AmateurRadio.com

We all have Elmers in this hobby through one medium or another. I’ve certainly been blessed with a number of them. I’ve tried to be an Elmer to a number of others, too. We get Elmering through other means besides in-person discussions, of course, as various social media platforms—especially Youtube—has exploded with how-to videos and such. Some Elmers are now charging for their premium educational services! But Elmering as an activity is rarely a monolithic endeavor as very few hams tend to “know it all,” although every reader can name a few on QRZ.com or eHam.net who seem to be legends in their own mind.

I’m talking here about one Elmer helping explain something about the hobby over a period of time where the learner becomes more competent in that subject matter within the scope of the hobby. It’s entirely likely that the learning ham can give back to specific Elmers on another aspect of the diverse hobby that is amateur radio. I’ve tried to do that in spots where it was clear that I could. Here is one recent example.

Thomas N5WDG is a local ham who is an RF network engineer at a three-letter cellular company. He holds the E.E. from Mississippi State University and an MBA from Millsaps College. We’ve been friends for almost a decade now, having many overlapping social network connections. He’s one of the go-to folks for repeaters in the Jackson MS area. I have learned a great deal from him about repeaters, installations, and RF testing in general. As I’ve been building my RF Lab, he’s been a constant source of information and advice. But when I recently built a small jig to simply hold two wires for my soldering platform, I thought I’d just build another for N5WDG, too. After texting him to blindly ask what he was using for a soldering position in his home workbench, he sent back a picture very familiar to most all hams who have ever attended a hamfest or visited Radio Shack back in the day.

He said it has served him well. I’m sure it has as it has me (cheap hamfest model with small magnifying glass) and thousands of other hams and makers over the decades. When I sent him a return text showing him a jig that I’d made and would give one to him soon, he make positive comments about the soldering platform in the background, something I built a few years ago. Hmm. Here’s a chance to give something back to one of my Elmers! And, there’s ice on the ground outside, I’m hold up at home, and I’ve got stuff in my junk-box.

Steel Soldering Platform

So over a few days, I built a version of a steel soldering platform that uses magnets for everything attached on top with four metal feet on the bottom. Instant heat sink for even a 500 watt soldering iron or gun job! The one on my workbench is a 12″ x 12″ square of thin steel but I only had an 8″ x 12″ remnant in my junk-box. The picture below illustrates the various aids I included on Thomas’ soldering platform.

All aids except the Aven circuit board holder have magnets on the bottom to put them where needed and removal entirely when desired.

Two of the two-wire jigs were included since we all lose one sooner or later, right? The medical clamps are mainly for temporary heat sinks. I’ve melted either insulation or plastic portions of switches so many times that I always attach one of these clamps near the solder joint so as to isolate the heat dispersal. Works better than I imagined!

There are four “helping hands” purchased from Quadhands.com (and on Amazon). I’ve homebrewed several aids like this but their price point is close enough to make it just worth going with theirs. They come in various lengths but these are the 12″ versions. In fact, I noticed when I bought these arms that Quadhands now actually makes a metal soldering platform with four of these helping hands for just over $50USD.

There is a knitting dowel on the upper left with a round magnet glued on the bottom. This is for winding toroids, except for the very small ones. Put the doughnut toroid on the top and let it find it’s own place on the pole. Wind your wire through by sliding the toroid up just enough to let the wire pass. I’ve not then had the wire move very much before I measure the toroid with an LC-meter or something. Then gently remove it for applying “Q dope” if you use that to hold the wire in place.

The small staging vice has four magnets glued on the bottom (using epoxy). I got these neat little (used) devices from Marlon P. Jones in Florida where I also bought various magnets used in the build. They are very useful to hold various parts like copper-clad board and other parts while soldering things to them.

There is a small rectangular magnet on the upper right (I’m right-handed) but it can be placed anywhere. It’s to hold down a round tin of soldering tip paste so that it doesn’t move around, a real nuisance when when you’re chasing it with a hot soldering iron!

