The old setup

As an avid contester, I find myself sitting at the radio for long periods and I am no longer a spring chicken my body is not as forgiving as it used to be. Some of the changes in the past I made were getting a proper desk chair, and making sure the monitors I look at for long periods are at eye level. Also getting up each hour and doing a little walking around also helps.
As I became more involved in my love of contesting, meaning I extended my operating times I then found other issues regarding age and repetitive moments that hindered my contesting time. To continue to enjoy my contesting adventure some changes needed to be made at the station. 

During a CW contest when your QSO count is over a thousand plus imagine how many times your baby finger hits the "enter" key on your keyboard. Let me tell you it is  TONS of times. I found some tendons in my right hand became very sore.  The problem was it did not go away after the contest it affected me for close to a month off and on. I changed it up by daily stretches for my hands, during a contest not hitting enter all the time but also using the F1 key. Both keys send "CQ TEST VE9KK" and I also added a wrist support to my keyboard and my mice for my right hand. 

Keyboard support.

During a contest many times, I would be spinning the VFO and changing RF gain to name a  few things. My radio was far back on my radio desk which meant I had to lean forward each time to play with the radio controls. After some time my back and shoulders would get very sore. Most times I noticed this the next day and not right away. To solve this I moved my Icom 7610 forward on the desk, this way there is no more stretching or leaning forward to make radio changes. 

Mouse support.

The next change was dual mice for my desktop using a free software program called Either Mouse. Why 2 mice you ask.....well on my desktop during a contest I have N1MM+ contest logging program on the go and Win4icom radio control software running. During a contest, I  may need to change filter settings, adjust the audio peak filter (APF)  and so on. While doing this during a contest contact in the past meant moving my mouse off N1MM+ program and over to Win4icom program and then back. The "and back" part most of the time gave me an issue. In the heat of battle, I would move the mouse too fast and lose track of it or accidentally click the mouse let's say on a macro and send something that just confuses the contact....you get the picture. 

During a contest, I have one mouse pointer on Win4icom program and the other on  N1MM+ contest logging program. This way I can click on either program. I also am using wireless mice as I found the corded mice were affected by RFI. 

The new setup.

Well, that's if for changes here and all for the love of contesting!

The Colorado Search and Rescue Association is promoting FRS (Family Radio Service) Channel 3 as “the default during backcountry search and rescue (backcountry SAR) emergencies.” FRS channel 3 is the same as GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) channel 3. There is more GMRS info here. To keep things simple, no CTCSS (“privacy code”) is used…carrier squelch only.  See the CSAR announcement here: FRS Radio Use for Backcountry.

For backcountry exploring, it is important to emphasize self-sufficiency and to avoid reliance on electronic gizmos that may fail. Avoiding an emergency situation is way better than having a device to call for help, which may be many hours away. See this article for a discussion of The Ten Essentials for Hiking.

Still, the FRS3 concept has merit. Many backcountry hikers already carry FRS or GMRS radios, so designating a preferred channel makes sense. My read on this is that randomly calling for help on FRS3 will not be very effective due to the limited range of FRS radios. However, it does not hurt to try. More likely, FRS3 can be used for local comms once Search and Rescue crews have been deployed and are within a few miles of the party in distress.

Ham radio operators may want to carry a handheld transceiver capable of transmitting on 462.6125 MHz. For emergency use only, of course.

73 Bob K0NR

The post FRS3 For Colorado Backcountry appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Hello and welcome to Episode 546 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts take a look at some of the variations of the newly released Fedora 40 distribution. Topics include installation, desktop environments, ease of use, ham radio readiness, quirks and more. A particular focus is the partitioning system and other potential issues. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

I am back and it's not that I have been anywhere but summer is here and well blogging takes a sideline as I have outdoor jobs to do and after all it is summer. I do keep up my readings on the blogs that I  follow but for posting my time has been allotted to other things. Also, there have not been too many radio-related exciting things going on. Now having said that this weekend I took part in the ARRL field day function. Since selling my KX3 and K2 I have no rig to bring into the out of doors so I entered again as indoor and house power or 1D  category. 

The ARRL field day contest is more relaxed and not as intense as other CW contests and yes before you ask I entered as CW  only. The speeds are in around 20-26wpm but you do find the occasional OP hitting 30 plus. I used my faithful Icom 7610 at 100 watts into my  Hustler 4BTV. The conditions were tough at times with deep QSB. At one point a signal was S7 and then gone so most of the time you had one chance to get the other stations' info. This is my third year taking part in this "event" and to be honest, I am not sure why in the past I never took part. 

