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While I’ve mentioned it several times on my podcast, I don’t recall blogging much about it.  I did blog once about moving my ham shack from a 6 foot area to a larger area here.  But for what feels like a decade, I’ve been planning for and slowly working on my new basement ham shack, office and just general man-cave.  It all began sometime in early 2008 when I got the idea to turn the un-finished portion of my basement into a new ham shack. 

We had half of our basement finished soon after purchasing our house in 2004.  It’s been in this finished area where I’ve setup my ham shack, podcast recording studio and home office.  Because this basement area was finished prior to me getting my ham ticket, I have to run my coax feed line either across the ceiling or across the carpet to get it to an outside wall.  Of course we do what we have to do to get on the air.  But I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a space that didn’t have coax and power cords everywhere. 

The first step was to move everything from the unfinished area of the basement (primarily used for storage) to the finished area so I could begin construction.  The unfinished portion of the basement is concrete floor and concrete walls.  While I would have no problem working in a concrete space like this, the object was to create something that was nice and comfortable.  So up went the 2×4 stud walls. 

The framing portion of the overall project went fairly quickly.  The main room of my ham shack/home office/man cave is a room approx. 20’x20’ with a hallway measuring about 8’x16’ opening up into the area that is the laundry room which when framed in was about another 12’ or so of wall space. 

While I started the framing project in 2008, if memory serves me correctly all the framing was complete in about 3-4 months.  So what have I been doing the past three years?  Well obviously not a lot in relation to the basement project.

Part of the delay has been due to life schedule conflicts.  You know work, travel, good DX conditions etc.  In recent weeks, it has been hard to pry myself away from the radio to go work on the basement.  But I really want to get this done and the wife really wants to claim the rest of the basement for other uses. 

A few weeks ago I started working on the basement area again.  I’ve been running electrical, CATV, telephone and network cables in the new area.  With the help of my wonderful wife, we have mapped out where my desk and such will be.  I’ll admit I’m not the most tidy person on the planet.  My current shack area looks like a bomb went off.  I blame this primarily on the fact that I have no cabinet space.  Everything is either on the desk, under the desk or stacked beside the desk.  The new space will have cabinets under the desk surface and cabinets from the ceiling down with just enough space in between for the work area. 

Speaking of work areas.  I’ll have my primary operating position in one corner.  I’ve worked in a corner type setup for the past couple of years and like having the LCD in the corner with my FT-950 on the right and my FT-897 (used for digi modes) to my left.  There will be plenty of space for my VHF/UHF rigs, packet and just about anything else I want to do.  I have also factored in a large workbench area where I can build projects and restore those old AM radios which I enjoy. 

For the wall material I’m going with sheetrock.  While we had investigated other options, we kept coming back to drywall.  This will be one area which we’ll contract out and for a couple of reasons.  One, it will be difficult for just my wife and I to handle the sheetrock (especially the ceiling) the time to complete the job would take us a few weekends.  The sheetrock process is a dirty and nasty one.  I can hire a contractor and crew to come in and they’ll hang, plaster, sand and texture the walls in just a few days.  My wife and I then will paint and do all the rest.

Back to the cable planning.  I’ve factored in both what my present need is as well as looking ahead.  Because the exterior wall where I run the coax feed line for my Hustler 6BTV (ground mounted in my back yard) will be covered in sheetrock as well as the ceiling above it, I’ll need a way to access this in the future. I installed a 1 1/2” PVC pipe across the ceiling for my coax needs.  Some may argue and say I should have installed a larger pipe, but living in “HOA Hell” I’ll never have a need (nor permission) to install anything other than a vertical antenna in my back yard.   I’ll still have access from the utility closet where I’ve pulled the feed line for my 20m hamstick dipole, rotator and VHF/UHF antenna. 

The final decision to make is on the floor covering.  Everything from just the bare concrete floor to tile has come into our heads.  I do know that carpet (any style is out).  I want to be able to zoom from one side of my desk to the other in my chair without issue and carpet just doesn’t allow it.  Plus carpet in a basement is a bad idea any way you look at it.

