AmateurRadio.com

Hello, folks! It’s February 2014, and we finally announce the winner of our Raspberry Pi contest! But before all that excitement, we have a great interview with a fellow radio amateur. Around that, we have news and information about the usual suspects, and covering it all is a thick layer of fun. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope to see you all in Dayton in May. Please donate to our Indiegogo campaign if you can. Every little bit helps. And don’t forget about the perks!

73 de The LHS Guys

If you’re a subscriber to WorldRadio Online, be sure to check out the article on Page 16 in the January 2014 edition. There’s an article by Cory GB Sickles, WA3UUV, which is entitled “”Elmering” in the Age of the Internet”, and it deserves your attention.

Prominently featured are several folks who should be easily recognized by just about any serious QRPer, and they are Rem Donnelly K6BBQ (whose videos are often posted here), Steve Galchutt WG0AT (ditto), and Chuck Carpenter W5USJ.  Also mentioned is Randy Hall K7AGE. Rem, Steve and Randy are noted for their informative, fun and educational videos that appear on YouTube (and here).  Chuck is noted for his great website and all the informative and helpful topics that he covers there. And the help and advice he offers in the Rockmite and other e-mail reflectors is worth its weight in gold.

These guys deserve the title “Elmer” which is so sorely needed this day and age.  When I attended an Amateur Radio licensing course back in the late 1970’s, I had a course teacher, but no true “Elmer”.  After I got my ticket, most of what I learned was by trial and error, often proverbially hitting my thumb with that hammer.  Things would have gone infinitely smoother (but not necessarily better!) had there be someone I could go to, to ask for advice and encouragement.

These days, however, it seems that when people seek new knowledge, the first place they head to is Google, Bing or some other search engine.  The service that the above mentioned Hams provide is so invaluable – and by no means are they the only ones.  There are so many great resources of Amateur Radio information out there, like we’ve never had before.  The Internet is ripe for the picking of this treasure trove of information.

That being said, what are you doing to help this effort along?  Don’t think you don’t have anything valuable to add, because you do.  Your help is constantly needed not only to encourage those who are thinking of getting licensed, but also those who are recently licensed and are unsure of themselves.  There are so many things you can do, I’ll list just a few here:

1) Become a Volunteer Examiner.  Not only will you meet people who are just entering the hobby, but you can befriend them and explain to them about the whole new world that is opening up to them.  Tell them about local clubs and Ham Radio activities, invite them to come out to a local Hamfest or club meeting, or even the occasional Saturday breakfast “with the guys” – remember, for the bit of time that they are taking “The Exam”, they are a captive audience. Strike while the iron is hot.

2) Make a YouTube video and share it with the world.  Got a new idea, process or invention?  Have a unique or new way of doing something in Amateur radio that’s never been done before?  Make a video and post it!  They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s true, then a good video is worth about ten million!  To this day, I owe as great deal of thanks to TJ W0EA, for posting a video about the LowePro Traveler 150 camera bag and how he uses it to carry his QRP gear.  It convinced me to go out and buy mine, and as of now, I wouldn’t think of using anything else for that purpose.  I had been struggling to find a good solution for quite some time when I happened upon his video, it was just what I needed to see, at just the right time.

3) Start a Website or a blog.  A fine example is Chuck’s website, and for a fine example of Amateur Radio blogs – just look down the right edge of this site.  You think I list a lot?  Maybe, but even more are needed.  Do you have a new or unique idea that no one’s covered before, that’s just waiting to be shared?  You say that you don’t want to start a blog, but have something you’d like to cover and are not sure how to do it?  Contact me.  I’ll gladly lend you space here. (or see #5 below). I’ll even help you put your idea into words if you like, and YOU’LL receive all the credit that you’ll so richly deserve!  And your story needn’t be technically minded.  Just sharing a story of how you accomplished hanging your antenna or putting together your station or how you configured your computer and radio for WSPR or PSK31 may be all the encouragement that is needed by someone who is attempting to do the same thing – but has no one to ask, or may be too shy to ask, or maybe has been reading articles, but just doesn’t “get it”.