This year I decided to add some flair to my participation, I used both of my Icom 7610 independent receivers. I have always wanted to do this but some CW contests are very let's say busy for me and to juggle a second VFO on a different band would let's say stretch my abilities. BUT radio contesting is all about learning, isn't it? For the field day contest I used VFO A as my running (calling CQ  contest) VFO and VFO B on a different band to both see on the waterfall if the band was opening and to search and pounce strong stations. When doing this you have VFO A in one ear and VFO B in the other....now that takes some getting used to. But the field day contest is the ideal contest to do that as it is a relaxed event. It seemed to work for me as I doubled my score and contacts this year compared to last year's field day. 

Regarding the important religious issue of ham radio modulation, I am agnostic. There is room in ham radio for many modes including CW, AM, FM, SSB, RTTY, DV, FT8, and more. This springs from my belief that the universal purpose of amateur radio is to have fun messing around with radios. As long as you are obeying the FCC rules (or equivalent), having fun, and not being a pain to other radio hams, you have my full support to choose whatever emission type you prefer.

When I mention the use of FT8, I often get comments from folks disparaging the mode. Usually, the complaint is that FT8 is too impersonal or that it relies too much on DSP and computer power to get the job done. Those are actually valid complaints. Most of us would rather hear the voice of the other operator (or their CW fist) and have just a bit of interaction with them, even if it’s just “Roger, Five Nine Colorado.” (JS8 is a digital mode that provides a bit more interaction, so that is another option.) And there is no question that we depend on the technology to make the contact (more so than your typical CW or SSB contact.)

Recently, I wrote about how I need A Reason To Get On The Air, which is all about going after some particular operating activity whether it be DXCC, SOTA, POTA or whatever. The main objective of such activity is making a radio contact. Can I get my electromagnetic wave through the ether and have it arrive at the other station’s location? Then can they get their signal back to me, so we have a legitimate contact. If so, I get to check the box on that radio contact. See What is a Valid QSO?

I am not alone because many hams are voting with their transceiver settings on a daily basis, choosing FT8 over other modes. They are prioritizing making the contact higher than having a robust conversation with another radio operator. In fact, I sometimes hear radio amateurs comment that they prefer not having to deal with the standard chit-chat that provides a signal report, name, location, etc. They would rather just get the contact and put it in the log.

And it’s not just FT8. Many examples of ham radio operation emphasize making the QSO, independent of the mode used: SOTA, POTA, IOTA, DXCC, WAS, WAZ, contesting, EME, meteor scatter, and more. Meteor scatter is an interesting one…on the surface, it is not the most exciting activity. Sometimes it feels like watching paint dry because it may take 20 or 30 minutes to complete a contact. However, there is clearly a challenge here…can I bounce a signal off a meteor trail and have it reach the other station? And can I hear the other station’s reply? I’ve worked new stations and grids on 6m and 2m using this method and I enjoy getting a new one in the log. Perhaps not much different than busting through a CW or SSB pileup trying to work a rare DXpedition.

So keep having fun messing around with radios, using whatever mode you like.
And make the contact…we can talk about it later.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Make The Contact appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Listening to the shortwave commercial stations (along with CB radio) has been a key gateway activity for entry into amateur radio. That was back when commercial shortwave was vibrant and perhaps in its heyday. There is still a very active set of SWLs contributing to the popular SWLing.com website and the legacy work by the well-known Van Horn family to just name a couple. The Spectrum Monitor publishes information about shortwave listening, too. Of course, the Grand Daddy publication, the World Radio TV Handbook is still around. But do amateur operators still listen to the shortwave radio bands? In this article, I want to address the question I just raised with a clear answer: They still do in Canada!

The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) fielded a national survey of Canadian hams in 2021. A total of 2,089 responses were received, of which 1,630 (78%) were from RAC members. Approximately one-third of all RAC members took the time to complete the survey. This is an example of “voluntary response sample” and is not a probability survey. The final report compared responses to known population characteristics which suggested that the realized sample data is generally representative of Province and license characteristics. I’ve just completed a full report from the data which is available on my FoxMikeHotel.com website. The results on shortwave listening are the focus of this article.

The results show that indeed Canadian amateurs listen to the shortwave frequencies outside of ham radio bands. Out of 38 specific operating activities, over a fourth (28.8%) of Canadian amateurs said they are involved in shortwave listening in a typical month. This was ranked 16^th out of 38, ahead of QRP operations, Elmering, weather spotting, and other activities thought to be popular in amateur radio. This result may be surprising to the reader. But my further analysis shows a clearer picture of how traditional shortwave listing activity is integrated with other ham activities.

I have included in Figure 1 a map of all license-holders in Canada from the amateur radio regulator, ISED. The provided licensee address was georeferenced to the street-level for the vast majority and city-level for the remainder. There is also a bar chart showing how SWLing varies by Province.

