AmateurRadio.com

In July I’m giving a 45 minute talk on amateur radio to a local neighborhood group that restored and maintains an old historic schoolhouse down the road from my QTH.  I plan on bringing my FT-897 and throwing a dipole up in the yard so I can tune around the bands and maybe even whip up a phone QSO.  (It sure would be nice if 20 was open to Europe.)  I’m going to avoid “death by PowerPoint” and just work off of some simple bulletpoints.

So, any suggestions on what to talk about?  What would you definitely not talk about?  Any tips from seasoned speakers on things to wow the audience with?

Kenwood took out a full page back cover ad in this month’s QST hinting at a new HF rig being unveiled at Dayton.  What could it be?  Another super multi-kilobuck uber contester rig?  A KX3 competitor?  A fun little rig like the Yaesu FT-817?  Inquiring minds want to know!

MakerShed announced a new product that will probably appeal to radio artisans who like to build little rigs.  It’s the Menta, a smaller version of the Arduino which fits nicely in the venerable Altoids tin.

Get a few 2N2222s, some toroids, resistors, and a crystal soldered on the prototyping area, then burn some CW keyer software on the Arduino and voila, you got a nice little QRP rig.

RSGB had this puzzling note in its recent news script:

Some say that CW has been made obsolete by modern digimodes, which work well in conditions far too poor for the older mode. Now that Morse is no longer used in commercial radio traffic, the RSGB confirms that it would fight any moves to prohibit CW on amateur bands. The Society recognises that Morse gives much pleasure to thousands of operators, and will continue to support its use.

The blurb doesn’t cite any specific threats.  To use a quote never said by, but attributed to Jerry Seinfeld, “Who are these people?“

I’ve said before that there are people saying there are people saying that CW is dying, but I have yet to find anyone saying CW is dying.  Much like American politics, we tend to get our panties in a bunch making up things to be outraged over and threats to be worried about.  No radio amateur who has been licensed more than a week would seriously propose to outlaw CW operation.  Any amateur who does is likely insane or doesn’t have the capacity to garner support of anyone from amateurs to government officials.

Perhaps I’m reading more into the RSGB statement and giving it more time than it deserves, but my guess is RSGB suffers from one of the thorns that has been in the side of ARRL here in the States.  People make accusations that the organization doesn’t support the code, in order to increase the number of licensed amateurs and fill its coffers with more memberships.  The people who make such nonsense accusations are still upset with the elimination of the code test or just dislike the organization and look for whatever means to criticize it.  To this day I still hear people claim ARRL doesn’t support CW, despite petitioning the FCC for a 5 WPM test for the Extra class test and running code practice and bulletin broadcasts every weekday.  Myths are hard to replace with facts.

HRD Software, LLC has released version 5.11a of Ham Radio Deluxe, the first version since their acquisition of HRD from Simon Brown, HB9DRV.  The release appears to be a minor update with the most notable changes being cosmetic updates to splash screens, showing the new ownership of the product.

As many predicted at the time of the acquisition, the next version of HRD, 6.0, will be a pay-only product.  The 5.x version will continue to be free and will have bug fixes released for an unidentified amount of time.  Version 6.0 will be released at the Dayton Hamvention, but customers can receive a $20 discount for the product by subscribing to HRD support for $59.95 prior to Dayton.  At Dayton and afterwards the price for 6.0 will be $79.95.  That is a one year subscription.  Subsequent support subscription renewals are $39.95 for two years of support.  The software doesn’t expire and can continue to be used after support expiration, however users must have a subscription in order to get software updates.

Personally I think Ham Radio Deluxe is worth this price.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I think it’s the best amateur radio logging software ever written (though in a sea of outdated and badly designed sophomoric applications, the bar is often set low).  But considering how good version 5.x is, it may take quite awhile for people to actually want or need to upgrade.  Unless the trial version of 6.0 really knocks my socks off, I’m going to wait until perhaps version 6.1 or 6.2 to consider upgrading.

How many of you ham radio operators are also classical musicians? (I’m using “classical” loosely here, the way NPR does — not merely referring to the classical period per se, but broadly referring to all music of higher artistic expression.) I’ve always been intrigued by this kind of simultaneous development of artistic ability and scientific/technical ability. I’ve long heard that the two complement one another nicely, e.g. I’ve heard that musicians make better programmers.