4) Get on your local repeater, ESPECIALLY when you hear a “new” call.  Nothing is more special that being welcomed and acknowledged on the air.  Don’t be afraid to talk to new and any younger voices that you hear on the air.  The welcome that you extend today will exist long into the future, and will be an inspiration as to how new Hams years down the road will be treated.

5) Write an article, as mentioned above in bullet point #3.  Have a unique idea or maybe a new perspective on something that’s tried and true?  Write something about it!  While it would be nice to see your name in QST or CQ, there are other “niche” publications out there – literally begging for contributions.  For the CW and QRP crowd, right off the top of my head, I can think of The Keynote (FISTS), SPRAT (GQRP),  QRP Quarterly (QRP ARCI), and the K9YA Telegraph e-zine (CW enthusiasts).  For other facets of the hobby, I am sure there are just as many outlets available.

6) Always keep the kids in mind.  If you get the opportunity to demonstrate this hobby to kids, especially younger ones – don’t let the chance slip through your fingers.  You may think that kids look upon this hobby as “dull”, “uninteresting”, or “ancient”.  Maybe some do, but even more don’t.  Some of the best times I’ve had have been explaining Amateur Radio to school kids, Boy Scouts, etc.  The looks on the their faces, and their enthusiasm will warm your heart and will in turn, encourage you and keep you young.

7) Teach a license class.  This is maybe one of the best ways to pass along your love of this hobby to the next generation of Hams.  Don’t know where to begin?  Get in touch with the ARRL, they have a whole department that is willing to help you get started.  And it doesn’t have to be just kids that you aim your teaching sights on.  Most high schools give opportunities for free or low cost continuing education courses for adults. often held on weekday evenings.  Offer to teach a radio license course for them.  They’ll do a lot of the groundwork and advertising for you – you just need to supply the teaching part.  You’d be very surprised how many retired folks there are out there, looking for a new hobby.

The main idea here is to share, to help not only those thinking about becoming Hams, but also to put out the helping hand to those who are recently licensed. And you’ll also find that you’ll be helping yourself by keeping your enthusiasm for this wonderful hobby vibrant in your own life.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

One of the biggest caveats that’s always mentioned to potential QRPers is what I like to call the “frustration factor”. All the QRP “how to” books bring this up. I’ve read them, you’ve read them …… I’m sure you’re familiar with all the bug-a-boos:

“Hams new to HF should never start out using QRP.”

“QRP is difficult, don’t expect much success.”

And my favorite – “Never call CQ using QRP.”

In my personal and most humble opinion, these statements, if they are taken as absolute truisms or rules of thumb, are pretty much hogwash.

But rather than refute these, or dwell on the negatives, I would like to accentuate the positives. If you’re new to the QRP game or are perhaps thinking of dipping your toe into low power waters, you SHOULD do several things to maximize your chances for success.

DO put up the best antenna that you can. A tower and beam are the best, if you have deep pockets and plenty of property and an understanding wife. If you’re like the rest of us mere mortals, that will probably mean dipoles, verticals or whatever. If you can, put them outside and put them up as high as circumstances permit. If you install a ground mounted vertical (not a bad choice) lay down as many radials as you can. If you’re stuck in HOA Hell, attic dipoles have yielded success. Magnetic loops, either home brewed or commercially built, such as the Alex Loop have saved the bacon of many covenant restricted Hams.

But whatever the case may be, just remember a quote that my friend Chris KQ2RP recently reminded us all about in his blog. To quote K2TK, “A poor antenna has infinite gain over no antenna”. In other words, while a better and higher antenna will maximize your QRP experience, ANY antenna is better than none. However, if you’re reduced to loading up your mattress boxspring, then you had better lay in a supply of Advil. Do whatever you can to put up the best aerial you can under your circumstances. This is not the place to skimp.

