NASA to develop Lunar Time Standard
NASA will coordinate with U.S. government stakeholders, partners, and international standards organizations to establish a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC).
NASA

Build the Frankentenna
The ultimate portable Ham Radio vertical antenna.
KB9VBR

Exploring international analog TV from leaky cable TV networks via the Airspy Server Network
Use SDR# and the Airspy Server Network to explore cable TV stations across the globe via cable TV signal interference.
RTL-SDR

How well does 17 meters work?
The higher the bands get the further they tend to reach more distant stations for me.
WK4DS

War of the Worlds in CW
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells in Morse Code starting at 20 WPM.
AA7FO

Rise and stall of GPS
The average age of GPS satellites hits 13 years.
Payload

Improving the antennas on Heltec ESP32 v3 devices
A neat little quarter wave 868Mhz vertical antenna for this device.
M0AWS

HF in small spaces
Loop antennas like these are typically used only for receiving, but in a pinch they can be used to transmit as well.
Hackaday

The great shack QRM hunt
Now that I’ve taken up POTA and know how nice S0-1 background noise is, I wanted to have another go at the home situation.
Ian Renton

Video

Comparing desoldering tools
Is the Hakko FR301 desoldering tool worth 4X the ZD915 clone?
More Fun Making It

Making a hot dog talk with RF
We devised a test to see just how dangerous the RF energy can be on an AM tower.
Geerling Engineering

Everyone wants to know how their signal sounds on the air and often the best way to find out is a signal report from other ham radio operators. The standard signal reporting method for amateur radio is the RST (Readability-Signal Strength-Tone) system. See Practical Signal Reports on HamRadioSchool.com.

When using 2m FM on Summits On The Air (SOTA), we can simplify the signal report. Because it is a voice mode, we drop the reading for Tone and just give RS reports, so a perfect signal on voice is RS 59 or simply “five nine.”  The Readability report is a number between 1 and 5, while the Signal Strength report goes from 1 to 9. (See the listing at the bottom of this article.) The signal strength generally corresponds to the S meter reading on your radio but most FM rigs have very basic meters. Some don’t provide a meter reading at all. The photo to the left shows a typical bar graph on a Yaesu FT-60. Don’t expect high accuracy, so if the meter reads full scale, give an S9 report. If it reads half-scale, that’s probably S5, etc.

On VHF FM, signal reports may also be given in terms of FM quieting. A strong FM signal is said to “quiet the receiver” since there is virtually no noise present in the received audio. As the signal strength is decreased, noise starts to appear on the received signal. At lower signals levels, the noise increases dramatically and the signal becomes unreadable. This dramatic increase is called the threshold effect, meaning that FM signals do not gradually fade out, they tend to fade quickly into the noise. The key idea here is that you want your signal to be strong enough to be above this noise threshold. In terms of a signal report, a strong signal may result in a “full quieting” report. If the signal is less than full quieting, you may hear a report like “90 percent quieting” or “you have about 10% noise”, which both describe the amount of noise present in the signal. If the signal is really noisy, the report might be “50% quieting.”

Keep It Simple

For practical 2m FM operating, don’t overthink these signal reports. If the signal is easy to hear and is full-scale, give a 59 report. If it is easy to hear but the meter reading is less than full scale, reduce the signal level report to something like 56 or 57. If there is some noise present, you might want to reduce the readability to 4, so maybe give a 44 or 45 report. (Usually, if there is a readability issue, the signal strength will also be lower.) If you are having a difficult time hearing the signal, it’s probably a 33 or less. Readability of 1 or 2 is rarely used because it indicates you are not actually hearing the other station.

One final note is that sometimes the operator on the other end is looking for a more critical evaluation of his signal quality. If he says something about “checking out this new microphone” or “have been working on solving an audio problem”, that may be the clue to spend a little extra time really listening to the signal and providing more comments on how it sounds. For most of us, we don’t actually get to hear our own signal on the air, so it’s very helpful to get quality feedback from other radio amateurs.

73 Bob KØNR

The RST system as listed on the ARRL web site, Quick Reference Operating Aids:

Readability 1 – Unreadable 2 – Barely readable, occasional words distinguishable. 3 – Readable with considerable difficulty. 4 – Readable with practically no difficulty. 5 – Perfectly readable.

Signal Strength 1- Faint signals, barely perceptible. 2- Very weak signals. 3- Weak signals. 4- Fair signals. 5- Fairly good signals. 6- Good signals. 7- Moderately strong signals. 8- Strong signals. 9- Extremely strong signals.

The highest sunspot number in 23 years
Fall 2001 was the last time sunspot counts were this high.
SpaceWeather.com

APRS Foundation accepting members
Becoming a member helps secure the future of APRS and assists with the foundation’s operating costs.
Amateur Radio

National Traffic System celebrates 75 years
As NTS 2.0 emerges to modernize the radiogram system, ARRL takes a look back at the origin of NTS which began in 1949.
ARRL

2024 Route 66 On The Air
This year marks the 25th year of this great radio event.
Citrus Belt Amateur Radio Club

SkywarnPlus
US government-issued alerts via AllstarLink, HAMVOIP, myGMRS, GMRS Live, and more.
SkywarnPlus

The September – October SARC Communicator
Projects and articles in this issue including a CW decoder, an HF amplifier, and a web server for HamClock using an inexpensive Raspberry Pi Zero.
SARC

A return to Ham Radio
My dad was thinking about whether I’d have any interest in his Ham Radio callsign when the time comes that he becomes a silent key.
AFØAJ

A brief history of barbed wire fence telephone networks
In need of a practical way to overcome social isolation; communicate emergencies, weather, and crop prices; and chafing under attempts to curtail free speech, ranchers and farmers began to take advantage of the growing ubiquity of both telephone sets and barbed wire fencing.
loriemerson

Amid wildfires and spotty cell service, Northstate residents turn to Ham Radios
Head even 20 minutes into the mountains from cities like Redding, Red Bluff, and Chico, and you’ll quickly lose cell phone service.
KRCR

Video

From zero to APRS in 10 minutes
Let’s build an APRS packet igate in under 10 minutes for just 99 dollars.
KM6LYW Radio

900MHz POTA – Leave no band behind
Operating on 902.300 MHz FM using an Alinco DJ-G29 HT and a DMS Wireless YA90014 Yagi antenna.
N2MAK