Agent 86 in the 1965 NBC Television comedy, Get Smart, was a raging success during the years it was on network television. The phrase, Get Smart, became a water cooler slogan in the United States. While it was a comedy of errors on the part of the “smart” agents, the phrase has continued on for a half century.

We are reviving that phrase but it’s no comedy! As part of the Plant the Seed, Sow the Future initiative with the ARRL, I have resurrected an acronym that I created some years ago. S.M.A.R.T. stands for Saturday Morning Amateur Radio Time. Saturday morning is a time when many amateur operators and the public are away from their weekly schedules and attend to other matters. Like hobbies.

David KC5AAW used that phrase to organize a couple of outings in local parks in Madison MS before the ARRL’s National Parks on the Air program was created and, of course, prior to POTA^(tm) becoming popular. It fizzled out after a few highly enjoyable outings due to KC56AAW entering graduate school while maintain his professional career but I had not forgotten the acronym.

My resurrection of S.M.A.R.T. is this. The Gallup organization has found that women and youth frequent public libraries twice as often as they do movie theaters. It’s the most common cultural crossroads for these two demographic groups in the United States. Supporting the newly-approved program by the ARRL to assist affiliated clubs to partner with local public libraries, the concept is for a local club to organize periodic ham radio activities at area public libraries on Saturday mornings. These programs are not directed at fellow amateur radio operators but to the general public. Patrons can thus Get S.M.A.R.T. at the library!

To kick this off locally, I’ve been working with the Jackson Amateur Radio Club to implement a formal partnership with the Madison County (MS) Public Library System. The JARC is securing funds to donate material and equipment to help build-out the MCLS “maker spaces” for STEM programming. JARC recently donated $2,000 of books and posters to the MCLS as described on the ARRL News feed. They are attempting to secure funds to donate the first of several 3D printers to the system, among other “maker” equipment.

A Get S.M.A.R.T. at the Library series will begin on March 2, 2024 with an introduction to patrons about today’s world of amateur radio. In May, when the weather is more predictable, a live activation of the Madison MS Branch Library is planned. It will be in a garden area behind the building, containing a gazebo and several permanent picnic tables. There are large, tall oak trees for antenna placement! We will setup portable stations so patrons can see and participate in today’s amateur radio action. (I’m looking for a hotdog vendor…) All of the Library System Administrators are anxious to attend and get a turn operating a radio. The flyer I’ve developed for the first event is shown at the end of this post.

Activities like these are planned to continue. The JARC will gauge the interest for a Technician Class during the year. The STEM programming from these activities will significantly enhance the Library system’s offerings to the public. We expect that new hams will become minted as a result.

Here is the standardized logo for branding the concept. It’s designed to be reusable with new dates, times and places. This will help build logo recognition for the program over time. If you’d like to use this concept at your local club, just drop me a note at my QRZ.com email address for permission to use the copyrighted logo. I’ll send you a blank one for your artwork and non-commercial use.

Amateur radio clubs should consider “getting smart” at their local libraries as an educational outreach program. The future viability of the hobby may just depend on it. Plus, it’s fun to share what you do in amateur radio with others who are already at a place because they want to learn stuff.

The Get S.M.A.R.T. at the Library concept has now gone international. The Sutton & Cheam Radio Society in South London has adopted the program (with express permission). Martin M1MRB and Chris M0TCH will lead an eight-week series at a local library, teaching the public about today’s amateur radio scene. Martin has created a website for “smart radio” in the UK to support the efforts. It’s exciting to see this idea gain traction across the pond!

This program concept can easily be replicated wherever there are ham radio groups and public libraries. It is far, far easier to get into libraries, who actively seek outside groups to provide content programing, than it is schools. Both are important for training a new generation of hams. Public libraries are the place where “home schooled” children frequent to get educational resources. So “schools” are not the only place where children are getting “schooled” as the home-schooling movement is significant in terms of size. A Washington Post article claimed it is the fastest-growing form of education outside of a conventional school setting in the U.S. Most estimates of the total numbers range from 3-4 million children nationwide.

See my previous blog articles on engaging with public libraries as another “served agency” for amateur radio. Libraries want ham radio clubs there for STEM programming. Just build a relationship with the Library System Director, much like an Emergency Operations Center relationship. Similarly, this is not a “drive by” donation to a library but a served agency relationship that is built over time.

The ball is in your court. We are already dribbling here in Central Mississippi!

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 189 is now available for download.

George hacks a gamer headset for radio use. Emile has video from Swamps On The Air. Mike begins his BitX 40 build.