DO use the full “QRP Gallon”, which is the full 5 Watts for CW or 10 Watts for SSB, if you’re just starting out. While Rockmites and other flea powered radios do a great job, save QRPp for after you’ve gained some experience. QSOs made with less than a Watt ARE a heckuva lot of fun, but if you’re a QRP Newbie, save them for later.

DO make use of the various tools available to you. Reverse Beacon Network is one of these. Not only can you use RBN like a Cluster, to see who is on and who is calling CQ, but you can use it to gauge your own performance. Not getting any answers to your CQs? Check out your own call on RBN to see where and how you’re being heard. You can also use RBN to compare one antenna against another. I did this to check out my vertical vs. my wire on 80 Meters one Autumn evening last year. I picked a lonely, deserted frequency and called CQ with one antenna for about five minutes, and then switched. By going to RBN, I was able to see how (roughly) how one did against the other.

And while we’re talking about calling CQ, go right ahead and call CQ if you want to. Odds are you will be heard by someone, somewhere, depending on propagation. Many times, when a band has seemed dead, I have called CQ and have been answered, and have had great QSOs. I see no reason on God’s green Earth why calling CQ should be limited to those running power.

DO jump into the DX pileups! This will give you experience, which will be your greatest teacher. Getting on the air, making QSOs, and experimenting with antennas, participating in the QRP Fox hunts will teach you more than any Website, book, or Elmer. Getting your hands dirty and learning “when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em” will make you a veteran QRP op in no time. But remember, then it will be YOUR time to share what you have learned with those who come after you.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

I spent the evening conversing with Ed, KN9V on 40 Meters. Ed sent me an e-mail a few weeks back, asking him if I would meet him on the air for some real live CW practice. We tried earlier this week, but the propagation gods were against us. Tonight we had a much better go.

Ed feels that he’s a little rusty, but it was evident that he’s really doing fine. We were about 559 both ways, and we were able to enjoy a QSO for just about an hour. A little QSB and QRM made it interesting, but it was a very nice QSO.

I hope to meet Ed on the air again soon.

If you feel your Morse Code needs a little work and that you need a CW buddy, then send me an e-mail at [email protected].

Time permitting, I’d love to make a sked with you and work with you on the air. Now that the KPA3 amp is installed in my K3, I can turn on the afterburners so that you wouldn’t have to strain to hear me. Although, if you’re so inclined as to want to attempt a 2X QRP QSO, you wouldn’t get any arguments from me!  I am comfortable sending anywhere between 5 to about 23 WPM, and I can go on any band from 160 to 6 Meters.

I am available most weeknights, and would be glad to hear from you.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

to the not so sublime.

I had a very nice QSO with Eric AC8LJ tonight on 40 Meters. Eric was running QRP from Charleston, WV – a newly built K1 at 5 Watts to a dipole up about 45 feet.  His signal was superb and by the way, he is friends with fellow blogger and good friend John N8ZYA who also hails from Charleston.

The best thing about the QSO with Eric was his fist – it was fantastic. His sending was top notch and made for an easy QSO.  The QSB was getting to us as the band changed; and I am so sorry that it was.  I hated for the QSO to end.

But end it did, and after it did, as I was entering the QSO information into my log, I was listening to another station call CQ just a few Hz up the band.  He had a superb signal also, but I hesitated to call him.

As Joan Rivers was famous for saying …….. “Can we talk?”

I didn’t answer the station a few Hz up, because just from his CQ, I could tell that it would have been painful. Look, I’m just another “Joe Ham” like the rest of you guys; I’m not a “CW Snob”, but I have learned a few things in my 35 years of being on the air.  Can I share a couple of things?

First off – don’t send “CQ” endlessly.  Right now as I type this K1ON is sending a CQ on 60 Meters.  His sending is just a skosh above my comfort zone; but it is superb.  Three CQs followed by “de” and then his call sign twice.  He is repeating this series once and then listening before starting again.

CQ CQ CQ de K1ON K1ON
CQ CQ CQ de K1ON K1ON

Now THAT’S the hallmark of a Ham who knows what he’s doing.

