I rode my bike to the old Potter Place Railroad Station from Andover this afternoon. I worked Corsica, Oregon, Croatia and Spain. It was absolutely beautiful today.

It was a perfect, clear day around 75F. I rode about 2 miles from Andover along the old Northern Rail route. Part way into the ride I passed the old covered bridge at the Blackwater River.

The Potter Place station is a museum now. I set up under a huge pine tree on the south side of the track. I tossed a 30 foot wire over a branch and started with the KX3 on 20 meters. 9A2AJ, Tom from Croatia was calling CQ. I’ve worked him a dozen times before, and when I answered he asked if I was running 5 watts. He gave me a 579. He was 599 and I told him I was on a bike ride and was, indeed QRP.

Next I went to 17 meters where W1VDE, Roger in Oregon was just finishing up a QSO. At first he said I was only S1, but later he said I’d come up a lot and he gave me a 569. I tuned up a bit and was thrilled to work TK3LS on the island of Corsica. Laurent gave me a quick 599. He was very strong to me.

I was about to call it quits when I heard EA5KM in Spain calling CQ on 30 meters. He had a hard time copying my call, even though he was strong to me. We made a quick exchange and I packed up for the ride back. What a glorious day for a quick outing.

Judy and I went to the beach today. It was 93F. We walked along the shore, rode our bikes, and I worked a little DX.

After walking a mile or so along the beach, Judy took a swim and lay down for some sun, and I set up the KX3 on a bench overlooking Rye Harbor. Above the rocky shore wild roses decorated the entire area. I set up a 33 foot collapsible DK9SQ mast, which I happened to have in the camper. I used a cord to hold it to the back of the bench.

The wire is running alongside the pole. The yellow string you see coming out the side is just a line attached to the wire. I usually use it to toss over a tree branch. I didn’t bother to disconnect it.

I tuned up on 20 meters and made my first contact with John W5LNI in Arkansas. He gave me a 559 and he was 599 with 300 watts and a log periodic antenna. “UR 8 watts doing FB here,” he sent. I was really happy to make a contact with the poor band conditions.

Next I heard another station in Arkansas calling CQ. Darron KG5ABL answered and we exchanged quick 599s. He said he was having trouble with QSB and we signed.

Up the band a little, Remi LY8O in Lithuania was very strong. I answered his CQ and he gave me a 559. What a thrill to work Europe from the beach. Thanks for the nice QSO, Remi.

After packing up, we rode our bikes along the coast for a couple of miles. What a glorious day!

Since I left the Netherlands in 2010 the situation on VHF/UHF there has changed considerably. The Dutch telecom regulator (Agentschap Telecom, or AT for short) revised their repeater policy which resulted in some well known repeaters not getting their licence renewed. On the other hand it opened up opportunities for new experiments like the Coversity network in the north of the country, inter regional repeaters PI3UTR and even the world’s first intercontinental repeater PI2NOS with an access point on the Caribbean island of Curaçao (PJ2NOS). If you want to listen in you can visit the 70 cm webSDR at http://websdr.pi1utr.ampr.org:8901/.

What the AT also noted was that the 70 cm band was quite underused and that there were many requests for digital voice repeaters. The frequency allocation for digital repeaters was expanded and that resulted in a wave of new repeaters, mostly DMR. If you look at the current repeater coverage map it is clear that there are only few places in Holland without DMR coverage. Unfortunately for System Fusion users this means that their repeaters aren’t getting permits to go on air. Part of the problem is that areas are already covered by DMR and D-Star repeaters and part is that System Fusion repeaters run in dual mode: analog FM and digital C4FM. Running an analog repeater in the digital segment of the band or vice versa doesn’t make sense, of course, hence the rejections.

