Foundations of Amateur Radio

By: Onno (VK6FLAB)
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  • Summary

  • Starting in the wonderful hobby of Amateur or HAM Radio can be daunting and challenging but can be very rewarding. Every week I look at a different aspect of the hobby, how you might fit in and get the very best from the 1000 hobbies that Amateur Radio represents. Note that this podcast started in 2011 as "What use is an F-call?".
    ℗ & © 2015 - 2024 Onno Benschop
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Physics
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Episodes
  • Unexpected miracles ...

    Unexpected miracles ...
    Nov 2 2024
    Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the past weeks, actually, probably more accurately years, I've been carrying around an idea. It's been bubbling away and I've been trying very hard to make it solidify into something that I could explain and then hopefully attack. Today I woke up with a hunger to do some radio and ultimately tell you about it. To get to a point where my Aha! moment emerged, I need to provide some history. Traditional radio activities involve variations on a radio plugged into an antenna with the operator talking into a microphone or torturing a Morse key. If you want to operate digital modes, you essentially have two choices. You can use a rare radio with in-built digital modes or, more commonly, connect a computer to the radio via an audio interface, which essentially replaces the operator with a computer. This implies that the radio is physically connected to the computer and in the same room. What if you don't want either? There's another aspect to this. Modern SDRs or software defined radios, tend to use the network to get information from the antenna to the user. The network can transport the radio signal, but also control signals, to change things like frequency and mode, and if the radio supports it, bands, antennas and other fun stuff like filters. There are ways to control a traditional radio across the network with so-called CAT commands, or Computer Assisted Tuning. This same technology can be used to connect a logging tool, so it knows what frequency and mode to log when you make a contact. What CAT control lacks is audio. Said differently, although some solutions exist to send Morse code, you cannot use CAT to listen to the radio, or speak into a microphone. This isn't an issue if the radio and you are in the same room, but if they're not, then things get tricky. And as a final piece of background information, a traditional radio is based around audio, that is, the information going between you and the radio, or a computer and the radio, is limited to audio. This represents about 4 kHz of signal. In other words, if you're tuned to 28.500 MHz, then a traditional radio can "hear" the radio signal between 28.500 and 28.504 MHz, sufficient for a single audio signal, but even a simple digital radio, a $50 RTL-SDR using a USB cable, can handle 2.4 MHz, plenty to cover all of the 10m band between 28.0 and 29.7 MHz with room to spare. I've been looking for something, anything, that brings these two vastly different worlds together for a number of reasons. I've spoken previously about some of these. For example, I do not want to physically connect my traditional radio, a Yaesu FT-857d, to my computer because I do not want to have the potential of stray RF coming into my computer. I'd also love to be able to run the same decoding and control tools for various radios, the Pluto SDR, several RTL-SDR dongles, my 857 and other radios as they come into my shack from time-to-time. Then there's the signal processing side of things. I'd love to be able to learn how to decode Morse and eventually other modes using a computer. I also want to be able to use a voice-keyer during a contest so the whole house doesn't ring from the sound of me calling CQ Contest, or CQ DX for hours on end. I've been making inroads into this. I managed to get rigctld to work across the network using Docker containers at both ends. I attempted to get audio working, but that has so far been a dismal failure, despite assistance on several fronts. This morning I stumbled on the idea of using "GNU Radio" for both. I even came across some examples where two so-called "flow-graphs" can talk to each other across the network. Now at this point you're either going to be nodding your head, or you're going to be asking yourself what gibberish I just spouted. If you're already nodding your head, stand-by, if not, GNU Radio is a software toolkit that provides signal processing blocks that you can link together to create simple or sophisticated systems to manipulate signals, like those that come from radios, or radio telescopes, or mobile phone base stations, radar, ADS-B, or whatever else you can imagine. It's widely used in academia, government, industry, research, and of course by us, hobbyists. A collection of blocks and links is called a flow-graph and in essence it's a program or if you like, an App, that you can run. It comes with a tonne of examples and tutorials, including one where one flow-graph can manipulate another, either on the same computer, or somewhere on the Internet. What this means is that you could build a flow-graph that can talk to a Yaesu FT-857d and one that can talk to a Pluto SDR, or an RTL-SDR, or any other radio, and use that to talk to a flow-graph that understands how to deal with audio, CAT and anything else you might want to. It means that for the first time in years I can at least imagine a unified world where my 857 isn't a boat anchor when compared to my Pluto SDR. Of ...
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    7 mins
  • The venerable QSL bureau