I have just  another weekend or two of work to do before we can bring in the sheetrock guys.  I need to run speaker wire for a surround sound setup and make one more plumbing modification near where the laundry area will be.  If all goes as planned, we would like to have the sheetrock installed just prior to Christmas and use some of the time-off to do the painting. 

I’ll update everyone in a few weeks on our progress and hopefully with pictures.  I don’t see much need in adding photos to this blog article.  I think everyone knows what concrete walls with 2×4 studs in front look like. 

Until next time….

73 de KD0BIK (Jerry)

The Practical Amateur Radio Podcast, episode 48 is now available to download or stream.  You can subscribe via iTunes, Zune or stream directly from MyAmateurRadio.com.  Want to stream on the go from your favorite smart phone device?  You can do that as well from our mobile site.

In this episode I discuss all that awaits those US Technician class operators once they upgrade to the general class license.  Of course, I’m talking about the world of HF.

As a member of both the ARRL and RSGB, I share what I feel is the importance of both belonging to and supporting our national organizations.  I discuss briefly the RSGB upcoming extraordinary general meeting taking place on 19 November and encourage all RSGB members to educate yourself and vote.   Links are provided in the episode 48 show notes available here.

During our featured website segment I introduce listeners to the DXCoffee.com website.  Tomas Mesta, K6THM provides the featured Elmer Connection article on MyAmateurRadio.com.  Finally I round out some of my own amateur radio adventures in the last month.  Thank you for listening. 

With the bands heating up like they are, several new “Firsts” for me have been flying into the logbook.  Something I’ve never been able to accomplish was working a major DXpedition.  I tried many, many times to work K5D from Desecheo Island back in 2009.  I could hear them and so could all the other hams trying to bust the pile up.  I guess this is a good problem to have for a successful DXpedition.

I first learned about what a DXpedition was all about soon after getting my ticket in 2007.  At a club meeting they showed the DVD from the 3Y0X DXpedition to Peter I Island.  I think I was just as fascinated with the logistical efforts of getting all the gear and the people onto the island as I was with the radio operations.

Anyway, I learned of the T32C DXpedition a few months ago and I put the dates in my calendar.  The dates were 28 September through 26 October.  While I didn’t intend to wait until almost the last moment, it is just how it ended up.  The first part of the month I had family in town and this led to some long days in the office and other activities. 

Last week I began to get serious about trying to work T32C. After trying and not finding success with K5D, I figured if I could work T32C just once I would be pleased.  So I began what I recently blogged about called “The Thrill of the Hunt” to locate T32C.  The bands have recently been performing really well and fingers crossed the hunt would go well.

I checked DX Cluster and saw a few US stations reporting T32C on 17 meters SSB.  I went down to the shack, turned on the HF rig, the computer and tuned to where the cluster indicated I might find them.  Low and behold, I could hear T32C and I could hear the pile up trying to work them.  I gave my call sign a few times and within about 5 minutes I had been heard.  The T32C operator confirmed my callsign and I logged them in my HRD logbook.  I was excited….I had worked my first DXpedition.

The next morning I checked their online logbook and was disappointed to find when I entered my callsign it returned no results.  I wasn’t 100% certain of just how long it should or would take for their logbook to get updated.  However, I read on Tim Kirby’s, G4VXE blog that he had worked them the same day and he was able to confirm his QSO.  While I knew I worked them, I also wanted the confirmation via their website and also I wanted their QSL card to document this special occasion.  By the way, the T32C website indicated that if you didn’t see you callsign on their online logbook to try them again.  This is exactly what I planned to do.

The next day was Wednesday and I routinely work from home on Wednesday and Fridays.  Between the conference calls and a few other urgent tasks I needed to complete, I kept an eye on the DX Clusters and saw them being reported on several bands, but not on 17 meters.  I took a short break in the afternoon and found them on 12 meters with very few takers.  They heard me on the first call and once again T32C was in my log, but on 12 meters. 

