It's time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

A few years ago, the Baofeng UV-5R set a new price point for an entry-level handheld transceiver and quickly became the “easy choice” for a newly licensed Technician. It is a very impressive piece of technology for the money (about $30).

However, it is well known that the UV-5R struggles to meet the FCC Part 97 emission requirements. The ARRL lab has published the results of testing a large number of the Baofeng radios and many of them do not meet the FCC spec. Also, the receiver performance is not that great, primarily with respect to adjacent channel and out-of-band rejection. In other words, it is easily overloaded by strong radio signals.

In response, Yaesu created a low-cost radio using similar technology as the UV-5R but with (supposedly) higher quality. This radio escaped my attention when introduced but some recent reviews caught my eye.  In particular, the QST review of the radio includes a detailed lab test report. (The ARRL does a good job with these test reports.)  The review basically says that this radio performs well, especially considering its price class. The price of the radio is currently about $70, so it is more expensive than the UV-5R, but under $100.

Evaluating the FT-4XR

So I went ahead and purchased an FT-4XR to try it out for myself. The main question on my mind is should I recommend the FT-4XR as a good choice for a new radio amateur. I am a license class instructor for our radio club (W0TLM), so I often encounter new hams that are looking for advice on what radio to buy.

My general impression of the FT-4XR is that it looks and feels like a quality product, giving a better first impression than the Baofeng. It fits nicely in my hand and just felt good.

The usability of the FT-4XR is on par with the Baofeng, but a notch down from something like a Yaesu FT-60. In particular, the FT-4XR loads up the keys with multiple functions: press quickly for one function, press and hold for another function, use the “function shift” key for a third function. Yikes! None of this is labeled so you have to memorize all of this or carry a quick reference card with you. Not a huge problem because these are mostly features that are not used frequently or maybe not at all. This means that the FT-4XR is a radio that needs to be set up via programming software to get the desired memories in place. Then, you just choose the right memory / channel.  Not any worse than the Baofeng and similar to many, many radios on the market these days.

The standard FT-4XR manual is adequate but not great. There is an “advanced manual” available on the Yaesu.com web site that may help. The USA version of the radio does not allow transmit outside of the ham bands. This is probably a good thing, especially for a new user. Some people may see this as a disadvantage compared to the Baofeng, which usually transmits over a wider range of frequencies.

Transmitter Harmonics

I trust the ARRL lab tests but I wanted to measure the transmitter to see the harmonic performance up close and personal. The spectrum analyzer measurement below shows the transmitter with very clean harmonics on 2m, just as I would expect from Yaesu. If you look carefully,  you can see a tiny third harmonic just poking up out of the noise floor. (Sorry about the poor graphics, I just took a quick photo of the screen using my phone.)

The 70 cm harmonic performance is also very solid, as shown below.

I also checked the power output, transmit frequency, FM deviation and receiver sensitivity on both bands. Very solid performance. Again, nice job, Yaesu!

Yaesu Inconsistency

One thing I found disappointing is that the radio operation and accessories are not consistent with other Yaesu radios. I’ve got a decent collection of Yaesu handhelds, speaker/microphones, antennas, programming cables, etc. None of these work with the FT-4XR.  In particular, the FT-4XR uses the male SMA connector (same as Baofeng) and requires a new type of programming cable. However, for the first-time buyer, this doesn’t matter and it is no different than buying a Baofeng.

Some other reviews that you may want to consider:

Recommendations

Back to the main question:

Do I recommend the FT-4XR as a good choice for a new radio amateur?

The answer is YES, this is a better radio than the Baofeng UV-5R and it actually meets FCC Part 97 requirements. If you are considering the UV-5R, scrape up a few more bucks and get the FT-4XR.

If you want an even better radio, I’d suggest moving up to something like the tried and true Yaesu FT-60, about $160. It has a more robust receiver and is easier to use.

The post What About the Yaesu FT-4XR? appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur radio has a demographic problem. In the U.S., there is a clear belief that members of the hobby are old. And getting older. What that means in actual age distribution just isn’t known. Unfortunately, our “visions of gray” are based not upon accurate scientific measurement but on the assembled impressions we get through our personal “windshields” as we go about our daily travels. It’s standard convention to hear us hams urge everyone in hearing or reading range: we need to get more young people into amateur radio!