    The venerable QSL bureau
    Oct 26 2024
    Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the oldest global aspects of our hobby, other than actually using the radio, is the QSL bureau. It uses a postcard-like system to confirm that two stations made contact, sent via the postal service as a so-called QSL card. Of course, that only works if you have each other's address which after World War II was somewhat difficult. As a result the QSL bureau was born. Intended as a single point of contact for a country, a local QSL bureau consists of one or more volunteers, paid staff or contractors, who act as the distribution point for incoming and outgoing QSL cards. If you and I agreed to confirm our contact via the bureau, my QSL card to you would be sent to the VK outgoing QSL bureau, which would hold my card until there were sufficient outgoing cards from all over Australia to your country to package them all up and send them to the incoming QSL bureau in your country. Your QSL bureau would then wait until there were enough QSL cards for your region to send it on, where it would eventually get into your hands in a variety of ways, via the postal service, through your local club, or at a local hamfest where the QSL bureau might have a stall. Your QSL card to me would make a similar, reverse, journey. This process could take weeks or sometimes years. Although not fast, this worked for many decades, but once electronic communications and computers started appearing, combined with increased costs associated with privatised international postal services, the wheels started coming off. Getting access to historic documents has proven challenging. I can tell you that over the years the IARU, the International Amateur Radio Union, has coordinated and controlled how the QSL bureaus should work. For example, a resolution adopted in 1985 and updated in 2009 "strongly encouraged" its member societies to accept incoming QSL cards for all amateurs in their country, regardless of affiliation. It also instructed QSL bureaus to only send cards to the official QSL bureau if there was more than one. Several years ago, the IARU administrative council recognised several trends, among them the environmental impact of unwanted cards generated in bulk by computer logging software, lower levels of adoption and ultimately the closing of some smaller QSL bureaus after being overwhelmed by undeliverable cards from increasingly popular holiday DXpeditions. In September 2018, the IARU adopted resolution 18-1 that stated that it "resolves that member societies are encouraged to continue to offer QSL bureau service in their countries, exchanging cards with the bureaus of other member-societies, for as long as doing so is economically justifiable, and further resolves that amateurs are encouraged to adopt confirmation practices, including but not limited to using electronic confirmation systems, that reduce the volume of unwanted and undeliverable QSL cards being introduced into the bureau system." This resolution took effect on New Year's Day, 2019. I'll also note that the IARU has its own year 2000 issue, having been in existence for nearly a century, its resolutions are named after the last two digits of the year followed by a sequential number, so resolution 25-1 could refer to 1925 or 2025, but I digress. The internet has introduced several confirmation processes. The most vocal of these is "Logbook of The World", or LoTW. I'm not a fan and haven't been for some time. I'll get into why in a moment. Other contenders are eQSL.cc, qsl.net, qrz.com, clublog.org and others that have yet to steal the limelight. If I've forgotten the one you run, let me know. Saying that I'm not a fan of LoTW is understating it. Recent ARRL ransomware payments aside, why do I need to legally prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I made contact with some random amateur? Why does this need to be authenticated, signed with a time-limited certificate and verified with 100 points of identity and why do we continue to roll out new and interesting procedures for what is essentially a postcard saying that on this day, time and frequency we made contact using this mode for the purposes of .. wait for it .. our hobby? The eQSL website has an interesting statement: "One of the problems with an e-mail based system is that there is no security inherent in that mechanism. Anyone can purport to be P5ABC, and you'll have a difficult time verifying it." So what .. and what made you think that the postcard ending up in your letterbox was guaranteed to be from P5ABC? If you're going to the effort of pretending to be P5ABC, what harm does that do in the scheme of things? For that matter, how do you know that the station you talked to on-air was actually P5ABC? I ask because I've spoken to an amateur who recently did some HF direction finding during several popular DXpedition pile-ups. They discovered that there were several stations purporting to be the DXpedition that were not. So. Right now we're in a situation where ...
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    8 mins
  • Amateur Radio connects you in unexpected ways

