The other day I lamented to a fellow amateur that my shack was not functioning well. Specifically, my main workstation died three months ago and ever since I've been struggling to reclaim my productivity. One aspect of that is my desk. For half a decade or so I've had my computer clamped to a rolling lectern. It allowed me to move around my office as my mood and the light from the window changed.

During the weekly net I'd move my lectern and computer next to my radio and host the net whilst logging on my computer.

That's no longer possible because of a number of reasons, so instead I was trying to accomplish the same thing on a tiny 13 inch screen which didn't work for me. My friend asked me why I hadn't just extended the microphone lead from my radio, so I could sit at my now stationary computer and still key the microphone. I located an Ethernet joiner, an Ethernet cable and did just that. Simple. Job done.

Then I started wondering why I wasn't on HF with my station and if there was a simple solution that was eluding me. Spoiler alert, it still eludes me. The requirements are not too complicated, well at least in my mind they're not.

I want to operate on HF. I want the computer to not be physically, or specifically, electrically connected to the radio, in any way. I need to be able to use logging software that tracks the radio band, mode and frequency. I'd like to use digital modes, I'd like to have a computer controlled voice keyer and I do not want to run Windows and if I can at all help it, I'd like to spend as little time as possible doing this without spending an arm and a leg.

So, then I started wondering what this looks like for other people. What kinds of compromises have you made in your shack? What have you accomplished and how did you get there? What choices of hardware and software did you make, and why? Did you give up, or face the challenge head on? How did you gather information and how did you find out what others did?

Not for a moment do I think that this is a simple thing to solve, but it's clear to me that I'm so far down the complicated rabbit hole that I'd like someone to show me the light at the end of the tunnel to make some progress.

Of course I've not been idle while all this is happening. I configured a Raspberry Pi, a small single board computer, to talk to my radio via USB. I connected a sound card to the audio connector on my radio. Theoretically this should give me all that I need, but the difference between theory and practice is common knowledge, in theory it works, in practice it doesn't. The Pi is a few years old, but it's not doing much at all. It connects to my network wirelessly, so my main computer isn't physically connected to the radio, but it's still pretty unreliable and I have to say, calling CQ, either using voice or digital modes, should be rock solid. You don't want your radio to keep transmitting after it's supposed to and other little issues like that.

So, how did you do this? I'm interested to know. I'm not the first person to run into this issue and I'm not the last. Your experience might help me and it might help others. Drop me an email, cq@vk6flab.com and I look forward to hearing about your adventures.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The International Amateur Radio Union or IARU, is the governing body of our community. It represents us on the world stage through the International Telecommunications Union, the ITU. As I've discussed before, it consists of four separate organisations working together, the International Amateur Radio Union, the global body, and three regional ones, Region 1, 2 and 3, each representing the hobby of amateur radio. Previously I've looked at the constitution of the IARU to get a sense of its purpose in the world.

At the time I mentioned the notion of comparing the four organisations against each other, since ostensibly they're doing the same thing for a different part of the world.

Each of these regional bodies was created separately by different groups of people and their constitutions reflect that. The Global IARU constitution, last updated in 1989 consists of nine pages. The IARU Region 1 constitution, with proposed amendments from 2020 has 31 pages, the English version of the Region 2 constitution, since there's also a Spanish one, was amended in 2019 has six pages including two copies of Article 2, and refers regularly to the Global IARU constitution and finally, Region 3, amended in 2012 has 15 pages.

What is striking at first glance is just how poorly these documents are constructed. Formatting, inconsistent spelling, indentation, general layout and all are lacking attention to detail. I think that this reflects poorly on the internal workings of the IARU, but I digress.

Curiously, the Region 3 website has a whole section on proposed changes to the constitution. Many of those changes are around the election of officials and voting procedures. It also includes the use of modern communications like email and remote conference facilities on internet platforms. One paragraph stood out: "It was also realised that changes would need to be made to formally recognise that we will (as happened at the online conference in 2021) have females as well as males taking responsible positions in IARU Region 3."

It must have come as quite a shock to the delegates to learn that there are females in our hobby. This must have already happened in Region 1, since there is a reference to "he/she" in relation to being elected. Mind you, use of the word "they" must not have occurred to the authors.

But don't worry, we shouldn't rush these things, the International body and the Region 2 constitutions both use "he" for roles. I will point out that the International body has a weasel clause where it states, among other things, "words importing only the masculine gender include the feminine gender and the neutral gender". It's a good start, but falls short of standards expected today.

If you're not sure what all the fuss is about, let me illustrate:

"The term of office of the President shall be for a period of five years from the date of ratification of porcupine nomination, and porcupine shall remain in office until the nomination of porcupine successor has been ratified."

If that felt jarring for you, you might get some sense of what it feels like for someone reading that with gender pronouns that don't match the text.

A better solution would be:

"The term of office of the President shall be for a period of five years from the date of ratification of their nomination, and they shall remain in office until the nomination of their successor has been ratified."

It's not the first time we've struck this type of issue. It's high time that we did something about it. Over a year ago, I pointed out that OM, Old Man, and XYL, eX Young Lady, were derogatory and we should replace them with OP, operator, and SO, significant other. A year before that I proposed a revision of the Amateur's Code to make its language inclusive and reflective of the wider community in which we operate.

I've had discussions with people who identify across the gender spectrum about much of this and the overwhelming feedback I received is that our community is Old White Men clamouring to grow the hobby without a clue that the words they use are part of the problem.

So, credit to Region 1 for implementing some of this and to Region 3 for starting this conversation. I don't doubt that there are members in the Global IARU and Region 2 who would like to see this implemented and to you I say: It's time, high time, to review what language our community uses to identify itself to the wider community. More generally, as the governing and representative global bodies you should be leading the way and providing guidance to the member societies.

So, next time you promote our community, refer to others, link to articles, and attempt to encourage participation, you should take a moment and ask yourself if what you're saying is truly speaking to people who are not Old White Men and if that's the case, what you might do to embrace the wider community.

The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

So, I have a confession. I don't know everything. Shocking right?

Over the past too many months, actually, come to think of it, years, I have not been on-air with my station on HF using FT8 or Olivia, modes that use tools like "WSJT-X" and "fldigi". This has not always been the case. For a time I used a tiny computer running those tools. It had plenty of issues related to its size and capacity. Overwhelmingly it was slow, unsurprising since it was released in 2009. After one particularly frustrating session where I had to recompile WSJT-X on an older 32-bit operating system using an Atom processor, I decided that this was not helping me, and I put it away.

The idea was to use my main computer that could do all the heavy lifting without cracking a sweat. To make this happen the traditional way, I'd be expected to physically connect the radio to the computer. I'm not a fan of doing that, given the potential damage that RF could do to my computer, not to mention that I have a sit-stand desk on wheels that I move around my office as the mood or the light takes me, if you're interested, I found a mobile lectern that the computer is clamped to. Works great, been using it for years.

RF aside, moving around the office is not conducive to plugging in a radio that comes with power, coax, audio, control, microphone and expects to have some space around it to actually use it. No problem, I have a RemoteRig, a device that comes in two parts. You connect one unit to the radio, the other to the head, that is, the removable faceplate of the radio, and using a network connection, you can have the head in one place and the radio in another. The two units don't have to be in the same room, let alone the same country.

I figured that I could replace the second half of the system, the head and its unit, and instead use software on my computer to get the same functionality and be up and running in minutes. That was several years ago. Interestingly, whilst I'm putting this together I did a search for "RemoteRig protocols" and learnt a few things, so perhaps this path isn't quite as dead as I feared. I've reached out to Mikael SM2O and if that comes to anything I'll let you know.

In the meantime I've been trying to figure out how to operate my radio in software only. I can control the radio if I physically connect a computer like a Raspberry Pi to it and use "rigctld" to interact with it. This gives me access to all the standard CAT, or Computer Assisted Tuning commands. In other words, I can change band, mode, frequency, trigger the transmitter, all the stuff that you need to get on-air to make noise.

There's only one bit missing, the noise, as-in audio, either coming from the radio, or going to it. I suppose I could trigger a carrier and use it to send Morse, but that doesn't give me receive capability. I've tried using network audio using "pulseaudio" - it never worked right. I've made USB hot-plug scripts that allow you to connect a USB device into a computer and access it across the network on another computer - it mostly works for sound, but reliable is not a word I'd use. I've looked at using the USB sound card in the audio mixer on my desk, but it's subject to all manner of funky restrictions and random audio dropouts. I could use a virtual screen and connect to a Raspberry Pi that's physically connected to the radio, but that's leaving all the hard work on the Pi, rather than the computer that I'm currently using with several orders of magnitude more capability.

Whilst we're discussing this, one of the reasons I like the idea of a software defined radio like a PlutoSDR, is that the stuff coming out of the radio, and going into it for that matter, is already digital. It takes away a whole lot of complexity, admittedly replacing it with software, but that's where I feel more comfortable.

Which brings me to you.

As I said, I don't know everything.

What are you doing in this space? Are you actually on-air with your contraption, or is it still in the planning stages? Are you sending audio, or digital data across the network? Does your system have the ability to swap out a radio and replace it with something completely different? Do you rely on functions available on the radio, or could it be used for a 1950's valve radio, a twenty year old one, a current model, or any number of software defined radios without issues? Finally, is it Open Source?

I confess that I'm not holding my breath for an answer, but there is a chance that you're similarly intrigued by this collection of questions that you will poke your head above the fence and make yourself known.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Over the past while I've been discussing the Amateur's Code and its place in our community. I've shown that it was published in 1927, despite credits to the contrary and it's possible that it existed since 1923. I've discussed the original code, how it evolved and what changes have been made across the decades since.

I'd like to take this opportunity to compare the original from 1927 to a revision that I've constructed using the various versions that have been published since. Originally I was going to use the current 2022 version in the ARRL handbook to discuss this, but it's completely different from the one shown on the ARRL website today, which appears to be more recent, that it made little sense to pick one over the other.

Back to 1927, or 1923 if you like, written by Paul M. Segal 9EEA, or W9EEA, Director, Rocky Mountain Division and General Counsel of ARRL.

The Amateur's Code

I - The Amateur is Gentlemanly. He never knowingly uses the air for his own amusement in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others. He abides by the pledges given by the A.R.R.L. in his behalf to the public and the Government.

II - The Amateur is Loyal. He owes his amateur radio to the American Radio Relay League, and he offers it his unswerving loyalty.

III - The Amateur is Progressive. He keeps his station abreast of science. It is built well and efficiently. His operating practice is clean and regular.

IV - The Amateur is Friendly. Slow and patient sending when requested, friendly advice and counsel to the beginner, kindly assistance and cooperation for the broadcast listener: these are marks of the amateur spirit.

V - The Amateur is Balanced. Radio is his hobby. He never allows it to interfere with any of the duties he owes to his home, his job, his school or his community.

VI - The Amateur is Patriotic. His knowledge and his station are always ready for the service of his country and his community.

It has a certain "quality" about it. Leaving aside that it's written with a male radio amateur in mind, it represents what the character Dennis Denuto in the 1997 Australian movie "The Castle" refers to as "It's just the vibe of the thing".

I present to you an updated version of the code in an attempt at preserving that vibe whilst taking into account that we're not in 1923 any longer:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE and RESPECTFUL...never knowingly behaving in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

The Radio Amateur is LOYAL...offering encouragement and participation to the global amateur community.

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE...keeping abreast of science, striving to build and operate their station above reproach.

The Radio Amateur is FRIENDLY...patient; offering friendly advice and counsel to the beginner; kindly assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the hallmarks of the amateur spirit.

The Radio Amateur is BALANCED...radio is a hobby, never allowing it to interfere with any of the duties owed to home, work, school or community.

The Radio Amateur is SUPPORTIVE...knowledge, station and skills always ready for service to country and community.

Hopefully you've followed along with the evolution of this discussion and find the reasoning for it as compelling as I do. Of course this is just one perspective on what a revised Amateur's Code might look like and I am offering it as a topic of discussion to the entire global amateur radio community. I hope that it provides food for thought, talking points and encouragement to ask questions.

I will reiterate my thanks to the WorldRadioHistory.com website where you can find many of the earliest editions of the ARRL handbook. If you have any of the missing editions, or better copies than those available, I'd encourage you to share them to continue to preserve the history of our community.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

It's been a while since I looked up the word "patriotic". Depending on which dictionary definition you use it could be: "showing love for your country and being proud of it", or it could mean: "having or expressing devotion to and vigorous support of one's country".

Synonyms for the word patriotic include "nationalist" and "nationalistic" and it relates to words such as "chauvinist", "jingoist" and "fervent". Jingoist means having or showing excessive favouritism towards one's own country.

That said, the original Amateur's Code published in 1927 says that:

The Amateur is Patriotic. His knowledge and his station are always ready for the service of his country and his community.

The 2022 ARRL handbook says:

The Radio Amateur is PATRIOTIC...station and skill always ready for service to country and community.

The ARRL website is slightly different:

The Radio Amateur is PATRIOTIC...His/[Her] station and skills are always ready for service to country and community.

Based on the meaning and connotations of the word "patriotic", I think that the sixth clause of the Amateur's Code is a political statement. It came at the close of World War One and in that context it makes sense.

I will also note that the word "patriotic" means different things to different people. For some it's a positive concept, for others it's the opposite and I think as a result it's a problematic concept in the world today.

If that's not clear to you, consider the notion of patriotic to a person living in the United States of America versus a person living in Ukraine, or a person living in North Korea, Sudan, China or Japan. Each of these countries have different concepts of the idea of patriotic which might not actually be compatible with each other.

Should we as a global community encourage cohesion or encourage incompatibility?

A more inclusive word might be "loyal", but we've already covered that. I've offered the following revision of the original loyalty clause to be:

The Radio Amateur is LOYAL...offering encouragement and participation to the global amateur community.

We could add the word country to that and dispense with the patriotic clause altogether, but I think that detracts from what the sixth clause is attempting to achieve, the sharing of station and skill to country and community.

What if we replace the word "patriotic" with "supportive" instead? I also think that the lost word "knowledge" is separate from station and skill and I think it has a place in this clause.

The clause would read:

The Radio Amateur is SUPPORTIVE...knowledge, station and skills always ready for service to country and community.

I'm aware that, given the wide range of meanings for the word "patriotic" across Earth, this is likely to be controversial, but in considering this version, please consider the level of emotion included in your feeling of the word "patriotic" versus the emotion for the word "supportive". It seems to me that reducing the level of emotion in a code of conduct is a positive evolution.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

When you are absorbed in a hobby like amateur radio it's easy to lose track of the world around you. I freely admit to spending many hours on this hobby and it wasn't until I spent some effort taking stock that I discovered just how much time I spent.

The fifth clause of the Amateur's Code attempts to formalise this behaviour and I confess that it's taken me several years to find a more reasonable balance. Let's review the original 1927 published version of this clause. It reads:

The Amateur is Balanced. Radio is his hobby. He never allows it to interfere with any of the duties he owes to his home, his job, his school or his community.

It's interesting to note that in one of the oldest documents describing our community it refers to our activity as being a hobby. I'm noting this because there have been plenty of treatises written on the notion that amateur radio is a public service and not a hobby.

This clearly states that in the opinion of the General Counsel of the ARRL in 1927, Amateur Radio is a hobby and frankly, I'm fine with that.

The 2022 ARRL handbook removes the reference to hobby and words it:

The Radio Amateur is BALANCED...radio is an avocation, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.

The ARRL website reintroduces the concept of a hobby like this:

The Radio Amateur is BALANCED...Radio is a hobby, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.

I'll note that the definition of avocation is "a hobby or minor occupation" and I'm not sure what the clause gains by using a word that I had to look up in the dictionary. Consider for a moment if your first language isn't English, why use "avocation" when "hobby" is the same thing?

The original used the phrase: "never allows it to interfere with any of the duties he owes", this puts amateur radio as a hobby at the bottom of the pecking order in the list of things you do. The 2022 version waters this down to "never interfering with duties owed", essentially elevating the hobby above some of those other duties. I don't think that this is an improvement.

I'm a fan of amateur radio, but I think that in the scheme of things it needs to take the place of a hobby, not an activity that has the ability to be prioritised over any of your other duties. If it does, where is the line? What is more important and what isn't? Should this be something that we in our code of conduct endorse? What's next, telling amateurs specifically what they should be doing? I think not.

One thing that's worth exploring is the concept of "job". A job is your occupation, tow truck driver, radio astronomer, submariner or accountant. The original meaning, going back to the 1550's is "an activity that an individual performs in exchange for a specific fee or payment".

What if you don't have a job? What if you're retired, unemployed or have some other lifestyle?

What if we replace the word "job" with "work", defined as "a physical or mental activity that is performed in order to accomplish or produce something"?

This could make the fifth clause look like this:

The Radio Amateur is BALANCED...radio is a hobby, never allowing it to interfere with any of the duties owed to home, work, school or community.

It's short and sweet, uses simple language and it covers everything that the original document was attempting to achieve, and as a bonus it no longer requires you to have a job.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The fourth clause of the original Amateur's Code, published in 1927 has a lot to say about the tone of amateur radio. It says:

The Amateur is Friendly. Slow and patient sending when requested, friendly advice and counsel to the beginner, kindly assistance and cooperation for the broadcast listener: these are marks of the amateur spirit.

The 2022 ARRL handbook tweaks that into:

The Radio Amateur is FRIENDLY...slow and patient operating when requested; friendly advice and counsel to the beginner; kindly assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the hallmarks of the amateur spirit.

The ARRL website adds a pronoun and updates some of the language:

The Radio Amateur is FRIENDLY...He/[She] operates slowly and patiently when requested; offers friendly advice and counsel to beginners; kind assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the marks of the amateur spirit.

I'm not quite sure what the idea behind this change is. The original referred to "slow and patient sending" in an era when that meant slowing down your Morse Code. I'm not sure what "operating slowly" means, unless it's asking the amateur to speak slowly or to operate their fixed speed FT8 station slowly, hardly the same thing as reducing the speed of your Morse key.

There's also a reference to the "broadcast listener", something which we refer to as shortwave listeners today. Essentially, be kind to the people around you and accommodate their limitations when you are asked, which is what the rest of the words have been morphed into.

I think that being friendly and patient is a worthy aim and I don't think that it should be requested. The original used the word friendly twice, added kindly and used counsel, advice, assistance and cooperation.

All this is collaborative language, encouraging the amateur to participate and being friendly and considerate when they do.

I also note the difference between a "mark" and a "hallmark". The word hallmark means a mark stamped on articles of gold, silver, or platinum by the British assay offices, certifying their standard of purity.

I think that certifying friendliness to a standard of purity is a worthy objective and I think that using the word "hallmark" instead of "mark" elevates the clause to a standard worth achieving. I think that the 2022 ARRL handbook use of the word "hallmark" is an example of an improvement of the code that should be embraced.

With that in mind, removing the superfluous pronouns, given that "The Radio Amateur" encompasses anyone with a license, here's an alternative for the fourth clause of the Amateur's Code.

The Radio Amateur is FRIENDLY...patient; offering friendly advice and counsel to the beginner; kindly assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the hallmarks of the amateur spirit.

It's a little longer than I'd like, but I think it leaves less room for ambiguity in the notion of operating slowly and it no longer requires that someone needs to ask for an amateur to be patient. I think that overall, it encourages good behaviour in a world where we can bash out an angry reply at the whim of the nearest keyboard.

What do you like about this version and what would you change?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The third clause of the original Amateur's Code reads:

The Amateur is Progressive. He keeps his station abreast of science. It is built well and efficiently. His operating practice is clean and regular.

The 2022 ARRL handbook is similar:

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE...with knowledge abreast of science, a well-built and efficient station and operation above reproach.

The ARRL website adds in some pronouns and removes the science from the clause:

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE...He/[She] keeps his/[her] station up to date. It is well-built and efficient. His/[Her] operating practice is above reproach.

I'm not sure what prompted this alteration and frankly, I'm not a fan. Pronouns aside, science is at the heart of what it is that we do and that has been the case since the very first amateur went on air. It's also bewildering to me that knowledge and science has been transformed into keeping your station up to date, which means something else entirely.

The original is about learning and education, in my opinion the ARRL website version is about shopping and frankly it's distasteful in a world where we as amateurs are renowned for experimentation and constructing a solution from parts.

It raises another question.

Who actually made this change and what process exists to actually implement it? Is it the whim of an individual, or is there a committee that was elected to investigate and update the code? If it was an elected body, how does it represent me in Australia and how does it represent any amateur beyond the shores of the United States, or even beyond the membership of the ARRL?

Consider the scope of amateur radio as a global activity. The Amateur's Code has spread far and wide in the past century, well beyond its apparent origins as a page in the third edition of the ARRL handbook in 1927.

In my opinion this code is not an ARRL owned document, it belongs to all amateurs across Earth and it should be treated as such. As I've said before, it's a living document and it has evolved over time, but that doesn't mean it can be changed on a whim. There should be rigorous discussion in a public forum that informs any such change and at present I see no evidence of that at all.

To illustrate its reach further, the IARU has a document called "Ethics and Operating Procedures for the Radio Amateur", with Edition 3 published in 2010. It contains a copy of the code with yet another version of clause three:

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE... He keeps his station up to date. It is well-built and efficient. His operating practice is above reproach.

Clearly change is being implemented somewhere and it might well be that this version informed the current version on the ARRL website, 12 years later. I'll also note that there is a copyright statement in that IARU document that contains a whole lot of, in my opinion, unenforceable verbiage, including the requirement that any copy or portion is required to include a copyright notice, which in the case of the included Amateur's Code is murky at best. I also note that it credits Paul Segal in 1928, something which we've already established is wrong, given that the code appears in print in 1927 and has been credited to him as far back as 1923.

Back to the clause, I think that keeping science as an integral part of the conversation is essential. I'm going to repeat the original clause as published for reference.

The Amateur is Progressive. He keeps his station abreast of science. It is built well and efficiently. His operating practice is clean and regular.

In addition to science, there's a statement about how to build and how to operate. It's a little curious to use the word progressive, but it means to happen or develop gradually or in stages. In other words, you don't need to be perfect on day one, but you do need to strive for the objectives as part of an evolutionary process.

