AmateurRadio.com

CNN has a nice video story about Angie Taggart, a 36 year old schoolteacher who ran the Iditarod for the first time this year.  The series is video that Taggart shot on her dogsled while running the race.

For years I’ve been dreaming about someday volunteering to do radio communications at an Iditarod checkpoint.  The checkpoints are, as one can imagine, in the middle of nowhere and lack any communications.  Unfortunately I learned from one of my friends who regularly volunteered that the Iditarod organization has discontinued the use of amateur radio in favor of satellite phones.  The junior Iditarod still uses amateur radio, so perhaps someday I’ll have an opportunity to volunteer for that.

On Good Friday I was able to get out and make another attempt at a Summits on the Air (SOTA) activation. This time I was successful, making a short run of contacts on 15 meters into Europe and activating summit W3 / PO-23. It was windy and cold with some occasional snow flurries, but I was able to setup the station in a rock outcropping to shield myself from the wind.

My rocky QTH

My portable station: an FT-817, BLT tuner, and modified Whiterook paddle

At this rate it will take some 250 summits to get to the famed Mountain Goat status, not considering bonus points for winter activations.  There are only 220 summits in the W3 SOTA association, so quite a bit of travel and planning would be necessary to pull this off.  But I’m in no rush :-)

Trail up to the site

One of the two towers near the site.  This is an old firetower now used by Carbon County, PA.  The cabin at the top was removed.

The other tower at the site owned by State of Pennsylvania.  Well built, though a bit bland by radio artisan standards.

A neat spot on a rocky peak about a mile away from the SOTA summit

Here in the US, proposed legislation HR 607 recently made headlines as the latest amateur radio band threat, with a bid to reallocate the 70 cm band in the next ten years.  ARRL is opposing the legislation on the basis that it would reallocate currently non-commercial spectrum to commercial interests.

On the surface ARRL’s claim is valid.  But eventually this approach is going to fall on deaf ears at the FCC and in Congress.    Commercial interests holding bands is not inherently evil.  But in this current “pro-business” climate, the value of resources are increasing being judged more by revenue potential than benefits to a subset of citizens.  Sadly, the “bang-to-buck” ratio that the FCC is getting by continuing to allow amateur radio to use this prime real estate band is abysmal.  While the 70 cm band does have numerous repeaters across the US, it seems that in many areas the band is just dead or serves as a life support system for 2m repeater links or cross band repeaters that would otherwise be dead if it weren’t for 2 meters.  Even worse, the 2 meter repeaters being linked are often dead as well, other than weekly ARES/RACES nets and the occasional kerchunker.

Since amateur radio can’t generate revenue from spectrum, the default benefit of amateur radio having the spectrum is public service.  But when public service is used as a justification for keeping a band allocated to amateur radio, that argument can be easily turned around against amateur radio in the situation of 440 and HR 607.  If the band is used for true public service in amateur radio perhaps only one or two times per year per one hundred square miles, and a competing use such as a mobile network in which the general public and public safety agencies can use it continually and use every last hertz, the amateur radio public service argument falls apart.  The public overwhelming gets more service from the band in the hands of mobile wireless carriers than amateur radio.

What’s the solution?  While mobile wireless networks are spectrum hogs, such technologies today can squeeze 2 or 3 bits per spectrum hertz of data transmission with complex modulation techniques, extensive frequency reuse, and “smart” antennas.  Amateur radio needs to upgrade its technology to squeeze more information into the spectrum and use it to transmit information of value.  Amateur radio needs to give up on classic single-carrier FM analog repeaters as a mainstay of VHF and UHF communications and migrate to wideband spread-spectrum digital modes and repeaters that carry both voice and data.  To some extent this needs to mimic mobile wireless networks, but in an affordable lower tech and “open software” manner. Initially D-STAR comes to mind, but it’s like climbing a tree to get to the moon.  It’s still a narrowband mode that can carry only a meager amount of data and lacks the complexity needed in its protocol for technological growth.

The new technology needs to be paired with a decentralized and open messaging system that connects with the Internet and is inter-operable directly with existing messaging standards.  This would enable the creation of a true resilient 21st century messaging network, one that would come closer to having the capacity and speed necessary to provide public service benefits in the event of a disaster that would cripple mobile wireless and landline networks.

ARRL and other organizations worldwide need to develop a plan for such a technology and network, get support from manufacturers for low cost hardware, and build a development community around it.  There needs to be a road map to show regulatory agencies where we’re going, not where we have been.  This is what will save our valuable bands in the new world of wireless.

I have completed the Arduino-based rotator computer interface and controller project or at least gotten the code and functionality stable and to the point where I’m satisfied with it.  The unit emulates the Yaesu controller command set and works with Ham Radio Deluxe.  I’ve tested the unit with a Yaesu G-1000DXA rotator.  While the code has AZ/EL rotator support, I do not have an AZ/EL rotator to fully test the elevation functionality yet.  This summer I hope to assemble a satellite antenna setup complete with an AZ/EL rotator using this interface.

If anyone is able to test with an AZ/EL rotator, or if anyone wants to attempt to interface this to another brand rotator, please let me know as I would be glad to develop the code.

I’m pleased to announce my Arduino CW keyer code is ready for prime time and available for download here.  At first this started out as merely porting my PIC keyer code to the Arduino, but the advanced features and ease (and joy) of coding for this platform encouraged me to venture further.  Beyond my original PIC keyer features, this creation also has a speed potentiometer, a serial port command line interface, more and bigger memories, QRSS, HSCW, and memory macros.  It also has a callsign receive practice mode, CW keyboard, and Hellscreiber sending capability.  I’m trying to figure out a way to interface with Ham Radio Deluxe and N1MM, and I have in the works a frequency counter option for use within homebew rigs, like my original PIC keyer.

The code is stable at this point, and I’m not aware of any bugs.  If anyone tries this code out and has bug reports, feedback, or feature requests, please drop me a comment.  Next I’m going to finish the Yaesu rotator computer interface.

I have a lot of ideas for an Arduino controlled antenna tuner swimming around in my mind.  After having two commercial automatic antenna tuners that were disappointing, I think I can build a better mousetrap.  The tuner will be a balanced L design capable of 150 watts or more, but still capable and accurate at QRP power levels.

Fun stuff!

Now that the snow has melted and ice fishing season is over, I’m looking forward to doing some Summits On The Air (SOTA) operation on the Appalachian Trail (AT).  This video I found from Kevin Gallagher beautifully summarizes a six month AT journey into a few minutes and got me thinking about SOTA operation from the trail.