The soldering jigs were made from a magnet bar from MPJ along with alligator clips from eBay and a metal screw. The magnet bar has a shallow steel U-shaped cover for the three Neodymium Rare Earth Magnet squares inside. This means that they stick lick heck to the steel platform! I matched a carbon steel drill to the hole in the magnet before using my drill press to drill through the steel on each end magnet. A Dremel tool with a cone shaped steel grinding bit was used to debur the hole on the steel case side and to enlarge it very slightly so that the fitting end of each alligator clip would slide snugly through the hole. I screwed in a Phillips-head metal screw from the magnet side into the alligator clip so that the screw would wedge the clip into the hole without allowing it to work it’s way out. Then, on to grinding off the screw’s head so that it would be flat on the steel platform surface. After doing that using the Dremel tool’s steel grinding bit, I put a bit of Gorilla tape over the magnet side and trimmed it with an Exacto knife so that the bottom of the steel case and magnets would not chip the paint on the steel platform.

Here’s a word to the wise. I should have used a Dremel cutting bit to just but off the screw heads. That would have left just a minor grinding job to get the remaining screw tip flat with the magnet’s surface. But no! I had to grind them off. Remember that there are magnets? The shavings don’t just fall away but stick to the magnet. And if you absentmindedly just use your fingers to wipe the shards away, you get what’s in the picture below. Do not attempt to replicate this step, LOL! Use a cloth, work gloves or strong compressed air.

Finally, the Aven circuit board holder has some competitors but it’s fairly inexpensive on Amazon, works superbly, and the rubber feet tend to have some suction to them which holds things in place for the most part. I could have substituted magnets for the rubber feet but decided not to do that here.

Setup and Build Steps

Here’s the setup and build process. I’ve seen a number of other homebrew builds over the past few years so not much of this is my own invention. Perhaps the exact organization of the aids but that’s not anything to jump up and down about. They just reflect what I’ve found I can use to “do stuff” involving a soldering iron or gun on my workbench.

The 1/8″ steel base is 8″ x 12″ in size. I buy most of my metal materials like this from an eBay vendor with the ID of quality_metals out of Chicago. Good price but can be slow to ship on occasion. I rub any oil off of it which many sellers spray on to reduce rust. I always use a Dremel tool to round the corners just a bit so they don’t injure someone (me) in use. I debur the edges too. Dremel has so many fittings that I use for building. The metal grinding tools come in many, many different sizes and grades, especially for use in jewelry making. Once this step is done. I put down a paint drop cloth (old bed sheet usually) to prevent over-spray. I like Rust-oleum’s Hammered Spray Paint (I buy this at Lowes), applying a light coat on the top, letting it dry completely, and then one on the bottom. Once both are dry, I use a common heat gun on the low setting to “bake” the paint on a bit before applying a second coat. Drying and another bake session completes the job. This coating I’ve found makes the solder drips cool almost instantly without adhering to the steel platform, wiping off much like dust after a job is completed.

At this point, I mark the four corners on the bottom for attaching round metal feet. I’ve been using those in the picture below, cutting off the metal spike (nail) that is used to attach these feet to wood chair legs. After removing the spike, I outline the remaining rubber side that will be glued to the steel platform base. Using a Dremel tool, I remove the Rust-Oleum paint where the rubber side of the metal foot will attach and apply epoxy mixed on the spot of the metal. Then, clamps are applied to keep the foot and base together for the expoxy to cure overnight. (It took longer because of the sub-freezing temps in the area.) Rough up both the rubber on the foot and the metal circle where the epoxy will be applied for a better seal.

I’ve detailed how I built the two-wire soldering jigs above. I went with commercial products for the helping hands (instead of the mechanical arms I used on my platform earlier) and the circuit board holder (Aven, as I did on my own platform). The knitting dowel was purchased at a local art store and the magnet was glued on it’s wooden base using Gorilla glue. The medical clamps were bought a a pack of 12 on eBay a few years ago. They are widely available. This set of soldering aids can be used mix-and-match depending on the project or task. I keep the helping hands on mine all the time but store the Aven holder until there’s a circuit board in the project. While I have other tools used in soldering, stored on a metal magnet bar underneath the shelves above my workbench, this set is what I’ve found to be useful. The magnets make this very versatile. I prefer them instead of mounting the helping hands using nuts-and-bolts.