So, progressive, science, well built and well operated. That seems like a recipe for lifelong learning, in my opinion a lofty goal to strive for.

What if we lost the last century pronouns, removed the shopping imperative and kept the tone:

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE...keeping abreast of science, striving to build and operate their station above reproach.

Would such a clause inspire you to do better, to build and grow as an amateur, to improve and learn?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The second clause of the original Amateur's Code reads:

The Amateur is Loyal. He owes his amateur radio to the American Radio Relay League, and he offers it his unswerving loyalty.

The 2022 ARRL handbook presents it with the following words:

The Radio Amateur is LOYAL...offers loyalty, encouragement and support to other amateurs, local clubs and the American Radio Relay League, through which Amateur Radio in the United States is represented nationally and internationally.

The ARRL website goes the extra mile to make this hard work and states that:

The Radio Amateur is LOYAL...He/[She] offers loyalty, encouragement and support to other amateurs, local clubs, the IARU Radio Society in his/[her] country, through which Amateur Radio in his/[her] country is represented nationally and internationally.

Pronouns aside, this has got to be one of the more tortured efforts you might subject an entire group of humans to. Written in an attempt to enumerate each and every specific version of the global amateur radio community, it excludes more than it includes and in doing so completely fails the one thing it aims to achieve, a sense of belonging, being part of something bigger than you.

So what does loyalty look like?

Is providing constructive feedback loyalty? Is giving your time and energy a loyal thing? What about being a member of a club?

The dictionary suggests that loyalty is a strong feeling of support or allegiance. Originally the code suggested that this should be directed at the ARRL, even the handbook continues to suggest that today, but is that relevant for me here in Australia? Should I be a loyal member of the ARRL, or should I be a loyal member of the WIA? What if there is a second body in your country? In Australia there is another organisation attempting to reshape the hobby, RASA, the Radio Amateur Society of Australia, should I be loyal to that? Can I be loyal to both, or neither? What happens if I am not comfortable with either organisation, who should I be loyal to?

National bodies aside, what about clubs? Am I required to be a club member and be loyal to it? What if I'm a member of more than one club? Should I be more loyal to one than the other? Should I be more loyal to the national body or my local club? What if I'm not a member of any club? What should I be loyal to then?

What if loyalty is coupled to an idea instead of a specific body? What might that idea look like? The revised version of the clause already includes concepts such as encouragement and support to other amateurs. What if we just omit any specific bodies and replace it with the idea of the global amateur community in all its many splendored diversity?

While we're looking at this, the word encouragement includes the action of giving someone support, confidence or hope, so we're repeating ourselves by using support and there's plenty of other things we could share around.

Here's a philosophical question to wrap your mind around. If you have a drivers' license, but you don't drive, are you a driver? Similarly, if you have an amateur license, but you don't do anything with it, are you an amateur? Perhaps the nub of this lies in participation.

Taking those thoughts into account, we could rephrase the second clause of the Amateur's Code to:

The Radio Amateur is LOYAL...offering encouragement and participation to the global amateur community.

If this clause was part of the Amateur's Code, would it help you feel like you belonged, would it travel beyond the borders of your country and would you feel part of something bigger?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The first clause of the original Amateur's Code reads:

The Amateur is Gentlemanly. He never knowingly uses the air for his own amusement in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others. He abides by the pledges given by the A.R.R.L. in his behalf to the public and the Government.

The 2022 ARRL handbook version states it like this:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE...never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

Today the ARRL website presents it as:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE...He/[She] never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

It's surprising to see the addition of the He/[She] pronoun when nothing is added by doing so, in fact for some amateurs this actually reduces its relevance, something which I've spoken about before.

We could just simply change the words to remove the pronoun entirely, but does that actually cover all of what we want it to mean? Should this consideration be limited to operating, or should we go beyond that? What about conduct in a club setting, or on social media, email or SMS?

Some of these activities are conducted as a radio amateur and some are not. If we're limiting ourselves to amateur radio, not an unreasonable place to start given that we're talking about a document called "The Amateur's Code", we should really discuss the nature of amateur radio today.

I find myself in a community of amateurs, not a radio in sight, exchanging thoughts, opinions and experience that go beyond the concept of operating. I will note that there are legal definitions in our hobby that describe the notion of operating that do not include QRZ.com, email or Reddit and there is an argument to be made that operating falls strictly within the bounds of a licensed amateur activity.

That said, since "no man is an island", first uttered in 1624 by John Donne, neatly illustrates that although we're licensed amateurs, we do more than key our radios alone and even when we do, there are activities that affect others who are not operating as such.

When we discuss things with each other, face to face, that's not a licensed activity, even if both of us are amateurs. Neither is sending an email to another amateur, or commenting on a social media post. Standing in a club and teaching is also not a licensed amateur activity and cannot be considered under the idea of "operating".

All of what this clause is attempting to say is to be considerate. Don't reduce the pleasure of others by doing things that are unacceptable. It goes to how you are expected to be, to conduct yourself, to behave.

To incorporate this idea that what you do with other amateurs goes beyond operating, I think the word "operate" needs to be changed to the word "behave".

I'd also like to explore the word "gentlemanly" from the original text. Synonyms for this include civilised, courteous, honourable and polite to name a few. It seems to me that words like that would benefit our interactions within our community, not to mention beyond it.

One word that comes to mind is "respectful", something that lies at the heart of how we conduct ourselves towards each other.

So, if we drop the pronouns, update the word operates and add in respect, a revised clause one could be:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE and RESPECTFUL...never knowingly behaving in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

Let me hasten to point out that I'm proposing this as a starting point for discussion. This is an activity that should go beyond one individual, it should also go beyond a single organisation. Amateur Radio is a global activity and it would do well for us to consider all of humanity when drafting a code of conduct which is essentially what the Amateur's Code is attempting to achieve.

So, how would you approach the first clause, what do you like, what do you think is missing, what would it need for you to consider it words to live by?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The American Radio Relay League or ARRL is one of the oldest amateur associations on Earth. 1926 saw the birth of "the Radio Amateur's Handbook", the first edition of what we now know as "The ARRL Handbook For Radio Communications" featured chapters on what it means to be an amateur, how to build and operate a station, how propagation works and how to experiment. The very first handbook had 5000 copies printed and thanks to the website WorldRadioHistory.com we have access to a signed copy by the author himself, the Communications Manager of the ARRL, Francis Edward Handy (W1BDI). He starts the 228 page book with the following words:

This Handbook is written as a guide for member-operators of the League. It is also useful as a source of information to the man who wants to take part in amateur radio activity but who has no idea of how to get started. Written first of all for the beginner, such an amount of useful and up-to-date information has been added that the Handbook in its present form is equally valuable as a compendium of information for the experienced brass-pounder and the beginner alike.

The first edition doesn't show a cover price, but the third edition, published a year later shows a charge of $1. The 2022, or 99th edition has nearly six times as many pages, 1280 of them, it costs ten times as much per page and sells for nearly 50 times as much at $49.95. The current handbook features topics such as Radio electronics theory and principles, Circuit design and equipment as well as articles and projects that include 3D printing, portable battery selection, safe antenna and tower work practices and comes in a variety of formats including electronic and box sets.

I'm giving this background to give you a sense of how things have evolved in the past century. For example, one thing that the very first edition didn't have was a page called the Amateur's Code. The oldest copy I've found appears in the 1927 or third edition.

If you're familiar with the words, you're in for a treat. If not, sit back and imagine it's 1927, or 1923, more on that in a moment.

The Amateur's Code

I - The Amateur is Gentlemanly. He never knowingly uses the air for his own amusement in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others. He abides by the pledges given by the A.R.R.L. in his behalf to the public and the Government.

II - The Amateur is Loyal. He owes his amateur radio to the American Radio Relay League, and he offers it his unswerving loyalty.

III - The Amateur is Progressive. He keeps his station abreast of science. It is built well and efficiently. His operating practice is clean and regular.

IV - The Amateur is Friendly. Slow and patient sending when requested, friendly advice and counsel to the beginner, kindly assistance and cooperation for the broadcast listener: these are marks of the amateur spirit.

V - The Amateur is Balanced. Radio is his hobby. He never allows it to interfere with any of the duties he owes to his home, his job, his school or his community.

VI - The Amateur is Patriotic. His knowledge and his station are always ready for the service of his country and his community.

This version is credited to Paul M. Segal 9EEA, Director, Rocky Mountain Division ARRL.

The code appears on page 9 of the 1927 edition of the handbook. It uses Roman numerals to identify each point, the title is beautifully rendered with the Old English Typeface and it's shown inside a rectangle on a page on its own.

Over the next 45 years the text stays the same. There are changes like colons to semi-colons, an additional comma and the evolution from Roman numerals to modern numbers, and then written numbers and finally the removal of the numbers entirely. At one point the title is changed from "Amateur's Code" to "Our Code", but that only lasts for one edition. Speaking of editions, the 1936 edition, the thirteenth in the series, is referred throughout as the 1936 edition, superstition is alive and well.

The credit changes over time as well. In 1929 Paul's callsign is changed from 9EEA to W9EEA.

In 1943 we see a once-off credit appear. It states that the code was written in 1923 by Lieut.-Commander Paul. M. Segal, General Counsel of ARRL. It's the only credit that shows a different year from any of the other references which all point at 1928 as the original year, which is what the ARRL uses today. Interestingly, we have a copy of the handbook from 1927 that features the code, so it's entirely possible that 1923 is actually correct and it's not hard to imagine that a poorly printed 3 looks like the remains of the number 8.

To add to this, there's a 1944 FCC report to the President of the United States of America that contains a reference to "Lieutenant Commander Paul. M. Segal, the radio industry attorney". In addition there's an announcement in the New York Times, dated 25 May 1968 with the headline: "Paul M. Segal Is Dead at 68; Expert in Communications Law"

I don't have access to any version of the Second Edition of the handbook which had two print runs in 1927. It's entirely possible that the code appeared there, but I have no evidence either way. I do believe that Paul M. Segal, 9EEA Director of the Rocky Mountain Division of the ARRL is the same person as Lieutenant Commander Paul. M. Segal, General Counsel of ARRL and radio industry attorney who became a silent key in 1968.

Credits, layout and font changes aside, 1973 sees the first time when the words of the Amateur's Code actually change.

Let me illustrate.

The original first clause reads:

I - The Amateur is Gentlemanly. He never knowingly uses the air for his own amusement in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others. He abides by the pledges given by the A.R.R.L. in his behalf to the public and the Government.

In 1973 that's changed to:

One The Amateur is considerate . . .He never knowingly uses the air in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

The first four clauses are modified to greater and lesser degree, clause five and six stay the same.

Today the ARRL website shows the first clause as:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE...He/[She] never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

And the credit reads: "adapted from the original Amateur's Code, written by Paul M. Segal, W9EEA, in 1928"

It's noteworthy that going back to the original text the very first clause encourages the amateur to be gentlemanly, something which we can relate to in terms of being respectful, polite and civil.

It's also clear that the Amateur's Code is a living document and has been moving with the times. I think that we as a community have the opportunity to participate in another review and I will investigate and share with you some of my thoughts on the matter.

I think that it is important that we have a code of conduct that reflects our values and at present the best starting point we have is the Amateur's Code.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

One of the most misunderstood settings on your radio is the microphone gain. You'll often hear people talking about adjusting it up or down depending on what they hear and the results are often displeasing to the ear.

The very first thing to know is that the microphone gain is likely the single most audible setting on your radio, right after the tuning frequency. It's pretty much the first variable between your voice and your transmitter. Set it too low and you'll hear nothing, set it too high and you'll hear gibberish.

I said it's pretty much the first thing, but it's not the very first. That's your voice, unique in all its glory, loud, soft, happy, sad, funny or not, it's the thing that your microphone captures to transmit. Closely coupled to your voice is the distance between your mouth and your mike. The closer you are, the louder, the further, the softer and the more background noise creeps in.

As an aside, speaking of noise, there's background noise at play, but there's also the noise that comes from the audio circuitry itself, which can for example change depending on the temperature of your radio. I'm going to refer to both as noise here, even though they're slightly different.

So, starting with the ideal model where you always speak in the same way, at the same volume, at the same distance from the microphone, with a constant temperature in your radio, at all times, the next thing is the microphone gain, or gain.

Gain is an imperfect attempt at corralling your utterings into electrical signals without causing the audio circuit to distort or drown in noise. Distortion comes as a result of overloading of the audio circuit when the gain is too high, causing clipping, which essentially changes the audio waveform into something that no longer resembles your voice. At the low end of the gain range there is no difference between audio and noise which results in your voice being buried inside a hissing noise.

You might wonder why we don't just build transmitters that cannot clip and increase your volume. Well, we do. We use things like AGC, or Automatic Gain Control to attempt to prevent such things from happening, but this isn't perfect.

All this results in the microphone gain being a setting that you need to tune to your voice and adjust as things change. Overall, the best outcome is when you set the gain so the AGC just engages when you talk normally.

This gain setting also applies to computer generated signals, often fed into your radio via an audio or microphone input. If you set the gain too low, noise is the problem, set it too high and the Automatic Gain Control will distort the signal to the point where it no longer works and causes interference for everyone else including the station that you're trying to contact.

On older radios the output power was fixed. This is also true for Software Defined Radios. To reduce output power, you can change the microphone gain down and reduce the power. Change it to halfway and your output power is essentially reduced to half power. This works for a range of settings, but get too low and we're back to noise and audio fighting each other.

The opposite isn't true.

You cannot increase the microphone gain to increase power. The moment you exceed the audio circuit range your signal is distorted. On an SDR this means that you're exceeding the ability of the Analogue to Digital converter to represent your audio. In digital terms, zero means no sound and all on means 100%. If your audio is so loud as to only be 100% on, that's like sending a tone out the transmitter, resembling anything but your voice.

All of what I've talked about is related to SSB signals and to some extent AM. FM is a different animal entirely. For starters, output power on FM is fixed. The next difference is the signal or channel width. Without going into full detail, FM comes in different widths, WFM or Wideband FM, NFM, or Narrowband FM, and between the two, "normal" FM. To make things more fun, not everyone agrees on what each one means at any given time. Also, channel width and channel spacing are not the same thing, but that's for another day.

Gain aside for a moment, consider two matched FM radios using the same channel width. Your voice volume is determined by how much of the channel you use. Louder means wider, softer means narrower. Adjust the gain up, the signal gets wider, but the limit of the channel width remains, get too high and it clips at the channel width and distorts. At the other end, changing the gain down, you'll use less of the channel width and eventually the noise and your voice will be at the same level and you won't be heard.

Let's look at what happens when you use a normal FM signal to transmit to a narrowband FM receiver. Essentially your signal is too wide and the result is that your voice will be clipped unless you speak really softly or if you've set the gain really low, either way comes with more noise.

Similarly, if you transmit a narrowband FM signal to a normal FM receiver, then your voice will be very low, regardless of the microphone gain setting and turning it up will only distort it due to clipping inside your transmitter.

So, for FM, before fiddling with the gain, make sure that you're using the same FM mode as the other station. One thing to remember is when you use a repeater, if the audio is always too loud for everyone, your mode is probably too narrow. Similarly, if the audio is always too soft and you always need to turn up the volume on your radio, your mode is likely too wide. Check your radio specifications to determine what each mode means.

In broadcast audio this whole thing is managed by calibration using standard tones, but as amateurs we tend to rely on other people reporting their feelings on the quality of your voice with the often heard admonishment to adjust the microphone gain.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

As a new amateur one of the initial perplexing issues you're confronted with is setting up your first radio to talk to the local repeater. The question is so common that it's almost an invisible rite of passage to a new licensee. While I'm a fan of learning, there is plenty of that to go round and setting up your radio to talk to a repeater shouldn't be a hurdle to getting on air and making noise.

Ignoring the whole repeater thing for a moment, let's consider your radio. It doesn't matter if it's a handheld, a base station, a boat anchor or something else. To participate in the whole repeater experience, you need to tune your radio to hear it.

Technically, if I told you that you could tune to a local repeater on 146.750 MHz, that would be enough information to get you going, but this depends entirely on a set of standard assumptions that are likely not obvious to you. Let's explore what's going on.

Given that frequency, you can set your radio to 146.750 MHz and in most cases, you'll be able to hear the repeater. To actually participate, you would need to do some more work to get your transmitter to be heard.

As I said, standards are what makes that possible, but like every human endeavour, caution must be applied. As Andrew Tanenbaum said: "The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from." With that in mind, let's proceed. Before you start yelling, I'll add caveats at the end.

Armed with a repeater frequency, you have enough information to get on air, but it assumes that you know a couple of things. So let's delve into those assumptions.

For starters, there is an assumption that you're aware that to operate a repeater you must transmit on a different frequency than what you're listening on. Why that is the case is a whole other discussion which I'll leave for today.

There is the assumption that you know that the two frequencies, one for listening, one for transmitting, are separated from each other by a known distance, a so-called offset.

You're also assumed to know that this offset is fixed but different for each band.

There's more, but let's start here.

For your radio to transmit on a different frequency than you listen, you must tell it to. In many cases tuning your radio to a so-called repeater frequency will already do this for you, but not always.

You might need to specifically program your radio for repeater operation, or turn on the offset mode, or use two memories, or some other thing specific to your radio. Read The Friendly Manual, I know you know how.

The next step is to look at the band you're on. In this case the 2m band. This means that the standard says that the difference between the receive and transmit frequency is 600 kHz. I'm studiously ignoring other bands at this moment because, standards.

At this point you know that your radio should be tuned to 146.750 MHz, it should be in repeater mode and the offset should be 600 kHz. That's when the next question arises, should that be plus 600 or minus 600?

Guess what, another standard. If the receive frequency is less than 147 MHz, the answer is minus 600 kHz. If it's more than 147 MHz, it's plus 600 kHz.

Notice that I didn't specify what happens if it's exactly 147 MHz? That's because nobody knows. Seriously though, the local repeater owner will know, but you can try either and get your answer.

Now for the caveats.

Let's start with the 147 MHz cross-over exception. This isn't global, for example repeaters in California use several different ranges for such a cross-over point.

I also didn't tell you about repeaters on other bands because the offset depends on where you are. In many cases the 70cm repeater offset is 5 MHz, but in Europe it's mostly 7.6 MHz, unless it's 9 MHz. The 10m repeater offsets are often 100 kHz, but sometimes they're 1 MHz, similarly the 6m repeater offset is 1 MHz, except when it's not.

The point being that starting with a receive frequency, there's a great number of assumptions, many of which you'll need to discover for your own location. A great resource which I've mentioned before is the brainchild of Garrett KD6KPC, the repeaterbook.com website and app, maintained by a global group of volunteers, which lists many repeaters and their specific settings, frequencies and locations.

So, armed with this knowledge, I expect that you can now find a local repeater and make use of it. When in doubt, contact the owner and ask for help, they're a friendly bunch. Remember to say thank you!

So, what excuse do you have not to get on air and make noise?

Oh, before I forget, if you don't hear anything, or if transmit isn't doing what you expect, check that you've configured CTCSS, another assumption.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The recent "incident" at the ARRL in which it disclosed that it was the "victim of a sophisticated network attack by a malicious international cyber group" brings into focus some serious questions around our community in relation to identity and privacy.

Let's start with your callsign. Right now in Australia you can use the official register to look for VK6FLAB. When you do, you'll discover that it's "Assigned to Foundation". That's it. No mention of who holds it, where it's registered or how to contact the holder, none of that.

In the case of my callsign, because I haven't surrendered my apparently now legally useless license, you can still search the previous system, the Register of Radiocommunications Licenses and discover that it's held by me, but as soon as it expires, that record will vanish and the relationship between me and my callsign will be lost to the public.

Also, there are no dates associated with any of this. You cannot use the current or previous system to discover if I held my callsign in November 2010 or not. In case you're wondering, no, I didn't, I was licensed a month later. Right now if you look for VK6EEN on QRZ.com, you'll see that it's linked to CT1EEN, but when was that information last updated? I know for a fact that I became the holder in November 2020. It appears that Sam CT1EEN used it around the turn of the century, about 24 years ago, but precisely when and for how long, is unclear.

So, from a public disclosure perspective, the links between me and my callsigns are tenuous at best.

Before I continue, I will point out that this is not unusual. For example, you can see the number plate on my car as I drive down the street, but most people don't have the ability to link it to me.

Similarly, Ofcom in the United Kingdom released a list of allocated amateur callsigns after a freedom of information request. It's unclear if this information is updated, or if it requires a new request each time. Like Australia, the dataset contains the callsign, the type of license and when the record was last updated. Nothing else.

In contrast, the United States has a full license search that returns name, address, issue and expiry dates. Japan offers both a search tool and downloads. Interestingly you can see if a callsign was previously licensed and when, but not by whom.

No doubt each country has their own interpretation in relation to how this is handled and as was the case in Australia, this is ever changing.

This leaves us with an interesting phenomenon.

We use callsigns on-air to identify ourselves, but the relationship between the callsign and our identity, let alone when, is not guaranteed for a significant proportion of the amateur community.

So, how does this relate to the ARRL incident?

Radio amateurs like to make contacts with each other and collect those contacts like you might collect stickers or postage stamps. For decades we've used QSL cards, essentially a postcard sent from one amateur to another to confirm a contact. When you collect enough cards, you can apply for an award, like the DXCC, showing that you made contact with one hundred different so-called DX entities.

In the era of computing, some organisations, like the ARRL, came up with the idea of using the internet to exchange these contacts instead of using a postcard. This reduced delays and was presented as a system to make the process more secure by requiring that people electronically sign their contacts, but could only do so after identifying themselves using traditional means, like providing copies of their license, their passport, etc. The ARRL called it Logbook of the World, or LoTW, and it was adopted by the amateur community around the globe.

While the ARRL continues to state that it only holds public information on its member database, it has made no such assurances about the LoTW system. There is personal and private information that the ARRL has and there is no indication at all what happened to it.

Other systems such as QRZ, eQSL, Clublog and Hamlog offer similar systems with various levels of authentication and verification. A new player, HQSL, is confusing the issue by offering cryptographically signed QSL cards, boasting that their system is decentralised and not restricted to any single service, but immediately requires that you sign-up with Hamlog to get going.