You don’t need to call CQ ten or twenty times before sending your call!  It’s not serving any useful purpose and in fact, it’s maddening.  And please use “de” in between CQ and your call sign.  I don’t remember any big announcement saying that we were going to drop it.  Besides, if you can call CQ umpteen times, do you really think you’re saving a lot of time by dropping the “de”?

Secondly, the Real Estate folk are famous for saying “Location, location, location”.  I think the CW folk need their own mantra. Can I suggest one?  How about “Spacing, spacing, spacing”?

Send at a speed that is comfortable for you.  And don’t rush it!  Let it flow, like a lazy river or fine wine.

Seriously, do you want to get on the air and have me torture your ears with

CQCQCQCQCQCQCQCQCQCQCQCQCQCQdeW2LJW2LJW2LJW2LJ over and over and over?

Or even worse,

W3EDPDEW2LJTUURRSTIS599QTHISSOUTHPLAINFIELD,NJNAMEISLARRYHWCPY?BTU (as I gasp for air at the end!)

I don’t think so.

Take your time and take a breath!  Nobody likes to read run on sentences and no one wants to have to decode run on, gibberish CW.  If you find yourself calling CQ endlessly, and you know your antenna working because RBN has spotters showing you at 100dB, it just might be your sending.

Listen to yourself, critically – you’ll be doing yourself a favor.

Hey, I know myself that there are times when my arthritis kicks in big time and I sound like I have dyslexia of the fingers.  That’s when I have to face facts and slow my own sending speed down by 5 WPM or so.  It’s not the end of the world.

Sending good CW is a good thing; but it takes practice. Don’t get discouraged. Take your time to do it right and I promise, the speed will increase as time goes on.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

I have heard it said that everyone learns differently.  That is most likely true; but I am living proof that even one single person can learn things in different ways – namely the easy way and the hard way.

The weather today in NJ has been really cold.  When I woke up this morning, it was 15F (-9C) outside.  As I returned home from work tonight, it was 16F (-8C).  It’s a very clear night with the Moon and Jupiter shining brightly in the sky. I will not be surprised if we get down into the single digits tonight.

Why do I bring this up?  Because of a lesson learned the hard way.

When I was a kid, I spent my summers at the grocery store that my Dad and my uncle owned.  It was a small, family owned “Mom and Pop” kind of place.  The entire width of our store probably wouldn’t amount to more than three aisles in a supermarket of today.

We sold groceries and meats.  My Dad and my uncles were butchers as well as grocers.  From the age of 7 and up, I worked most of my summer vacation time at our store, stocking shelves.  When I got to be a teenager, I wanted to graduate from shelf stocking to butchering.  My Dad was reluctant and was never thrilled with the idea; but I bugged him until he taught me.  My last several summers of working at the store involved stocking shelves; but I also got to cut cold cuts, make chopped meat, bone out cuts of beef, pork and veal for kielbasa stuffing, among other things.  But perhaps the toughest job of all was when chickens came in.  We were a dealer for Perdue chickens – fresh chickens that were packed in ice – never frozen.  When the whole chickens came in, I was given the delightful job of removing the livers and necks.  They came packed in wax paper inside the chickens, exactly the same way that giblets and necks come delivered inside your Thanksgiving turkey.  But imagine if you will, removing the livers and necks from many dozens of ice cold chickens, all in one sitting. After a while, I couldn’t even feel my hands as they were numbed by the ice cold chicken flesh.  And of course, it had to be done this way, because you couldn’t let the chickens warm up.

My point?  I had to learn the hard way, what my Dad tried to tell me.  Stick your hands in cold meat for a long enough time and you’re going to develop arthritis in your hands.  By the time my Dad retired, his hands were pretty disfigured.  He never removed his wedding band, but even if had wanted to, his knuckles were so permanently swollen and his fingers were so crooked, that it would have been an impossibility.  And now, when it get this cold, MY hands feel like two giant toothaches, even with Thinsulate gloves on.  I didn’t butcher meat for anywhere near as long as he did; but those 5 – 7 summers were enough. Now I will suffer with “mildly” arthritic hands for the rest of my life – a lesson learned the hard way.