Thomas N5WDG seemed thrilled to receive this surprise gift. I was pleased that he was. The circuit of Elmering was complete. And perhaps Elmering in amateur radio should be more like that. To really learn something well, it’s said to teach it. Learning from an Elmer should inspire a ham to return the favor when it’s appropriate. I am happy to give back to one of mine.

Many of us hams, SWLs, and makers buy inexpensive electronics from China. It’s become a bonanza for small, cheap and surprisingly good radio-related gadgets and parts on eBay and other vendors. I buy a fair amount, most recently a recommended project box for a set of HF bandpass filters I purchased from a small company in Australia. It finally arrived and is superb for a very cheap price!

But there’s a dark side. I love a bargain more than most. But when it’s an illegitimate clone of another genuine manufacturer’s product, that’s no fair. Yep, there’s ways to legitimately copy another design with various hardware licenses and beaucoup software licenses (if that’s relevant to the product). One of the ongoing issues in the Pacific Rim to the rest of the world has been the taking of the intellectual property from others, making a cheaper product offered for sale, and using the trade naming and hardware/software designs of the originating manufacturer. In short, stealing for profit.

So be careful. The fake copies may not work with the latest SDRplay software including SDRuno. There will be no technical support even if you get some limited functionality using out of date software.

Jon Hudson SDRPlay.com

For those in or interested in the SDR receivers available, there are a number of prominent names. I’ve had an Italian Perseus SDR for over a decade. Paid the asking price (a lot by today’s standards). It’s a terrific product although aging in the technology of the design. The SDRPlay company in England has risen to the top in terms of performance, continued innovation and the software they purchased for a free download to their legitimate customers. SDRUno is a terrific software package which they continue to update. They have an API so other software makers (like Simon Brown with SDR Console) can drive the SDR car, too. Their price points are very good and appropriate for the various receiver models they have on the market. A third-party individual has written code for a continually updated package that implements a Spectrum Analyser for most of the SDRPlay receivers. I’ve used an old (no longer in production) RSP1 with it and it’s very cool! And don’t get me started on their tech support and education. Mike Ladd KD2KOG is the Dude on social media for SDRPlay and related products. Mike creates new markets for SDRPlay products by educating hams and listeners on creative new ways to use them.

Individual preferences for one SDR product or another aside, SDRPlay is a legitimate company that plays more than fair in the marketplace. They do a lot to support the various elements of the radio hobby that we all enjoy. We should return that favor so that they can continue without the eroding effects of illegal clones undercutting their market, n’est-ce pas?

In Episode 344 of the ICQ Podcast, we covered a news story about illegal fakes of the RSP-line of SDRPlay receivers being sold through various online sales venues. I made the suggestion that there’s a means for honest members of the amateur radio and SWLing community to help. On both eBay and Amazon (Ed DD5LP pointed out Amazon), there is a simple quick procedure to report fake or illegal clones or deceptive use of trademark identification on items for auction. I actually reported six (6) during the recording of the podcast!

Here’s what you do. I’ll pattern it after Jon Hudson’s blog post at SDRPlay.com that he published after I sent him a note of my statements on the podcast that drops today. It only takes one minute to do.

If you search eBay for the term “sdrplay,” you can get a string of hits returned, some of which are completely legitimate. For instance, SDR-Kits in the UK is a bona fide reseller of SDRPlay receivers (and another really good international seller of VNA and related test equipment!). Some might be individuals offering personal units for sale. But many are effectively selling fake clones. Here’s the first hit I got when I just did this search on eBay. Heck, it’s even a SPONSORED auction!