Rehearsal of Exultate Festival Choir and Orchestra (Kristi Brackett, Photographer)

Right now I’m working hard with the Exultate Festival Choir and Orchestra to get ready for an upcoming performance of The Messiah by George Frideric Handel. Ham Radio has taken a back seat in my life during this seven-week project (as well it should, if we have our priorities straight). Yesterday’s rehearsal in the Twin Cities was exhilarating, and once again proved that the 2 1/2 hour drive to get there is definitely worth it. Dr. Tom Rossin is an outstanding conductor, and the choir is so good I have to pinch myself sometimes to see if my place there in the bass section isn’t just a dream. (If any of you happen to be in the Twin Cities on the weekend of March 9-11 and would like to hear The Messiah in its entirety, send me an email and I’ll email you a coupon that will get you two tickets for the price of one.)

Music was part of my life as a boy before I became a ham, but it didn’t blossom until 13 years ago at the age of 31. That was when my brother Tom (NØBSY) got me involved in a cappella shape-note singing from The Sacred Harp. This taught me how to sing parts; without it I could never have gotten into choral singing the way I have. My first choral work was with Exultate, singing Bach’s Mass in B-Minor, followed by Brahms’ German Requiem (in Rutter’s English translation). Since then I’ve been involved in a small choir here in the church, too. All of this has been a huge surprise to me. Up until I was 31 years old I was afraid to sing in front of other people, and I couldn’t sing parts if my life depended on it! So if any of you think you can’t sing, think twice — you might be surprised at what has been lying dormant in those vocal chords of yours, just waiting for the proper nudge to burst forth into beautiful song.

I see Tyler Pattison, N7TFP, is not only an accomplished ham radio operator but an accomplished musician. Along with his excellent tutorials for ham radio operators, Tyler has also posted a video of his performance of Charles-Marie Widor’s Toccata in F from Symphony No. 5. In this video you can see the organ from Tyler’s perspective, not only as a musician but as an electrical engineer. He is bringing both sides of his brain to bear upon the magnificent task of rebuilding and upgrading this organ — and then making beautiful music on it.

How many others like Tyler and myself are out there? If you are a musician and an amateur radio operator, what do you think? Has one influenced the other in your life? How?

Yesterday while I was continuing my research into new rigs, my TS-850 stopped working with a dead silent receiver.  I pretty much wrote off the rig thinking it wasn’t worth the repair and I would be getting out the credit card and picking up the phone to place an order for its replacement.  But my good friend K3PH happened to see my rig death announcement on Facebook and posted a link to a Kenwood service bulletin about a known issue with Kenwood 850 receivers going dead.  For giggles I opened up the rig and checked the “RXB” voltage point, and sure enough it had the symptoms of the issue.  I replaced one culprit SMT diode with two run-of-the-mill 1N914 diodes and the rig came back to life.  As if that wasn’t enough, the CW QSK is now much better, with full break actually much quieter and smoother than before.  It’s like the rig has a second lease on life.

So for now the decision that seemed eminent is postponed while I enjoy my reborn Kenwood 850.  I’m still mulling over the choices for a new rig, but I think I have it down to the Kenwood TS-590 and the Yaesu FT-950.   Despite my initial thoughts of abandoning Kenwood altogether, the 590 seems to have some of the old Kenwood flair I liked years ago.  I’ve ruled out the K3, KX3, and Ten Tec Jupiter.  The Ten Tec Eagle is getting pushed out of the race.  I haven’t seriously considered Icom, but perhaps I should take the extra time to look at them.

So far the Kenwood and Yaesu offerings are neck-and-neck in the race, though from review comments, going through the manuals, and my experiences with other Yaesu products, I get the feeling the Kenwood interface may be more user friendly than the Yaesu menus.  I do like the front CW key jack, the separate RCA REC and PTT jacks, and the rotator integration feature in the Yaesu.  I wish I had an amateur radio store nearby I could touch each of these rigs.

Last night I operated during the CQ 160 phone contest with the 850.  I ran 100 watts to an inverted L with a meager seven or eight short radials on my acre lot, and I worked all but perhaps four or five stations in the midwest who couldn’t hear me.  It was like shooting fish in a barrel and quite fun, and really speaks to what you can do with a modest antenna on 160.