Later that evening I went back downstairs and quickly worked T32C on 15, 10 and 20 meters.   I was excited and pleased to have worked this DXpedition four times on four different bands in one day.  But one thing didn’t feel right..I wanted to get them on 17 meters.  I still had several days and would just have to keep trying. 

Friday afternoon between conference calls I managed to work Italy and a new DX entity of Netherlands on JT65.  Then when spinning the dial on 17 meters, I heard T32C calling CQ.  Once I worked out the split frequencies, I replied to their CQ and heard them answer me.  I carefully listened to make sure he heard my callsign correctly.  QSL….he had.

On Saturday morning I checked and YES….the 17m QSO was showing.  As you can see below, I successfully worked T32C on 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 meters.  I’ll call this the T32C Sweep.  I’ve gotta admit that I’m somewhat glad my first 17m QSO didn’t end up in their log.  I’m afraid I might not have been as motivated to keep trying.

A long story short, I’m really delighted to have worked the T32C Sweep and I look forward to working more DXpeditions.  My next goal is to work TX7M.  Will you join me?  Now I need to go so I can try to find TX7M on the bands. 

Until next time,

73 de KD0BIK

I often think of amateur radio as if I’m on a hunting or fishing expedition.  I know for younger and perhaps less patient individuals, this thrill may or may not be shared with the same excitement and enthusiasm.  When I walk down the fourteen steps into my basement ham shack or drive up to the mountains for a few hours of portable, outdoors operating….I don’t always know what is waiting for me on the bands. 

I’m reminded of an interview I did with Duncan McLaughlin, KU0DM back in episodes 28 and episode 29.  I hope you’ll listen to those two older episodes.  Duncan and I discussed the possible challenges of attracting todays youth into the hobby.  The youth of today are growing up in the information age where everything is instant and immediate.  Want to talk to someone on the other side of town?  They probably have a cell phone.  Want to talk to someone on the other side of the planet?  They probably have Skype.  Duncan believed the possible ice breaker was in the area of Radio Sport or contesting.  Duncan described his philosophy as the difference between fishing and fish sticks.  One can take a fishing pole to your favorite lake, pond or stream and may or may not catch a fish….but chances are the local grocery store will be well stocked in boxes of fish sticks.  This simple, yet truly interesting way of looking at things is really what amateur radio is all about and in my opinion what makes it special.   

While amateur radio requires a license in order to operate on the bands, what amateur radio gives us in return is a license to learn.  What we learn might fall into the category of electronics, antennas, solar propagation etc. and these are all important.  However, just as important, I enjoy learning more about the geography of those new DX stations I’ve been working. 

Of course, when I see a station call sign such as a M0, ON or JA I do recognize them being geographically located in England, Belgium and Japan respectively.  However, I’ve also really enjoyed learning more about the callsigns I’m not as familiar with such as UT, CT3 and my most recent DX entity of T32.

Yes our planet is large, but our wonderful hobby of amateur radio can make it much smaller if we let it.  As most have probably heard, band conditions are getting better and better.  Even for US technician class operators, the 10 meter band has been booming with lots of excellent DX opportunities.  Go to your ham shacks and get those rigs fired up and enjoy the thrill of the hunt.

Until next time….

73 de KD0BIK (Jerry)

While the main purpose of this blog is to document my own activities in amateur radio, I do enjoy focusing its attention in an educational manner from time to time. This blog post will be just that…an attempt to provide a little educational value to your reading enjoyment.

If you peruse through amateur radio blogs, amateur radio websites and even amateur radio club websites, newsletters and other publications you will certainly see the term we use to identify our hobby and service written in many ways. Of course the term I’m talking about is the “ham” in ham radio.