But whose amateur radio? The extant one driven by us largely gray-haired middle-aged to geezer-dom adult (men)? Yep, that’s the one generally being referred to in this wisdom. Our collective strategy amounts to getting them to come to “us.” How’s that working out for us? Given that our knickers are a bit tangled up over the issue, I’d say not so good.

Lee Corso, the curmudgeonly ESPN television sports announcer, is famous for his Not So Fast! comment when he questions another view or approach to the featured college football game being broadcast. Our attempts to bring new, young hams to our clubs is, in principle, admirable and understandable. But how is that working? Imagine a hobby dominated by young people. Say, competitive eSports (video games). We geezer-dom adults are approached to come to a teen-driven club, learn about it, and then join to continue to attend each month. How many readers would find that appealing? I’d bet not that many.

My recent interview in Episode 319 of the ICQ Podcast with Graham Brody KD9NTQ illustrates the clear market failure that this singular “come to us” approach has yielded. Graham’s interview suggests that while this is a good outreach program for many young prospective hams, it’s not enough to engage them broadly. And, it simply does not reach the market where the most likely candidates are socially engaged. Instead, Graham says help them get started…and get out of their way!

Graham KD9NTQ started the Illinois Young Ham Club to engage young people to converse about ham radio and grow into the hobby. We should listen to him and learn what one approach is to do what we collectively tell one another must happen. Talk is cheap. The walk, well, is just more effort. I’ll let you listen to my interview with him for the nuances of the details. But here are some bullet points that are take-away strategies.

• Do encourage young people to get involved with adult-driven ham clubs. But then encourage, sponsor and assist them to create their own youth-driven groups. Get out of their way but be available to help when called upon!
• Rich environments for exposing young people, both male and female, to amateur radio lie in Maker Spaces and Gamer Groups. Seek out, especially, maker spaces which tend to be advertised in local communities. Clubs should offer to give a demo—not longer than 30 minutes—without a lecture but with an actual demonstration of amateur radio operations.
• ARRL and RSGB should “tag” youth-driven or youth-oriented clubs in their Find-A-Club databases. Graham found the North Shore ARC in the Find A Club database. The Illinois Young People Ham Club, for instance, should be tagged as a youth club as should any others. ALL ARRL-affiliated clubs should report annually the number of members who are less than 25 years of ago so the League can track them. This should be a bench-mark metric to gauge progress in recruiting youth into amateur radio and the League itself. (To my knowledge, the ARRL is doing nothing released publicly to track youth members or contacts.)
• ARRL should offer a “build a club” set of actions to help young inquirers to the League start their own club. They will want to engage with others of a similar age range, Graham says, and the League should explicitly foster that activity, perhaps matching them with an existing adult-driven club for assistance. Be there if asked but get out of their way when they are enjoying the hobby! Walking the walk here as the League has already been talking the talk.
• Should the ARRL and RSGB buy adverts (or give ad swaps) in gaming magazines, promoting ham radio contesting as a greater challenge? Yes! Track the “how did you find out about us” using conventional “use this code” tags in the adverts. If one thinks they’ll just run across QST at their local Barnes & Nobles, they are very sadly mistaken. Graham bumped into ham radio on Youtube!
• Help them get launched. Get out of their way. They will grow into mid-adulthood and join our extant adult-driven clubs. Plant the seed. And get out of their way!

It is unfortunate that many organizations are heavily imbued with a “not invented here” mindset. That is challenging for outsiders to the inner circle of power to break through. See the thread and comment by W9WHE on eHam.net regarding the ARRL, for instance. There are many other examples of this opinion regarding the League. I suppose similar comments could be made about the RSGB, of which I am also a member. But whether “invented” by the central staff or Board of either organization, this teenager has given us a general road map to reaching young people, both boys and girls, similar to him: interested in technology but had to run across something called “amateur radio” on YouTube rather than the explicit efforts of the League. Quit talking without walking.

Graham’s a leader at age 15 already, just won his Extra license, and clearly has an understanding of many of these issues. We have to resist the conjuring up of all the reasons of why they won’t work from a geezer-dom world view. Well, a guy like me can dream, right?

