The Ocean – Monmouth Amateur Radio club (OMARC) N2MO had the honor and privilege of touring the Battleship New Jersey, BB-62 on Saturday.

Our guide was Dave WA2TVS of the Battleship New Jersey Amateur Radio Club, NJ2BB. Nine OMARC members met at our club facility at 0800 and then car pooled to the battleship. Arriving around 0930 we were met dock side by Dave. The tour started with us going aboard and making our way forward. Standing in front of Turret One, with those three huge 16” navel rifles over head made it was quite an experience.

After getting a brief history of the ship we made our way to the communications center. The NJBARC has there Amateur Radio club Station in a small compartment just off the communications center. With four operating positions, it’s cramped. Our group split into to two groups. The smaller group stayed to operate and the larger group started out on the tour. Now having been on large naval ships before I was somewhat used to climbing steep ladders. But some of the group had to be watched on them. One has to remember that this ship was originally manned by very young men. So old men like me do have a hard time with the ladders. But the hardship of climbing up and down them was worth it. Dave give us the grand tour, which included areas not covered by the standard tour. We went up and down the ladders, and made our way aft, stopping at all the museum spaces that have been sit up throughout the ship.

After about three hours, we arrived back at the communications center. The smaller group had already eaten lunch in the galley. So we left them to operate and made our way to the galley for lunch: pulled pork, hot dogs and chili. After which we went back to trade places with the small group. I chose to be at the twenty meter station. Although the bands were not in the greatest shape, I started calling CQ. After a few calls, I started making contacts. The others in my group were on fifteen and forty meters. The massive antenna systems aboard the ship work great. Soon we were adding contacts to the logging program database.

Our time on board was short and we soon had to go QRT, but our time aboard will not be forgotten. I would like to thank the Members of the New Jersey Amateur Radio Club for being our hosts and allowing us to operate from this very special venue.

Our thanks also go to the Battleship New Jersey museum for all the hard work it has done and all the hard work it takes to maintain the ship as a museum. But most importantly: Thank You To All Those Men who took this grand Old lady into Harm’s Way in defense of our Country. THANK YOU, JOB WELL DONE!

Shortwave radio has been a source for great sci-fi plots, spy intrigue novels, movies, and so on, since radio first became a “thing.” But, what is the big deal, really? What is it that amateur radio operators listen to?

In this video, I share some of the types of signals one might hear on the high frequencies (also known as shortwave or HF bands). This is the first video in an on-going series introducing amateur radio to the interested hobbyist, prepper, and informed citizen.

I often am asked by preppers, makers, and other hobbyists, who’ve not yet been introduced to the world of amateur radio and shortwave radio: “Just what do you amateur radio operators hear, on the amateur radio shortwave bands?”

To begin answering that question, I’ve taken a few moments on video, to share from my perspective, a bit about this shortwave radio thing:

Link to video: https://youtu.be/pIVesUzNP2U — please share with your non-ham friends.

From my shortwave website:

Shortwave Radio Listening — listen to the World on a radio, wherever you might be. Shortwave Radio is similar to the local AM Broadcast Band on Mediumwave (MW) that you can hear on a regular “AM Radio” receiver, except that shortwave signals travel globally, depending on the time of day, time of year, and space weather conditions.

The International Shortwave Broadcasters transmit their signals in various bands of shortwave radio spectrum, found in the 2.3 MHz to 30.0 MHz range. You might think that you need expensive equipment to receive these international broadcasts, but you don’t! Unlike new Satellite services, Shortwave Radio (which has been around since the beginning of the radio era) can work anywhere with very affordable radio equipment. All that you need to hear these signals from around the World is a radio which can receive frequencies in the shortwave bands. Such radios can be very affordable. Of course, you get what you pay for; if you find that this hobby sparks your interest, you might consider more advanced radio equipment. But you would be surprised by how much you can hear with entry-level shortwave receivers. (You’ll see some of these radios on this page).

You do not need a special antenna, though the better the antenna used, the better you can hear weaker stations. You can use the telescopic antenna found on many of the portable shortwave radios now available. However, for reception of more exotic international broadcasts, you should attach a length of wire to your radio’s antenna or antenna jack.

Check out books on radio…

I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

It’s unseasonally warm this fall. Still wearing a summer outfit, running the AC at night and temperatures up to 30 degrees Celsius during the day. Makes for good portable operation weather and yesterday I had another one. It was the first time that I hooked up a laptop to my KX3 because I wanted to have some digital fun. I really miss my Olivia chat sessions, exspecially with Ken, JA1RZD. My KX3 comes with the stock heat sink, so I turned the power down to 3 Watts and even with long transmissions the KX3 only warmed up a little. Ken had no problem copying me, but that is also due to the power of Olivia and the beautiful view to the north. My school is situated on top of a low mountain range and the elevation of 290 meter ASL really helps in propagating my puny signal.

The wonderful view from our parking lot towards Japan.

The KX3 and Fldigi happily working together.

Been missing HamRadioNow, my podcast/YouTube show?

No? I’m hurt, but I’ll carry on. The show’s been ‘off the air’ since late September, except for one episode from the ARRL/TAPR DCC on FlexRadio.