    Amateur Radio connects you in unexpected ways
    Oct 19 2024
    Foundations of Amateur Radio

    One of the unexpected benefits of this hobby is how it provides you with the ability to connect to others in ways that are not directly related to radio.

    Take for example Steve. Steve appears at unpredictable times and locations, been hunted by citizens and scientists and unlike Steve's potential invisible cousin, the proton arc, has been photographed by aurora hunters many times. It looks like observations go back as far as 1705.

    In 2017, physics professor Eric Donovan saw some of these photos and got curious. Assisted with GPS coordinates from an aurora hunter in Alberta, Song Despins, Eric correlated the time and location and it turns out that Steve was observed as a ribbon of gas 25 kilometres wide, 300 kilometres above Earth with a temperature of 3,000 degrees Celsius by the European Space Agency's Swarm, a constellation of magnetic field measuring satellites in orbit since 2013 and planned as a four year mission, so-far it has almost managed eleven years.

    Steve? Yeah, it's not named after Steven Hawking or Steve Martin, rather, if you're seeing something unexplained, you might name it something less scary, like the hedge in the movie "Over the Hedge". Steve was given a backronym, finding words after the fact, Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, but I prefer Steve. The NASA team at Goddard Space Flight Center have adopted Steve, so it looks like a keeper.

    I would never have even stopped to read the recent article in the local news, let alone dig into the various publications, if it weren't for the notion that Steve is one of many phenomena affecting the ionosphere and with it our hobby.

    Here's another example.

    Vance KV4P published a plan on kv4p.com, outlining a $35 project that requires minimal soldering that makes any Android phone into a handheld radio for 2m. Using a radio module, a micro-controller, a short USB cable, antenna connector, antenna and some sticky gel pads, Vance has come up with an open source project and circuit-board design that will get you on your way. He's even designed a 3D printable enclosure so you don't have to scare your friends with a bare circuit board.

    Whilst the Android app is in beta, that is, not quite fit for human consumption, you'll need to drop an email to Vance to get in on the action. Source code is on GitHub.

    I came across this project after breakfast, reading the "Y Combinator - Hacker News" which features all manner of weird and wonderful projects, links and questions from all over the technology sphere. The post has expansive discussion on Vance's project, including thoughts on other ideas on how to do interesting things related to our hobby.

    Again, if it weren't for the fact that I'm already an amateur, I would never have taken more than a glance at this and I would never consider that this was a doable project, let alone discover other amateur radio projects like HamWAN and AREDN, or the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network.

    The point being that we as amateurs are often pigeonholed by society into the idea of obsolete, disconnected and quaint. I'm here to tell you that our hobby has made me more alive than ever, more connected to others around me, more observant to electrical and physical phenomena and if that makes me quaint, I'm Okay with that.

    Also, while we're on the topic of being Okay. Charles NK8O reached out and told me that after listening to me talk about FT8 and his Morse code achievements, he cracked up and then raised the stakes by pointing out that you can get on HF with CW, that's continuous wave, or more commonly, Morse Code, for about $100, where a kit capable of SSB, Single Side Band, or more generally audio, will likely set you back significantly more. His advice, which I cannot fault, "Get on the air!", presumably to make some noise.

    I'm Onno VK6FLAB
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    4 mins

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