So, we have several organisations offering electronic logging, contact confirmation and security which claim to guarantee that this callsign contacted that callsign at a time and date, on a band, using a mode.

One problem.

None of this is real.

For starters, there is no guarantee that the station operating VK6FLAB was me. There is also no record guaranteeing that I'm the holder of VK6FLAB, or any proof that I am who I say I am. There is also no guarantee that the person confirming a contact between VK6FLAB and you is me. So, we're creating a phantom secure system that's attempting to fix the wrong problem.

In golf, when you start playing for rankings, rather than a round at the 19th hole, the process used to verify your score is dependent on peer review. You cannot mark your own score-card, someone else does.

In amateur radio we've built this electronic house of cards to track whom we've talked to and when, but it's a mirage when looked at closely.

While a DXCC award is worth nothing more than a personal achievement, we cannot go on pretending that identity verification services like LoTW are real, nor can we continue to accept that organisations like the ARRL should demand and store valuable identity information.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The art of amateur radio is a globe spanning activity, held together by radio waves and the promise of a community with a shared uncommon interest. The strength of a community depends entirely on the members of that community. Without the efforts of each individual amateur, our worldwide license to experiment is doomed.

You might ask yourself what part you have to play in this?

Consider what would happen if a group of amateurs decided to transmit on an unlicensed frequency, or purposefully interfered with other legal users. It's obvious that the regulatory response to such illegal activities would be swift and left unchecked, it would spark the end of our hobby.

What prevents that from happening is our common purpose, our common interests, our willingness to address such behaviour, or said in another way, our community standards. It's the thing that keeps us talking, sharing, learning, experimenting and having fun along the way.

I've been told many times that I shouldn't expect all amateurs to be friends, but consider for a moment the sheer diversity of our community. For starters we're scattered around the planet. We have different cultural and political sensibilities, we have different religions and expectations. We don't even speak the same language, even if you forget that the Japanese station you just had a QSO with was using phonetics not even close to their native language.

Those differences are mostly attributes of geography, but they don't end there. We have differences in our households and family structures, our work life and finances, our play time and our interests. We also differ in age, skin colour, gender and even our sexuality, orientation and gender identity.

Even among all those differences, we are still radio amateurs together with our personal preferences for Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood or some other brand, our desire to use QRP or kilowatts, our need to use a Morse key, our voice, or a computer. We choose to use a repeater, or not, choose HF or not, like to chat, or not, build antennas, or not.

So it's with all those differences in mind that I'm distressed to report that yet another amateur has been bullied out of our community. An amateur who joyfully participated in this community, who made videos, wrote software, learnt and shared. Like others I know, she was bullied in our community because she was different and it's not the first time I've witnessed this behaviour and it's not the first time I've called out this unacceptable conduct by so-called members of our community. Different, how you ask? Does it really matter, or are you asking to determine if there was a valid reason for making her feel uncomfortable?

To be clear, our community is a welcoming environment, filled with hope and joy, but there is a small rotten element in our midst that we need to rip out root and branch, much like we would if it was deliberate HF interference.

You might think that given that this abuse exists on reddit, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, QRZ, email, telephone, letterbox, in clubs and on-air, that it's a majority experience. That's not the case. The same individuals harass fellow amateurs across multiple platforms as entertainment causing untold harm to their victims.

The Standard You Walk Past Is The Standard You Accept. It's not just up to victims of bullying and harassment in a community to speak out. As members of our community, we amateurs have a responsibility to speak out also. Anyone who doesn't is part of the problem. Our community is so diverse as to never be one single thing. A bully is a bully, no matter which words are used to sugar coat it.

I'd like to invite you to consider any bullying you accepted in silence, either personally, as a witness, directly, or indirectly. This community is strong, it's resilient, it's resourceful, it's you and I and it's our duty to stand tall and speak out, loud and proud, about any victimisation.

Even if you've never considered that this is happening in your community, look around and notice people leaving the hobby unexpectedly and examine why that might be the case.

You might ask what it is that you can do to help. For starters, calling it out at every occurrence is part of communicating to the victim that they're not alone. It tells the community that they are part of the solution. It tells the bully that what they're doing is unacceptable.

I host a weekly net where we talk about amateur radio and discuss issues like this as and when they occur. We've done so in the past and will continue to offer a safe space for members of this community.

I have and continue to offer my email address, cq@vk6flab.com, for anyone who is struggling with this to discuss any bullying that they are dealing with.

I have experienced some of what this amateur has gone through at the hands of this community and I will not stand for it any longer and neither should you. Keeping quiet and changing frequency is not the solution as time after time experience has proven.

Calling out a bully and any bullying behaviour is calling out a vicious minuscule minority with a peanut brain who needs to be read the riot act. They are not welcome in this community. They are few and far between and we really don't need or want them in our midst.

In my opinion, the community must take ownership of this problem and address it directly, rather than sit on the fence and leave a victim wondering why they're on their own. If you are a victim of bullying in this community, I stand with you and if you are a bully, I'll do everything I can to call you out.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

There are days that my brain just cannot keep up with all the ideas that I have spinning around and today is one such experience. Before I take you on this wild ride I will mention that I'm only going to focus on the amateur radio specific things going on, but I tend to have a couple of projects on the go at any one time, much like a messy desk piled high with paper, books, gadgets, parts and coffee cups, my mind has this sometimes exhausting tendency to see connections between various projects and often this results in deeper rabbit holes, so with that in mind, I'd like to make an attempt at describing all the amateur things that are going on at this very moment.

So, here goes, hang on!

It all started with two friends, independently and until now, unbeknownst to each other, playing with a mode called Digital Radio Mondiale, or DRM. It's something I've talked about before. One friend is trying to decode it, the other is trying to generate it. I'm sitting on the side cheering on because I think that there will come a time when I understand enough of my PlutoSDR that I can create any form of any mode and not be limited to the SSB bandwidth that current technologies use and be able to receive and generate say a 20 kHz DRM signal.

In order to advance my learning, I started the day wanting to describe a PlutoSDR project. I wanted to spend some enjoyable time playing, making some progress and then telling you about it. I did play, I did have fun, I did make progress, but trying to explain precisely what and how was where I came unstuck.

I began describing the difference between analogue and digital radios and how there's a fundamental difference in how a signal comes to exist in both. That quickly turned into a conversation about I/Q signals, a discussion that I've been putting off for a while because I'm still not happy with my own understanding of it, let alone any attempt to explain it to you in a coherent and hopefully fun way.

The complexity of explanation was brought home to me during the week when NASA Administrator Bill Nelson used an example to explain an image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The phrase he used was this:

"if you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm's length, that is the part of the universe that you're seeing"

That seemed pretty clear to me. I could imagine a grain of sand on my fingertip, extending my arm and grasping the idea that hidden behind it was a small slice of the sky representing how big the image was. For me that explanation was excellent, especially when Bill Nelson went on to say that the things you were seeing were galaxies, each made of a hundred billion stars, each likely with planets in orbit.

Only I discovered that the explanation using a grain of sand wasn't universal. I was surprised to learn that for some it got muddled up with the grains of sand in the universe and the relationship between those and the one on your finger.

To be clear, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with misunderstanding, but it reminded me in a visceral way that how we explain things matters and there are plenty of times when my own efforts fail to achieve their intended purpose, of making things easier to understand.

Given the importance of I/Q signals within the whole conversation on software defined radios, I don't want to do a half baked attempt and fail. I will say this, an I/Q signal is a way of precisely representing a radio signal, but only to stop you thinking about it further.

I was talking about how my mind accumulates things.

The NanoVNA that's sitting on my desk, gifted to me by a friend, is a fantastic example of the similarity between it, software defined radio and say a TinySA which I came across last week. Let me unpack that a little.

A NanoVNA is a piece of testing equipment, as is a TinySA. They test different things. Both have the ability to generate and measure a signal and in that they share the abilities of an amateur radio transceiver that can also generate and receive a signal.

That right there is a very deep rabbit hole, so I'm going to purposefully step away and continue the journey of observation, only pausing to mention that my PlutoSDR has all the same capabilities and in that it's not alone.

The fundamental difference between these three devices is software. There are a few other things, but on the whole, software.

So, I'm carrying around this mush of things that are almost the same, but different, almost understood, but not quite, almost ready to explain, but not yet.

In an attempt at going forwards by moving sideways, I went on to investigate other things, prompted by people who send me emails. For example, code plugs and DMR and frankly I felt unclean reading the various explanations. I'm a firm believer in Open Source and this is like asking an Icom owner to explain the benefits of using Yaesu hardware.

Another question was around bending antennas, as-in, what happens when you drive down the road and your VHF antenna bends, or what happens if your HF dipole is bent to fit in your garden. Superficially I can say that the antenna changes as its bounding box changes shape. That means that the feed point impedance will change, as will the resonant frequency. The radiation pattern will also be affected, but sitting down and discovering just by how much is going to take more time than I have available whilst attempting to string together some coherent words on a topic I love.

So, in an attempt at telling you what's going on in my world of amateur radio, I leave you with this question:

"What was I talking about again?"

Now I remember, this is about just how complex, fluid and interesting amateur radio is for me and in that observation lies why I'm here doing what I do.

"What makes you keep coming back for more?"

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

In over a decade of writing a weekly article about all manner of different aspects of our hobby and community, I've never once talked about power connectors for your radio. It's so universal as to be invisible and rarely discussed. So much so, that something you do out of habit, makes another stop dead in their tracks and ask themselves why they never thought of it.

Despite how you might feel at the time, there's no such thing as a stupid question. The other day a fellow amateur Dave VK6KV asked about a power connector he'd seen at the local electronics store. That question started a group discussion about powering radios and how best to achieve that.

The very first thing to discuss is that the vast majority of amateur radio transceivers expect a nominal voltage of 13.8 Volt DC. That might sound like a strange requirement, but it's the voltage that comes from a fully charged 12 Volt lead acid battery, which is what many radios use as a power reference.

The next thing to consider is that a transceiver can draw quite a bit of power when it's transmitting. My Yaesu FT-857D user manual suggests 22 Ampere, but I've never seen that in the decade it's been in my possession.

When you purchase a radio, you'll likely discover that it either comes with bare wires, or some random connector that doesn't fit anything else. In many cases I've discovered that people cut off that connector and replace it with whatever standard they've come up with in their shack, but when they take their kit out on a field day, or acquire a new radio, the problem starts all over again.

Let me suggest a different approach.

The Anderson Power company, founded in 1877 by brothers Albert and Johan Anderson in Boston Massachusetts, make a range of connectors called the Anderson Powerpole and they come in a variety of ratings, sizes, shapes and colours.

First introduced as a standard by the ARRL Emergency Communications Course in December of 2000, after previously being adopted by amateur operators in California, the Anderson Powerpole PP15/45 series was selected. The Coordinator for Hawaii State Civil Defense RACES, or Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service, Ron, then AH6RH, now KH6D has a detailed description on his QSL page on how this came about.

As a result, the stackable, asymmetric, genderless plugs are in wide use within the amateur community. The plugs are designed to be joined together using various orientations, creating a unique connector to suit your purpose. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service or ARES standard is one such orientation and before you adopt the Anderson Powerpole in your shack, make sure you use their orientation to avoid magic smoke from escaping your equipment.

Picking a connector is just step one.

When you acquire a new piece of 12 Volt equipment, you can cut off the connector and replace it with the ARES Anderson Powerpole connector orientation. Many amateurs I know then throw away the unusable connector, or shove it into a box for later.

Instead, what I do is, terminate the plug that you just cut off in exactly the same way. Essentially, from a visual perspective, you've kept the power cable intact, but inserted a Powerpole join into the lead. As a result you now have a standard Powerpole power lead and you have a new Powerpole adaptor to suit the new connector.

For that reason alone, I tend to bring a box of spare Red and Black Powerpole connectors to any field day and use the opportunity to spread the love around.

As I said, the individual plugs come in a variety of colours, I have a selection of eleven in my shack, where for me a different colour means a different voltage or purpose. For example, I've adopted green as the colour for antenna radials.

One challenge I'd not been able to resolve, until suggested by Ben VK6NCB, was how to avoid plugging a 12 Volt power supply into something that expects say 7.5 Volts. Colour alone isn't sufficiently idiot proof, especially in the dark. Ben suggested that I adjust the orientation of the plugs, preventing connectors of different colours to mate. Looking back, I can't understand why I didn't think of that in the decade I've been using them.

I will note that there are other Anderson connectors in use. A popular one is the grey double connector, used in portable solar installations and caravans. I'd recommend that you consider if you really want to plug your radio directly into a solar panel or not and choose your connectors accordingly.

Before you ask, to my knowledge the Anderson Power Company doesn't know I exist, nor did I get compensated in any way to say Anderson Powerpole. It's the ARRL Emergency Services standard and I'm happy to advocate for its use everywhere I go.

So, whether you're using bare wires, banana plugs, Molex connectors or some other random barrel connectors, consider cutting the lead and inserting Anderson Powerpole connectors.

When was the last time that you had to do the 12 Volt connector dance?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Not a weekend goes by without an amateur radio contest or six, each with its own objectives, audience, times, rules, exchanges and scores. When you get bitten by the contesting bug, you'll quickly graduate from using pen and paper to keyboard and screen. That process comes with the inevitable selection of software suitable to both run on your shack computer and log your particular contest since as you'll discover, not all software knows about all contests or runs on every computer.

When you eventually do arrive at a working solution, you'll reap the rewards of using technology. Contesting software can help in many different ways. From logging your operating frequency and mode to tracking where other stations are active and it doesn't stop there. Type in a partial callsign and your software can suggest which ones it might be. Log a contact and you'll see if your contact is valid within the rules or not. Software can track your activity level and warn if you're exceeding any contest time limits. It can keep track of multipliers and the impact on your total score and at the end of a contest, contesting software can help with submitting your log.

After you've done this for a while, you'll notice that contest rules and scoring change over time. That brings with it the possibility of your software using old and invalid rules for validation, scoring and other contesting requirements.

In most cases, software is updated manually by the author to implement the latest rules. This means that authors are required to keep up to date with the rules for all of the contests that their software supports, let alone add new contests.

There are a few applications that support the idea of a contest definition which suggests the ability for anyone to define contesting rules to use them within the application. Unfortunately their functionality is strictly limited and they are not sufficient to define every contest rule that is in use today. Sadly, flexible as they might seem, they're neither universal nor compatible with each other. One definition, written by one amateur, for one application, cannot be used anywhere else, never mind trying to determine what the latest version is.

I strongly believe that we need a shared open standard that can serve contest organisers, contest software developers and contest participants. Before I elaborate, I will be explicit in pointing out that the intent is to standardise in a way that makes it possible to document all past, current and future contests and in doing so, provide a collaborative way to share contesting rules between organisers, software developers and contesters, not to mention awards committees and amateur associations.

So, if such a contest rule standard were to exist, what would it look like?

Until now, the approach has been to create a list of keywords and values that deal with particular types of rules, things like band start and stop, zone score, valid prefixes, power level, exchange, etc. The result is a growing but always incomplete list of keywords with no means to define any logic. At the moment, all the contesting applications manage any scoring logic internally, requiring that it's updated when any of the rules change. Not only that, the contest organiser has no insight into the mechanism and no means to validate the process.

As a contest organiser, scoring hundreds if not thousands of logs is a whole different challenge. Many contests do this manually, rely on someone else's software, or if the contest is popular enough, write their own code to manage the process.

All this effort creates a disconnect between the contester, the organiser and the contest software developers, each using their own definition of the rules of any particular contest.

A different approach might be to implement specific rules in a universal programming language like say JavaScript, and use those to manage the scoring and validation logic specific to each contest.

For example, you might define a function that returns the starting and ending time for a contest which gives you a mechanism to detect if the contest is happening right now. A contester could use it to determine when the contest starts and ends, but the same definition could be used by the organiser to determine if a submitted log entry is for a valid time.

Another might be a function that uses a callsign to determine if it attracts points or not and if it does, how many. Contesting software might use it to change the colour of the screen to indicate an invalid entry, but an organiser might use it to exclude a contact from a log.

You could have a function to determine if the exchange is valid, or what the next exchange number is, or if the frequency on which the radio is currently tuned to is allowed for a contest.

You could combine some of these simple rules to determine, for example, if the frequency the radio is on is the same or different since the last contact and if that's permitted or not within the rules.

As long as the framework in which this standard is defined is extensible, any contest could be defined in this way.

If it's written well, contest organisers might be able to write their own rules using this standard and everyone can use the same rules for their own needs.

You might recall that I've spoken about aspects of this problem before and at the time I suggested that an amateur radio standards body would be helpful. Failing that there's nothing stopping a few people collaborating in a discussion about how this might be implemented.

As an IT professional outside my shack I have some ideas on what's needed and what could give the whole amateur community something useful, but unsurprisingly, I don't know everything. Working together as contesters we might come up with a better result. As a starting point, I've created a repository on GitHub called "amateur-contesting-standard" to start a conversation about this scheme and I would love to read your thoughts and see your ideas on how this might be achieved.

If you'd like to get in touch, send an email to cq@vk6flab.com or find my callsign on Twitter and GitHub.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

A couple of weeks ago a friend, Ben VK6NCB asked an interesting question in our weekly net. He wanted to know, if money wasn't a concern, what would your ideal shack look like? The answers varied widely from leaving everything as is and using the money to retire, through to purpose built fixed or mobile shacks, with world wide DXCC activation travel and everything in between.

My own answer was a little different. I envisaged establishing an RF research laboratory and spending my life exploring and investigating the ins and outs of the fundamentals of our hobby. Building software defined radios and building tools to leverage their capabilities.

As far-fetched as money not being a concern might sound, it's something that a group of radio amateurs had to grapple with in 2019 when their group came into some money. The result is a private foundation with the aim to support, promote, and enhance amateur radio digital communications and broader communication.

The foundation, Amateur Radio Digital Communications or ARDC uses its resources to provide grants to the amateur community. There's a number of criteria to be eligible to receive an ARDC grant, but you must at least relate to the support and growth of amateur radio, education, research and development. Grants are evaluated on a range of aspirational goals, things like reach, inclusiveness, innovation, social good and others.

One of the first questions you might ask is how did these people get the money and why are they giving it away?

To answer that we'll need to travel back to 1981 when Hank, KA6M had the foresight to imagine that Internet-style networking was going to be a thing and requested a block of IP addresses for use by radio amateurs. If you're not familiar, an IP address is like a telephone number, but for a computer. Hank was granted a block of 16.7 million addresses. For decades these were informally administered by a group of volunteers working under the name of AMPRnet and later 44Net.

In 2011 the group founded ARDC as a California non-profit and officially took ownership of the network space and its management.

At this point I'll make a slight detour into IP addresses. I promise it's relevant.

For information to travel to a computer on the Internet it needs to have an address. That address, originally specified using a 32-bit number, a so-called IPv4 address, made it possible to uniquely identify around 4 billion computers. With the explosive growth of computing and the Internet, the world started running out of addresses and in 1998, IPv6 was proposed to solve the problem. It uses a 128-bit number and has space to uniquely identify something like 340 trillion computers.

In 2018, the ARDC was presented with a unique opportunity to sell some of its increasingly valuable address space, due to IPv4 address scarcity, but soon to be worthless, due to IPv6 adoption. After a year of internal discussion, in the middle of 2019, the decision was finalised and the ARDC sold a quarter of the address block that Hank had been granted back in 1981. On the 18th of July, 2019, Amazon Web Services became the proud new owner of just over 4 million new IP addresses.

I should point out that radio amateurs haven't ever used more than half of the original block and IPv6 is going to make this no longer any issue.

So, how much did they make from this adventure?

Well, each address sold for about $25, making for a lump sum of well over $100 million dollars which the ARDC used to establish its grants program. To round off the story, in 2020, the ARDC changed from a public charity to a private foundation and continues to administer the 44Net and the grants program.

Their grants list is impressive and inspirational, so check it out on the ampr.org website. While you're there, you can subscribe to the newsletter and read about some of the amazing work that's flowing from the ARDC as a result of its efforts.

At this point you might be getting all excited about applying for a grant and you should, but I'd like to ask a different question.

What have you done lately to grow our hobby, to stimulate it, to encourage new people, to innovate, research and learn? What has been your contribution?

So, if you had money, what would you do with your amateur adventure?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

If you connect the antenna ports of two radios together and transmit from one into the other, that would be bad, right? Just how bad would it be and what could you do differently?

Before I dig in, you might ask yourself why on Earth this question even arises.

Consider having two radios and one antenna. You couldn't use a T-piece to connect two radios to the antenna unless both were receivers. So, after connecting and disconnecting coax for a decade, you might decide to use a two position coaxial switch instead. Set the switch to one port and the first radio is connected to the antenna, flick it to the other port and you've just avoided swapping coax between radios.

I'll point out that in most cases a coaxial switch can be used to connect multiple antennas to one radio, or in reverse, connect multiple radios to one antenna.

When you do start looking for a switch it would be good to test that at no point it connected any two switching ports together, potentially causing the magic smoke to escape from your radio.

A less obvious issue is that a coaxial switch has a property called isolation. It's a measure of what part of a signal leaks between ports and you'll see the isolation or cross-talk of a switch described in decibels or dB.

If you recall, a dB is a relative measure. It means that it's something in comparison with something else, in our case, the amount of signal going into one port compared with the amount of signal leaking through to a disconnected port.

You'd think that in a perfect switch none of the signal would leak through, but it turns out that under different frequencies a switch responds differently, even one specifically designed for switching radio frequencies. It might be that a 1 kHz signal is completely isolated, but a 1 GHz signal is not, which is why when you look at the specifications of a coax switch, you'll see something like "greater than 70 dB isolation at 200 MHz". It's worth noting that the lower the frequency, the higher the isolation, indicating that in the worst case, at 200 MHz, there's 70 dB isolation, but at lower frequencies it has higher isolation, sometimes much higher.

If you were to transmit into this switch with 5 Watts at 200 MHz, the amount of signal that can leak through would be 70 dB less than 5 Watts.