Curious about the fast rise of DMR I decided to check it out a couple of weeks ago while I was in Holland on a family visit. I pre-ordered a Tytera MD-390 which was waiting for me the day I arrived. Unfortunately, without programming (installing a codeplug) the thing won’t work. Being a DMR newbie I decided to call in the help of the local chapter of the VERON, who meet every Friday night in their own club shack in Arnhem.I wasn’t the only one who brought a DMR rig, which confirmed again that DMR is quite popular in Holland. The local DMR repeater owner Cor (PD0GHF) knew immediately what I wanted and called Dave (PD5DOF) in to help me out. Here he is working hard to get the codeplug in order.After a while he got it right and my rig sprang to life. The MD-390 came with two antennas and the longer one was necessary to be able to hit the repeaters when we were indoors.Cor then explained the use of Talk Groups and reflectors and although I understood most, DMR is still rather complex if you come from the analog world. But back home on the camping where we stayed I tried it out and it worked. My first DMR QSO was with Cor (PD0GHF), so that was fun.

After two weeks of using the MD-390 I was totally hooked. The rig can do both DMR and analog NFM and I did make a few QSOs via PI2NOS in good old NFM mode. But NFM pales in comparison with DMR. I have never been able to stand the white noise that is so typical in FM mode; it tires my ears too much. When there is a signal I really have to strain my ears to follow the conversation, especially with weaker signals that have a lot of artifacts. Because of this I have never liked having an FM rig in my car, either.

DMR, on the other hand, is crystal clear. The signal is either there or not there, but when it is there it seems the person is standing right next to you. There is a little “robotic” sound effect, often associated with digital voice, but overall I didn’t find it disturbing. There were no problems hitting local and more distant repeaters and quality was very constant. Amazing that they can put all this in 6.25 kHz of bandwidth. It makes good old NFM look “old” to me.

And then there is the linking of repeaters. Via my local DRM repeater I could talk to any one in the Netherlands on the repeater in their neighbourhood, not just the hams within reach of my repeater. The internet helps out here and linking is global. Saturday at 16 UTC the DMR-MARC World Wide Net is held and you can hear hams from all over the world checking in on Talk Group 2. Amazing!

Now I know many of you old timers will object to digital and the use of the internet in ham radio: “First it was Echolink, now it’s all this digital voice stuff hooked into the net. If it’s not radio, it’s got nothing to do with us hams. And digital signals don’t make for good DXing anyway. FM, AM and SSB degrade more gracefully and provide better signals under challenging conditions.”

I understand the objections. Even I rather listen to good old AM radio on shortwave and SSB on the ham bands. Unfortunately, these modes are fading out and are being replaced by others, if you like it or not. I still don’t understand the attraction of using any of the JT-modes, but they are more popular than ever. To me they are not what ham radio is about, but I accept that many others don’t agree with me. Luckily ham radio is such a diverse a hobby that everyone can find his or her “thing” and be happy with it.

And besides, we hams are quite innovative and always keep radio in the back of our head. We want to be independent, after all. Up and coming in the Netherlands is Hamnet. In short: HAMNET is a high speed amateur radio multimedia network based on commercial wireless devices using mainly the 6 cm band. An internet for hams via radio waves. Guess what you can use to connect all those DMR repeaters with each other instead of the internet? Analog is dead. Long live digital!

We’ve drawn the 36 winners of our 50+ NooElec SDR receivers. We had 1,398 entries from ham radio operators all over the world.

I’m always amazed how ham radio brings those with diverse backgrounds and geography together with a shared hobby and passionate interest — sometimes I think the world could take a lesson from us! I’ve made so many radio friends from all corners of the globe.

Before I announce the winners, I want to thank NooElec, our contributors, our sponsors and all of our loyal readers who have supported us over the years. We have over 4,500 newsletter readers and nearly 15,000 followers on social media and I’m grateful for every single one!

So… without further delay, here are the winners:

Two (2)
NESDR SMArt HF Bundles

Ray SM5XLP
Chris KD7DBL

One (1)
Raspberry Pi 3 NESDR SMArt Bundle
Includes Raspberry Pi 3, enclosure, SD card, and
2-pack of NESDR SMArt sets with antennas

James KI4HTC

Three (3)
NESDR SMArt sets with antennas
2-pack

Stefano IUØDFT
Dan W0UHF
Daryl N1BGR

Ten (10)
NESDR SMArt SDRs
2-pack

Sandeep VU3GUD
Mike VE3MIC
Roger G6NTQ
Robert KA1VF
Cori 2E0HWG
Bob W2RWM
Jari OH2BU
Rob W8MRL
Richard 4Z4DR
Pierre HB9FUF

