It's nice we are in the upswing regarding our solar cycle but along with that comes an active sun both in a good way and not so good way.  This weekend is the running of the WAE CW contest and well the solar flux index is off the scale at 306 the sun had a few hiccups over the past few days in the way of solar flares directed toward Earth. The flares tossed out some juice (ionizing radiation) toward us and more specifically right into our ionosphere layer D! We now have a D layer that has become a suction cup for HF radio signals. How does all this translate into a CW contest you ask.....well I'm calling "CQ contest"  and no one comes back to you. When someone does come back to me due to this peculating of the ionosphere at one point they are S8 and then gone! But I can say the solar gods are fair about things in that conditions are like this all over. No sense getting upset about it as this is all part of the solar puzzle that at times we enjoy and other times we spend time doing none ham things. While at the same time checking back in now and then to see how conditions are. 

After several weeks of downtime due to a ransomware attack that crippled the Logbook of the World (LOTW) service and much of ARRL’s IT infrastructure, LOTW is finally operational again. Jeff Davis, KE9V, penned a compelling article in response to ARRL CEO David Minster NA2AA’s Second Century article entitled Dewy Defeats Truman! Davis’s critique eloquently highlights the shortcomings in ARRL’s response to this event. In previous articles, I’ve also addressed the inadequate communications and suggested improvements, while noting that members discovered the nature of the attack through a Maine public document.

NA2AA’s recent column suggests that ARRL leadership has failed to learn crucial lessons about communication, transparency, and stakeholder management during a crisis. Rather than approaching the situation with humility and acknowledging areas for improvement, the column draws a flawed comparison to the historical “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline—a result of rushed journalism. In contrast, any misinformation circulating during the LOTW outage was largely due to ARRL’s infrequent and uninformative updates, which lacked warmth and personality.

While the column rightly highlights LOTW’s undeniable success, it also raises concerns about the high volume of non-ARRL member usage. The suggestion of potentially charging for LOTW use is intriguing, especially given ARRL’s challenges with membership numbers and revenue, and its ongoing tendency to alienate and outrage members. Implementing LOTW as an a la carte service for non-members could be a viable revenue strategy for the organization. However, it’s crucial to recognize that paying customers may have different expectations than organization members. In the event of future outages or communication issues, ARRL should be prepared for less patience and forgiveness from a customer base compared to its membership if leadership sees no reason to change its course with communication and transparency.

ARRL Life Member, K3NG

This article was originally posted on Radio Artisan.

All of us are at one place or another in our CW journey and with each path there are up and down times. Times when things connect and other times when there is a disconnect. If you think about it this is not just CW that operates this way. When you are learning to drive one day you can parallel park like a pro and the next day you could not do it if your life depended on it. Learning the times table back in school and you are great with the 9 times table....then in class, you are asked 9x7  and you go blank. Well, going beyond ICR can be the same way. Is there something beyond ICR you ask.....by golly Miss Mollie there is! 

Learning is an adventure no matter what you are challenging yourself with. I am a firm believer that to keep the mind, body and spirit healthy you need to be challenging yourself. This brings me to the next step beyond ICR.  It is the art of words and Q codes training and it is different from  ICR. In my humble opinion, I do feel you should master ICR before you jump into word and Q code recognition.
If you have ICR pretty much happening for you the next step is instant recognition but with a twist. Your brain is very powerful and I can't emphasize this enough. Now understand when I say powerful it does not necessarily mean this next step is going to be a breeze. Remember you have trained your brain to hear a letter or a number and recognize the sound and in a split second.
Now your brain is going to hear QTH, OP, WX, RIG and so on it has been conditioned to tell you Q  T  H. Well it is time to change it up again but not to worry your brain can compartmentalize things with practice. 

How does this new adventure work you ask? Let's go in reverse for a moment and go back to when you were learning ICR. You knew dit dit dit dah sound was "V" as you hear each dit and dah but for  ICR to work that was just too slow and you would get lost and get behind. Oh, which reminds me of the art of copying behind....but that is another post.... moving from copying each dit and dah to ICR you had to speed up the sending of each letter so it was impossible for you to hear each dit and dah but a sound. Learning the sound of each letter was the key.  The brain can handle that with no problem as you know if you have a grip on  ICR. 