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There have been times when as a ham I have needed things for the shack. As I look online and see the options out there and the cost I have my frugal within me kick in. I have had this internal argument in the past and it has worked out and saved me money other times it has cost me money. To be honest most of the time it has cost me money. 

What am I referring too you ask..let me give you some examples. At one time I needed a coax switch and there was the Alpha Delta and the other ones. The price point was almost 1/2 and I decided to go with the non-Alpha Delta brand. Bad move as in short order I started to have issues with the coax switch and ended up spilling the beans for the Alpha Delta. As a side note, the Alpha Delta was fantastic and NEVER an issue. 

Then there was the mobile antenna mount and I ended up getting the Larson and also a Diamond mount after a failed cheaper mount. Then the bargin power supply which was noisy and garbage was replaced with an Astron supply and I have never looked back. The cheap snap-on toroid chokes were replaced with quality toroids. 

I have learned my lesson over time and know that the pain of spending a bit more removes the larger pain when you have to spend again but I have to admit it took a few purchases for me to see the big picture. As a side note the brands that I mentioned are not by any means the only quality products just the products I purchased to replace the mistakes that I bought.

Hello and welcome to Episode 529 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short topics episode, the hosts discuss the removal of HF symbol rate limits for amateur radio data, solar eclipse studies, new TLE data for ISS tracking, a new release of Linux Mint, a new Linux kernel and much more. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

When I was working Mondays were not often looked forward to unless it was a long weekend and Monday was a holiday. Now being retired Mondays have a new meaning and one of the things I look forward to is the ICWC medium speed (MST) CW 1-hour contest. The times for mini test here in Atlantic Canada are 9-10 am and 3-4 pm local time. 

In the mornings I hug my mug of coffee, warm up the room and get the radio and PC up and running. Most of the time in the morning event I search and pounce for a time to get my head into the CW game. I enjoy the company and the speed is maxed at 25wmp. Not to worry if you are considerably slower as the op's will tone down the speed to match. It's one of the ways Mondays are more of a joy....a cup of java and a radio.

When radio amateurs get ready to put an HF station on the air, they often have questions about what antenna to use. The good news is that there are many options to choose from. The bad news is that there are too many options to choose from. It can be overwhelming. This post describes an antenna I just installed that is easy to put up and works well.

Having 30-foot tall pine trees on our property, my usual approach for HF antennas is “wires in the trees.” I have several ropes strung up over these tall trees so that I can raise and lower wire antennas as needed. These ropes were installed using a slingshot to launch a fishing line over the top of the tree, and then pull up a lightweight rope.

End Fed Long Wire

The antenna is the EFLW-1K from MyAntennas.com, which is an End Fed Long Wire Antenna. (This should not be confused with an End Fed Half Wave antenna.) This antenna is intentionally cut to not be a resonant length on any of the bands. The 9:1 UNUN transforms the high impedance at the end of the wire down to something closer to 50 ohms. The match is not perfect so an antenna tuner is required to cover all of the bands. MyAntennas offers this antenna with different lengths of wire, with longer wires required to support the lower HF bands. I purchased the 53-foot version but decided to shorten the wire. My interest is working 20 meters and higher and I wanted the antenna to be mostly vertical, so I shortened the wire to about 30 feet. The MyAntennas products are good but any 9:1 UNUN on the end of a wire will work.

An endfed antenna like this needs some kind of counterpoise to balance out the antenna operation. Many people have written about this and there are many different approaches. The MyAntenna UNUN has a connector intended to support adding a short length of counterpoise wire. A decent length of coaxial cable lying on the ground can function as this counterpoise and that’s what I decided to use. I have a 50-foot length of LMR 400 connected to this antenna, lying on the ground.

I also added an inline isolation transformer to minimize the common mode currents getting back to the transceiver. I don’t know that this is required but I had one available so I used it. The antenna has 50 feet of LMR coax to the inline transformer and then another 25 feet of RG-8X to the transceiver. The internal antenna tuner in my Icom IC-7610 handles this antenna quite well, tuning up on 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m. This means I can instantly switch between the bands and be ready to go.

I’ve been running SSB, FT8 and FT4 on this antenna, working many stations in all regions: Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, North and South America. Conditions are great and I keep telling newer folks: now is the time to be on HF! This basic antenna is a great way to get on the air and work some DX.

73 Bob K0NR

The post An Easy HF Antenna appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

In this episode, we join Martin Butler M1MRB, Chris Howard (M0TCH), Martin Rothwell (M0SGL), Frank Howell (K4FMH), Bill Barnes (WC3B) Ed Durrant DD5LP and Leslie Butterfields (G0CIB) to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin Butler (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and the episode's feature is New Year Ham Radio Hints and Tips.

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