Clearly, it’s labeled as an SDRplay RSP1A but real owners who have looked at the SDRPlay website will recognize that it is a “black box” clone. Here’s the next step:

Once you find the Report Item tab, here are the options you should select to report it as a fake clone in violation of eBay’s stated terms of sale. I’ve added a brief narrative in the Brief Description that gives eBay your claim and the website through which to validate that it’s a clone:

Don’t think that just repeatedly filing a claim on the SAME clone auction is doing even more good. It won’t. It will just slow down the process.

After you click the Submit Report button, your submission will be greeted with the following response:

While this action on your part might appear to be vindictive, it’s not in light of what the nefarious seller is doing to the legitimate amateur radio and SWL marketplace of legitimate products. IF enough of us engage in this public service, it will greatly help eBay and companies like SDRPlay continue to provide legitimate products to the marketplace. It only takes a minute!

The final rules for the Fox Mike Hotel Portable Ops Challenge have been posted! This weekend, October 3-4, 2020, is the first year of this new and very differently scored HF contest. The Steering Committee has come up with a metric to make the playing field “more level” between the Big Gun contest stations and the portable operators. By making the basic score scaled on a distance-per-watt metric, the QRO operators don’t necessarily have the advantage that they have in most contest pile-ups. In addition, the POC has multipliers to make the focus on Radio Sport rather than Radio Equipment.

Take the annual Stew Perry 160 meter contest for 2019. I took the public logs and computed data visualizations (box plots) for the average distance in kilometers as well as the longest (“best”) DX distance, both by reported power level. This was QRP, barefoot (100 watts), or QRO. No surprise! The level of power largely shaped the medians and extremes as shown in the Raw Distance panel (row).

But look at the Distance Per Watt panel! When made relative to power, the QRP operators flipped the field by dominating those scores. Why? Because it didn’t take more power to make the contact! Getting the optimal power level to make the contact is more about sport than equipment.

So the POC is using these types of results to handicap the field as more fixed stations use QRO than portable ones. While QRP is not synonymous with portable ops, there is a similar tendency for them to operate that way. Barefoot operators can easily be in either location. But the point here is clear: distance per watt can be a great equalizer across these groups. No, wait, the QRPers actually have a distinct advantage. That could be challenging to the QRO contestants, no?

…the POC has multipliers to make the focus on Radio Sport rather than Radio Equipment.

Frank K4FMH

The mode of transmission multiplier, for instance, doesn’t just give extra advantage to CW operations since CW gets through when phone can’t, right? So other than a particular choice of emphasizing using Morse Code, why do that? In addition, CW that can’t be heard by the human ear can’t be copied. But some digital modes (ahem, FT8) that can’t be heard above the noise floor can get through, after some time. The POC gives multipliers that favor the “all else equal” mode that is more difficult to get through. Digital gets a x1, CW gets a x2, and phone gets a x3.

Some Super Stations run a dozen rigs during contests. Wow. How’s that for going up against a single operator? The POC for the first year limits the number of simultaneous transmitters to two (2). But it goes a bit further by dividing the final point total by the number of TXes (or 2, if two are used). For sport, it’s the per-transmitter-production that counts, not the amount of radio equipment. In future years, the POC will consider allowing unlimited transmitters but make the per-transmitter-production scaled so as to level that obvious advantage too. We will see how this year goes in the submitted logs.

Well, does this make the typical fixed contest station (if there is such a thing) equal to a portable one? Directional antennas with gain still give an advantage unless the portable operator sets one or more up as in Field Day activities. ERP was considered but getting a reliable gain estimate can be troublesome. Just read what some manufacturers claim versus what some user measurements come up with. You get idea here about the unreliability of gain estimates perhaps being as much trouble as it is worth. So, the Steering Committee examined some data, did some statistical simulations to compare hypothetical fixed (QTH) stations with portable ones, and came up with a multiplier for operating portable as a type of “tuning parameter” to get things more equal. This is not unlike the slope rating of golf courses which reflects professional judgment of the difficulty of the course itself. The POC has a set of four multipliers depending on the location of the pair of stations in each contact. A QTH to QTH contact has a x1 multiplier. A QTH to Portable has a x1.4 (and Portable to QTH). A portable to portable contact has a multiplier of x2. (Mathematicians note: 1.4 squared is about 2). The Steering Committee will analyze this year’s results to see how this “tuning parameter” performs with an eye on perhaps adjusting it for next year.

