What a diverse hobby we have to enjoy

As ham radio operators, we enjoy a diverse range of different things that we can participate in within our hobby.

Contesting, DX'ing, CW, SSB, VHF, UHF, Satellite, County Hunting, DXCC, SSTV, PSK31, IRLP, and RTTY are all different facets of this wonderful hobby that we can partake in.

Each of us have a favorite mode or part of the hobby that we focus on, and we tend to forget that there is this wonderful range of options that we have.

A good analogy to this is the world's population. We have Caucasian, African-American, Latin, Asian, Europeon, and Arab races just to name a few. In today's world we have to be more tolerant of race and culture because we have a worldwide culture now. Bias and ignorance have no place in today's world wide society.

As hams, we need to be more tolerant of fellow hams that practice different modes than what we like. Myself, I focus on contesting, dxing, and cw. Even though I focus on those areas, I do not belittle those hams that enjoy their own aspects of ham radio. I feel that we need to have people that enjoy all these different aspects of ham radio, that those different areas help keep the hobby alive and people interested.

As a long time ham, I have been a CW operator since 1974. When no-code was proposed, there was a roar of disgust from the ham populace and a bias against no-coders. Eventually that has died down, although some hams are still biased, the majority of the ham populace has come to accept, if not embrace, the new hams.

It should not surprise me though, that some of the new hams themselves would harbor their own biases.

I wrote about the History of Field Day in a blog post here

In the town I live in, there was 3 different Field Day operations.

The FD operation I participated in, the 4 of us, was with a dx'ing and contest group (KY Indiana DX Association) and our focus is contesting. We do the 160 contests, and usually play in the SS contest but we focus on FD each year the past few years.

The other groups were casual operations, which is perfectly fine and fulfills the needs of those operators. Some people just want to get together for the companionship and the cameraderie and that is a wonderful thing if that is what all the operators want to do.

Some people view FD as a test of their emergency equipment and a test of their endurance and skill sets. If a group of people are focused on that as a group, that is certainly fine as well.

The point is, that there is something in FD for everyone, whether you are a casual operator, or a hard core operator or somewhere in between.

Later on after FD was over, on the local 2 meter repeater, there was some of the new hams that were rag chewing and talking about the different operations. The point was made that FD should be a casual operation and be about the fellowship and comraderie of being together and that working FD like a contest is not what it is about.

As I listened, I couldnt help but think about the biases we see all too often in ham radio and it just isnt the bias of the older operators either.....

Rag Chewers hate Contesters or Traffic Handlers hate Contesters, or DX'ers hate List Operations, or PSK31/RTTY ops hate AMTOR/PACTOR stations, or SSB operators hate AM operators, No-Code vs CW .......repeater operators hate IRLP, etc etc etc.

The fight for frequency spectrum continues to grow. Our frequency allocations could be a very rich bankroll for the FCC if they ever decided to auction off our frequencies.

As hams, we need to put aside our internal biases and learn to work together and co-exist in harmony, because if we don't, and we don't increase our numbers, we may find that our valuable frequecy bands will be put up for sale to the highest bidder.........

73, Jack K4SAC

Blog List....

On the right of my blog, you can see that I am posting excerpts from other ham radio blogs around the blogosphere.

There are many ham radio blogs out here, so I can't post them all, but check out my blog list and links for other information.

K9JY has a good series running on Club Program Ideas, so those of you that are club officers, give his series a look!

73, Jack K4SAC

Ham radio, and licensing

I was discussing how licensing has changed over the years.

I was 13 years old when I got my first ticket in 1974, I had to drive about a 4 hour drive to Indianapolis, IN to take my exam in front of an FCC examiner. The question pool was secret, you had to have the knowledge, not memorize a bunch of questions. You had to take your morse code test, sending and recieving, they had a machine that had a bunch of head phones attached to it and you listened to the code through the headphones.

You had to get 1 minute of solid copy on your paper.

My Novice ticket if I remember right(it has been a few yrs) was only good for 2 years (originally it was 1 yr) and 75 Watts.

I was limited to xtal control, so I had crystals for a few different frequencies in the 80 and 40 meter band. I would call CQ on one of my xtal frequencies and had to tune my rcvr up and down the band to listen for a reply. Talk about inefficent use of bandspace!

Finally transmitters such as the Heathkit DX60 came out and you could hook a VFO to it and QSY up and down the band. That was so neat, you could actually get calls on the same frequency you transmitted on.

W1AW was my friend as I would listen faithfully to the code practice to get my speed up so I could get my General ticket within the 1 yr timeframe. W4OYI would get on the air and help me also by qsoing me and pushing me on my cw speed.

Finally, I made the trip to Indianapolis and sat for my General and passed it. 13 wpm code...By that time I was copying 20 wpm, but I was so nervous taking the test I barely copied the 13wpm.

Another year went by and I went to take my Advanced exam. That was the hardest written exam I think I have ever taken. It was even harder then my 2nd class Radiotelegraph Commercial ticket I eventually got. I know it was harder than my extra exam. There were tube schematics on it, one of them I remember was a tube type colpitts osciallator!

Then finally I got my Extra ticket. This one I ended up driving to Atlanta Ga and taking it. At that time, at Indianapolis, they would only give the exams like 4 times a year and they weren't giving the Extra in Indianapolis before college started and the only way to get it before I went to college was to drive to Atlanta and take it. By this time I was copying 25 wpm or better, but again in front of that FCC examiner, that 20 wpm sounded a lot faster.

But in those days of FCC examiners, they did have a license you could get sort of like the tests you take now. There was a ham license called the Conditional license. It granted basically the same priviledges as a General license, except you took the exam in front of another ham.

It was originally intended to be for people that had disabilities that prevented them from traveling to take the test in front of an FCC examiner.

