stations that would not otherwise be able to hear me.

I packed everything up and made my way over to Brae Fell which was half way back to the car by another route. I set up the antenna and finished the rest of my coffee. A lone skylark, perhaps the first of the year, circled calling overhead. I began calling on the radio. Again there were plenty of takers. I worked 12 stations in all including another summit to summit with G4OBK/P on Great Calva.

So a successful day out (apart from breaking an antenna.) I just need to work someone on Mungrisdale Common and Souther Fell to complete the Northern Fells. They have been activated before: unfortunately they are not workable from home due to being of only moderate height and on the other side of Skiddaw. As they are probably the two most boring hills in the entire Lake District they are not often visited so I may have a bit of a wait until I can claim my Wainwrights On The Air Northern Fells chaser certificate.

Following my rant about Internet Explorer 9 this morning I noticed that Firefox 4 had now been released so I decided to update my 3.6 version. The update took less than half the time, there was no disabling of security software or restart required, it checked my add-ons for compatibility and automatically updated those as well. And all the pages I have tried to view display perfectly. A flawless, hassle-free update, just as it should be.

Remind me again why Microsoft is so successful?