The key question is: Will you take the Challenge? If you’re operating from the comforts of your home shack, can you beat the portable operator on a level playing field? We won’t know if you don’t take the Challenge! Or, perhaps you rather get caught in the rain…

Ridgeland, Mississippi— September 15, 2019 — The newest sponsor of the Homebrew Heroes Award Program is the QSO Today Podcast, hosted and published by Eric Guth 4Z1UG. “I am most willing to pitch in. Thanks for this kind of ham radio activity. It’s the kind of thing that is needed to shed light on the heroes who push the boundaries of this great hobby of ours.”

Steering Committee Chair, Frank Howell K4FMH of Ridgeland MS, welcomed the new sponsor with “Eric’s coming on board with a first class soldering station for our 2020 Hero expresses his commitment to our vision for this program. We welcome other sponsors who share his enthusiasm.” Eric 4Z1UG is also the host of the recent QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo which is being continued twice per year after the highly successful launch.

All sponsors for the 2019 Award are continuing for the 2020 cycle.

Jason Chonko of Siglent Ltd said, “We would love to sponsor the program again for 2020! Siglent will again give an SDS1202X-E oscilloscope to the Hero for 2020. Hans Summers’ use of that instrument to diagnose and redesign a circuit for his popular transceiver was a perfect use case for our test equipment.”

Kaitlyn Franz of Digilent, a National Instruments Company, added “This Award Program is so much in sync with what we are doing at Digilent that we are definitely interested in sponsoring again!”

Richard Stubbs of MFJ Enterprises responded with, “We are in for the Homebrew Hero Award for another year. MFJ was founded and continues to innovate on the basis of homebrew design, manufacturing and availability of parts for this community. Mr. Jue was an original pioneer in successful homebrew design with the CW filter kit back in the 1970s.”

Heil Sound founder Bob Heil K9EID complemented the other continuing sponsors by saying, “This program was so necessary that Heil Sound is on board for the long haul. We will donate key parts for great audio work by the 2020 Hero winner.”

George Zafiropoulos KJ6VU of the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, said, “Jeremy Kolonay KF7IJZ and I are more than happy to continue our sponsorship again this year. The Award is a great activity to highlight people who contribute the homebrew arts and science that our show emphasizes.”

This year’s Hero for 2019, Hans Summers G0UPL, has benefited from sponsor donations a great deal:

The sponsor prizes that get absolutely DAILY use are the Siglent ‘scope and the Heil headphones which sound great on my QCX kits. I have also made good use of the MFJ antenna analyzer and the Analog Discovery2 puck. The Benchduino PCBs did get here but I have not had much chance to think about what to do about them yet but they will be great with the Digilent AD2. These products have been a real benefit to my workbench.

Hans Summers Hero 2019

The promotional partner is the ICQ Podcast where Martin Butler M1MRB and Colin Butler M6BOY are the proprietors. Frank K4FMH is a Presenter.

Martin Butler M1MRB in London UK, a member of the Steering Committee, said, “It’s been a fast year since the Homebrew Hero Award was conceived at Hamvention in 2019. The sponsors, especially with the addition of our fellow podcaster in Israel, Eric Guth 4Z1UG, have been tremendous assets in furthering our mission of identifying and rewarding those in the homebrew and maker space.”

Another Steering Committee member, Colin Butler M6BOY, furthered that thought. “It’s clearly in the sponsor’s interests for the homebrew community to grow. What has long been missing is this program, one whose focus is to lift up those Heroes out there who are pushing, educating, demonstrating and being successful in many different ways.”

The third Steering Committee member, Frank Howell K4FMH of Ridgeland, MS, concluded, “We have received and accepted the recipient of our 2020 Award from our anonymous Selection Committee. Martin, Colin and I are preparing for the formal announcement during October 2020. Stay tuned to our website at homebrewheroes.org for that forthcoming celebration and the ICQ Podcast for relevant news!”