Amateurs in Canada are concentrated all along the Southern border and in the urban centers of the Southeastern seaboard. There is another concentration on the Western coast near Vancouver. For the survey results, the bar chart in the bottom panel of Figure 1 illustrates how shortwave listening varies. A majority of hams in Newfoundland and the Northwest Territory use shortwave radio for listening. Those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba round out those Provinces above the overall survey mark of 28.8 percent. Excluding Nunavut Province with only 2 survey respondents, the lowest engagement in SWLing is Alberta. The remaining Provinces are about equal, in the lower twenty-percent figure.

Do these results make sense? The physical isolation of the two highest Provinces makes using shortwave broadcasts very practical in many ways. But there is more to it as I investigated whether SWLing is a more obscure activity in ham radio or is it more integrated into portfolio of things that current amateur operators do today?

In Table 1, I summarize my crosstabulation of shortwave listening by other activities (some 37 tables). The three groups summarized in the table reflect whether there was a statistically significant relationship between the two activities and, if so, whether SWLing was greater or less when the ham said they participate in the comparison activity. If there is no significant relationship, then shortwave listening is about the same whether the other activity is engaged in or not. If shortwave listening is a surprising yet obscure activity, there would be few other activities associated with it. Or, perhaps there might be no relationship at all with a random assortment of hams tuning into to those bands.

What the results in Table 1 demonstrate is how significantly integrated shortwave listening is with a number of activities central to the hobby. There are only seven activities without an association and one with a negative relationship. Contesters tend to pursue SWLing significantly less. This is the opposite, however, of what DXers report. Ham operators who listen to shortwave bands also practice a variety of popular activities in their practice of the hobby. These findings tend to remove any doubt as to whether listening to shortwave radio bands is fully an integrated part of contemporary amateur radio in Canada.

Another question about these results is whether it is simply a residual activity of the large Baby Boom cohort? Should this be the case, SWLing is likely to age out of existence over the next couple of decades. If so, shortwave listening would be highest among the most senior survey respondents and lowest among the youngest.

In Figure 2, I constructed a line chart of shortwave usage by age group. There is a clear downward trend as SWLing is highest among younger hams than more senior ones. The significance test suggests that this overall age pattern is not significant. The result is that the survey result of a quarter or more of Canadian hams engaging in shortwave listening is not a holdover of amateurs from a previous era of the hobby as younger hams.

Even with there being a non-significant trend in opposition to the Baby Boomer remnant hypothesis, I examined how long these hams had been licensed (tenure) and a complementary question in the survey regarding long many years they had been active. Perhaps it is not age per se but length of experience as a licensed or active ham that might influence whether nor not shortwave listening is attractive. These results, too, showed almost no difference regarding shortwave listening and length of experience or activity in the hobby. This are positive findings for shortwave band usage outside of amateur radio.

To further assess how shortwave listening might be linked to other factors, I compared the rural-to-urban locations of amateurs in the survey. There are no significant differences even when compared within these Provinces. The rural-to-urban locale does not explain why some Provinces have higher shortwave listening levels than others.

To conclude, these are somewhat unexpected findings based upon the rhetoric that ham radio operators tell themselves in the public sphere. We frequently hear that shortwave listening is passe, that the commercial and government broadcasters are retreating, and so forth. These may be factually the case from the supply-side of non-ham shortwave transmissions. But the hams in Canada do listen to shortwave broadcasts or one type or another in addition to participating in the core set of activities that comprises amateur radio. Contesting is the sole specialty that is negatively related to such listening. By contrast, DXers are more likely to listen (30.2% vs 23.6%). There are Provincial variations in listening but no patterns within any of them that vary along the rural-to-urban continuum.

The relationship of SWLing to the rest of the amateur radio hobby’s activities appears well-integrated. While the broadcast sector of the shortwave industry is at a low ebb right now, amateur radio in Canada still embraces listening to the non-ham bands. We do not know how this national survey of Canadian amateurs may compare to those of other nations. However, it is the sole survey of which I am aware that measures the activities of amateur radio operators in such detail. Until we do have comparative surveys, the RAC Survey 2021 is our only objective insight into ham radio activities.

Some readers may view these surprising results through their own “personal windshield” of listening experiences. “Why, I don’t know any hams who listen to shortwave broadcasts,” they might say. Others could counter, “Well, we need some “good” survey data on this issue.” I’ve spent a career conducting surveys, teaching survey research methods to PhD students (and fellow faculty), and advising some of the largest survey organizations in the world, such as NORC at the University of Chicago, the SRC at the University of Michigan, and the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service to name a few. The RAC Survey of 2021 is not a high quality statistical probability sample costing a few hundred thousand of dollars. But it is the best one I’ve seen to date on a national scale with behavioral measures of amateur radio operators. So while the reader’s experiences on SWLing might indeed be differ, it is the aggregate picture that we have never had national level results like those in the RAC Survey 2021. Do they apply to the U.S.? Well, would you rather go just with your personal windshield to generalize or take the picture these results present as our best guesstimate for similar behavior in the States?