Welcome to the latest Weekender edition of Linux in the Ham Shack! We're all ready for the weekend and we hope you are too. In this episode we give you some tips on special event stations and contests to participate in over the next two weekends, Linux challenges to try, some Scotch to partake of and a great fruit salad to try as well. Enjoy!

73 de The LHS Crew

No doubt you’ve seen the recent ARRL proposal to increase Technician HF privileges and the expected ensuing online debate over it.  In general I’m not opposed to the proposal, however I find myself indifferent. As others have pontificated, it’s not much of a hurdle these days to upgrade to General to acquire more privileges.  I was very supportive of the code test elimination and various changes over the years that have simplified licensing.  However, to some extent I think we’re at a point of diminishing returns with benefits from licensing changes and privilege increases.  There’s perhaps one specific area I see the ARRL-proposed changes increasing on air activity: FT8.  If Techs are given HF digital privileges on lower bands, I suspect we’ll see a lot of Techs end up there, and stay there, like a lot of Techs do today with 2 meter repeaters, unfortunately.  With new radio amateur recruiting, participation, and retention, where should our focus be, what are the real stumbling blocks, and where is the opportunity?  It’s not privileges.  In thinking about the ARRL proposal, I’m kind of left thinking, “Meh.”

We need to look where the bulk of amateur technology hobbyist activity is today.  It’s the Maker movement.  These are intelligent, innovative, and inquisitive people who would be a great asset in amateur radio.  It’s often been said that amateur radio and its perhaps dated technology can’t compete with the Internet, Xboxes, and cell phones.  That may apply to your grandkids, but with Makers it’s not an issue.  Makers enjoy playing with retro technology, like Nixie tubes, for example.  They like building stuff and experimenting.  They also like cutting edge technology, like satellites.  Amateur radio has the perfect blend of retro and modern technology, and it has the opportunity to take Makers beyond the typical Maker fare of microcontrollers, single board computers, 3D printing, and robotics.  Unlike “preppers” coming into the hobby for a specific application for their own purposes, Makers will be active and contributing participants and arguably are more likely to advance the radio art, as amateur radio was intended to do.  But we need to have a culture that welcomes them, on their turf, and their venues, not just ours.

The Maker movement is a potential goldmine for amateur radio, one that needs to tapped, right now.  This goes beyond having an amateur radio display at a Maker Faire stocked with pamphlets.  If we really want to increase participation and new licensee retention, we need to pull out all the stops and target this demographic with technology, exhibitions, publications, and venues that tie amateur radio into their curiosities, interests, and projects.  We need to be seen as innovators, not preservationists or on air retirement communities.  There needs to be cultural change within amateur radio.  While more kilohertz for newcomers is nice, and fairly easy to implement, it’s not going to get sizable returns in participation and retention.  Targeting Makers will.

This article originally appeared on Radio Artisan.

In February 2018’s QST was a very interesting and scholarly article, the cover story actually, on the effects of live trees on the performance of both vertical and horizontal antennas.  Things to ponder:

1. Living wood (trees, as opposed to dry dead wood such as boards) absorbs EMF from vertically polarized antennas.
2. Living wood resembles human tissue in terms of dielectric properties, so wearing your HT on your belt will greatly reduce your effective antenna power.  Presumably, unless you’re a real fathead like me, talking into HT held at your face should not be too bad.
3. A single vertical tree has next to no effect on horizontal antennas, such as dipoles.
4. A forest, containing lots of vertical trees, is even worse than a single tree like in your backyard, so for us backpackers and hikers, we need to find a clearing when trying to use our HT’s in the woods.
5. Worse, a forest will affect both vertical and horizontal antennas so when we’re operating in the field, for POTA or SOTA for example, we should look for a Goldilocks spot with enough trees to launch the, say, dipole, but not too many.  Better in Winter after leaves fall, though.

This is Wayne,  k4wk, http://www.hamdom.com.  Thanks for listening; you’re in the log.

Welcome to Episode 215 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, we take an in-depth look at APRS, the Automatic Packet Reporting System. This is a digital mode, frequently used on the VHF/UHF bands for propagating location information, weather data, message traffic and more from one station to another using packet TNCs and digipeaters for RF communication and I-Gates for connectivity via the Internet. Join us as we look at how you can participate in APRS using Linux and Open Source in your ham shack. Thanks for listening!

73 de The LHS Crew

Operating from countries outside the US can be a lot of fun. I just completed another another Slacker DXpedition, this time to the Cayman Islands. The formula for this type of operation is simple: identify an interesting vacation spot that is also considered DX, travel there with friends & family, take along some compact radio gear and get on the air. A key point is to not overdo the radio operating or the friends & family will veto any radio activity on future trips.