You might recall that you can convert Watts to dBm to allow you to do some interesting calculations. As with other dB scales, it's in comparison to something else, in this case a dBm is in reference to 1 milliwatt and 5 Watts is the equivalent of 37 dBm. This means that if you had a switch with 70 dB isolation, you'd start with a 37 dBm transmission, take 70 dB isolation and end up with a -33 dBm signal leaking through. That's the same as 0.0005 milliwatts. In other words your 5 Watt transmission leaks through your coax switch to the tune of 0.0005 milliwatts.

Is that enough to damage your radio?

Well, that depends on the radio, but let's put some numbers against it.

S9 on VHF and UHF was defined in 1981 as -93 dBm assuming a 50 Ohm impedance of your radio.

So, our leaking signal, -33 dBm, is 60 dB higher than S9. You'd report it as a 60 over 9 contact, a tad excessive, but not unheard of. So by that metric, you should be fine.

Many, but not all, radios specify the maximum radio frequency or RF power that they can handle. For example, according to the documentation, both the NanoVNA and a Icom IC-706 can each handle a 20 dBm or 200 milliwatt signal without doing damage. That means that your -33 dBm signal should't do any damage to those two devices.

I'm off to see what the isolation is for cheap 12V relays to see if I can construct a cost effective, modular, remote control antenna switch with lightning detection.

What are you building next?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

In the time that I've been a radio amateur not a day has gone by without learning something new. Today was no different and this time learning took me both by surprise and delight. I realise that being delighted by charts, since that's what we're talking about, might not be something that comes naturally, but I can highly recommend that you use this as an opportunity to explore.

So, which specific chart am I referring to?

The venerable Smith Chart, something which I've seen from a distance many times in the past decade, but never actually understood, or to be honest, even looked at with anything more than a glance and a shudder.

My first exploration started with a book published in 1969 by the person who developed the chart, Phillip Hagar Smith, an electronics engineer. The book, over 250 pages, is dense and frankly my reading of the first part of the book did not fill me with delight, but based on what I discovered afterwards, I might revisit it.

The purpose of the Smith chart is to visualise complex mathematical relationships. Instead of filling your worksheet with a litany of calculations, you can draw lines, circles and read the answer straight off the chart.

For example, given the impedance of an antenna system, determining the standing wave ratio becomes a case of putting a dot on a chart, drawing a circle through the dot and reading the VSWR straight off the chart.

It gets better.

If you have a digital Smith chart, like the one shown on a NanoVNA or a RigExpert antenna analyser, you can read the antenna impedance in relation to frequency, use a tuner to change it and see the chart update in real-time in direct response to you changing inductance or capacitance by twiddling the knobs on the tuner.

One of the main things that a Smith chart solves is to visualise a chart with infinity on it, twice. In radio a short-circuit is one extreme and an open-circuit is another. Coming up with a way to show both those conditions on the same chart is a stroke of genius.

The chart has evolved over time, but in essence it's a circle with an amazing set of arcs drawn throughout. The very centre of the chart has the number 1.0 next to it. That's the point at which the VSWR is 1:1, the reactance is zero and it's called the prime centre. A dummy load should show up as a dot in that spot, regardless of frequency.

The Smith chart is normalised. It doesn't matter if you're using a 50 Ohm or a 75 Ohm antenna network system, the middle of the chart is 1.0. Follow the horizontal axis to the right and you'll discover 2.0, that represents twice the resistance. If you're using a 50 Ohm system, 2.0 represents twice that, or 100 Ohm. Go to the left, find 0.5 and that represents half, or 25 Ohm. The far left point on the horizontal axis represents zero Ohm, or a short circuit, the far right represents infinite resistance, or an open circuit.

Positive reactance, or inductance is shown above the horizontal line, negative reactance, or capacitance is shown below the line.

Going back to the middle of the chart, you'll discover a circle. All along that circle the resistance is the same, that is, on a 50 Ohm system, all of that circle represents 50 Ohm. If you look directly above the prime centre, you'll discover another 1.0 on the edge of the chart. The arc coming from that point represents an inductive reactance of 50 Ohm all along its path. Similarly, at the bottom of the chart you'll see an arc coming from a 1.0, representing the capacitive reactance.

Before you pack it in with all this inductive and capacitive reactance, think of it as another attribute of your 50 Ohm antenna system. You don't need to precisely know how it works in order to use it.

Remember how I mentioned that you could just read off the VSWR from the chart?

Drop a point on the chart, anywhere is fine. You can read off both the resistance and reactance following the two arcs through that point. If you draw a circle through the same point with the centre at the middle of the chart, the VSWR of that system is the number that you can read, where your circle crosses the horizontal axis.

Before I go, there are plenty of YouTube videos on the topic, but there are a few that I'd recommend you explore. Among an amazing array of RF educational videos, Rhode and Schwartz made a ten minute presentation called "Understanding the Smith Chart" which walks you through how to read the chart and you don't need the prerequisites to follow along. In Part two of his "Smith Chart Basics" series, Carl Oliver shows how to look up the VSWR in three easy steps and Alan W2AEW has several videos showing the chart in action with several vector network analysers or VNAs and I'd recommend that you look at videos 264 and 314 to get started, but there's plenty more of his handy work to explore.

If you take away anything from this, it should be that the Smith Chart isn't scary, there's just lots of stuff there, but spend a few minutes looking at it and you'll discover just how useful it can be in your day to day amateur antenna tuning adventures.

If you've come across other interesting resources on the topic, don't hesitate to get in touch.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

It is in my nature to ask questions. It's been hammered into me from an early age and it often brings me new friends, new ideas and new projects. After spending quite some time mulling over my understanding of radio, I came up with this question: "Is it possible to build a single radio transmitter that is capable of emitting a WSPR signal at the same time on all the HF bands?"

Before we look at the hardware, let's contemplate for a moment what this transmission might look like.

Imagine a WSPR transmission as a normal audio signal. It sounds like a couple of warbling tones for two minutes. Unpacking it, the audio signal is about 6 Hz wide and sits somewhere between 1400 and 1600 Hz. If you were to draw a power chart of this, displaying the frequencies horizontally and power vertically, you'd see a completely flat chart with a little spike, 6 Hz wide, somewhere between 1400 and 1600 Hz.

Using an analogue radio, you can play this sound into the microphone or audio port and the radio takes care of transmitting it on the 10m band as a 28 MHz beacon. Tune the radio to 40m and it appears as a 7 MHz transmission.

The two takeaways are that the WSPR signal itself doesn't change between bands or transmissions and the radio does the heavy lifting to make your WSPR transmission come out at the right frequency.

Your radio is moving the audio frequencies to the correct amateur band. The electronics in your radio achieve this move by mixing the audio and the tuning frequencies together.

If you imagine a 28 MHz WSPR signal coming from your transmitter as a power chart, it's essentially silence, except for a little WSPR peak somewhere just off to the right of 28 MHz.

From a mathematical perspective, the frequency mixer in your radio is performing a multiplication and best of all, you don't need a radio to do this. You could use software to multiply frequencies instead and end up with something that represented their product. If you were to create a power chart of this equivalent multiplication, you'd see a completely flat chart with a little spike near 28.1261 MHz.

Sound familiar?

It gets better.

You can store the result of this calculation in a file as a 28 MHz WSPR signal and you could do this as many times as you want. You could create a file with a 3.5 MHz WSPR signal, one with a 7 MHz one and so-on.

Since we're talking about shuffling numbers only, you could combine all these calculations, and end up with a single file that had several WSPR signals inside it.

The chart picture is again mostly silence, just with little WSPR peaks at frequencies suitable for say transmission on the 80, 40, 15 and 10m bands.

Now all you need is to find a device that's capable of transmitting it.

Turns out that we have such a device. A PlutoSDR, a software defined radio which I've spoken about before. It's capable of transmitting a 56 MHz wide signal, more than ample for what we're doing. We don't need to use the PlutoSDR to calculate the combined signal either, since we can do all that in advance, because as I said, a WSPR signal doesn't change.

So essentially, all we'd need to do is generate a file that has all the WSPR signal information at the right frequencies and send it to the PlutoSDR to transmit.

There are a couple of hurdles to overcome.

When you multiply two frequencies, you end up with two peaks, one at the sum of both frequencies, and one at the difference between them. One you need, the other you don't, so we're going to need to filter this out, something that your analogue radio circuit also does.

Another challenge is around sampling rates. The PlutoSDR needs a specific sampling rate and bit depth, so we're going to have to generate our file just so. I'm going to skip past complex numbers and move on to power output, since all the power from the transmitter will be spread across all of the combined WSPR signals we're attempting to transmit, so we're likely going to need amplification.

There's also the matter of testing before we actually connect this contraption to an antenna and I've glossed over one minor but essential point, the PlutoSDR doesn't do HF.

So, where does this leave us?

We can build a proof of concept using 2m and 70cm. Both those bands are native to the PlutoSDR. I'm currently working on generating the actual WSPR signal file to start the transformation process. A friend has some testing gear that could allow us to see what's coming out of the transmitter without polluting the airwaves and of course, at this point this is all still "What-if". I've not actually made this work, but it's keeping me entertained and that's half the fun.

It gets even better. The Pluto has an FPGA on board, so theoretically at least, we might be able to generate this actual file inside the Pluto in real-time, which opens up a whole other avenue of exploration, but we'll start with crawling before running.

If you have thoughts on this, or any other aspect of the hobby, please get in touch. You can send email to cq@vk6flab.com or you can find me on Twitter and Reddit with my callsign.

In the meantime, you know the drill. Get on air and make some noise.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

When you finally get to the point of pushing the talk button on your microphone, after passing the test, receiving your license, getting your radio, building an antenna, digesting the manual, identifying a repeater, untangling its offset, programming those frequencies and keying up, you might be surprised to realise that you're lost for words. Something which I've talked about before.

Even if you do have something to say, finding a person to say it to will be the next big challenge. Truth be told, the more frequencies you have to choose from, the harder it seems to discover a fellow amateur and with Internet connected repeater networks, your choice appears infinite.

So, how do you initiate communication on a repeater? Do you call CQ, ask for a signal check, or just kerplunk the repeater to prove that your signal is getting in?

The very first thing to remember is that you have the exact same rights as every other amateur. No amateur is above any other, though hearing some conversations or responses might give you a different impression.

Before you embark on a long speech, what you need to remember is that your ability to receive is not usually the same as your ability to transmit. If you're using a low-powered hand held radio that's tuned to a local repeater, you might be comparing your little stubby antenna, inside your home, held at an angle, with that of a high power repeater, with a high-gain antenna bolted to a tower installed on the top of a hill. In other words, you can hear the repeater much better than it can hear you.

You'll quickly observe that there are amateurs about who have their radio on all day long and they'll often hear every single transmission that hits the local repeater and even random frequencies. Sometimes this means that you'll have a great friend to talk to, other times it means that you'll have a local troll who in their not so humble opinion determines what is permitted and what's not.

So, to get things rolling, you should follow the KISS principle, an aim championed by the lead engineer of the Lockheed Skunk Works in 1960, Kelly Johnson, "Keep it simple stupid.".

With keeping things simple, there is a fierce and ongoing debate around the use of the phonetic alphabet on a repeater. With the benefit of experience, having run a weekly radio net for over a decade I'm going to be blunt. When you're identifying yourself to the rest of the community, always use phonetics. Only if you've been acknowledged and you're part of the conversation should you even consider dropping your phonetic callsign.

The reason is that your first transmissions will be regularly interrupted by others since they're having a conversation and you'll be butting in. Even if a net controller asks for check-ins, you should use phonetics, since you might not be the only one who keys up at the same time. If you and the controller have known each other for years and they recognise your voice, you could consider dropping the phonetics, but don't expect everyone to know who you are from a single letter getting through. Some people are better at this than others.

Whatever you do, don't barge in with a whole story until you've been acknowledged and the microphone has been handed to you. After all, this is a public shared space.

The next thing to consider is the audience you're talking to. If the repeater is just local, then the people within range are likely to expect your prefix and know who you are, so just your call might suffice, but if you connect to a network, that's not likely to be true. If you want to actually talk to anyone, you can call CQ, but if you just want to let people know you're there, you can say your callsign followed by the word "listening".

If you want to speak with a specific individual on the other hand, you can call them using their phonetic callsign, either with or without the CQ. Also consider they might be on the other side of their shack working hard at attempts to avoid sniffing solder fumes and take a moment to get to the microphone.

In other words, what you say on your repeater depends on what result you want and who else is there. Sometimes there will be a mismatch between the two, just saying your callsign might initiate an hour long conversation, and calling CQ might give you the local troll telling you to go away.

Don't let that dissuade you. Even with years of practice, sometimes the results are unexpected.

Talking on a repeater is like being invited to a party. There are going to be people you know, people you want to know and people you never want to meet again.

So, be considerate, listen more than you talk and be deliberate in your intentions and you'll be fine.

Thanks to Sandip EI7IJB for the question, "What are the rules for calling CQ on a repeater?" If you have other burning questions, get in touch and ask. I'll try to give you a coherent answer.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The other day I was woken by the sound of a thunderclap. It was shockingly loud and came out of the blue. A few moments later, it happened again. I exploded out of bed, rushed to the shack, disconnected the beacon power and switched the antenna coax to "safe".

After breathing a sigh of relief, everything went dark and with it came the distinctive sound of the sudden death of the uninterrupted power supply taking with it my workstation.

With nothing else left to do, I reported the outage to the power company, went back to bed, pulled the covers over my head, snuggled in and surprisingly, slept pretty well despite the barrage of water hitting my QTH. The next morning the power was back on and I discovered that one of the residual current devices, the one that powered most, if not all, the wall sockets had tripped. I reset it and much to my surprise, most of my QTH came back to life.

I say most, because after breakfast I had a moment to switch on my radios and see what, if any, damage there was. I could hear and trigger the local repeater, but HF was strangely dead. I could hear the coax switches turning on and off, but the SWR on the antenna was high and it didn't appear that the antenna coupler was doing anything. It's powered remotely using a device called a Bias-T. You use two of them to transport a power supply voltage along your antenna coax. In my case, I inject 12 Volts in my shack, and extract the 12 Volts at the other end near the antenna where it powers the antenna coupler.

Occasionally the antenna coupler needs a reset, so I removed the power, waited a bit and reconnected. Still no response from the coupler, so I disconnected the power and left it for another time.

A few days later I had a moment to investigate further, so I went outside to check out the antenna and coupler. Both looked fine. I removed and reinserted the power, heard a click, but wasn't sure since a car came barrelling down the road at the same time, so tried again and heard nothing.

At this point I decided that this warranted a full investigation and started putting together a mental list of things I'd need. I wanted to test the coupler when it was isolated, I wanted to do a time-domain-reflectometry, or TDR test, to see if anything had changed. This test uses the RF reflection of a cable to determine its overall length and any faults like a cable break, high or low resistance and any joints. If you have a Nano VNA or an antenna analyser, you can do this test. It did occur to me that I didn't have a baseline to compare with, so that was disappointing, but I added it to the list.

First thing to test was to check if the radio had been affected. I turned it on, did the same tests and discovered that the Bias-T was still disconnected, which could explain why I didn't hear a click when I tested a second time. Armed with a level of confidence around power, I tried again to trigger the antenna coupler and got nothing, dread building over the potential loss of a radio in the storm, I set about swapping my HF antenna to another radio.

At this point I was reminded of an incident, 37 years ago, as a high school student during a class outing. My wonderful and inspirational physics teacher, Bart Vrijdaghs, took us to the local University where the head of the Physics Department of the University of Leiden gave us a tour of their facilities. He took us into a student lab full of oscilloscopes and tone generators and set-up a demonstration to show us how you could generate Lissajous figures. He was having some trouble making it work and with the impertinence reserved for teenagers I quoted a then popular IBM advertisement from 1985, "Of Je Stopt de Stekker Er In", which loosely translates to asking if he had plugged it in.

I can tell you, if looks could kill, I wouldn't be telling this story.

Suffice to say, it wasn't. Plugged in, that is.

Back to my HF antenna.

Yeah. It was already plugged into the other radio, so, unsurprisingly it was unable to send any RF to, or from, the first radio, much like some of the advanced telepathic printers I've had the pleasure of fixing during my help desk days a quarter of a century ago.

After all that, I can tell you that HF seems to work as expected. The beacon is back online and I have some work ahead of me to create some baseline TDR plots and perhaps a check-in, check-out board to keep track of what's plugged in where.

That and looking for another UPS, since keeping the computer it's connected to up and running, at least long enough to properly shut down, would be good.

What other lessons can you take away from lightning hitting nearby?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

If you've heard the phrase "shortwave listeners", you might have wondered what on earth that was all about.

It relates to the length of a radio wave used to transmit information. The length of a radio wave is tied to its frequency. The longer the wave, the lower the frequency.

When radio amateurs talk about bands, like for example the 40m band, we're talking about a range of frequencies where the wavelength is around 40m. From a frequency perspective, this is around 7 MHz. The 160m band, at about 1.8 MHz, or 1,800 kHz is considered the beginning of the short wave bands.

This implies that there are longer waves as well. If you've ever seen or owned a mid 1980's transistor radio, you'll have seen the notation MW, which stands for Medium Wave, today it's called the AM band. Older radios might have the notation LW, or Long Wave.

The medium wave band is a broadcast radio band that runs between about 500 and 1,700 kHz. The wave length is between 600 m and 170 m.

When radio was still in its infancy, there was also a popular long wave band, with wavelengths between 800 m and 2,000 m, or 150 to 375 kHz.

Today much of that has gone by the wayside. With the advent of digital radio, in Australia it's called DAB+, Digital Audio Broadcasting, the whole idea of "wave" has pretty much vanished.

Some countries like Japan and the United States are in the process of discussing the phasing out of the AM broadcast band. Much of that appears to be driven by car manufacturers who claim that the AM band is no longer useful or used, but forget to tell anyone that they really want to stop having to put AM radios in their cars because it's difficult to isolate the electrical noise from their modern contraptions in order to make it possible to actually listen to that band.

If you ask me, it's a good incentive to make electronics RF quiet, something which is increasingly important in our wirelessly connected world.

This might lead you to believe that all activity on air is moving to higher and higher frequencies, but that's not the case. The properties that made long wave and medium wave radio possible in the early 1900's are still valid today. For example, there are WSPR or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter beacons on the 2200m band, or at 136 kHz.

Whilst your RTL-SDR dongle might not quite get down that low, most of them start at 500 kHz, you don't need to spend big to start playing. My Yeasu FT-857d is capable of tuning to 100 kHz, plenty of space to start listening to the 2200m band, even if I cannot physically, or legally, transmit there.

If you want to build your own receiver, you can check out the weaksignals.com website by Alberto I2PHD where you'll find a project to build a receiver capable of 8 kHz to 900 kHz using a $50 circuit board.

If that's not enough, there's radio experimentation happening at even lower frequencies. Dedicated to listening to anything below 22 kHz, including natural RF, with a wavelength greater than 13 km, Renato IK1QFK runs the website vlf.it where you'll find receivers and antennas to build.

Given that most sound cards operate up to around 192 kHz, you can start by connecting an antenna to the microphone port of your sound card and use it to receive VLF or Very Low Frequencies. On your Linux computer you can use "Quisk" to tune.

There are VLF transmitters on air. For example, SAQ, the Grimeton Radio Station in Sweden opened on the 1st of December 1924. Capable of 200 kW, today it uses about 80 kW and transmits twice a year on 17.2 kHz.

While we search for higher and higher frequencies, there is still plenty of fun to be had at the other end of the radio spectrum. Consider for example that VLF or Very Low Frequency radio waves, between 3 and 30 kHz can penetrate seawater.

I'll leave you to explore.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

When you obtain your license there's a whole lot of learning to be had before you even get started with your first transmission, but when you get there you'll discover that learning has just begun and the rest of your life will be beset with challenges, quests, discovery and dawning understanding.

One of the early and recurring questions is around the best time to be on air. Before I get into the why, the answer is, right now.

This interminable question will continue to haunt you throughout your life, and the most pressing answer will be shaped around the missed opportunity. You'll discover tools that assist with predicting propagation, web-sites that explain what the various layers of the ionosphere do and how they affect your ability to use radio to make contact with other amateurs.

There's learned discussion around testing and tracking propagation, special modes that help create your own maps for your own station and you'll discover an endless supply of experts who will advise you when you should power up your transceiver and call CQ.

Whilst I've only been an amateur for a short time. In the decade to date I've learnt one thing about propagation. Despite all the tools, the discussion, the maps and forecasts, there is no substitute for actually getting on air and making noise. Over the past while I've been watching the propagation from my own shack using a 200 milliwatt beacon and I've discovered that running 24 hours a day, every day, well, almost every day, my signal gets to places far beyond my wildest dreams.

I have also discovered trends. That is, the average distance of the signal reports is increasing over time. This isn't a linear thing, not even a recurring thing, much like the ebb and flow of the tides, varying from day to day, a little bit at a time, inexorably making your shoes wet when you least expect it.

While to some extent we've tamed the prediction of the tides with complex and interrelated cycles, discovered by using Fourier transforms, we're no-where near achieving this level of sophistication for the ionosphere and its associated propagation.

Just like predicting a specific wave is still beyond the capabilities of a tide table, predicting the ability of a radio wave to make it from your antenna to that of another amateur is beyond any tool we have today.

Another way to look at predicting the complexity associated with the ionosphere is comparing it to weather forecasting. We have national forecasting bodies, with millions of sensors, super computing cycles that dwarf most other research, a global network of satellite sensors, roughly a quarter of which have some form of earth sensing capability, transmitting terrabytes of data every day and still we cannot determine where on Earth it's going to rain tomorrow.

The ionosphere, whilst it's being monitored, is not nearly as well resourced. It's not nearly as visible to the average person as the packing of an umbrella and the political perception of need is nowehere near as urgent as getting the weather right.

So, absent accurate forecasting, finding a better way to determine when to get on air is required. That said, I've discovered that regret is the biggest motivator to get on air. The day after a contest when a friend made a contact with an amazing station, or the lunch break where I didn't power the radio on to discover a random opening to a clamouring horde of calls looking to make contact.

So, my best advice to you is to get on air whenever you can. You might not make a contact every time, but you'll discover what the bands look like right now and you'll have the chance of hitting the jackpot with a rare contact and truth be told, I think your chances of making a contact are higher than winning the lottery.

