Blog readers may recall my last two construction projects, the ‘Neophyte’ 1-tube regenerative receiver and a matching ‘Neophyte’ 1-tube crystal-controlled transmitter. The receiver turned out to be an exceptionally good performer once some slight tweaks were made to the original design published back in 1968.

80m WAS QSLs - thanks guys!

In this episode, Martin Butler (M1MRB) is joined by Chris Howard (M0TCH), Martin Rothwell (M0SGL), Frank Howell (K4FMH), Bill Barnes (WC3B) and Leslie Butterfield (G0CIB) to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and in the episode's feature Friedrichshafen 2022 interviews Part 1.

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• GNU Radio Aims to Improve Accessibility and Usability
• Ham Radio to the Rescue
• Irish Language Net
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• RSGB Regional Vacancies

Now where was I....today I decided to start cutting radial wires. I purchased 150m (500 feet) of 14 gauge stranded green wire and the radial production line began. I am using ring terminals for 1/4-20 bolts and I choose to purchase 10 gauge terminals as I can solder 2 14 gauge radial wires to them. My property is small and I have certain areas where the radials can be 25 feet and other spots only 4 feet. I am putting out as many as 500 feet will allow me and if I need more then I will purchase another roll of wire.......but that stuff is not cheap!! 

I have been doing some reading on the internet regarding the radial length. The consensus seems to be if your vertical is ground-mounted (mine is) and the radials are just below the ground (mine will be) then length theory  is..make them as long as you can but being in the ground and not raised radials certain lengths are not important.

Ham College episode 90 is now available for download.

Extra Class Exam Questions – Part 28.
E6E Analog ICs: MMICs, IC packaging characteristics

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And so it begins

In April I posted that my birthday gift had arrived which was the Hustler 4BTV vertical antenna. Well, this week the installation began and weather permitting I can move closer to the complete installation. We have been having more days of rain than sunshine for June along with some vacation time away from home the antenna had to wait. A few days ago I began by installing the support pole for the antenna. To me this is one of the most important steps as the antenna is no good to me if it falls over, begins to lean or becomes loose and unstable. 

The hole was about 4 feet deep and I used fast-setting concrete, this product is poured into the hole and you then add water and stir. I placed my 1 5/8 metal post in the hole, made it level and waited. I decided to use a metal post used for fences as this was readily available at the building supply store. It was also a lot cheaper than buying a 10-foot piece of metal electrical pipe (called EMT). 

Making certain it's level

As advertised the concrete was dry in about 40 minutes, having said that I also had to fully understand once the concrete was mixed with water I have very little time to make sure the support pipe was level before things started to harden.  

Once finished I added a cap that was temporarily taped in place but will become permanent once the job is complete. At this point that was it for the day as it was very hot and humid out as well I wanted to leave the concrete overnight just to make sure it was fully set.

The finished product

The next step in the dig a trench from the house to the antenna base for the coax. 

For the June VHF contest, I operated Single-Op Portable from the summit of Pikes Peak. I combined this with Summits On The Air (SOTA) and Parks On The Air (POTA) activations. In a few hours, I made 80 QSOs on 6m, 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, and 23cm bands. It was a fun time.

Quite a few of the contacts were made on 2m FM, The Utility Mode. Even though CW, SSB and WSJT modes are more efficient (especially with weak signals), FM is still the least common denominator for modulation. Everyone has it, so there are more QSOs available with that mode.FM is the default choice for easy VHF simplex communication.

Where Be Digital?

Perhaps it was the lack of oxygen in my brain, but I started to wonder:

Why the heck, in the year 2022 are we still using an analog mode for so much of our amateur communication?

FM was invented in the 1930s, which is ancient history from a technological point of view. Of course, we do have many handheld and mobile radios available that support digital voice (DV) modulation. In fact, we probably have too many digital formats to choose from, all incompatible, which has fragmented the market. The three dominant digital voice modes are D-STAR (first out of the chute), DMR (a commercial standard) and Fusion (Yaesu’s C4FM offering). I think these all have their advantages and disadvantages which attract various people to support one or more of them. However, none of them is dominant and universal, like FM. It is interesting that virtually all DV radios on VHF/UHF include analog FM because it is The Utility Mode, the fallback modulation that keeps us all compatible.

Universal Digital Voice

For this post, I am primarily looking at this from a SOTA and POTA perspective, which means simplex operation and not repeaters. (However, you could extend this idea to repeaters, too.) I am also not so concerned about keyboard modes, just DV plus some basic digital telemetry that goes with it. It can’t be too complex or it will not be fast and easy to use.

I propose a universal DV mode that is implemented in all VHF/UHF transceivers (think in terms of your typical handheld or mobile transceiver for 2m and 70cm). And yes, go ahead and also implement D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, or whatever, but give us a universal digital format that just works. The key idea is to have a digital least common denominator mode that replaces FM. This mode can be the defacto standard for “meet me on simplex” and become the Next Generation Utility Mode. How cool would it be to get on top of a summit and push the DV Call button and work stations on digital many miles away? The station’s callsign should be embedded in the digital stream along with location data (lat/lon or grid locator) and some user-defined fields ( SOTA reference or other information). This format should also have really good weak-signal performance, significantly better than FM, for when the signal-to-noise ratio is low. All the technology must be open, to encourage wide adoption, with no proprietary codecs or modulation schemes.

The technology for this already exists and it would not be difficult to implement. The real challenge is the lack of industry coordination and collaboration between amateur radio manufacturers. Unfortunately, I don’t see this changing any time soon.

That’s my thought for today. What do you think?

73 Bob K0NR

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