Before I go much further (and I do intend to keep this blog posting short), we don’t know a lot about why we are called hams. There are many ideas floating around and most generally agree the true meaning as simply been lost in time. Having said that, the more common idea today is the word may have originally been used to describe a poor operator. This of course was back in those early wireless days when spark was king. This common theory goes on to assume the government, coastal or ship stations may have received interference from early amateur stations and referred to these early amateur stations as hams. It is then believed, not really knowing the word was meant as slang, early amateurs picked it up and began referring to themselves as hams. But remember, this is only a theory.

In todays technical (and not so technical) world we live in we have grown to know many things by an acronym. Just to refresh everyone’s memory. An acronym (credit to Merriam-Webster) is formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term. An example which most will be familiar with is NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) or FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations) or how about ABC, NBC and BBC. The acronym (regardless of the number of letters/words) is written and referred to by those letters typically written in upper case.

As I stated, these acronyms are all around us. In my day job, I have to be very careful when I am presenting or teaching to not get carried away with throwing out acronyms as I shouldn’t assume everyone understands their meanings when I start speaking about FAQ, VPN, VoIP, TCP, CRM and ERP.

In the amateur radio hobby we use many acronyms to describe various components of our hobby and service. Some that come to mind are FCC, ARRL, RSGB, SSB, SSTV, PSK, RTTY, VHF, UHF, HF, CRT, LCD, LED, EME, CMOS and MOSFET. I’ll stop there as you get the idea.

The take away and educational point I’m driving home is the word “ham” in ham radio is not an acronym. Simply put, the word is just a word which follows the laws of regular sentence structure. Since it is not an acronym, it’s not necessary to capitalize each letter (e.g. HAM) it is also not necessary to place a period or dot between each letter (e.g. H.A.M.). If you are writing ham radio in a sentence it just follows all the normal rules. Ham would be capitalized if starting a sentence. If not, ham would just be written in lowercase. That really is it.

Of course, nothing bad will happen if you choose not to follow this guidance. But in my opinion, (and others agree) writing it as an acronym or going outside of the rules of normal sentence structure is not correct. This just leads to new hams becoming confused and of course teaching something which just simply isn’t true. The issue just perpetuates itself on down the road. To go back to Merriam-Webster, “perpetuates means to make something, (typically an undesirable situation or an unfounded belief) continue indefinitely.

Until next time….

73 de KD0BIK (Jerry)

Just a few weeks ago I blogged about QSO Party Colorado Style, being that Texas is my birth state and where I lived until around the age of 32 (I’m a few days away from 45) I decided I would spend some time operating in the contest.  While I do realize after operating in two QSO parties in less than four weeks, what I’m going to say next may not make sense, but I don’t consider myself a serious contester.  In the four years I’ve been licensed, I’ve only ever operated in a handful of contests and have only submitted logs two or three times.  Perhaps I’m more of a casual contester. 

The reasons for my lack of contest involvement could be the same as anyone else’s.  I don’t always have hours and hours to dedicate to operating a contest and when I do I may not want to spend all the time operating in a specific mode or band.  But both the Colorado and Texas QSO parties occurred when I had several hours to devote and I enjoyed operating in both to represent my home state and birth state proudly. 

Unlike the Colorado QSO party, the Texas QSO party is two days long (12 hours on Saturday and 6 hours Sunday).  Of the total 18 hours, I estimate I operated about 5-6 with the majority of that time spent on Saturday.

Being the casual contester that I am, I eased into my Saturday morning just like any other Saturday.  I grabbed my first cup of coffee and followed up on the news.  Of course the BIG news was where did the bus sized satellite crash?  Since I didn’t hear anything crash through my roof I assumed it was not anywhere near Colorado.  I quickly read through my Facebook, Twitter and Google+ threads and by that time it was time for cup-o-coffee #2 and a more suitable time to turn on the HF rig and get the computers fired up. 