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For more information, press only:

Frank M. Howell
Contact page on Homebrew Heroes website
@frankmhowell (Twitter)

For more information on the Hombrew Heroes Award: https://homebrewheroes.org

Graphic Logo: https://homebrewheroes.org/index.php/about/

News from QRP-Labs….

Homebrew Hero 2019 Hans Summers has been very busy and not from handling sales and QSX design efforts! The next generation of Homebrew Heroes has arrived in the form of Baby Atlas, another son in the Summers household. Hans writes:

Yes, new baby in the house! Born 30-Jun-2020, baby “Atlas”, his weight 3.7kg. My XYL is doing fine too thanks…Hope you enjoy the attached pics! I cuddled my son just a few minutes after he was born and as you see, wearing the homebrew hero T-shirt. The other occasions were when my XYL found a local photographer to do a photoshoot, she did two – one a couple of weeks before the birth and one a couple of weeks after. I was wearing my hero T-shirt in both because the photographer requested white

Hans Summers Hero 2019

After suffering a back injury last December, Hans has been slowed in the QSX development cycle what with continuing sales of current products being a strategic business revenue source and, ahem, a few family matters to stay attuned to! But progress is being made as he updates the marketplace via his QRP-Labs.com website.

The impact of the donated prizes by our sponsors has been significant:

Yes thanks the Benchduino PCBs did get here but I have not had much chance to think about what to do about them yet. The sponsor prizes that get absolutely DAILY use are the Siglent ‘scope and the Heil headphones which sound great on my QCX kits. I have also made good use of the MFJ antenna analyzer and the Analog Discovery2 pack, though less frequently as of this writing.

Hans Summers Hero 2019

It’s been a very fast-paced year for our 2019 Homebrew Hero. Next month in October, we will announce the Hero for 2020. Stay tuned!

For Immediate Release

Ridgeland, Mississippi— August 10, 2020 — A new contest has been announced that will level the competitive playing field between the Big Guns and the Little Pistols who operate a portable station. It’s called the Fox Mike Hotel Portable Operations Challenge. “The scoring metric is the distance-per-power metric with multipliers for portable operators and the difficulty of the transmission mode,” said Ed Durrant DD5LP, a member of the Steering Committee for the POC. “We are using kilometres-per-watt as the score for a contact. But those using a more difficult transmission mode such as phone will get a higher multiplier than those using the more efficient modes of CW and digital. Being a portable station will receive an additional multiplier, especially when contacting another portable station.” The scoring system is based upon the golf metaphor of the handicap index used to equalize the opportunity for all players to win when they have unequal ability and play on courses with varying levels of difficulty.

The POC is being sponsored by ARRL’s National Contesting Journal, the UK DX Foundation (CDXC), the Hellenic Amateur Radio Association of Australia and the South African Amateur Radio League. NCJ Editor, Dr. Scott Wright K0MD, said, “NCJ is very pleased to be an official sponsor of this contest event. It will encourage activity by operators who are “limited by real-estate,” and do not have a full-blown contest station. Events like this stimulate more interest in contesting and it will have an international scope to give chances to snare some new DXCC entities.” Don Field G3XTT, Editor of Practical Wireless magazine and highly experienced DX contester who is President of the UK DX Foundation, added “This is an exciting new contest event. I’m happy to serve on the Steering Committee and help in any way I can!” A highly competitive contest operator from Australia, Tommy Horozakis VK2IR, was very enthusiastic to join the Steering Committee to help plan the POC: “I’m really excited to be part of the team and can’t wait to get started.” Tommy VK2IR added that the Hellenic Amateur Radio Association of Australia was pleased to be an award plaque sponsor for the event.