I’ve been AWOL because I’ve been editing the DVD video of the K1N Navassa DXpedition from last January/February. Semi-apologies for the overwrought narration in the trailer. That’s not what the DVD sounds like, if you were worried.

If you’re into DXing at even a very casual level, you’ll recognize K1N, and likely you made (or tried for) a contact. Maybe you saw HamRadioNow Episode 205 – the K1N talk at the Dayton Hamvention’s DX Forum. Episode 206 was a spin-off conversation with one of the hams who was part of a 1972 Navassa DXpedition (and is the K1N webmaster). There’s a lot of interesting background in those episodes.

So, the DVD.

Last summer, Bob Allphin K4UEE, called me and asked if I’d consider editing the footage he shot of the DXpedition. Bob’s produced 9 other DXpedition DVDs, including the 2005 K5K operation on Kingman Reef, 3Y0X on Peter I Island, and FT5ZM on Amsterdam Island. He needed an editor for this one.

If you’ve watched many HamRadioNow episodes, you’ve probably heard me whine about how much I don’t like editing. I’ve been doing it all my career, and I’m kind of tired of it. It’s tedious and very time consuming. I can easily spend an hour or two completing just one minute of the finished product. The K1N program runs about 45 minutes, and I estimate I spent over 100 hours on it. You watch it in real time – 45 minutes – and you say ‘that was interesting. Next…‘

I’ll mitigate my rant by adding that I also find the process of editing very engaging and satisfying, especially once it’s over and I watch the finished product. The pain and time is sort of forgotten, and I wonder what I was doing for the past two months. Ladies, if that sounds a little like childbirth, I’ll acknowledge a weak resemblance. Very weak.

I’ll also admit that I’m not a speedy editor. It never mattered if I was being paid by the project or by the hour. I’m slow, methodical and detail-oriented. I screen and catalog all the footage before I start (why aren’t you editing yet?).  I fuss over each new scene, trying various combinations of shots, pacing and transitions. After I’ve moved on and edited the next few minutes, I’ll retrace my steps and trim up some already completed scenes. And then I’ll do it again. And you watch and say ‘that was interesting.’ Most of the movies and documentaries you’ve watched were done that way. Most of the TV news stories and prime-time programs were not – they got the hurry-up treatment. The commercials, though – which is where I spent most of my career – were also hashed and rehashed to within an inch of their lives. Maybe not the local car dealer spots.

So I knew I should have turned Bob down. HamRadioNow and a little freelance keeps me as busy as I want to be. I knew what he was going to ask when I saw his caller-ID on my phone, before I even answered. And I knew I was going to say yes, I’d do it.

The DVDs will sell for $25, and I’ll get a pretty good piece of the action – several $k if the initial run of 1000 discs sells well (well over 100 have already been ordered). That’s really nice, but it wasn’t my driving interest. I just wanted to tackle this project. I’m not a DXer. I’ll work a DX station if I come across one. In my 50 years as a ham I may have worked 100 countries, but I stopped logging and QSLing a long time ago, so there are no operating achievements adorning my walls. But I was attracted to this event. I didn’t work’em. I only tried a little. Maybe it was the Dayton talk that caught my attention.

Only a few people have seen the finished product so far, and the reviews aren’t in from ‘the media’ yet. A few of the hams who have seen it say it’s the ‘best DXpedition DVD they’ve seen,’ but I’m always wary of the usual grade-inflation we give each other. I’m pretty happy with it. It’s polished without being slick. More professional than most other ham-oriented media. But I’ve always considered the DXpedition DVDs to be the best-produced, most professional ham radio media out there. Maybe getting an entry in that category is what pulled me in.

It is Bob’s project, of course. He shot it, amid all his other duties as co-leader of the K1N project. He got to review it often while it was in progress, and he made a few requests for additions, deletions and changes. But I think he may have been a little overwhelmed with what I was putting in there. If you’ve watched HamRadioNow, you’ll recognize my fingerprints.

And my voice. Most of Bob’s previous videos don’t have much narration. He talks to the camera some while shooting, and he’s recorded a little post-production narration. But mostly his previous videos strike me as really good home movies. I gave it more of the documentary approach. As I got into editing a segment, I’d pull the footage together, figure out what the story was (Bob gave me basic notes on every shot), and decide what narration it needed, if any. I’d write that into a script, and record myself reading what we call a ‘scratch track’ – a temporary version that gave me the timing I needed for editing. The plan was for Bob to record the script once it was finished. But he liked what I’d done for the temporary version, and we decided to keep me as the disembodied voice. There’s still plenty of him talking from behind the camera (also a disembodied voice) as he was shooting.

I had to re-record my part, since I had recorded the ‘scratch’ version in a fairly noisy room. I did the finished recording at the SoundTrax recording studio in Raleigh, NC (where I freelance a lot). It’s got the quietest couple of hundred cubic feet of studio space in the southeast (a room ‘floating’ on all sides, with an air-gap isolating it from surrounding noise. Yep, even the floor is suspended above the building’s floor), and a $3000 microphone (Neumann U-87).

And I couldn’t use it.