When you do take that step, you'll start discovering the ebb and flow of the bands, discover the characteristic sound that each band makes and what a band sounds like when it's open and when it's not. You'll hear stations far and wide, discover that while there are trends in propagation, there are no rules. From one moment to the next, you'll discover the thrill of hearing something unexpected.

One thing to consider, if you get on air for the sole purpose to make contacts, you're likely going to be disappointed. It's like fishing. Most people don't get up at some crazy hour, sit on a damp jetty, freezing parts of their anatomy off for the sole purpose of catching fish.

So, get on air and make some noise, today.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

In our hobby we regularly invoke line of sight when we discuss the VHF and higher bands. It's a simple concept to help describe when two transceivers can hear each other. The process evokes an image of a beam of light travelling unobstructed between the antennas at either end. Some might picture a laser, others a flashlight, both are useful to become familiar with some of the concepts.

If there's a pole between the two, a laser beam, unless it's particularly powerful, won't go through to the other side. A flashlight beam on the other hand might fit around the pole and still be visible at the destination. That illustrates that objects can get in the way of a signal, reducing strength and sometimes blocking it entirely, but it's not the only effect at play.

Imagine a building with a mirror glued to its side. If you shine a laser at an angle at the mirror, you can reflect the light off the mirror and essentially still land on target. This is useful if you want to avoid an obstacle directly between you and your destination.

The reflected light travels a different and slightly longer distance than direct light would, but if there's no obstacles, both will arrive at the destination.

This is an example of a multipath, where the same signal arrives at its destination using multiple different paths.

If you've ever used HF radio, making a contact on the other side of the planet, it should come as no surprise that radio waves travel in more than just straight lines. Depending on frequency, radio waves can be affected by phenomena like ionospheric reflection and refraction, atmospheric ducting and even bounce off water, the ground, mountains, hills and objects like buildings, aircraft and even water droplets, along their path.

Each of these cause a radio signal to take multiple paths to arrive at the destination.

It gets better.

A radio signal that travels along a different path takes a measurable difference in time to get to its destination when compared with another path for the same signal. From a radio signal perspective, this difference in time is also known as a phase shift.

Now consider a single radio signal that travels along two paths, just like our laser beam and mirror. If you imagine a radio signal as a sine wave, you can draw the two signals on the same chart. They will be in lock-step with each other, since they're the same radio signal, but they won't be on the same place on the chart. In relation to each other they'll be shifted along the time axis, since one took longer than the other to get to the destination.

At the destination, the receiver hears a combination of both those signals. They're added together. That means that what's sent and what's received are not the same thing and why it's a great idea to use phonetics in radio communications. In some cases the two signals help and strengthen each other, they're said to interfere constructively, and sometimes the signals hinder and cancel each other out, or interfere destructively.

Said in another way, a radio signal can arrive at a receiver along multiple paths at the same time. What's heard at the receiver is essentially a cacophony, caused by each slightly different path. Since the signals are essentially all the same, some of these signals reinforce each other, where some cancel each other out.

This effect isn't absolute, since the different path lengths aren't all exact multiples of the wavelength of the signal, they're all over the place, but there will be groups of paths that help and groups that hinder. This phenomenon was first described by Augustin-Jean Fresnel on the 14th of July, 1816 in relation to light and we now call these groups, Fresnel zones.

Fresnel zones are numbered, one, two, three and up. The first or primary Fresnel zone is the first group of radio signals that helps strengthen the signal, the second zone is the first group of signals that hinders. The third zone is the second group of radio signals that helps and so-on. Odd helps, even hinders.

I should point out that a Fresnel zone is three dimensional. The primary Fresnel zone essentially has the shape of a Zeppelin stretched between the source and the target. The secondary zone is wrapped around the outside of the primary zone like a second skin, but it's thicker in the middle.

In practical terms, what this means in point-to-point radio communications is that your antenna needs to be located in a place where most of the signal arrives. The rule of thumb is that the primary Fresnel zone needs to be at least 60% clear, but ideally 80%.

If you're in a situation where a receiver is moving, say in a car, you can imagine that your antenna is moving in and out of direct line of sight to a transmitter, but it's also moving between the various Fresnel zones. If you were to move your antenna from the first Fresnel zone to the second and then the third, the signal would be strong, then weak, then strong again.

If your receiver is an FM receiver and it's moving from the first zone to the second, it could fall below a threshold and the signal would effectively vanish. Continue to move from the second into the third zone and the signal would sound like it suddenly reappeared as it climbed above the threshold. Do it fast enough and the signal sounds like it's stuttering.

That stuttering has a name. In amateur radio we call it picket fencing or flutter and it's commonly heard in mobile situations on FM transmissions on the VHF and higher bands, but it can be caused by other changes in propagation distance, for example an antenna moving in the wind. The higher the frequency, the less movement is needed to experience this.

To add to the fun of radio, the same threshold effects, actually called the FM capture effect, can be caused by other phenomena, like two stations of similar strength on the same frequency, or interference from the electronics in your vehicle.

And finally, I should point out that the higher the frequency, the smaller the Fresnel zones, and the more susceptible to an object in the path a signal is, but you already knew that, a pole will block a laser beam, but not a 2m conversation on the local repeater.

So, line-of-sight isn't just a straight line, it's a whole lot more fun.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The amateur radio community is as varied as humanity across the globe. It represents an endless supply of ideas and experiments that continue to attract people looking for something new and exiting.

On the face of it, our hobby is about radio and electronics, about propagation and antennas, about modes and contacts, but if you limit your outlook to those topics you'll miss out on a vast expanse of opportunity that is only just beginning to emerge.

Until quite recently, computing in amateur radio was essentially limited to logging and contest scoring. It has evolved to include digital modes like PSK31 and the advent of smaller, faster and cheaper computers in the home has brought the possibility of processing unimaginable amounts of data leading to modes like WSPR and FT8.

In the past I've spoken about how amateur radio means different things to different people. Making contact using a digital internet enabled repeater is sacrileges to one and manna from heaven to another. Between those two extremes there is room to move and explore. Similarly where one uses valves, another expects an integrated circuit. One wants low power, the other wants every Watt they can lay their hands on. Contesting versus rag chewing, nets vs contacts, SSB vs. CW, FT8 vs. RTTY. Each of these attracts a different part of the community with different outcomes and expectations. For some it's about antenna building, others going portable, climbing a mountain, or setting up in a park.

Those are all traditional amateur activities, but the choice and opportunity don't end there.

The longer I play with computers the more I see a convergence in the world, a coming together of technologies and techniques. I've talked about some of this before when in 1994 I produced a competition broadcast promotion for the radio station I was working at, using just a computer in the era of reel-to-reel tape and razor blades. My station manager couldn't quite put his finger on what was different, but with hindsight it represented a landslide change in how radio stations have operated since. Mind you, I'm not saying that I was the first, just the first in that particular radio station.

In many ways computing is an abstract effort. When asked, I like to express it as designing something intangible in an imaginary world using an made up language and getting paid real money to make it happen, well, numbers in my bank account at least.

Within that context, amateur radio is slowly beginning to reap the rewards that come from the exponential growth in home computing power. While the majority of humanity might use the vast amount of CPU cycles to scroll through cat videos online, that access to processing power allows us to do other things as well.

For example, right now I'm playing with the dataset that represents all the WSPR spots since March of 2008. As of now there are around four billion rows of contacts, containing data points like a time-stamp, the transmitter, the receiver, the signal strength, location, direction, and more.

As part of that investigation I went looking for documents containing the words "RStudio" and "maidenhead", so I could consider creating a map in my statistical tool that allowed me to represent my dataset. In making that search I discovered a thesis by a mathematician who was using the reverse beacon network in an attempt to predict which station could hear which transmitter at what time.

In reading the thesis, which I opened because I was looking for an example on how to convert a maidenhead locator into geo-spacial data types in R, a popular statistics platform, I discovered that the author didn't appear to have much, if any, amateur knowledge or experience, but they approached their task, attempting to predict as a mathematician what we in our community call propagation, based on a public dataset, downloaded straight from the reverse beacon network, created by amateurs like you and I.

This interaction between science and the amateur community isn't new. Sometimes it's driven by science, other times it's driven by amateur radio. There's a team exploring the ionospheric prediction models that we've used for decades, popularly referred to as VOACAP or Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program, based on multiple evolutions of empirical models of the ionosphere that were first developed in the 1960's, headed by both a scientist and an amateur, Chris KL3WX.

With the advent of WSPR and the associated data collection some experiments have started to compare the reality of propagation as logged by WSPR to the predicted propagation as modelled by VOACAP. One such experiment happened in 2018 where Chris and his team at HAARP, the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, set out to make transmissions at specific times and frequencies, using the amateur community logging of WSPR spots to compare their transmissions to the predictions.

Interestingly they did not match. Just think about that for a moment. The tool we love and use all across our community, VOACAP, doesn't match the reality of propagation.

My own playing with WSPR data is driven by the very same thing that I use to be a better contester, a burning curiosity in all things. My VOACAP prediction experience has been poor to date. Setting up my own WSPR beacon is the first step in attempting to discover what my actual propagation looks like, but in doing so, it's also a possible contribution to the wider challenges of predicting propagation based on a dataset with four billion spots. One such approach might be to create an ionospheric prediction map based on actual data and compare that to the models as well as the published space weather maps and combining these efforts into a machine learning project which might give us the next generation of ionospheric prediction tools, but only time will tell.

No doubt I will have to learn more about statistics and machine learning than I expect, but then, that's half the fun.

So, next time you think of amateur radio as being limited to valves, transistors, soldering, antennas and rag chewing on HF, consider that there might be other aspects to this hobby that you have not yet considered.

What other research are you aware of that relates to amateur radio?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The lure of digital modes and the opportunities they bring are enough to tempt some amateurs to begin a journey into integrating their radio and computer to make a new world come to life. This isn't without pain or challenge, but the outcomes are so enticing that many embark on this adventure every day.

As a person who has made this trip it's heart warming to see the joy writ large on the face of an amateur who makes their first FT8 contact on a home brew wire dipole rigged together on a Sunday afternoon to take advantage of the latest opening on the 10m band.

On the flip side, it's heart breaking to see an amateur falter at the first hurdle, attempting to make their computer talk to their radio and giving up because it just won't work. At first this attitude bewildered me in a community of experimenters, but over time I've come to understand that sometimes an analogue approach isn't suited to the digital world. There isn't really a place where you can attach your multimeter and see why the serial connection isn't working, nor is there any universal document that can walk you through how to set things up.

So, for you, if you're in a place where you've all but given up, let me see if I can find words to encourage you to keep trying. I'll skip the propaganda about going digital and move straight to making it work.

This might come as a surprise, but in the digital world, things are built in complex layers of interdependence. Said in another way, using an analogy, to turn on a light you need flick a switch, which depends on power to the switch, which depends on power from the fuse box, which depends on power from the street, which depends on power from the substation and so-on.

If you flick the switch and the light stays off, you need to figure out which part of the chain failed. Did it fail at the bulb or at the substation? If the street is dark, do you need to check the fuse box or the bulb? That's not to say that either, or even both, can also be faulty, but there's no point in checking until the street has power.

From a fault finding perspective, the number of variables that you have control over, in the case of a light bulb not switching on, is strictly limited. You can control the bulb and the fuse and in most cases that's about it, the rest of the chain is outside your direct control.

In attempting to make a computer talk to a radio you can be forgiven in thinking that the level of complexity associated with such a trivial task is just as direct and straightforward. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. It's not your fault. A popular slogan "Plug and Play" made people think that computers were easy to use and control.

The truth is a far darker reality. One of the hidden sources of frustration in the digital world is the extreme level of complexity. In our quest to standardise and simplify we have built a fragile Jenga tower of software that can collapse at any point. Most of the time this is completely invisible but that doesn't cause it to be any less real. Computers are simple, but only if you control the environment. And when I say control, I mean take ownership of each change.

Updating the operating system? Installing a new application? Adding a new peripheral? Changing location? All these things, innocuous as they might seem, can fundamentally alter the behaviour of your environment.

As an example, consider the location of your device. Let's say that you changed the location of your computer, either physically or via a preference. All of a sudden your Wi-Fi network stops working. The one that you used for years. Turns out that changing location changed the Wi-Fi driver to stop using a particular channel, not permitted in your new location. If you're curious, this happened to me last week.

The point being that troubleshooting is about controlling change in that fragile environment.

So, when you're trying to figure out how to make your serial connection work, you need to stop fiddling with everything all at once and change one thing at a time. Discovering the layers of dependency makes this difficult at times, but not impossible.

For example, a working serial connection requires that both ends are physically connected, speaking the same language at the same speed. That depends on the radio being correctly configured, but it also depends on the computer having the right drivers installed. It also depends on the software you're using being configured correctly to talk to the right serial device and the operating system giving your software permission to do so. It depends on the software using the right radio mode and it depends on the radio being switched on.

Now, imagine the serial connection "not working".

Do you check the radio mode before you check if the radio is turned on?

What about the physical connection?

When you're troubleshooting, you cannot just look at the error message on the screen and follow that path. You need to ensure that all the underlying things are working first. You don't check the bulb until there's light in the street. Same thing. No need to worry about the error until you've discovered that the radio is on, the cable connected correctly, the driver installed correctly, the speeds set right and the mode configured properly. If and only if that's all correct, then look at the error.

This becomes harder if it worked yesterday. What changed between then and now? Did your operating system do an update? Did your radio forget its settings? Did the cat jump on your desk and dislodge a cable overnight? Is there an earth fault that caused the serial connection to cease working?

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you cannot find the problem.

At that point you need to take a step back and think about how to prove that something is working in the way that you think it is. Multimeter to a light bulb to check continuity - style. In the case of a serial connection, what can you use to test the link if your favourite tool doesn't work or stopped working suddenly?

I've said this before, but it bears repeating, since it's not obvious.

Troubleshooting is all about discovering and controlling change.

Pick one thing to test, prove that it's correct, then pick the next. Eventually you'll come across a "Duh" moment. Don't sweat it, we've all been there. Now do it again!

What's your best troubleshooting moment?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Antennas and propagation are the two single most discussed topics in our hobby, that and how an FT8 contact isn't real. Not a day goes by without some conversation about what antenna is the best one and by how much? In my opinion it's a futile effort made all the worse by so called experts explaining in undeniable gobbledegook, or sometimes even using science, just how any particular antenna is a compromise.

The truth is that most conductive materials radiate to more or lesser degree. Sometimes there is enough of that to make it outside your backyard into the antenna of a fellow hobbyist. To make a point, as is my wont, over the past months I've been conducting an experiment. It's the first in a series all related to antennas and propagation. As has been said, the difference between fiddling and science, is writing it down, so this is me writing it down.

I'm using the tools available to me to explore the various attributes of my station and how it affects what's possible. I will observe that this is within the dynamic nature of the environment, so the solar cycle, solar events, thunderstorms and noise are making an impact. No doubt I'll create a visualisation that links some of those extra variables, but for now I'm just noting that these external events affect what I'm doing.

You might recall that I took delivery of a WSPR beacon a few months ago. If you're unfamiliar, WSPR or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter, is a tool that allows a station to transmit a time synchronised signal on a specific frequency, so other stations can look for, and attempt to decode it. Think of it as a timed Morse code signal and you'll have a pretty close understanding of what it does.

The beacon I purchased was a 200 milliwatt, ZachTek 80To10 desktop transmitter, built by Harry, SM7PNV. It can operate on all the HF bands I'm licensed for and can run all day, every day. It's time-synchronised using a supplied GPS antenna and powered by a Micro USB cable. It's currently connected to my vertical antenna.

That vertical antenna is a homebrew helically wound whip, tuned for the 40m band, clamped to the side of my metal patio roof. It's fed by an SGC-237 antenna coupler which is held by magnets to the roof. A 75 Ohm, RG6 quad shield coax cable, about 20m long, left over from my satellite dish installation days, is connected via several adaptors and coax switches to the beacon.

This is not a fancy set-up by any stretch of the imagination, but it's my station and what I use to get on air to make noise and that's the whole point of this exercise. You might recall that one of the reasons I want to learn Morse is so I can hear an NCDXF beacon and know which one I'm hearing on my own station. In many ways, this is a different way to approach the same problem.

Said plainly, "How do I determine what propagation is like for me, right now, on my own gear?"

There are countless tools available, from the Voice of America VOACAP propagation prediction, through the graphs and charts on clublog.org to the Space Weather Services run by the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia.

All of these tools have one thing in common, they don't use your own gear.

Unsurprisingly, you're likely to wonder what it is that I can achieve with a mere 200 milliwatt transmitter and a vertical. Turns out, quite a lot. As of right now, my WSPR beacon has been heard multiple times over the past three months in the Canary Islands, over 15 thousand kilometres away. The Watts per Kilometre calculation puts that at over 76 thousand kilometres per Watt, not bad for a little amateur station located in the middle of a residential suburb. Did I mention that this was on the 10m band?

I was asked if I would put a pin in my DXCC map, tracking the countries for each of these WSPR reports and my answer to that is "No". This is not a contact, this is a propagation ping. I suppose that I could, if I really wanted to argue the point, which I don't, use a pin if I had a reciprocal report from the other station within a set period of time, but that's not why I'm doing this. The purpose of this exercise is to discover what my station is capable of, what propagation is like, how it changes over time, how uniform my radiation pattern is and how much of the globe can hear my signal.

One observation to make is that much of the West Coast of the United States is a similar distance away from me, but so far there are no reports from that continent. As a quick and dirty test, I'm using my Yaesu radio and 5 Watts for the next day to see if this is an edge case, or if there is something else going on. For example, my house has a peak metal roof, to the West of my antenna. Is it possible that it's affecting the radiation pattern, or is there something else going on, like the neighbour's house that sits to the East?

For all I know the noise floor in the Canary Islands is significantly better than anywhere in the USA, but only time will tell.

I've recently taken delivery of a multi-band vertical antenna which I'm planning to use to replace my current vertical. The main reason being that my antenna coupler cannot tune with 200 milliwatts and to do band-hopping I'd have to re-tune manually each time, not something that is sustainable 24 hours a day.

No doubt that change will bring other discoveries, but then, I'm keeping track.

The intent of all of this is that you can experiment with your own station, test ideas, trial a set-up, keep a log and discover new things that your station presents to you. Amateur Radio is never just about one thing, it's always a dozen different things, all at the same time.

What are you going to discover next?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

One of the first questions a new amateur asks is "Which radio should I buy?" It's a topic I've discussed at length and the answer "It depends." is unhelpful without doing more research, but after you've done the work, you'll be able to answer it for yourself.

A question that is just as important, but not asked nearly enough, frankly, I've not heard it in the decade I've been part of this community, is: "How should I build my shack?" The answer is just as useful, "It depends."

So, let's explore what precisely your shack design depends on. Let me start with pointing out that I'm not here to give you answers, you can watch hundreds of YouTube videos, read a gazillion web-pages and get no closer than discover how others have answered this question. It wasn't until recently that I understood that it was a question at all, but airing my frustration at the level of dysfunction of my shack unearthed it and in attempting to answer my own question, I started to explore the landscape.

As with choosing a first radio, one of the very first answers you need for yourself about the ideal shack is: "What do you want to use it for?"

That in and of itself is not enough. I had an answer for that, I want to operate my weekly net, I want to do casual HF contesting, have a beacon running and have space for experimentation. It wasn't until Ben VK6NCB suggested that I dedicate a single radio to the weekly net and the contesting and use the other for experimentation, that I discovered that this wasn't going to work for me.

I want to be able to use both my radios at the same time, in a so-called Single Operator Two Radio setup, or SO2R. This will allow me to extend the boundaries of my comfort zone and in doing so, will give me plenty of new things to learn.

So, the question: "What do you want to use your shack for?" is probably the single most important thing you need to discover. If you're like me, the obvious answer is: "Everything!", but reality soon sets in and you might start to create an actual list of things that you want to do. Prompted by Ben's suggestion, I was able to articulate for the very first time something that I didn't want to do. I didn't want to set a radio aside for experimentation. So when you're considering what you want to achieve, also think about what you don't want.

For example, I have no interest in using the 6 meter band at this time. Not because it's a bad band, far from it, it's because I'm not permitted to use it with my current license. Same for the 23 cm band. This means that I don't have to find ways of making my shack accommodate those two bands. My current license permits me access to precisely six bands and the station I'm building only needs to access those bands at the moment. That brings me to the next question for the ideal shack design.

"How long do you expect the layout to last?"

For example, are you going to build a new building for your shack, for the next 50 years, or is it something that's going to last for the weekend? Is your shack going to be moved, or is it something a little more permanent? Are you going to change your needs and should you incorporate some of that into your design, or are you perfectly happy with what you're doing today? You have to remember, this is your shack, not mine, not your friends, yours. It means that it needs to accommodate what you want.

The next question, boring as it might be, "How much money are you going to spend?"

Building a whole new shack out of a catalogue is perfectly fine, but you might discover that the gear you have today is ample to get your shack started. You might leave space for a different piece of kit, or you might decide that the shack needs changing when a new shiny piece of equipment arrives in a nondescript brown box.

Some other things to consider are, "What operating actually looks like?"

I've seen shack videos that look like a tour through a radio museum with more radios than I have keys on my keyboard, sometimes all connected, other times, just stored on shelves to look at.

Are you going to have more than one radio operating at the same time and if so, how are you planning to control them? How many antennas are connected to this shack and how do you track which antenna is connected to which radio?

What are you going to do about power? Does everything run on mains power, or are you going to build a 13.8 Volt supply for all your gear?

Where are you planning to put computer screens, what about keyboard, mouse, Morse key and antenna switching controls? In other words, "What do the ergonomics of your shack look like?"

Remember, there is no right answer. The answer you come up with is yours and yours alone. Look at things that work for you and take note of things that make you wince when you see it in another shack somewhere. That's not to say that you should be dismissive, rather, use the opportunity to ask the shack owner why they made that choice. Who knows, it might cover something you hadn't considered yet.

So, what does your ideal shack look like?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Over the weekend I learnt to my chagrin that my shack was not ready for the contest I decided to participate in for an hour. Truth be told, it was probably me who wasn't ready, but I'm going to blame my shack, since it can't argue and besides this is my story.