This was the precusor to todays VE exams.

Like anything not monitored properly, there were abuses of the Conditional license process which led the FCC to re-examine some Conditional Licensees in front of an FCC examiner and eventually the FCC abolished the Conditional license.

Today the licensing process is totally different.

You no longer have to drive hours away to sit in front of an FCC examiner to get your ham license. The Novice license no longer exists and although some Advanced licensees are still alive once those licensees die out, there will no longer be any Advanced licenses.

Today you can get the Technician, General and Extra. You no longer have to know the code to get a ham license.

Today the license pools are published with the exact questions and answers to the test questions.

Today there are VEC's which accredit examiners and it takes 3 VE's to give tests. The FCC learned from the days of the Conditional that one tester is subject to impropieties, but if you have 3 you are less likely to have abuses of the system.(Although that is not a given as there have been some VE test sessions that have been discredited.)

Even though I have been licensed for 34 years and I am a CW operator, I am not going to sit here and preach that the old way was better. Times have changed and society itself has changed and most of all the focus on ham radio from the FCC's point of view has changed.

What hasnt changed over the years is the fact that the Amateur Radio Service has been a self-policing service and internally we try to correct the abuses we see or hear about. It is up to us as licensees and us Old Timers to not denegrate the new licensees but to teach the proper ways of operation and for us OTers to set the example for the newer licensees to emulate.

But self-policing hasn't been enough and over the years the FCC Spectrum Enforcement Division Riley Hollingsworth has been enforcing the Ham Radio rules and you can read the list of enforcement actions that the FCC has taken http://www.fcc.gov/eb/AmateurActions/Welcome.html


We need to continue to be active on the HF bands and especially our VHF and UHF bands, as spectrum allocation is getting very competative and there are certainly many services that would love to take away our frequency allocations. There is big money to be made by the government in frequency allocations and if we as a Amateur service do not make good use of our frequency allocations, then we could possibly look at losing frequencies in the future.

Yes, Ham radio has changed a lot over the years since 1894 when Marconi first sent a wireless radio signal across the English Channel. The Ham radio landscape has changed numerous times and probably will change again.

I can honestly say that Ham radio has given me one of the greatest pleasures in the past 34 years and that I hope it continues to give me pleasure, but also that it continues to flourish.

73, Jack K4SAC

K4SAC-1 DX Spider Cluster

Due to the tornado that hit Owensboro, KY Thursday night, Oct 18th 2007, the K4SAC-1 cluster was down until Monday morning about 10am. I finallygot it back up and working, although the RF link is non-functional due to the antenna being ripped away along with the rest of the roof :)

The internet link is up and working ok. You can telnet to 216.135.38.203 port 7300 to access it.

Innovative QSL service

As long as there has been Ham Radio, it has been said that the final courtesy of a QSO is a QSL. For years we have had the option to send QSL's direct via the postal service or we could send the QSL's to a outgoing QSL bureau, such as the ones that the ARRL runs.

Azar Hami,4X6MI and Paul Gross, 4X6UU joined forces to create a "high-tech" QSL service to Ham Radio operators.

Their company Global QSL offers a service which actually sounds wonderful. They promise "no more writing QSL cards or printing labels", " no more sorting QSL cards", and the ability to design your cards in color.

According their website, you can create QSLs for up to 10 different callsigns, with the ability to change the graphic design of the card on the fly.

This is a subscription service, their website advertises 1000 cards for $82, which is actually quite comparable to the QSLs that you have printed and sent to your QTH.

How the system works:

1) you subscribe to the service
2) You upload your logs to server
3) The service sorts the calls, prints the cards, and sorts them into stacks for shipment.
4) When a bureau or manager has a stack of 2000 cards, or every 2 months whichever occurs first, the cards are shipped.

This service saves you the hassle of printing the cards, sorting the cards, and mailing the cards. if you are not sending direct and using the bureau, this service is an excellent option for you.

U.S. Contest stations have been taking advantage of this service as well, since the QSL service is in Israel, Cards from US contest stations, to US hams can be sent through the incoming bureau (although there is some question as to whether all bureaus will accept these cards) saving money on postage for those contest stations.

Also according to Global QSLs website, multiple qsos can be printed onto 1 card(Up to 5), and you only get charged for 1 QSL card.

To check out this new service you can visit their website at http://www.globalqsl.com (Global QSL)

Dx Clusters

To catch that rare DX, sometimes one needs some help. And that help can come in the form of a dx cluster.

AD1C has a website called DXcluster.info that lists all type of information about DX Clusters.

The link is http://www.dxcluster.info

VK9WWI After Action Report

The DX News Is blog is reporting an after action report by the ops of VK9WWI, the recent Willis Island Dxpedition.

You can read the post here http://dx-is.com/news/?p=134

Clipperton 2008-TX5C

For many hams the mention of Clipperton Island evokes images of paradise and sandy beach and warm waters.











(Image from www.clipperton2008.org)

Clipperton Island is a nine-square-kilometer coral atoll in the North Pacific Ocean, southwest of Mexico and west of Costa Rica, at 10°18′N, 109°13′W.

The history of Clipperton Island can be found here.



(Image from www.clipperton2008.org)


Dxpeditions have operated from Clipperton in 1954, 1956, 1958, 1978, 1985, 1986, 1992, and 2000.

The dxpedition for 2008 planning has already started and the website is http://www.clipperton2008.org


You can contribute to the dxpedition here

If you have an extra dollar please help support these guys, dxpeditions are not cheap to put together!

RADIO EXPEDITION LIBERIA 2007 SITE

If you need Liberia for a QSO, check out the dxpedition page for 5L2MS, web page here .


The dxpedition is slated to run from Oct 3rd to October 24th.