The Portable Ops Challenge is the brainchild of Frank Howell K4FMH who says his portable ops team was the inspiration. “I hear many operators who get outdoors and try to dip their hands in a conventional contest saying two things. They enjoyed the competition. And it’s a shame that the Big Guns dominate the realistic chances of winning. That’s simply the way it is in the vast majority of contests but it made my portable ops team think: is there a way to level the playing field? I think the Steering Committee consisting of both veteran DX contest participants and some of the best portable operators in the world has come up with something worth giving a go,” Frank K4FMH said. “I’d say the question is, whether the Big Guns can win using the handicap system that the Steering Committee has produced. With this scoring metric, it’s more about radio sport than radio gear. But we won’t know until many of the Big Guns enter the Portable Ops Challenge. We are building it but will the Big Guns come?” Only time will tell but the first POC is nearing it’s inaugural launch.

Scheduled for October 3 and 4, 2020, the POC’s rules and other relevant documents are located at foxmikehotel.com/challenge.

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For more information:

• See the Portable Operations Challenge webpage: https://foxmikehotel.com/challenge
• [email protected]
• Graphic Logo: https://foxmikehotel.com/pr-material/

For several decades, I taught statistics in Departments of Sociology and used them in my Labs in research centers and institutes. Much of my academic career pioneered the use of computers in social science research. There I frequently hired electrical and computer engineering students to work in my Lab. In fact, I’d get a stream of both undergraduate and graduate students sent by CS and CE faculty over to try and get a job in “that guy Howell’s Lab.” The comment was usually based on the student receiving the CS/CE faculty advisor’s advice: you’ve got what we’re teaching you down well. Go work for Dr. Howell if you can. He’s always doing weird stuff that you supposedly can’t do.” Plus, I paid well. OK, weird stuff being defined as what others say you can’t do was always taken as a badge of honor! Like Artisoft who sold us Lantastic saying we could not use their LAN software in a TCP/IP stack. We did. Later Microsoft Workgroups and Novell pushed them out of the marketplace because they didn’t adopt that stack and couldn’t compete.

One thing that surprised the E.E. faculty was what we actually taught as fairly commonplace in the social sciences. In my graduate courses, I frequently had other professors ask to audit the course so they could get on top of the topic my course was emphasizing that semester, such as survey research methods, data management and computation, statistical methods (basic and advanced), structural equation models, or spatial analysis of social data. During the late 1990s, I was a Coordinator of a 5 year, $60M project in commercial remote sensing with NASA and a Department Head in the Agricultural Experiment Station. A couple of years earlier, I was sitting in a Department Head’s meeting when the Department of Forestry Head, a golfing buddy in the Faculty Golf League, asked if he should replace the remote sensing faculty member who had just retired. My response? No, unless you want to be a good Department of Forestry. If so, hell yes! I helped him hire a top flight GIS and remote sensing scientist who was being down-sized from the USDA Forestry Lab located on leased space on campus at Mississippi State University. David was one of the very best in the nation at photogrammetry or identifying what’s on the ground based upon pictures taken from the sky.

I’ll get to the point of this here. David was conducting a workshop to all of the MS Space Commerce Initiative team I coordinated on using Landsat data for photogrammetry (landuse from landcover inference in this case). As he began walking through the two fundamental statistical techniques of analyzing the eight bands of sensor data from Landsat I, an E.E. Professor, Roger, noticed I wasn’t taking notes. Roger began to goad me with, “What’s the matter, Howell? The sociologist lost already?” David the instructor just smiled as he and I had worked together during the proposal phase of the MSCI. I said nothing as David explained phase one of the analysis was conducting a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) on the 8 Landsat variables, extracting several principal components from the data. During the next phase of analysis, the K-Means Clustering, Roger couldn’t help himself, repeating what was basically a mantra of can’t the social scientist keep up with the engineers? You’re not even taking notes! David asked me if I cared to respond. I did and said, politely, that when David got to material that I didn’t already teach in our second graduate statistics course, I’d take notes! Roger’s flag was quietly folded and he later asked me how to handle missing data (sensor dropped out, etc.) in the multivariate analysis. I later learned a lot from Roger about his goniometer and using it to calibrate ground-based test images from test sensors against a “white” color standard. Some other engineers in weed science laughed at Roger’s application but he’s a smart guy. He just didn’t have any idea of what is taught outside the College of Engineering curriculum! And that’s more typical than many realize.