Ten (10)
NESDR SMArt sets with antennas

Tim KJ6OIL
Joe KEODBJ
OK3OMG
James K3SE
John N1UMJ
Doug N2DW
Matt AE7DK
William WB6ANR
Egon VE6EGN
Richard WB2PEF

Ten (10)
NESDR SMArt SDRs

John W5AR
Rick K4NCX
Guy VA6GUY
James N1PZP
Landy KF5ZKR
Regis N1KXE
Rick KA0EGL
Bruno W6USC
Mike KD8KZT
Rich KB3NZV

If you’re a winner, check your e-mail for more details and don’t forget to enter our next giveaway scheduled for September.

If you didn’t win and you’re interested in ordering from NooElec, they’ve generously supplied us with a discount code for our readers:

AMRADIOTENOFF – $10 off orders $100 or more.
No restrictions.   Valid until 14 August 2016.

Thank you. again, to Jeff Crispino and the NooElec team. All of us look forward to more amazing giveaways!

The QSO with ON5DN in Rune’s shack would be the only one I made as SM/PA2BX. As I reported in a previous post I packed small and took a Chinese made crystal controlled, direct conversion trx with me. Just for fun and just to try out if you could make some QSOs with it at all.

Before I left Taiwan I tested it in the shack and there was indeed some signal coming out of it. But not the 3 Watts as advertised. Actually not much at all. In fact, barely noticeable on my power meter. And I’m lying here: not noticeable at all on my power meter. But I could hear a lot of Japanese stations on both 20 and 40 meters and I could hear my own signal S9+60 dB on my big rigs in the shack using only a wet noodle. Well, if not QRP then maybe QRPp. Or QRPpp. Or QRPpppppp. I didn’t expect a lot power from a single D802 transistor anyway.

So when we arrived in the small town of Rättvik, in Dalarna County I took out my small box and within 15 minutes I was “on air”. Enjoy with me the beautiful backdrop of my temporary, outdoor shack.Reception was good and I heard most of Europe on 40 and 20 meters by juggling between four different crystals and two end-fed half wave antennas. But my CQs went unanswered and answering the CQs of the strongest stations also didn’t yield a QSO. I didn’t mind, honestly. I had a lot of fun just listening and taking code, something I haven’t had time for in the last 18 months. And what really impressed me was the direct conversion receiver. Even more impressed when I heard a station from the US calling CQ.
Compared to Asia the bands in Europe are much more fun. They are crowded and you can hear many different modes any time of the day. In Asia there aren’t so many hams to begin with and during weekdays most of them work (Japanese retirees being a notable exception). On the weekends it gets busier, but then I have to work. Tough luck, so I was happy to get a good dose of ham radio in Sweden.

So, if you are thinking of buying a Chinese QRP CW kit of off eBay, then prepare yourself for being either surprised, or disappointed. The kit I bought was easy to assemble (surprise), received better than expected (surprise), but lacked the power for a proper QSO (disappointment).

Did you know that the different colored USB ports on your computer aren’t just for decoration? That the colors actually mean something?

What? You’ve just been plugging USB cables into whichever port is most convenient? What a rookie mistake! 🙂

Well, some ports are a whole lot better than others, and some even do cool things that you probably didn’t know about.

Gray/Black USB Ports

These are your run-of-the-mill USB 1.0/2.0 ports. They have throughput ranging from 1.5 Mbit/s to 480 Mbit/s in later versions.

Blue USB Ports

These are newer USB 3.0 ports. They range from 5 Gbit/s (USB 3.0) to 10 Gbit/s (USB 3.1). These are the better choice for devices that require faster speeds.

Yellow (or Red) USB Ports

These are called “sleep-and-charge” ports, meaning that they continue to supply power even when the computer is sleeping. This makes it convenient to charge a phone or tablet from your laptop battery.

Just as a side note, I’ve had computers that required me to enable this feature in settings before it would work.

Note: Most of the time white USB ports are USB 1.0, but some manufacturers use them for USB 3.0 ports.

So, next time you go to plug in a USB device that requires fast throughput, double check that you’re using the fastest port available on your computer!