I had recorded the scratch track slowly and deliberately, fairly laid-back and laconic. Alone in the studio, with no producer to give me feedback, I sped through the script like the paper was on fire. It was terrible. I didn’t have time to go back to SoundTrax and record again, so I draped some blankets over the exercise contraption in our home gym and read it again into my Heil PR-40. I still like parts of the original scratch track better, and I used one or two of them (or three or four) where music or location-sound covers up the room noise. That’s what you’ll hear on the DVD.

I feel a sense of ownership of this video. I should – it’s got a little piece of my life in there, along with some style and quirkiness that you don’t usually find in documentaries (although the kids these days are also breaking all the old rules). I’m proud of it. But I need to give most of the credit to the 15 guys who went to the island for two weeks and pulled this off, and the dozens more who worked from behind the scenes before, during and after the operation itself. They’re the ones you’ll see on the screen or in the credits at the end. I wasn’t there, although I kind of feel like I was. Bob shot about 5 hours of video, and I crawled through it all, whittling it down to the 45 minutes you’ll see in the show. But I didn’t spend two weeks in the 100+° heat, eating MRE’s, sleeping on a cot with an inch of water on the floor, battling pileups and propagation. I know, I make it sound romantic.

And that ‘before’ part is more important than it seems. Any DXpedition to a difficult or dangerous part of the world takes lots of planning. There have been very few serious incidents in any of the many DX adventurers that appear to us as just a signal on the band (and a huge pileup a few kHz up the dial), either as a result of careful preparation, dumb luck, or both . But this one took something extra. Bob, Glenn Johnson W0GJ and several others spent 13 years working with (and sometimes against) the US Fish & Wildlife Service to obtain permission for the first DXpedition to Navassa since 1993. That story is told in HamRadioNow Episode 205 in their talk at the Hamvention®.

I think the DVD will make a nice stocking-stuffer present for a ham this Christmas/holiday. It’ll make a good club meeting presentation (and I know one single copy will make the rounds of every club in your town and the surrounding six counties, and that one will probably be a pirated copy of one that somebody actually bought or received as a gift. You’ll spend more on gas shuttling it around than you would buying another copy or two). You can order it at NavassaDX.com. Follow the links from there.

I’m looking forward to hearing what you think.

73, Gary KN4AQ

http://www.cqxiegu.com

Xiegu has come through once again with their latest firmware update to take care of a few small problems that were on the latest version of the X108G OLED outdoor version.

The first fix about a month ago was to address the issue with the Iambic keyer adding extra characters in while trying to send code. That was fixed and all is good now when using a paddle.

This newest firmware update takes care of a few things:
1) Fixed the A=B issue
2) Split mode-You can now work cw on on one VFO and voice on another for working nets when no microphone is available.
3) Split band is also working now so you can operate cross band if required
4) SQL adjustable levels also added to menu

One can now send code using the microphone PTT button while in CW mode in the event a key is not present, there is however no sidetone heard when doing this.
From what I read or what I think I read it looks like maybe one could send code while in USB mode, the rig does key up but there is very little RF going out, you can hear a carrier on another radio but no power deflection is visible.

This is a direct copy from the Xiegu Firmware Folder:

1. I. Update description

[A=B]

A=B functions are available

[Split screen] mode

Update the transceiver switching logic, both two VFO in any mode, split screen mode are effective.

1. The PTT switch is no longer disabled in CW mode. Ignoring automatically key settings when PTT is pressed (by pressing the manual key logic), enter the sending State and CW tone generated (microphone effective at this time), release the PTT to produce a state of setting CW the delay time of switching and quit sending.
2. When not in CW mode, no longer disable keying. Keying action and the VFO key were setup consistent (hand keys left / right automatic key). At this point, the carrier is related to the current VFO mode( Into the launch logic will open the carrier switch).

Key behavior in CW mode is not affected.

PTT behavior is not affected when there is not in CW mode.

3. [SQL]

Updated SQL code

1. SQL=0, invalid squelch;
2. SQL=1~10, the squelch invalid when S signal is greater than the SQL value, otherwise, squelch effectively.
3. [SQL]

When the user upset the X108G data, you can press the RST key, so that the X108G to restore the calibration data.

1. II. Firmware update tutorial:
2. Press the frequency knob (keep the action), turn on, connect the USB cable to the computer.
3. Open “ My computer”, there is a Update X108 (*:) mobile storage device.
4. Open Update X108 (*), delete the file, this time on the radio will show delete progress (waiting for progress to complete 100%).
5. Copy the latest firmware to the Update X108 (*:) to wait for replication to complete, and then disconnect the USB and the computer.
6. Restart X108G, firmware update is completed!

Xiegu Tech

WRC-15 has ratified the first new HF amateur allocation since 1979. Although only 15kHz wide it was agreed internationally. I hope that CEPT allows a wider contiguous allocation. I am sure I cannot be alone in finding all these non-contiguous 5MHz allocations very confusing.

From the RSGB report on WRC-15:
“Z8 has now officially been agreed as the prefix for South Sudan and will be formally entered into the Radio Regulations. Meanwhile the revised Radio Regulations from WRC-15 will officially come into effect from the 1st January 2017. “