But, I’m not hopeless!  I can learn things the easy way, too.  And I was reminded of that when I read Jim W1PID’s post on AmateurRadio.com this afternoon – “Around The World for Morning Tea” and I was transported back to my youth.  It was stories similar to this that reinforced my desire to become an Amateur Radio operator as a kid.

Travelling the world from a room (in my case, my bedroom) had an appeal that did not fade with time.  A seed was planted that grew to fruition in my very early 20s, when I earned my Novice ticket back in 1978.

I am very glad for that Novice ticket, because it turned out to be learning “the easy way” (relatively speaking).  My intention from “the get-go” was to get on the HF bands.  The Technician class existed back then, too; but held no appeal to me.  For me, Amateur Radio meant getting on the air with the possibility of communicating anywhere around the world.  Whether what actually occurred was communicating down the street or around the state didn’t matter, as long as that possibility also included talking to far away places on the globe remained.  The Novice ticket filled the bill, and thanks to good Elmers who taught me, I was able to procure my license with the least amount of frustration.

I am very grateful for the Novice sub bands that existed at the time.  There were very small slices of 80, 40, 15 and 10 Meters where we were allowed to prowl.  Of course, it was CW only but that and the frequency limitations were our only limitations!  There was plenty of DX to be had and I got my share.

I worked Hams of just about every license class that visited our Novice sections in those days. But of course the majority of other stations worked were other Novices.  We “grew up” together, we learned together, we made the same mistakes together, we honed our skills together.  For most of us, upgrading was our reason for being. And, most importantly, when we upgraded and discovered that VHF/UHF wasn’t the end all and be all of Amateur Radio, we had our HF skills to fall back on.  We were literally eased in to the operating habits and skills required by the higher class licencees.

I often wonder how the loss of that introductory Novice class has affected Amateur Radio in the United States.  I suppose I could research trends and numbers that have occurred since.  But in my heart, I think the impact has not beneficial.  Thankfully, we have a lot of good Elmers out there who are willing to pass on what they have learned, whether by teaching classes, or producing learning materials and software, it is still possible to learn how to be a Ham “the easy way” – not stumbling around by yourself in the dark.

But I still wonder if having the Novice ticket and the Novice sub bands (or something like it) might be an effective tool to avoid the problem of new Hams who find themselves in that “VHF/UHF rut”, and get tired and disenchanted, only to never bother to further explore the varied possibilities of this wonderful hobby.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

From the ARRL Website:

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has approved an Amateur Radio Operator rating strip for Scouts and Scouters to wear on their uniforms. According to BSA Communication Services Director Jim Wilson, K5ND, the strip recognizes the Scout or Scouter’s availability as an Amateur Radio operator for communication services for events and activities, as well as emergencies. All registered youth members and adult leaders who also hold a valid FCC-issued Amateur Radio license of any class are eligible to wear the rating strip.

“Last year, the BSA Awards and Insignia Committee introduced the Morse Code Interpreter Strip upon the recommendation of the BSA’s National Radio Scouting Committee,” Wilson told the ARRL. “We are always looking for ways to promote Amateur Radio, both within Scouting and to the world. The National Radio Scouting Committee thought this new Amateur Radio rating strip was a wonderful way to do exactly that, as it readily identifies to everyone that the wearer is a licensed radio amateur, prepared to be useful and to help others.”

Wilson, who heads up the National Radio Scouting Committee, said that the Amateur Radio Operator rating strip is similar to the Amateur Radio Operator badge offered as a proficiency badge by Scouts Australia, as well as the badge recently introduced by Scouting Netherlands. It follows in the footsteps of the Scout Radioman personal interest badge for Senior Scouts and Explorer Scouts that was offered by the Boy Scouts of America in the 1940s. The strip is worn on the right sleeve.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!