Over the past few weeks, HF conditions have been extraordinary and the week leading up to the Texas QSO party weekend was no exception.  I’ve read tweets and other blog postings talking about openings on 10, 12 and 15 meters.  This is great news for those US technician class hams who have an HF rig.  Remember you have HF phone privileges on 10m from 28.300 to 28.500.  Listen around the 10m calling frequency of 28.400.   In addition to phone, you also have RTTY and data privileges from 28.000 up to 28.300 including the JT65 frequency of 28.076.  There is no reason you can’t get in on the fun as well.  Want to know more about JT65?  Check out my practical amateur radio podcast episode #46 you’ll find tips and links for this awesome mode.

Anyway, as I said HF conditions have been amazing and fingers crossed I would have no trouble working Texas from Colorado.  As I was applying my second cup of coffee, I tuned around 20m listening for other Texas stations.  I figured I would start off by using the “search and pounce” method and then find an open frequency and “run” for a while.  As I tuned up the band and then back down all I heard was static and the occasional high powered net controller running whatever net happened to be taking place at the time.  I checked Twitter and even tweeted that it appeared band conditions were really poor and the contacts were just trickling into the log book.  Keith, G6NHU shared with me a blog article he had written earlier explaining why the HF bands weren’t playing well.  By the way, if you don’t follow Keith’s blog….you should.  Keith has an ongoing project called QSO 365, as he strives to have at least one QSO per day in 2011.

After stepping away for a few hours to get a few projects done around the house, I returned to find the afternoon conditions much improved.  I quickly worked the stations up and down 20m and then found me a spot around 14.280 and began calling CQ Texas.  I found I could get brief runs going, but it was mostly still slow going.  At the end of Saturday evening I had managed to work 40 Texas stations in 28 unique counties.  The stations I worked all commented on my strong signal.  I was running 100w into my hamstick dipole.  I must also admit their signals were all fairly strong as well with true 59+ readings.  I only had trouble with a couple of mobile stations, but worked them in the end.

My two most memorable stations worked on Saturday would have to be NA5DV and NU5DE but of course for two different reasons.  NA5DV was operating from the Battleship Texas which is anchored just beside the busy Houston ship channel and near the San Jacinto Monument.  As a child we would visit the Battleship Texas every few years and I have very fond and dear memories of climbing on and exploring around this incredible ship.  The Battleship Texas was commissioned in 1914 and served proudly defending the United States of America and representing the great State of Texas in both WWI and WWII.  Working a ham station on board this beautiful lady and eventually getting the QSL card for my collection was the highlight of the day. 

Yes, I said I had two memorable moments on Saturday, NU5DE (yes that is a vanity call sign) is a naturist amateur radio club near Austin, Texas.  After working this station, I tweeted “Just worked NU5DE.  This is a naturist ham club.  I’m not sure how they were dressed, but I kept my clothes on”.   Hey…amateur radio is for anyone and everyone.  If this is the lifestyle they enjoy…then I’ll only take my hat off to them.  ha ha

After a somewhat sleepless night and getting up/staying up from midnight to about 3:30 AM, I worked some RTTY stations and then got started with the Texas QSO party again on Sunday mid morning.  I worked another 15 stations to top out at 55 total stations worked and earning a total score of 3,740.  My total Texas county count was 32 of 254.  I did manage to work my birth county (Henderson) and the county where I grew up (Anderson) along with counties I’ve lived in including Smith, Dallas, Travis and Williamson.  But I’m not really a county chaser. 

I’ll have to check the contest calendar to see what future contests catch my eye and match my available time.  But the Colorado and Texas QSO Parties are a must for 2012. 

Until next time…

73 de KD0BIK

A letter written by fellow amateur Christopher Seright, KE5ZRT has been posted on several blogs and on social media platforms such as Facebook and Google+.  I’m sure most will agree when I say some of our fellow hams and some amateur radio clubs are not as tolerant to the the recent changes in licensing procedures and new hams in general.  This episode I read the letter Chris wrote along with a poem by Eddie Phillips, N4EMP.

I hope you’ll listen and share this information with others.  You can download or stream episode 47 of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast from MyAmateurRadio.com. 

Thank you for your time.

73 de KD0BIK