It started off with turning on the HF radio. That involved turning off my 10m WSPR beacon which is transmitting its little heart out 24 hours a day into the one vertical antenna it shares with my HF radio.

Turning off the beacon was simple enough, reach into the mass of cable and dig out the USB power lead that plugs into the beacon. Then follow the antenna coax to the correct switch. Whoops, that's the GPS coax, the other one, there's the switch, now switching it to the HF radio.

Why didn't the sound change, actually, come to think of it, what sound? Hmm, the audio is going into, nothing, actually, it's going into the audio mixer that's turned off. Turn that on. Then audio at last, nope. Hmm, oh wait, the audio needs to go from the HF radio, not the VHF radio that's configured to do some audio spectrum recording. Turn off the Raspberry Pi at the same time, since there's no more audio going into that and who needs more potential noise? Locate the two audio plugs that go into the radio audio adaptor, disconnect the Pi audio, connect the radio audio, now, which one is the microphone?

Now I've got it all plugged in, still no audio. Hmm, two of the mixer channels are muted. Turn on one, radio goes into TX, that's not good. Turn it off, radio stops transmitting, sigh of relief. Turn on the other channel, finally hear some squeaky sounds. Ahha, it's coming from the headset.

Don the headset, now I've got glorious mono in my brain. Test the microphone, nothing. Hmm, ah the switch on the microphone lead. Now I've got RX and TX going. Yay, victory!

Now turn on the computer so I can do some logging. Fire up my trusty, wait, which tool? The one I normally use for casual contesting hasn't seen a new version since the author became a silent key, no idea if the rules for this contest are still current, fire up the next one, that needs a brand new configuration file, but that means reading the manual and I've got more important things to do.

Try another one, Yes, that's got the rules ready to go. No idea if the rules are current, but at least there's no configuration file to contend with.

At this point I'm two hours into my one hour contesting window and I have to stop. Haven't even tuned the antenna and I'm already out of time.

Hmm, this shack is rigged.

Wonder who I should blame for that?

Some days all good intentions come together. Other days they don't. There's always the next contest.

Lessons learnt, my shack needs a serious rethink on how best to set it up so I can operate daily, experiment and accommodate a casual contest. Looks like I'm off to the hardware store for some brackets and my documentation clearly needs updating, actually, truthfully, needs writing.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Identifying the problem is the first step in fixing it and with that I want to talk about emergencies. One of the very first things I was told about our amateur radio community was that we're here for when emergencies happen. Our purpose is to communicate, so in a crisis, we can assist by supplying communication to the situation.

I've talked about some of this before. Preparedness in the way of on-air training by contesting, in getting gear ready and even exercises for when this occurs. There are amateur clubs dedicated to putting up repeaters for just such an eventuality.

Recently there was a local news item about radio amateurs banding together, sending gear to fellow amateurs who were hit by severe flooding that wiped out their shack and with it their ability to communicate.

Another event was a friend who lost a big chunk of his shack when his basement flooded.

Across Australia and in other parts of the world in recent times we've been witness to the most devastating fires that destroyed entire towns and communities, taking with it infrastructure, communications, not to mention stock, local flora and fauna and entire wildlife ecosystems, bringing some to extinction levels.

The destruction doesn't end there. War and famine, drought, cyclones, hurricanes or typhoons, snow storms, heatwaves and the like.

All those situations can to greater or lesser degree benefit from amateur radio communications, either for amateurs affected, or for the community at large.

I started considering what would actually be required to be useful in such a situation. Could you be prepared for anything, or are you required to pick and choose? What does "being prepared" actually look like and what steps can you take once it's happening?

I asked myself if sending radio gear to amateurs who are affected by floods is the most effective way to actually help, or would it be better to pass the hat around and send the proceeds to their bank account?

Should you as an amateur drive into an emergency area and start communicating, or are there better ways to help?

There are local amateur radio emergency service groups under various names in different countries, some of which are highly effective, others much less so.

One attempt I made was to join the local volunteer state emergency services. For several reasons that didn't work out for me, but it remains a viable option for some.

Joining those types of groups gives you a framework, but does it actually answer the underlying question, that of effectiveness?

I have a drawer full of emergency service training manuals, each more dense than the next, but very little of it relates to the amateur radio. Many pages are dedicated to search and rescue, staying alert, first aid, keeping alive, hand signals, log books, mapping and the like.

I am left wondering why we as a community, with a proud century of activity, having one of the main principles as emergency communication appear to have such a poor track record of actually considering what dealing with an emergency looks like and what your own individual place could be in that situation.

We document our radios, antennas, power supplies, contacts, circuit board designs, contesting procedures and all the rest of it, but we don't seem to do the same for emergencies.

Why is that?

In my opinion, it's time to document emergency amateur radio and if you have already started, get in touch.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The art of amateur radio is many things to many people. For me it's a technological challenge, a learning, a way to broaden my experience, a way to be technically active away from my consultancy. The place that amateur radio takes in your life might be the same, or it might be completely different, as varied as the people I've encountered since I became an amateur.

People from all walks of life with different experiences and vastly different stories. Truth be told, in the decade that I've been an amateur, I've spoken to and met people from more diverse backgrounds than in the forty years before that. I make that statement as a person who migrated across the globe twice, travelled through a dozen or so countries, stood on stage in front of thousands of people, taught countless classes and as a radio broadcaster interviewed people from all over the planet.

From paraplegic to quadriplegics, from people with terminal diseases to people struggling with their identity, from astronomers to astrologers, from train drivers to truck drivers, from mariners to motorcyclists, from working to retired, from healthy to hospitalised, from local to remote, from energetic to sedentary, from happy to sad, from connected to isolated and everything in between.

As a host of a weekly net for new and returning amateurs I've begun to notice that some people are falling away, either sitting on the side because they feel that they have nothing to contribute, or stopping communication altogether.

It occurred to me that for some people amateur radio is the only way that they connect to the world around them. It's the only way for them to meet people who are different, who walk a different path, who tell a different story. It's also sometimes the only thing that makes them get out of bed.

In a world where we're all busy, dealing with the realities of daily life, trying hard to figure out what our place is in that experience and trying hard not to lose your identity while you're attempting this, it's easy to overlook the amateur you didn't hear from for a week or a month.

I know that for several of my new friends, amateur radio kept them alive for longer and made them smile more often and made their life a little easier, even if several of them have become a Silent Key since I counted them as my friend.

When one of the main activities of our hobby is communication, it seems appropriate to take a moment to consider what that looks like from the other person's perspective. What might it be like to be acknowledged, to be validated as a human, to see them and their life, to speak with them, even if only briefly, and to take a moment out of our own busy existence and answer that CQ, or respond to a question, or smile with a fellow amateur.

There is another aspect to this, one which I've not actually seen in the amateur community. Perhaps I've been too busy to notice, but it appears that the venerable telephone circle, the idea that one person calls the next person on the list, who then calls the next and so-on. If the last person doesn't get a call within a set time, they call the list backwards and discover who is not answering their phone. It's an effective way for people to regularly talk to each other and it's an excellent way to make sure that everyone is OK.

In our own community of amateurs we can do the very same thing. Hosting a net is one way, having a daily commuter chat is another, but when you do this, take a moment to consider who didn't check in and see what they're up to.

It's fascinating to me that we're a hobby that's primarily made of old men, yet we haven't actually embraced our own ageing process as part of the experience. Sure there is a need to encourage new people into the hobby, but that's not the entire story. We should be so lucky as to speak with our friends on a regular basis, to check-in with each other and to make sure that we're all getting our daily dose of RF.

So, ask yourself how the community around you is doing and how you might take a moment to check-in with those not so near, but just as dear to you.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

One of my favourite activities is contesting. Essentially it's a time-limited activation of your station for the purposes of testing your skill and station against other participants. Contests are controlled by rules as varied as the amateur community itself.

That said, there are common terms and concepts and if you're not familiar with them, they can lead to confusion and disappointment when you inadvertently break a rule and see your hard work vanish into thin air.

I will note that what I'm discussing here is not universally true, so read the rules for each contest you participate in, something you should already be doing since rules are refined over time and it's rare to keep the same rules between years.

A contest starts and stops at a specific time, often expressed in UTC, or Universal Coordinated Time. You should know what your local timezone is in relation to UTC and take into account any variations like Summer and Winter time. Any contacts made outside these times don't count and you cannot log these against the contest.

Each contact or QSO is awarded a set number of points. It might be scored based on mode, band, power, time and sometimes distance. To encourage specific types of contacts, some might attract a score of zero. This does not mean that the contact is useless, which I'll get to shortly.

Your score is the sum of all the points you make for each contact. I will mention that contest logging software can track this to make your life easier, although it comes at the price of requiring a computer.

Sometimes a prohibited contact attracts penalties. Prohibited, as-in, by the rules of that contest. For example, some allow you to contact the same station more than once, others allow this only if you do it on a different band.

Speaking of bands. It's not permitted to make contest contacts on the WARC bands. In 1979, the World Administrative Radio Conference allocated the 30m, 17m and 12m bands for amateur use. These are not used for contesting. To avoid a contest, you can use those bands, but truth be told, you should try to use all the bands, even during contests, since it will help you operate your station in adverse conditions, something worth practising.

Many contests allocate additional scoring based on state, country, DXCC entity, CQ or ITU zone, prefix, or all of these together.

Both the CQ and ITU zones represent regions of the world. The CQ zones are managed by CQ Magazine and the ITU zones are managed by the International Telecommunications Union. A zone is represented by a number.

The DXCC is a system that tracks individual countries across the globe. If you make contact with 100 of these places, you've achieved your DX Century and you join the DX Century Club, or DXCC.

Consider a contact with me. You'd have a contact with VK6FLAB. It would also be a contact with the VK6 prefix, the VK DXCC entity, CQ zone 29 and ITU zone 58. If that's not enough, it would also be a contact with OC-001, the IOTA or Islands On The Air designation for Australia.

This is useful because for some contests these extra features represent points, often significant ones, generally referred to as a "multiplier".

To calculate your score, tally up all your contact points, then count all the features, CQ Zones, the ITU Zones, DXCC entities, states, countries, etc. and multiply your score with that count. If you contact 10 callsigns and get one point for each, you have 10 points. If in doing so you contact five contest features, you end up with an overall score of 50 points.

Often contests have different categories and rules for transmitter power level, the number of transmitters and the number of operators.

Definitions for these vary. High Power might be 400 Watts in Australia, but 1500 Watts in the United States. QRP or very low power might be 10 Watts in one contest, but 5 in another, so check.

Some contests have an assisted category where you're permitted to use tools like the DX Cluster where other stations alert you online to their presence on a particular frequency.

There is a concept of an overlay, where how long you've held your license, your age, working portable, battery operated, using a wire antenna or mobile, groups you with others doing the same thing. This means that you could be a rookie, youth, portable, battery, wire antenna, single assisted operator, all at the same time. It often pays to consider who else is in a particular group and make your claims accordingly.

If you're contesting with more than one person, a Multi station, there are rules for that too. Sometimes this includes the amount of land a contest station is permitted to use.

If you're a Multi-Single station, you might be permitted to use one transmitted signal on one band during any 10 minute period.

A Multi-Two might be permitted to use two simultaneous transmitted signals, but they must be on two different bands.

A Multi-Multi may activate all six contest bands at the same time, but only use one transmitter per band.

Some contests have a Short Wave Listener or SWL category, where you log all stations heard. There is also the concept of a check-log, where you log all your contacts, submit them, but don't enter the contest itself. You might have worked stations during the contest, but not according to the rules, because you might be aiming to get your DXCC. Submitting your log will help the contest organisers check other entries and validate the scores of the stations you contacted.

This might all be daunting, but if you read the rules of a contest and you're not sure, every contest manager I've ever spoken to is more than happy to help you understand what's allowed and what isn't.

One tip. Contesting is as much about the rules that are written as it is about the rules that are not. If you find a gap in the rules, and it doesn't go against the spirit of the contest, you're absolutely encouraged to use that to your advantage. If you do, you'll quickly discover why the rules change so often.

Preparation is everything!

I'm Onno VKFLAB

Today I want to talk about something that might feel only tangentially related to our hobby, but it likely affects you.

Recently the ARRL announced that it was "in the process of responding to a serious incident involving access to our network and headquarters-based systems". A day later it sought to assure the community that the "ARRL does not store credit card information" and they "do not collect social security numbers" and went on to say that their "member database only contains publicly available information". Five days after that it's "continuing to address a serious incident involving access to our network and systems" and that "Several services, such as Logbook of The World(R) and the ARRL Learning Center, are affected.", but "LoTW data is secure". Over a third of the latest announcement, more than a week ago, was to assure the community that the July QST magazine is on track but might be delayed for print subscribers.

Regardless of how this situation evolves, it's unwelcome news and much wider reaching than the ARRL.

LoTW, or Logbook of The World, is used globally by the amateur community to verify contacts between stations. The IARU, the International Amateur Radio Union, is headquartered at the ARRL office.

I've been told that I should have empathy and consider that the ARRL is only a small organisation that may not have the best of the best in technology staff due to budget constraints and finally, that LoTW being down for a few days is not going to kill anyone.

All those things might well be true and mistakes can and do happen.

The ARRL has been in existence for well over a century, bills itself as the answer to "When All Else Fails" and has even registered this as a trademark, but hasn't actually said anything useful about an incident that appears to have occurred on the 14th of May, now over two weeks ago. By the way, that date is based on the UptimeRobot service showing less than 100% up-time on that day, the ARRL hasn't told us when this all occurred, it didn't even acknowledge that anything was wrong until two days later.

This raises plenty of uncomfortable questions.

What information did you share with the ARRL when you activated your LoTW account? For me it was over a decade ago. I jumped through the hoops required and managed to create a certificate. What information I shared at the time I have no idea about. As I've said before, I do know that security was more extreme than required by my bank, even today, and the level of identification required was in my opinion disproportionate to the information being processed by the service, lists of amateur stations contacting each-other.

Something to take into account, on the 30th of October 2013, Norm W3IZ wrote in an email to me: "Data is never removed from LoTW." - I have no idea how much or which specific information that refers to.

If you used the ARRL Learning Center, what information did you share? If you're a member of the ARRL, or you purchased something from their online store, what data was required and stored? Is the data at the IARU affected? What infrastructure, other than the office, do they share?

While I've been talking about the ARRL, this same issue exists with all the other amateur services you use. QRZ.com, eQSL.cc, eham.net, clublog.org, your local regulator, your amateur club, your social media accounts, all of it.

What information have you shared?

Do you have an internet birthday, address and middle name?

Recently I received a meme. It shows two individuals talking about life, the universe and everything. They discuss their favourite books, the first movie they ever watched, the name of their pets, what car they learnt to drive in, their interests and other things you talk about when you meet someone new and interesting. The last image of the meme shows the heading: "Security Questions Answered, Welcome Amanda."

So, my question is this: What's your favourite colour and your mother's maiden name?

Seriously, next time you access a service online, have a look at what data that service has. When you sign up, consider the requirements for the service and how much information that's worth. Do you really need to send your birthday, your gender and your physical address with a copy of your passport or another government approved identity document? If you're being asked for the name of your first pet, consider answering something unique. In my case, I generate a random string of characters to use as an answer for each security question.

The ARRL "incident" is the tip of the iceberg. This problem is't going away, it's only going to get bigger and happen more often.

Final observation. With the potential of a global shopping list for thieves coming out of the database at the ARRL, will you be sharing your station address next time and if you're subject to the GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, perhaps it's time to ask your online service providers just exactly what they're doing to protect your information, and that includes the ARRL.

I have sent two emails to the ARRL in relation to these questions, but have yet to receive an acknowledgement, let alone answers.

By the time this reaches you, perhaps the ARRL has answers to my questions and more.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

After weeks of attempting to get some noise, any noise out of my PlutoSDR I have finally cracked it. Not sure if cracked it refers to my sanity or the outcome, but beeping was heard from the Pluto on my radio, so I'm doing victory laps around the house, all conquering hero type affair, complete with whooping and hand waving.

In the end it all came down to serendipity and truth be told, I know it beeps, I've heard it beep, it does so on a predictable frequency, but why it exactly works is still a mystery that has yet to be discovered since the documentation I have isn't sharing and the example code I have contradicts what I'm seeing.

For context, a PlutoSDR, or Pluto, is a very capable software defined radio, perfect for experimentation. I've talked about it before in the context of using it as a receiver.

My most recent efforts involved coaxing my Pluto out of a corner after it sat there sulking for weeks. Turns out that not only was my USB power lead broken, which caused the blinken lights to stay off. When I finally figured that out, I discovered that one of the two wireless dongles I'd purchased together was Dead On Arrival. After a frustrating morning with the manufacturer who wouldn't take my word for it that swapping out the two identical units would not require installing the driver, something about Windows Device Manager on my Linux computer, I went back to the store who happily swapped out the faulty device on the spot. Mind you, the Pluto still isn't talking to my wireless network, but at least it's not the dongle anymore.

I plugged the Pluto into the back of my main workstation and discovered to my surprise that in addition to showing up as a thumb-drive, which I knew about, it also turned up as a network device, which I didn't know about.

It's been a while since I powered this up to play, so I updated the firmware which fixed some annoying issues and started to explore.

The aim of my quest was to create a proof of concept beep from the command-line on the Pluto.

If you're not familiar with this. The Pluto is running a flavour of Linux. You can connect to its command-line and run commands from inside the hardware.

This is important because for most radios, of both the analogue and software kind, you generate the information somewhere, like Morse Code, a WSPR signal, your voice, what-ever and then you send that to the radio. On an analogue radio it's likely to go across an audio cable of some sort and if you have a software defined radio, it's likely to travel from your computer across a USB or network cable to the radio to get processed.

This is different in that there is no such signal coming across the USB link. The link is used as a network cable to ssh into the radio where you can generate whatever you want. In my case Morse. If you're not familiar with ssh, think of it as a keyboard connection to a remote computer.

My script, hacked together as it is, more on that shortly, takes a string, like say "CQ DE VK6FLAB" and processes that character by character. It converts each into the equivalent Morse code dits and dahs and then uses those to turn on a test tone for an appropriate amount of time.

So, to send "CQ", the script changes that into -.-. --.- and then turns on the transmitter for three units, off for one, on for one, off for one, on for three, off for one, etc.

This is Morse code at its very simplest, the software equivalent of holding down a Morse key for the correct amount of time and then releasing it.

I disparagingly called it hacked together, because it's using the in-built busybox command shell that comes with the Pluto. If you're familiar, the actual shell is called ash, or Almquist shell. It's strictly limited in functionality, no arrays, minimal redirection, all very basic. Perfect for what I want to do, but not so much if you want to write software.

After working around the lack of arrays, one of the things that caused me the most problems was to discover just how to setup the Pluto to actually do this. I found a couple of examples online that pretended to work, claimed to be doing what they said they were, but nothing was heard on my local analogue radio. At one point I heard clicks, but no beeping.

After spending literally hours testing, scanning up and down the radio dial with my Yaesu FT-857d, I stumbled on a tone that stopped when my test script stopped. I started the script again and the tone came back. When it ended, the tone stopped again. I finally had a relationship between a tone on the PlutoSDR and the frequency on my radio.

So, with all manner of funky offsets in my code, subject to me understanding the how and what of them, I can now beep to my hearts content. Of course I've shared my efforts on github, cunningly called Pluto Beacon.

Have a look and tell me what I did wrong.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The other day I took delivery of a shiny new circuit board populated with components and connectors. Knowing me, you'd assume that I'd been the recipient of some kind of software defined radio gadget and you'd be right.

One of the connectors was a micro USB socket, intended to be used to plug the hardware into a computer and to drive the circuit board.

The board came to me by way of a friend who saw it online, waxed lyrical about it and for less than $35, who could begrudge this exploration into a new toy?

Once it arrived, it sat on my shelf for a few weeks, enticingly packed in an anti-static bag, transparent enough to see the device inside, taunting me to open it up, plug it in and have some fun.

Today I opened it up and started researching my new gadget. It didn't come with any user manual, no URL, no model number, but it did have a callsign on it, so I started there. I'll note that I'm not going to repeat that callsign here for a number of reasons, which I'll get to.

My exploration discovered a site where this device was being sold. It also unearthed several international amateur radio forums describing what appeared to be this device, including circuit diagrams and specifications.

What I found harder to discover was software.

It appears that I have a clone of a device that may still be manufactured, or not, I cannot tell. I found some example code on github for the original hardware, but it seemed to require other libraries, but didn't actually specify those anywhere.

I opened up an online translation tool and started translating some of the wording on the circuit board in an attempt to discover just what information was written on the board.

The wording was clearly from a different culture, a different perspective and while it claims to come from a maker space that appears to promote women, it also contained a militaristic phrase which caused me to pause.

In that moment I came to a sudden and abrupt realisation.

How do I know what this piece of hardware actually does?

How do I know if when I plug it into the first available USB socket on my computer, it won't install anything nefarious, start connecting to the internet and start doing something unexpected? There's enough hardware on the circuit board to do that and even if the labels on the components tell me that they are a specific integrated circuit, how do I know that it actually is that chip?

The chips on this circuit appear to have a lot more connectivity than a simple receiver might warrant. One has 40 pins, the other 32. If the label is accurate, the data sheet for one of the chips indicates that it includes an 8-bit micro controller among its various functions.

I'll admit that I'm coming from an IT security background at this and you are free to argue that I'm being paranoid, but does that make me wrong?

I know that I don't know enough about this particular board or its origins that for now it's going to remain inside its anti-static bag, taunting me with the possibilities of the connectors it offers, but until I know more about the provenance of this gadget, it's going nowhere near any of my computers.

If you have suggestions on how to proceed, don't be shy. I did briefly consider plugging it into a Pi, but how would I know if it updated the firmware, forever compromising that Pi?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this board does any of this. My point is around discovering if it does, or not, one way or another.

No doubt some might think I'm overly suspicious and there is truth in that, but in my profession it pays to be vigilant. The underlying issue is that of validation. There's anti-virus software available to deal with malicious code, but how do you do such a thing for malicious hardware?

Again, I'm not saying that this circuit board is doing anything other than being a USB connected receiver, but how would you know? How would you verify that? And how do we in the amateur community weed out the nefarious tools from the legitimate ones?