Licensing for the Cayman Islands is relatively easy if you hold a US FCC amateur radio license. Complete info can be found on the Ofreq web site. Licensing for the Caymans is typical of many Caribbean countries: fill out the application form, send it to Ofreq by email along with a copy of your US license, passport and $25US. Visitor call signs have the prefix ZF2 and you can request your favorite two-letter suffix. That’s how I got ZF2NR.

I was issued a Class A license which has all operating privileges. My spouse Joyce/K0JJW holds a US General Class license and was issued a Cayman Class B license, which has limited HF privileges (no phone on 40m, 20m, or 17m). So keep that in mind if you have a General Class license.

Grand Cayman is in grid EK-99 and is IOTA NA-016.

My equipment strategy was the same as my V29RW operation on Antigua (see V29RW: Slacker DXpedition to Antigua).  The basic kit is a Yaesu FT-991 driving a  end-fed halfwave (EFHW) wire antenna for the band of interest. Never underestimate the power of getting a halfwave antenna up into the air. The FT-991 fits in my carry-on bag and it covers all bands from HF through 70cm.

There is a 2m repeater (146.76 MHz) on Grand Cayman that works quite well. We received a friendly welcome on the repeater from Phil ZF1PB and several other Cayman hams.

Vacation Home

Our group rented a nice vacation home near Rum Point on the north side of Grand Cayman. This place is right on the water with an excellent sand beach. Denny KB9PDF/ZF2PF and I put up the EFHW 20m antenna supported by my SOTAbeams pole strapped to a palm tree. This setup worked quite well and we soon had a nice pileup of stations calling us on 20m. We did have some issues with local noise sources, the worst of which was traced to some dimmer switches in the house. This is one of the problems with a portable setup like this…you never know what RFI problems you’ll encounter. Later in the week, we put up a 40m EFHW and made a few contacts on that band, too.

ZF1A

Bruce/K0BJ suggested that I check into using the Cayman Amateur Radio Society club station (ZF1A) which they make available to visiting hams. I connected with Eden/ZF1EJ who confirmed that the station was available later in the week. Again, I did not want to overdo the radio thing, so we settled on operating at ZF1A during the middle of the day on Wednesday.

This turned out to be a great move. ZF1A has multiple towers with some very capable antennas. Like I always say: Never underestimate the power of using a large directional antenna on top of a big tower.  Eden/ZF1EJ met us at the station (it is literally in his backyard) and helped us get situated. Our operating strategy was simple: use the highest HF phone band that had good propagation and work as many stations as possible. We were also prepared to use FT8 if things were really bad but that was not needed. It turned out that 15m was dead but 17m was open into North America and Europe, so we did most of our operating there.

Here’s a short video to give you a taste of the pileup.

I did work some of the folks back home, which was a treat: K0AV, W0CP, K0BJ, W0RLY, W0GAS, WG0AT, KD0RQU. I had noticed that Steve/WG0AT was doing a Summits On The Air (SOTA) activation on Crooked Top Mountain (W0C/SP-090) and I gave him a call. Being QRP, his signal was very weak at my location but he could hear me with no problem.

Here’s the QSO audio that Steve recorded on his end:

Satellites

We worked two OSCAR satellite passes (AO-91, AO-92) using a pair of handheld radios and an Arrow 2m/70cm yagi antenna. The pair of handhelds gave us full-duplex capability: I ran the 70cm uplink on my HT while Denny ran the downlink on 2m. No surprise to find the FM satellites quite busy and a bit frustrating to work. I logged these stations from ZF2NR: KI0G, K3SV, TI2CDA, TI4DJ, HP2VX.

Results

My ZF2NR log shows 376 HF QSOs, most of them made by me. Joyce K0JJW/ZF2JW braved the pileup to make a few contacts. Denny/KB9DPF had some additional contacts as ZF2PF.  QSL to our home callsigns.

I’ve loaded the ZF2NR log into Logbook of The World.

Band Mode QSOs
   7 LSB    5 
  14 USB   65
  18 USB  306
 Total    376

In retrospect, I realized that we had the antenna pointed north most of the time and we probably should have looked in other directions. In particular, we only worked a few South American stations.

Most important is that a good time was had by all. Thanks to everyone that worked us while we were in the Cayman Islands.

73, Bob K0NR/ZF2NR

The post ZF2NR: Another Slacker DXpedition appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.