Words and Q codes instant recognition is the same, you have to speed things up a little but just a little. Your brain has to hear what QTH sounds like and not Q  T  H. Impossible you say...I bet we all know CQ and 73 at any speed and don't hear the ICR equivalent of each letter. Your brain will put the new word and Q codes in a new compartment in your brain. Soon you will train your brain for words and Q codes. Keep reviewing your ICR as well and in time both will blend into one compartment in your brain.  The key to word and Q code instant recognition is speed up the sending just a bit. You want to hear the sound and each letter as ICR.

As for programs for learning words and Q codes, there are many programs out there that will send you anything a different speeds. If you have mastered ICR you will be aware of some programs that worked for you and chances are they also will function as word and Q code trainers as well. Just like with ICR work with some words or Q codes and then move on to more once those are familiar and then add more. Another excellent way to learn is to also turn the power on your rig to zero and practice sending the words and Q codes you are learning. The more involved your body is in learning the easier moving ahead will be.  

If you have any questions either leave a question in the comment section or email me and my email on my blog.

Hello and welcome to Episode 550 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short topics episode, the hosts discuss an award for GNU Radio, traffic nets, a new release of OBS, the aftermath of Crowdstrike, M17 hardware, the latest Linux Mint and much more. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

Results from the RAC 2021 Survey

In this brief article, I focus on how much transmit power is typically used on the HF and microwave bands. Survey respondents were asked about what they consider “typical” usage although these settings can certainly be different at any given operation. The results do give the reader a picture of how amplifiers are used on these two broad segments of band allocations by Canadian ham operators.

In Figure 1 (click for larger image), the maximum power used to transmit on 160-6 meters is displayed in a pie chart. Although many may not agree that 10 watts is QRP power, we are using that convention here. About three-fourths of the survey respondents say they use between 10 and 150 watts in a typical transmission. This is a wide gap in RF power. However, it is a range that places operators between QRP and what many of today’s HF transceivers will output. Some 17 percent use over 150 watts, perhaps up to their license limit. Only 7 percent report that they use QRP levels at less than 10 watts. These responses are not contingent on the mode of transmission.

Turning to the VHF and UHF bands, Figure 2 summarizes the typical power used in Canada. A similar pattern occurs as in HF and six-meter operation. Just under three-fourths (71%) use between 10-150 watts on a regular basis. A small slice, some 2 percent, report over 150 watts. About one-fourth (27%) say that less than 10 watts is what they typically use in these bands.

In both HF and the VHF/UHF frequency bands, only a small proportion say they use amplifiers to reach over the 150-watt RF power mark. There is a small but notable share using what we’ve termed QRP levels in HF (7%). A decidedly larger share use above QRP levels in VHF or UHF bands (27%). For many hams, this is very understandable, given the most popular band of 2 Meters (92%). But operations on HF using a 10-watt definition of QRP are much smaller.

The power utilized in the microwave bands reflects a very different picture. Figure 3 displays two box plots to illustrate. As shown in previous articles on this blog, microwave band usage is a niche activity within Canadian ham radio. Fewer than 10 percent report any activity but these spent quite a bit of time on these frequencies. Likewise, the boxplot in the left panel of Figure 3 illustrates the small number of microwave aficionados who use high power. (This is power in watts without consideration of antenna gain.)

In the right panel, I’ve reproduced the left-hand panel’s data in watts into a logged form to allow readers to more closely see the lower power portion of the distribution. The log of the power in watts places less emphasis in the smaller frequencies at the extreme power levels. The average power usage is 40 watts with a majority under 100 watts of power. This is not the power level emitted from the antenna with is buoyed by the relative gain of the antenna.

I examined these transmitter power reports by province, age group and license class. There was not much meaningful variation in those data apart from the differences in reported activities on microwave bands. In part, this is the limitation I mentioned of the small number of extreme values in the upper power range. The specialization of using high power in the microwave frequencies is a small number of Canadian hams, at least in this survey. It would take a new sampling design to “over sample” hams who are microwave users to get a more reliable estimate of the higher power ranges in use.

In summary, power output in Canadian amateur radio operations tends to reflect the output of the transceiver on HF bands. There is a wide variation in the category but this is a reasonable conclusion. QRP use is a bit smaller than I expected, given the popularity of portable operations (37%). But this reminds us that not all portable operations use low power. There is innovation in a small group of microwave operators. They use a significant amount of power. A later article will examine reported gain in antennas used in this band. As the microwave bands become more routinized in the hobby, these pioneering leaders will have laid a path for others to follow.