I'll leave you with one thought. When was the last time you plugged your phone into a free charger on the bus or at the airport? How do you know that your phone wasn't hacked?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

One of the topics I've been talking about lately is the idea that we might be able to measure the performance of your radio in some meaningful way using equipment that can be either obtained by any amateur, or by introducing a process that allows results to be compared, even if they have been generated differently.

Recently I came up with a tool that automatically generates a spectrogram of an audio recording. That on its own isn't particularly interesting, but it's step one in the processing of an audio signal. In addition to the spectrogram, I also created a tool that generates a tone frequency sweep, think of it as a tone that changes frequency over time, let's call it a sweep.

If you combine the two, you can generate a spectrogram of the sweep to give you a starting point or baseline for comparison. You can build on that by using your radio to transmit that sweep and record the result using a receiver. In my initial experiments, I used an RTLSDR dongle to receive the audio with some success and a boatload of spectacular harmonics, but I wanted to find a better, more accessible way to do this and during the week I realised that my Yaesu FT-857d that's sitting in my shack, is connected to a perfectly functional antenna and with a few settings it could do the job perfectly.

One of the biggest issues with my RTLSDR setup was squelch. That is the difference between what is a legitimate transmission and what is noise. Set it too high and you hear nothing, set it too low and you hear everything, including background noise.

Since the VHF or 2m noise levels are quite high at my location, or QTH, I normally have the squelch completely closed. This is fine if you're normally using a strong repeater, but if you're attempting to receive a weak hand-held, that's never going to work.

As any self-respecting amateur I was dragged down the path of last resort to read my user manual where I discovered that in addition to CTCSS, a way to transmit a tone to open a repeater, there's also a setting called Tone Squelch or on my radio TSQ, which will keep my radio squelch closed, unless it hears the CTCSS tone from another radio.

Truth be told, I had to read a different user manual to discover how to actually set the CTCSS tone on my handheld to test, but that's just adding insult to injury. It has been a while since I read any manual, even though I try to get to it once a year or so. I blame it on the lack of field-day camping. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So, combining all this, the spectrogram generator, the sweep, CTCSS, and adding a Raspberry Pi with some website magic, if you're interested, an AWS S3 bucket, I now have a service that listens on a local frequency, opens the squelch if it hears the correct CTCSS tone, records the incoming signal until it stops, then generates a spectrogram from that audio and uploads it to a web site.

None of this is particularly complicated, though I did have some bugs to work through. I've published the code as a branch to my existing frequency-response project on github and I've asked my local community to experiment with what I have on-air before I start doing more far reaching experiments.

For example.

If I were to tune my radio to a local repeater output frequency, rather than the simplex one I'm currently on, I'd be able to record and generate spectrograms for each transmission coming from that repeater. If that repeater was connected to the internet, using AllStar, IRLP, Echolink, DMR or Brandmeister, or even all of them, the global community could send their audio to my recorder and it could generate a spectrogram on the spot.

If using that repeater, you played a sweep into your microphone, or used your digital audio interface to play the sound, you could then compare your signal path against others and against the baseline response.

One of the issues with doing this is that much of the audio that travels across the internet is pretty munched, that is, it's compressed, frequencies are cut-off, there's all manner of interesting harmonics and the value of the comparison appears limited at best.

Once I have my multi-band HF antenna, which I'm told is still being built, I intend to set this contraption up on HF where we can do point-to-point recordings and we end up having a direct comparison between two stations who transmit into my frequency-response software.

I should add some disclaimers here too. At the moment I'm only using FM. The intent is to get this to a point where I can compare any mode, but when I move to HF, I'll likely start with Single Side Band and go on from there.

One other annoyance is that any user needs to configure CTCSS to make this work, which is yet another hurdle to overcome, not insurmountable, but I like to keep things simple when you're starting to learn.

Also, the harmonics still show, even on an analogue radio, so there's plenty more to discover.

In the meantime, what kinds of things can you think of to use this for?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Recently I've spoken about measuring the frequency response of your radio and what the benefits of doing so might be. Today I've got some progress to report and some initial discoveries. Again, this is preliminary, but then all of this hobby is experimentation, so that should come as no surprise.

Let's start with the mechanics of what I'm doing and a "duh" moment I need to confess.

The aim of this process is to transmit a known audio signal, receive it, record it and create a spectrogram from it. This allows us to compare the original spectrogram against the received one and show just how the audio path has been affected by getting the audio into the transmitter, the processing by the transmitter, the propagation between the transmitter and receiver, the artefacts introduced in the receiver and any recording device.

To begin this process I started off with an audio file of my voice. That wasn't very helpful, since it's a complex signal and comparing my voice before and after is a non-trivial process. At some point I intend to come back to voice before and after comparison, but that's on the shelf for now.

The audio that I'm using is a frequency sweep, lasting 5 seconds. That is, there's a tone that changes frequency from DC to 5 kHz. When I looked at the spectrogram of that, it shows as a curve with time against frequency. It occurred to me that I could make two of those sweeps at the same time to measure distortion, so I added a reverse frequency sweep from 5 kHz down to DC. Now I've got two crossing lines showing in my spectrogram.

To transmit this audio, I'm using the same tool I use to automatically call CQ during a contest. Every so many seconds I transmit this audio into a dummy load and at this point I should mention that my "duh" moment was that I was attempting to transmit into an antenna and record from a dummy load, rather than transmit into a dummy load and record from an antenna. I still cannot believe that I did that.

Moving on.

The recording is done using an RTLSDR dongle. In the current initial version I'm using a tool called rtl_fm to tune the dongle to the same frequency as my transmitter. I send the audio from there to the same tool I used to generate the original audio, SoX, that's Sierra, Oscar, X-Ray, and have it detect the silence between each transmission and record each into a new file. If I leave it running, every time I transmit something, SoX will create a new audio file.

I'm saying that quite quickly, but getting the squelch and silence detection working in my noisy environment took most of a day and it's specific to my station, today. I'll have to figure out how to make this smarter, but for now I have some data.

A spectrogram is generated for each audio file and then we can compare pictures. What was sent, audio wise, and what was received, audio wise. To be clear, I'm not sending images, I'm sending audio and comparing the spectrograms of this audio.

I will also note that I'm currently using FM as the mode. I intended to do this with SSB, but the amount of effort to get the squelch right has left me with a future project to achieve that.

The code itself is pretty rudimentary, but I've uploaded it to my github page. I've also added the pictures to my project website, which you can find at vk6flab.com.

One initial observation, one that I don't yet understand, is that what I sent and what I received don't look the same. My pretty curves in the original audio come back with spectacular harmonics all over the place, very pretty to be sure, but not quite what I was expecting, let's call it an educational challenge.

Before I forget, just because I'm using a Yaesu FT-857d, a Raspberry Pi, an RTLSDR dongle, an antenna and a dummy load, doesn't mean that you need to. Essentially, what this does is generate a special audio file, transmit it, receive it, record it and generate a spectrogram. You can play the audio from your own computer if you have digital modes set-up, or from your mobile phone if not.

Recording can be something sophisticated with off-air monitoring, or it can be a recorder held in front of your receiver.

One final note. You can change settings on both the transmitter and the receiver to see what they do in relation to the audio, so experiment.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

During the week I was reading a comment from another amateur about digital modes. Tucked inside that comment was a phrase that could easily have been overlooked, but it reminded me that there is plenty to learn and test in the field of amateur radio.

The phrase, "requires actual understanding of audio level paths" was uttered by Chris, VK2CJB and it prompted a brief conversation at the time, but I've been working on it ever since.

Where I arrived at is an attempt, incomplete as yet, to design a mechanism to show the impact of various transmitter settings on the received audio in such a way that you can test your own gear and see the result.

Before I explain how I'm doing this, let me describe why it's important.

Using a radio in concept is pretty simple, if you yell into the microphone, the audio comes out distorted and if you whisper, it might also be distorted, but in a different way, neither is conducive to communication.

One way to improve this is a tool called the ALC. Using Automatic Level Control as a guide to what level your audio should be is outlined in every amateur radio manual I've seen, but how much it matters and to what extent is left unsaid. If you apply a filter or any number of other fancy options, what happens to your audio?

To get some sense of what I'm describing, listening back to your own voice after it comes across HF SSB is surprisingly distorted in comparison to a local recording.

You might argue, what's the harm, as long as the other station can hear my voice, we're good to go.

Sure, if voice is all you're using, but what if it's data? In that case, the audio you're transmitting is actually encoded digital information. To decode it, the software needs to deal with frequencies, distortion and levels to name a few.

In computer science, "garbage in, garbage out" is the concept that flawed, or nonsense input data produces nonsense output. In our case, if you transmit garbage, the receiver is going to start with garbage and what gets decoded is likely not what you expect.

Without going into error correction, essentially, the cleaner the path between the transmitter and the receiver, the higher the chances of success and to be fair, you already know this when you attempt to work a pile-up on a noisy band. "Again, again, just the prefix, again!", sound familiar?

To achieve this I started with the idea that you could transmit a tone and if you knew what it was, you could determine the difference between what was sent and what was received.

My first step was to generate a single 1 kHz tone, but then I wondered what would happen if you did multiple tones, one after the other. My current version is an audio frequency sweep, running from 0 to 5 kHz in five seconds. It's essentially a computer generated sequence of tones with known characteristics. You transmit this audio file using your radio and then record it off air, either from a local receiver, WebSDR, or the radio belonging to a friend.

Using the recording, you can create a spectrogram, a picture, showing the frequencies over time present in the audio. Compare the two and you just learnt what each setting on your radio does precisely to the audio.

Of course it's simple for me to say this, but I'm working on using a tool I've spoken about before, csdr, to do the heavy lifting, so you can actually do a meaningful comparison between the various audio files.

In the mean time, I've managed to use SoX, the so-called Swiss Army knife of sound processing programs to both generate the audio sweep and draw a preliminary spectrogram.

Next up is showing some side-by-side images of various radio settings and their effect on the spectrogram. I'll publish this on my website when I have something to show-and-tell.

I also don't yet know if my source audio file is going to be sufficient, but I'll subject that to some testing as well. For example, I'm investigating multiple simultaneous audio sweeps with different frequency ranges. The more complex the spectrogram, the more we might be able to learn from the distortion on receive, but time will tell.

If you have some ideas on how to improve this, let me know.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

On the 6th of June, 2004, two Brazilian amateurs Roland, PY4ZBZ and Arnaldo, PY4BL made a historic contact on 40m. The distance was not particularly significant, only 70 km, but the mode was.

Using 2.1 kHz bandwidth, so it could fit within an amateur radio SSB transmission, they used software created by Swiss amateur Francesco, HB9TLK to make the very first HamDream exchange.

This technological advancement represents the birth of what we now call HamDRM and Digital SSTV and how it came about is an adventure that needs documenting, since what we have is written in a combination of Portuguese, German and English, cobbled together from broken websites, archives, source code, commit comments and lost links.

To provide some context, there is a broadcast radio mode called DRM, or Digital Radio Mondiale. At this point I should mention that this has absolutely nothing to do with Digital Rights Management with the catchy acronym of, you guessed it, DRM. As you might expect, this acronym clash is unhelpful, to say the least, when you're trying to find information about this radio mode.

Digital Radio Mondiale, or DRM, essentially defines a digital standard for radio broadcast transmissions. It can handle multiple audio streams as well as file exchange and is used by broadcasters across the globe. Mondiale, in case you're curious means worldwide in French, seems my high school language lessons have finally been put to good use, my French teacher in the Netherlands will be thrilled.

DRM is more efficient than AM and FM and as an open standard, it's gaining popularity. The first broadcast using this mode took place on the 16th of June 2003, during the World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva.

An open source implementation of this mode is called Dream. The source code is available online and is capable of being compiled for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Dream was originally written by Volker Fischer and Alexander Kurpiers. The Dream project started in June of 2001 and today it has many contributors.

The DRM standard uses different bandwidths depending on which mode is used. The narrowest DRM mode uses 4.5 kHz, but modes using 100 kHz exist. By comparison, a typical analogue amateur radio uses 2.7 kHz for SSB. Using the source of Dream, Francesco built a modified version, called it HamDream and let it loose on the world. It was used for that very first 70 km contact between Roland and Arnaldo.

Several versions of HamDream existed. The first QSO used 2.1 kHz and the last version of HamDream used 2.5 kHz bandwidth. To fit digital audio inside that narrow bandwidth it used different audio compression techniques, called a CODEC, namely LPC10 and SPEEX.

According to Francesco, HamDream is the basis for all current amateur radio 2.5 kHz HamDRM programs. He goes on to say that it's outdated and the source and executables were removed from the net. Personally I think that's a shame, since it represents part of the history of our community and I think that putting the source online in a place like GitHub would be beneficial to the hobby.

The 2.5 kHz HamDRM mode is implemented in several places. QSSTV, EasyPal and WinDRM to name a few. No doubt it's elsewhere. Of those three, only QSSTV survives. The source code for EasyPal, written by Erik VK4AES, now SK, was lost, apparently when the computer on which it lived was sold by his estate. Ironic really, since EasyPal was written because Erik lost a previous application due to a lightning strike nearby and was forced to write a new application from scratch.

WinDRM appears even more elusive. There's a repository on the now archived Google Code site. There are derivatives that appear to use a version of WinDRM, but details are hard to find. An archive I have shows a commit by Francesco, HB9TLK from 2008. I've yet to learn how this relates to the overall picture.

In parallel, in 2005, a few enterprising students made a MATLAB implementation of DRM. Called Diorama and written by Andreas Dittrich and Torsten Schorr it forms the basis of a Linux open source HamDRM receiver written by Ties, PA0MBO, chosen because it had a better performance in marginal conditions than Dream did. It's called RXAMADRM. Ties also wrote an open source transmitter, cunningly called TXAMADRM. It was based on the source code of Dream, specifically v1.12b.

If at this point your head is exploding, I wouldn't blame you.

Let's recap.

There's an open broadcast standard called DRM. An open source, cross platform tool called Dream, in active development, implements that standard.

A special, now discontinued, version of Dream was created called HamDream. It used less bandwidth than DRM and forms the basis of a standard that we now call HamDRM, which underpins Digital SSTV.

HamDream forms the basis of the discontinued products, EasyPal and WinDRM, and lives on in TRXAMADRM and QSSTV, both Linux open source.

In amateur radio terms HamDRM is one of the ways we can efficiently exchange digital information across long distances.

At this point you might wonder why it matters?

For starters, this is part of our history of amateur radio. The HamDRM mode is poorly documented, if at all. It forms the basis of several modes in use today and writing your own software is made all the more challenging because much of the design and development of this mode has been lost.

What's more, HamDRM is an example of "modern radio". It uses the same fundamental techniques used by the 4G and 5G mobile phone network, as well as modern Wi-Fi. Losing this is a massive step backwards for amateur radio.

This article alone represents a week of research by two people, thank you Randall VK6WR, and I won't be surprised to learn that it contains errors and omissions. It shouldn't have to be this hard to discover how a mode works, what is used to make it tick and how to write new software to implement a new application.

Gotta love open source. Speaking of which. If you have source code copies of HamDream or WinDRM, I'd love to hear from you. cq@vk6flab.com is my address. If you have documentation on the design of the HamDRM mode, I'll owe you a beer, or a glass of milk, your choice.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

A couple of days ago, after months of anticipation, an unassuming little box arrived on my doorstep. Inside the box was a nondescript electronic device with two SMA connectors and a USB socket. Other than the branding, there were no markings on the device and it came without any instructions.

It did come with a couple of SMA adaptors, which came in handy.

A little research later determined which of the two SMA adaptors connected to an antenna and which connected to a radio.

The gadget itself is called an upconverter.

It's an interesting little device that essentially mixes two frequencies together, creating two new ones, start with say 720 kHz and mix it with 120 MHz and you end up with 120.720 MHz and 119.28 MHz. In other words, if you mix two frequencies together, you end up with both the sum and the difference of those frequencies.

If you have a radio that can listen to 120 MHz, but cannot listen to 720 kHz, then using an upconverter, you can, as it were, expand the frequency range of your radio to hear different signals.

I purchased the upconverter with the intent of connecting it to my PlutoSDR, since the lowest frequency it can do is 70 MHz. Combine the two and I should be able to listen to all of the amateur HF frequencies at once.

Given that my PlutoSDR is currently doing something else, I had a look at using the upconverter with my WSPR beacon monitor that uses an RTL-SDR dongle. Technically it's not required, since my particular dongle can be used to tune to HF frequencies, but as an experiment, it works well enough.

So, I connected the antenna to the upconverter, the upconverter to the dongle and the dongle to a Raspberry Pi, a single board computer that runs Linux. Essentially the exact same setup I've been running for years, except that I inserted the upconverter between the dongle and the antenna.

That and some power took care of the hardware.

The software initially gave me some challenges. After discovering that the tool I'm using, rtlsdr_wsprd, has an option for an upconverter, I was up and running in minutes.

So, at the moment, and for the next foreseeable little while, my WSPR monitor is using an upconverter to scan HF. Technically this should increase the sensitivity by a significant amount, since the dongle is better suited to tuning to higher frequencies than it is to lower ones, but only time will tell.

I updated my monitoring scripts to take into account if the frequency I was monitoring was out of range, so it currently won't report on anything above 60 MHz, but then that's fine for what I'm working on.

I've updated the script on github if you want to have a look. It's nothing fancy, it essentially checks to see if there's a file called upconverter and if so, it calls a slightly different monitoring script.

Given that I have existing logging data associated with this monitor, I should be able to discover if there's any significant difference between what I've been monitoring to date and what's coming in now that an upconverter is in the listening chain. Theoretically, I should be able to hear weaker signals, but time will tell.

One thing that was interesting whilst I was discovering how this all works and hangs together is that it wasn't immediately obvious how to set it all up in software. I tried several tools to make sense of the data. In the end the combination of gqrx, setting the local oscillator offset to a negative frequency, in my case 120 MHz, got me to the point where I could set the frequency to 720 kHz and hear my local broadcast station, whilst the software actually, secretly behind the scenes, added 120 MHz to that and tuned the radio to 120.720 MHz.

Once I got my head around that, things started falling into place.

The same is true for rtlsdr_wsprd, adding the upconverter flag with the value of 120MHz, got my monitoring station up and running.

This is a pretty user friendly way of getting started with frequency mixers. You might recall my exploration into components apparently made from unobtainium. The intent is to use a variable frequency to achieve a similar thing, but that's a project still on the drawing board, for now, I have a fixed frequency, 120 MHz, which is plenty to get started.

If you're curious why I'd want a stable variable frequency, consider for example, what might happen if you transmit from a HF frequency into an upconverter. Perhaps you could use your HF capable WSPR beacon to make a signal on 2m or 70cm. 120 MHz won't cut it, but perhaps you can work out what's needed to get from the 10m WSPR band to the 2m WSPR band, or the 70cm WSPR band.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

A little while ago I mentioned in passing that I was considering implementing a parrot repeater to help determine how your radio is performing. Discussion afterwards revealed that not everyone had the same picture in mind, so I thought I'd share with you some of what I'm considering and why.

Most of the modern radio landscape revolves around hooking a computer up to some type of radio frequency capable device. Commonly it's the audio and control signals that travel between computer and radio, but there are plenty of examples where raw data makes the journey, like in the case of an RTL-SDR dongle.

That journey is increasingly made using USB, the cable, not the sideband, and limits are based around the maximum speed that a Universal Serial Bus has. Essentially the amount of data that you can process is limited by how fast your computer can talk to the radio.

For my parrot repeater, I'm imagining a device that can receive RF from any radio and process that signal to determine what the centre frequency is, the deviation, stability, the mode, what ever parameters I end up being able to determine, a whole other discussion on its own. In response, the idea is that the device generates a report and either presents that using text to speech, or as a web-page, or both.

Using traditional methods, this would involve a radio, a computer, some software, connections between the radio and the computer, not to mention power for both the computer and the radio, an antenna and perhaps an amplifier. The picture I have in mind is not anything like that. I'm imagining a single device that takes power and does all I've described inside the one device. No external computer, no audio cables, no control cables, no hard drives, not anything, just a PlutoSDR and a power source connected to an antenna or two.

You might think that's fanciful. As it happens, we already have some of that today. When I run dump1090 on my PlutoSDR, it presents itself to the world as a website that I can visit to see which aeroplanes are within range, where they are exactly on a map, what messages they're sending and where they're going. All of the processing is done inside the PlutoSDR. All I have to do is give it power and an internet connection.

This is possible because the PlutoSDR is essentially a computer with RF. It runs Linux and you can write software for it. Unlike my Yaesu FT-857d, which also has a computer on board, rudimentary to be sure, but a computer none the less, it cannot be altered. I cannot load my own piece of software, launch a web browser and point it at my Yaesu, not without connecting an external computer that in turn needs to be connected to the radio. I might add, that this is is how many repeaters work and how devices that implement AllStar and Echolink manage to make the jump between the Internet and the world of RF.

If your eyes are not lighting up right now, let me see if I can put it in different terms.

The PlutoSDR has the ability to access signals between 70 MHz and 6 GHz. It can do so in chunks of 56 MHz. Said differently, if you were able to consider all of the amateur HF spectrum, from zero to 54 MHz, you could fit all of it inside one chunk of 56 MHz that the PlutoSDR is capable of. You couldn't send it anywhere, since you're limited to how fast a USB cable is, but you could technically process that inside the PlutoSDR itself.

To get the PlutoSDR to see the amateur HF bands you could connect it to a transverter, in much the same way that today many 2m handheld radio owners use a transverter to get to 23cm, except in this case, we're going the other way.

In order to actually use this massive amount of information, you're going to need to do some serious signal processing. Accessing 56 MHz of raw data is hard work, even if you don't have to get it across a serial connection. As it happens, the PlutoSDR also comes with an FPGA. As I've mentioned previously, it's like having a programmable circuit board, which can be programmed to do that signal processing for you. It has the capability to massage that massive chunk of data into something more reasonable. For example, you might be able to use it to extract each of the amateur bands individually and represent them as an image that you might show to the world as a waterfall on a web browser.