The moral of this little story? Engineering can get quickly silo-ed in terms of what is learned in the curriculum. Some mathematics training focused on Fourier Transforms and the like doesn’t necessarily generalize to all numerical computations. And statistics is likely one of them. But many engineers, especially those trained in earlier decades, don’t always recognize it. Yet, with the transition from the analog to the digital world, statistics are increasingly important to understand the data arising from not only the digital circuity but the digital test equipment necessary to design, test, and repair it. And this says nothing about the incredible data visualization methods and tools now available for such data (for an example, see the 3D Smith Chart implementation). Frequently, as in the team creating the 3D Smith Chart, cross-fertilization of ideas outside engineering can yield breakthroughs that won’t come about from more silo-ed training. But this does not tend to happen in the silos we in academia and the engineering industry have created.

I was delighted when the All About Circuits email hit my inbox with a new column by Robert Keim regarding statistics in engineering. The first column is “Descriptive Statistics in Electrical Engineering” and will be followed by on one inferential statistics. This will make an impact, I’m sure.

Beginning with the basics, he explains how the simple mean score can assist in analyzing noise in two signals: “A mean is a straightforward way to reduce noise in a collection of measurements, because it approximates the value that would be observed if we eliminated the small positive and negative deviations caused by noise. We can also use the arithmetic mean to determine the DC offset of a waveform.” Now, this isn’t earth shattering analysis but he walks the uninitiated reader through how simple descriptions of data on signals can be of great benefit. Roger’s future columns will continue this line of application. I hope.

Amateur radio operators who have electronic workbenches and have read test equipment texts by Joe Carr or Bob Witte are already aware that statistical tools are the foundation of measurement in electronic design and testing. Joe Carr’s Elements of Electronic Instrumentation and Measurement (3rd ed.) contains two opening chapters laying the foundation for descriptive statistics and their role in measurement. In some of Joe’s other texts, he discusses electornic measurement theory regarding what test gear measures and what the phenomenon actually is: the difference largely being measurement error. That’s the same as True Score Theory which I taught using Lord and Novick’s (1968) classic text plus other materials.

Whether it’s digital signals in electronics or Rosenberg’s Self Esteem Scale, it is the same measurement theory: all about the error term. And how you understand measurement theory instead of just meter readings.

Bob Witte K0NR’s Electronic Test Instruments: Analog and Digital Measurements (2nd Ed.) spends part of Chapter 1 on Measurement Theory, invoking statistical aspects of the fundamentals. Formerly at HP and then Agilent, Witte’s 1st and 2nd edition texts are terrific reads and teaches much in straightforward fashion. But understanding the material requires understanding some statistical principles as foundational. He does a good job weaving that into the narrative. I highly recommend Witte’s textbook. I have both editions in my library.

Much of what I’m writing about here is exemplified in the narratives on various websites and social media outlets regarding the exciting NanoVNA and it’s various offshoots. Arriving on the scene over a year ago, the $50-ish dual port Vector Network Analyzer has caught the amateur radio experimenter market by storm. And, has propelled the rank-and-file ham to ask, “Is the NanoVNA better than my MFJ-269 antenna analyzer?” While the two instruments are fundamentally distinct in many ways, something for $50 or double will catch many eyes. But the many discussions about the software tools for the NanoVNA, especially around the necessity of calibration of the NanoVNA and how that works, really hinge around a good understanding of measurement theory and a sound statistics base of knowledge.

So that’s why I’m delighted to see that All About Circuits is featuring a new regular column by it’s Directory of Engineering concerning the use of statistics in electrical engineering. Don’t assume you already know it because you can do FFT’s in your sleep (or did while take a course). There’s a lot more awaiting you. And more on the way in the burgeoning digital world that is today’s electronics field. Now, let me open that box with the NanoVNA-H that arrived this week…..I might also need to review some trigonometry.