Frank Howell, K4FMH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Mississippi, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to the 329th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short topics episode, the hosts discuss the Coronavirus and Hamvention, open positions at the ARRL, Kubeflow, LineageOS, SRain, Sweet Home 3D and much more. Thank you for listening and hope to see you all in Xenia this May.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2020 Mar 02 0510 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 24 February – 01 March 2020

Solar activity was very low over the period under a spotless solar disk. No Earth-directed CMEs were observed.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at normal to moderate levels on 24-25 Feb, 27 Feb, and again on 29 Feb-01 Mar. High levels occurred on 26 and 28 Feb with a peak flux of 2,170 pfu observed at 26/1950 UTC.

Geomagnetic field activity ranged from quiet to active levels over the period. Solar wind parameters were at nominal levels from 24 Feb through early on 28 Feb. At 28/0650 UTC total field began to increase to around 8 nT while the Bz component became variable between +/-7 nT. Solar wind speed initially increased to 503 at 29/0248 UTC before increasing a second time to 573 km/s at 29/1942 UTC. This increase in solar wind parameters was due to a connection to a negative polarity southern crown coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS) followed by a connection with an isolated negative polarity CH HSS. The geomagnetic field responded with quiet levels on 24-28 Feb and quiet to active levels on 29 Feb-01 Mar.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 02 March – 28 March 2020

Solar activity is expected to continue at very low levels.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to reach moderate levels on 02-03, 10-18, 22-28 Mar. High levels are expected on 04-09 and 19-21 Mar due to CH HSS influence.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to increase to unsettled levels on 02-07, 18-20, 27-28 Mar with active periods likely on 02, 19, 27-28 Mar due to CH HSS activity.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Links of interest:

+ Amazon space weather books: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC
+ https://Twitter.com/NW7US
+ https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Space Weather and Ham Radio YouTube Channel News:

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

..

Visit, subscribe: NW7US Radio Communications and Propagation YouTube Channel

Not much action during the contest.

I found the State QSO party challenge to be a very good way to get on the radio often and get my CW skills a workout. So far I have taken part in the BC, VT and MN QSO parties and this weekend it is the North and south Carolina QSO parties. I have developed a habit of rolling out my contest software the evening before the contest just to make sure all is functioning. It was a good thing I went through the check as for some reason when I started my go-to contest program N1MM+ I was greeted with a message that the comport this software uses to connect to my Icom 7610 was in use! I shut N1MM+ down and tried JTDX and N3FJP logging software and I again was greeted with the same message. Just last evening all was working just fine and programs were chatting with each other without issue but that is how computers work. The only program that had no issues was WSJT-X why I am not sure. The game began that took close to 2 hours searching for the reason for this new anomaly. In the end, after I restarted my PC for the I would say for the 5th time all was good and the issue was gone. During those 2 hours, I reloaded programs, shut down virus protection, updated radio software, reassigned comports and the list goes on and on and on. Not sure that the issue was but after one of many restarts all is good again at VE9KK. I am sure I changed something but after a while, you lose track of what you did between this time and the last time. I am glad I do this the night before as it would be very frustrating the day of the contest. I ended up posting my software issue on the Win4Icom I.O group I received 2 spot on responses one from the author of the program and the other from a great blogging friend. In a nutshell, the consensus was my comport to the radio was still active with N1MM+ after it has shut down thus giving me issues when trying t start my Win4Icom program. One suggest was to pay attention to the shutdown order of my programs and if all else fails to just restart the Icom 7610 to clear the comport to the radio.
Well it's Saturday morning and I am on the air both on 20m and 40m and I am just not hearing much action for the South Carolina QSO party. The UBA CW contest is going strong with DX into VE9KK.  All was not lost I was able to make 4 contacts in the South Carolina contest on Saturday for a score of 4 QSO's for a score of 274. On Sunday there were either more North Carolina stations in the contest or conditions were just a little bit better as I was able to make 9 QSO's for a score of
316.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Edmund Spicer M0MNG and Dan Romanchik KB6NU to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is - Launching the Illinois Young Ham Club and a report from the BRATS Rally.

ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS

We would like to thank our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

• Successful 47 GHz Ham Radio Moon Bounce Test
• Amateur Radio Operating Procedures
• British Radio Antenna Arrives at Space Station
• Spy Radio Found During Archaeological Dig
• SOTA Flavours Challenge DV Week 1-7 March 2020
• ICQPodcast's Ruth on Air
• UK 5 MHz Beacon to Close
• ISWL Callsigns for March 2020
• Distracted Driving Regulations in Canada Update

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].