Now to be clear, I'm not saying that any of this exists just yet, or fits within the existing hardware constraints. I'm only starting on this journey. I'll be learning much along the way. No doubt I'll be using existing examples, tweaking them to the point that I understand what they do and how they work. I've already been talking about some of this for years. As you might have discovered, this adventure is long with many different side quests and at the rate I'm going I'm confident that this represents the breadth and depth of what amateur radio means to me.

So, if you're wondering why I'm excited, it's because the amateur radio world of opportunity is getting bigger, not smaller.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The other day I received an email from a fellow amateur, Elwood WB0OEW. We've been exchanging email for a little while and having been in the hobby since before I learnt to ride a bicycle, he's always got some interesting insight into something I've said and an encouraging word to share.

This time he introduced me to a project he built and published a couple of years ago. It's a variable frequency standard, built from parts and, at the time, costing all of about $150, more on that shortly. Compared to the microwave oven sized HP-606A signal generator sitting on my bench in bits, with some diligent layout, this project could fit inside one of the valves that drives that massive hunk of equipment.

As an aside, truth be told, I'm a little afraid of the HP. It managed to pop the RCD, a residual current device, or safety switch, in my house and in doing so, took out the UPS that powers my main workstation, so, not unexpectedly, I'm reluctant to repeat the experience. Once I understand precisely what happened, I'll pick up the restoration efforts and based on what I learnt today, it might get me where I want to go faster.

Elwood's frequency standard is a very interesting project that delivers a very precise Variable Frequency Oscillator or VFO with an accuracy approaching 1 part per billion. His project uses an Arduino to control a touch sensitive display, read a knob and set and correct the frequency using a GPS as an accurate external time source. It's all very compact, easy to follow and I immediately thought that this would be an excellent project to build with a little twist.

I'm thinking that it would be really great to have this device sit on your local network and make it remote controllable.

The heart of this frequency standard project is a chip called an Si5351. The Silicon Labs Si5351, to use its full name, was first sold by Mouser in 2010 and has been popular since. You'll find it in all manner of places, including the Linux kernel source tree, the QRPlabs QCX and BITX to name two, the Elecraft KX2, scores of Arduino projects and countless frequency source products and projects used in amateur radio.

The Si5351 is a configurable clock generator. Think of it as a programmable crystal that can be configured on the fly, as often as you like. For configuration, it uses an I2C bus, or Inter-Integrated Circuit communications protocol, a special serial bus intended for chip to chip communications, invented by Philips Semiconductors in 1982. That's the same Philips from the light bulbs and audio cassettes, CD, DVD and Blu-ray, also the Philishave. To complete the picture, Philips Semiconductors became NXP in September 2006.

Back to our frequency standard project.

I wondered if I could cut out the Arduino from the actual correction process, since I didn't need a display or a knob and discovered that the Si5351 comes in several flavours. Elwood's design uses the A-version, but there's also a C-version that has the ability to take in an external clock, like say that from a GPS, and correct within the chip itself.

With that information in hand, I figured that I could use a simple Wi-Fi capable system on a chip, something like say an ESP8266, to configure the clock and take care of communications with the outside world. In the process I'd learn how to do a bunch of new things, including my first foray into generating RF, first time writing actual firmware, first time designing circuits and no double many more firsts.

Then I hit a snag.

It seems that the Si5351 has gone from commonplace to zero in stock. Not just zero in stock in Australia, or the US, no, zero in stock anywhere. There are a few A-version breakout boards, that is, the chip on a circuit board, available from one supplier. There is also a new compatible chip, an MS5351M, available from China, but that's a drop-in for the A-version, not the C-version.

So, where it stands is that I can almost taste the design, essentially three chips, an almost trivial circuit board, some SMA connectors, a power source and an external GPS antenna, something that would represent the very first circuit I actually designed, which is a long way from reading the circuit diagram for my Commodore VIC-20 back in the days before I owned a soldering iron.

It did bring me face to face with an odd realisation.

There are components that we use in day-to-day use, ones that are common, used across many different industries, that come from a single source. I should also mention that this particular manufacturer just got sold to another company, which doesn't help matters.

Nobody seems to know how long this shortage might last with forecasts varying wildly, but I'm beginning to wonder how many of these kinds of components exist and how we might reduce our dependence on single supplier hardware.

I'm also starting to look at using an FPGA to do all of this in software, but that's going to take some time, of course we could start using valves again. My 1960's era HP signal generator is starting to look much less intimidating.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The other day I came across a how to video on becoming a radio amateur. It's a recurring kind of publication, the kind that I've contributed to in the past.

I wondered what it would take to leave the hobby.

First of all, I'd have to let my callsign lapse. That's easy enough, but I paid for five years, so it's going to take a while. When it has finally ceased being mine, have I stopped being an amateur?

For one, my qualifications would still be in the regulator's database, likely well beyond my breathing years. I wonder if they implement the right to be forgotten?

Another thing I'd have to do is stop knowing about how antennas work in day-to-day situations. I'd have to stop noticing the location of free to air television antennas, mobile phone towers, Wi-Fi antennas throughout the community and even the network in my home.

I'd also have to say goodbye to all the friends I've made around the place. There's hundreds of people scattered around the globe who with a single word might lure me back into their world, and with that the risk of being sucked back into the community once again.

At a minimum I'd have to stop using computers, or radios, or electronics really. I'd have to stop wanting gadgets and measuring equipment, not to mention having to mothball my soldering irons and give away all my heat shrink.

I'd have to give back the space I've eked out in the house and return it to the general living space it once was. I'd also have to sell all my radio gear and antennas. I'd have to rip out the coax, fix up any holes, cancel pending orders for new antennas and donate my books and magazines to the local library.

I'd have to stop looking at electronics magazines, cut up my loyalty cards for the local electronics and hardware stores and start an online store to sell all the connectors and adaptors I've amassed over the time I've been part of the community.

I'd have to forget the phonetic alphabet that I use almost daily and start using crazy words to spell things over the phone like a normal person does.

Experimentation would be a thing of the past and would be frowned upon as a fringe activity, one only suited to madmen and amateurs, and I'd have to stop investing my time in software and projects that might one day be used in amateur radio.

One of the hardest things to give away would be my curiosity, the one thing that's innate to my wellness. I'd have to stop asking Why? and How? all the time. I'd have to plead ignorance when someone asks how coax works and what's inside a blob of goop on a random circuit board they found on the side of the road.

Then there's the other things like physics and general science. I'd have to disavow all knowledge of these activities. I'd have to stop looking at the stars and stop wondering which radio frequencies were being emitted from all over the night sky.

I'd have to become ignorant of emergency services and communication, of event management and club life. I'd have to feign interest in anything that wasn't science or technology and I'd have to keep a straight face and my mouth shut when someone extolled the virtues of an irrational belief system.

I would likely have to give up my job as an IT consultant and start on a more manual job. Perhaps I'd take up gardening, though I'm not sure how I'd do in the weather at my age.

Even if I achieved all that, and kept it up for the rest of my life, I'd still be an amateur, just one hiding from the hordes of humanity striving to live on this ball of dirt, hurtling through the heavens on a journey through the stars.

I'm not sure I could do that.

So, for better or worse, as I see it, once an amateur, always an amateur and if you're curious and believe in science and technology, I'm here to say that you're well over halfway towards being an amateur! Welcome to the club!

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The origin of our amateur bands

It's hard to imagine today, but there was a time when there was no such thing as either the 80m or the 20m amateur band, let alone 2m or 70cm.

Picture this. It's the roaring 20's, the 1920's that is. Among a Jazz Age burst of economic prosperity, modern technology, such as automobiles, moving pictures, social and cultural dynamism, the peak of Art Deco, we're also in the middle of a radio boom where the world is going crazy buying radios as fast as they can be constructed, there are hundreds of licensed broadcasters, the bands are getting crowded, radio amateurs have been banned from the lucrative radio spectrum above 200 meters, and can only play in the "useless short waves" using frequencies greater than 1,500 kHz. And play they did.

On the 2nd May 1925 amateurs proved they could communicate with any part of the world at any time of the day or night when Ernest J. Simmonds G2OD and Charles Maclurcan A2CM made a daylight contact between Meadowlea, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England, and Strathfield, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on what we now call the 20m band. This contact occurred not once, but regularly, for several days, using 100 Watts.

To give you a sense of just how big news of this feat was, on the second scheduled contact the Prime Minister of Australia, Stanley Bruce, sent a message to England's Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin: "On occasion of this achievement Australia sends greetings."

If you recall, the IARU, the International Amateur Radio Union, was a fortnight old at this point. Less than a year later contact was made using voice.

Between the banning of radio amateurs from frequencies below 1,500 kHz at the London International Radiotelegraph Conference in 1912 and the Washington International Radiotelegraph Conference in 1927 the world had irrevocably changed. In 1912 the discussion was almost all about ship to shore communication. By 1927, the world had tube transmitters, amplitude voice modulation, higher frequencies and what the 1993 IARU President, Richard Baldwin, W1RU calls, "literally an explosion in the use of the radio-frequency spectrum".

In 1927 individual countries were beginning to control the use of spectrum, but there was no universal coordination, no international radio regulation and as we all know, radio waves don't stop at the border.

Richard W1RU, writing in 1993 says: "In retrospect, the Washington conference of 1927 was a remarkable effort. It created the framework of international radio regulation that exists even today. It had to recognize and provide for a multitude of radio services, including the Amateur Service. It was at this conference that amateur radio was for the first time internationally recognized and defined. Bands of harmonically related frequencies were allocated to the various radio services, including the Amateur Service."

While the IARU was two years old, it really hadn't represented amateur radio on the international stage, until now.

The 1927 conference defined an "amateur" as a "duly authorised person interested in radio electric practice with a purely personal aim and without pecuniary interest."

The harmonically related frequencies that were allocated to the Amateur Service are recognisable today. I'll use current band names to give you some context.

1,715 kHz to 2 MHz, or 160m, 3.5 to 4 MHz, or 80m, 7 to 7.3 MHz or 40m, 14 to 14.4 MHz or 20m, 28 to 30 MHz or 10m, and 56 to 60 MHz or 6m.

Of those, the 20m and 80m bands were exclusive to amateurs. The 10m and 6m bands were shared with experimenters and the 160m and 80m bands were shared with fixed and mobile services. You'll notice the absence of bands we use today, the 2m and 70cm bands, 15m and the so-called WARC bands to name a few.

The final ratified document goes into great detail about the requirements, the restrictions, how to deal with interference, how to allocate frequencies and numerous other provisions, many of which will look familiar, almost a hundred years later, if you've ever looked at the rules and regulations under which you operate as a licensed amateur today.

There were various radio amateurs at the 1927 conference, but as Richard W1RU puts it: "much of the credit for the success of amateur radio at that conference has to go to two representatives of ARRL -- Hiram Percy Maxim, president of ARRL; and Kenneth B. Warner, Secretary and General Manager of ARRL."

While Richard points to their roles in the ARRL, you might recall that Hiram was elected international president of the IARU and Kenneth its international secretary-treasurer.

Whichever way you look at it, whichever organisation you credit, today we have amateur bands thanks to those efforts made nearly a century ago.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

After discussing the notion that it's not really possible to determine how your gear is performing without measuring, several people commented that in the good old days an amateur was expected to have sufficient equipment to test performance of their gear.

I flippantly pointed out that once upon a time, computers ran on punch cards too. That's not to dismiss the notion of testing, but rather that times have changed. Testing equipment that was suitable in the 1980's is still available around the place, but expect to pay for it. Some of it is still relevant, some less so.

Even if you do acquire suitable equipment, how do you know if what you're measuring is real? How do you know if the frequency counter that you have is accurate, how do you know if 1 Volt is 1 Volt, or 1 second is 1 second? As I've said before, measurement is the act of comparing two things.

If you think that's ludicrous, consider the rulers and tape measures in your home. They all indicate the same measurement, right? Just for a laugh, pull out all the ones you can find and see what you discover. If you've not done this, you're in for a surprise.

I don't want to dissuade you from getting testing equipment, far from it, but don't expect to fork out to get the equipment and call the job done. The point being that spending lots of money on gear isn't the end of the story, it's just the beginning and in my opinion it's not the place you should start.

Based on community responses, ninety recommendations in all, so hardly scientific or representative, but still a good feel for the space we're playing in, the single most important piece of equipment you should get after sorting out your radio, antenna, coax, power supply, computer, software and other fun things we fill our shacks with is the Digital Multi Meter. You can spend anywhere from $10 to $500 on one, but it should be high on your list. As with the rulers, your results will vary, so be mindful of that when you go shopping.

While the SWR meter and the Watt or Power meter appear regularly, they're not the next highest ranked testing gear. Mind you, most current radios have those built-in to some extent, so perhaps the numbers are somewhat distorted here.

The next essential piece of equipment is some form of monitoring. Either active, passive, programmable, automated, manual, what ever. Hardware like the NanoVNA, the TinySA, even using a Software Defined Radio feature high on the list. Most of these devices either generate a signal to test against, or they rely on your radio to do the heavy lifting, depending entirely on what you're testing. An antenna analyser is among these kinds of tools.

As an aside, the dummy load, either a high power one, or a more modest one, come recommended by many different people.

Together with this list of monitoring equipment comes associated accessories, adaptors, patch leads, attenuators and filters.

After that comes equipment such as variable power supplies, Watt meters, grid dip meters, oscilloscopes and frequency counters.

I will observe that from the responses I received there was a distinct flavour to the recommendations.

On the one hand there was the combination of recommending something like a station monitor, or a signal generator, an oscilloscope and a frequency counter, including things like a Bird 43 RF Watt meter. On the other hand were recommendations for spectrum analysers, NanoVNAs, SDRs and the like. It's not quite across the analogue to digital divide, but it's close.

Note at this point that I'm a software guy in the process of restoring an analogue HP 606A Signal Generator from the early 1960's, so I'm not pointing the finger anywhere.

There were other tools recommended too, an LCR meter, a tool that allows you to measure Inductance, Capacitance and Resistance, something you can buy in kit form if you want to get started, or similarly, can be purchased for varying amounts of money online. Speaking of money, varying amounts that is, the service monitor was on the wish list for several people. Prices between that of a new radio or a new car with varying amounts of warranty.

I will make mention of a bi-directional coupler which was marked as essential by one amateur. It's a tool that allows you to sample a signal in the forward and the reflected path which comes in handy when you're trying to test and build equipment.

As mentioned before, your transceiver has some of this equipment built in, or can be set-up to do some of this, so there's no need to go out and spend thousands of dollars to set-up your testing bench on day one, but the day after, I'd add it to my birthday list.

No doubt that there's many and varied opinion on this. What is your essential testing equipment?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

When you spend some time in this hobby you're likely to find equipment with similar performance for vastly different pricing. At one end of the spectrum you might compare a cheap $25 hand-held radio to a $450 one. At the other end, a $1,500 SDR or Software Defined Radio against a $4,500 one.

Those examples are for brand name devices, which generally speaking have published specifications, come with regulatory approvals, a wide user base, reviews and a distribution network. If equipment is found to be operating out of specification, a regulator might seek a remedy or ban the sale of the equipment.

Those various sources and processes make it possible to compare those devices in a structured way to discover just how deep into your pockets you need to reach in order to acquire a shiny new gadget.

If you buy any of these devices in the used market, you have no way to determine just how far from the factory specifications the device you're contemplating has deviated. Is that waterproof radio still waterproof, or did the previous owner open up the case and put it together incorrectly? Was it dropped and did a component get damaged? Did the static electricity from a local thunderstorm leak through the circuit via the antenna, or did the previous owner not use anti-static precautions when they looked inside?

If it actually failed, it's easy to know. If it's still working, absent a laboratory, you're essentially on your own.

If that's not challenging enough, consider hardware that's released as open source, that is, the original designer released their project, shared the design, a circuit board with component list and specifications. Another person can pick up the documentation and legally build a copy of the hardware.

How do you know how the two compare?

Aside from considering how well any design might actually match the real world, how do you know if the original design can be improved upon or not? Did the second builder use the same components, substitute with better ones, or economise on parts they thought were too expensive?

What happens if the two designers argue with each other about the performance of their respective designs? What if the second design becomes vastly more popular than the original and what if you throw in outright intellectual property theft over the top of all this?

Now consider the same physical hardware, from the same factory, but using different software. How do you know what impact the software has on the performance of the equipment? For example, one component seen more and more is a chip called an FPGA, a Field Programmable Gate Array. Think of it as a programmable circuit board where updating the software creates a different circuit.

An FPGA might be used to filter radio signals. With just a software update, you can program different filters and change the actual performance of the entire device. How do you know if the new version of the software has improved or worsened performance?

What all this lacks is a standard way of describing performance. Not only the kind of standard that's achievable in a laboratory, but one that we can test at home. There's no documentation that I've been able to find that shows how to measure some of this objectively, or even compare your own kit against itself.

It would be great if I could measure my gear against a standard and you could too and we could compare our respective equipment against each other.

Even using the laboratory standard measurements, for example the Sherwood Engineering Receiver Test Data, which allows you to compare other tested equipment in the same list, is hard, if not impossible to compare at home by the likes of you and I. Not to mention that Rob NC0B has finally retired after 45 years, so having been licensed in 1961 age 14, there is a good chance that updates are going to become a thing of the past when Rob stops volunteering his time.

I will mention that this isn't a new thing. Many years ago I spent some time as a broadcaster. One of the very first things I was taught is that you need to set levels to trigger the VU Meter just so. When you make a recording to tape, you're required to generate a 1 kHz tone at a specific level so when it's played back to air, the voice levels will be correct.

When I became licensed in 2010 I almost immediately discovered that there isn't even a standard way to test if the signal that my radio is putting into the local repeater is the same as that of other amateurs. You'll notice this because you're forever twiddling the volume on your radio when you speak with others on-air because their voice levels vary widely.

One idea I've been toying with is using a parrot repeater that can measure a signal, allowing anyone who uses the same parrot to compare their equipment.

How would you approach this increasingly complex problem in such a way that the amateur community can share their results in a way that makes comparison meaningful and useful?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

For some time now I've been discussing the potential of weak signal propagation and its ability to create a live map from the data that your own station transmits. There are several systems in place that show a map of where and when your station was heard in the past little while. Using 200 milliwatts, I've been transmitting a WSPR or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter beacon on 10m for the past few weeks.

At the moment, the furthest away my beacon has been heard is 13.612 km away. That's an 0.2 Watt signal heard on the other side of the planet, on 10m. As distance goes, it's a third of the way around the globe. I must point out that there's no way of knowing if this signal travelled the short path or the long path.

If you've heard those terms, short and long path but were wondering what they mean, here's how it works. If I get on my bike at my QTH in Perth in VK6 and peddle East until I hit Sydney, I'll have crossed Australia, taken about 184 hours and travelled about 3.746 km. That's the short path. If I head West instead and start swimming, visit Cape Town, Buenos Aires and Auckland along the way, I'll have travelled much further, still made it to Sydney, but taken the long path.

Radio waves can do the same. Depending on propagation, a signal might take either the shortest route, or go in the opposite direction and take the longest route along the great circle between two stations.

I'm mentioning this because WSPR doesn't tell you if it's one or the other and if you're using a vertical, it could be either. Even directional antennas might receive a signal from unexpected directions.

Using one of the mapping tools, wspr.live, I extracted all the sightings of my callsign and all the reports that I'd made from my receiver. It shows that my newest transmitter has now been heard by 11 stations across three continents.

Those numbers are just the beginning. I wanted to see on the map where these stations were, so, during the week I built a proof of concept world map that I used to visually show the four character Maidenhead grid squares that my station was heard in. I also had a look to see which stations I'd heard over the years and where they were. In all, 771 different stations are in my log, either as a receiver or a transmitter.

N4WQH heard me on 40m, 18.832 km away when I was using 5 Watts. My station has heard, or has been heard across 331 different grid squares. There's reports across some remote parts of Australia, Japan, India, South Africa, Europe, the United States, several across the Pacific and even a few in Antarctica.

I wondered how many of the world's grid squares have actually been activated and which station was heard the furthest and how much power was used. Those numbers will have to wait for another day. I initially started using wspr.live which has a neat way of allowing you to embed an SQL query as part of the URL to download the output.

I was getting some interesting results, so I thought, rather than hammer this lovely resource with my questions, I should download the raw data instead. So I did. Well, I am. Still. It's big.

As of today, there's 166 files, taking up 60 GB of compressed data, with over 3.5 billion reports.

The first spot in that data goes to N8FQ who heard WB3ANQ on Monday, the 17th of March, 2008 across 911 km on the 30m band transmitting with 28 dBm, or about 630 mW, reporting a signal to noise ratio of 1 dB.

Using preliminary data to get started I mapped all the activated squares, each shown as a red box and saw that my entire map was red. At that point I figured that either I've got a bug in my code, or something else is going on.

To give some context before I share what I found, a Maidenhead locator consists of a combination of letters and numbers. For four letter grid squares, there's a grand total of 32.400 different combinations, running from AA00 to RR99. They're 2 degrees wide and 1 degree high and their width depends on where on the planet they are. At the equator it's about 222 km wide and 111 km tall, at the North and South pole, it's 0 km wide. If you travel between two squares, you might have to move a meter, or the entire width of a grid square.

Among the report, I found stations who had activated more than one square. That's fair enough, you can move your station and start making noise where ever you like. I found stations with activations across more than a thousand different squares. Before I start pointing the finger, I will mention that if you attach a WSPR beacon to an aircraft, or a balloon, you can legitimately activate plenty of squares.

When you set-up a WSPR transmitter, you're required to manually enter the locator and mistakes happen. There's plenty of records with invalid Maidenhead locators, typically shown instead is a callsign. Then there are stations that pick desirable locators. This manual entry is also true for the power level and even the callsign, so I'm not outing these stations here, since it's entirely possible that the callsign shown doesn't actually relate to the transmitter or the licensed amateur.

What does all this mean?

It means that the information in the WSPR database cannot be trusted. I suspect it also means that the data used to lodge FT8 contacts across the planet can probably also not be trusted. It means that any propagation data you're deriving is likely contaminated by misreporting, deliberately or not.

As a community, if we want to use this for actual measurements, we'll have to figure out how to make this a trusted resource, because the information that WSPR can bring to propagation is in my opinion extremely valuable.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how we might fix it.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB