Sunspots

As most hams know, the solar cycle controls the amount of sunspots on the sun, which in turn affects the propagation here on Earth.

The solar cycle tends to run in 11 year cycles, where the maximum activity occurs in the middle of the sunspot cycle and the minimum occurs at the bottom of the 11 yr cycle as it transitions from one cycle to the next.

Unfortunately, there is not usually a sharp transition, the bottom may hang around for 2 years or more.

Solar activity is defined as sunspots, solar flares, or even solar eruptions(eruptions of gas from the Sun.)

The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is currently at the end of its cycle transitioning into the new cycle.

What has scientists that track solar cycles concerned is that this minimum has produced no solar activity at all. While some inactivity is normal, this period of inactivity has stretched longer than normal.

In the past there have been some extended periods of inactivity. There was a period in the past where the sun did not produce sunspots for 50 years, from 1650 to 1700.

This affect ham radio operators, because during the sunspot minima low bands such as 160, 80 and 40 become the workhorse bands because the propagation does not get up to the 20-10 bands as easily.

Some links that talk about propagation:

N0HR's propagation page

N3KL's propagation page

Solar Cycle 24 Page (Excellent site)

WM7D Solar Page

N6RT's Propagation page

And a link to propagation software


So those spots on the sun do affect us more than you know!

Credit: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609124551.htm

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

Field Day History

Field Day is coming upon us June 28th and June 29th and I thought I would write a bit about how Field Day began.

In 1933, The June 1933 QST announced that the second Saturday in June, for a period of 27 hours, starting at 4 pm local time, that hams would go into the "field" and set up portable stations.

W1BDI F.E. Handy said:
“The real object of this contest is to test ‘portables’ wherever they may be available.… If successful, we want to make it an annual affair.”

The scoring of that first contest was each QSO with fixed stations will count 1 point, contacts
with other portables count 2 points, and DX contacts count 3 points. Multiply QSO
points by the total number of ARRL sections, plus countries worked

September 1933 QST announced the winner of the 1st Annual Field Day was W4PAW. They made 62 QSOs and had 28 sections for a total of 1876 points.

1934 Field Day #2 is announced.

1936 Field Day was so popular that a second Field Day was held August 22nd-23rd of that year. The highest qso total for June was 143 and the highest QSo total for August was 136.

1937-Field day #5 is announced for June 19th-20th. The FD message bonus was added. The winning qso for this FD was 204 QSO's at a rate of 7.5 qsos/hr.

1938- Field Day period goes from 4 pm Saturday Local time to 6 pm Sunday Local time.

1939- the first rule to include all station apparatus must fall within a 100 ft radius excluding antennas.

1940-The 100' rules is changed to 500'. Home stations are allowed to work FD.

1941- The ARRL inadvertently forces a nationwide start time by notifying the FCC of the Field day period and the FCC communication 73-D references a single start time for all ham stations for Field Day from 4pm EST June 7th to 6pm EST June 8th.

1942-1945 All Ham activity ceases.

1946-Field day returns and adds a VHF only category

1948- 11 meters (now the CB band) is added for a Field Day Band. FD is shortened to 24 hrs. Battery and Emergency power categories are added.

1949- Mobile category added to FD.

1950- The modern day FD classes are established. The circle is increased to 1000'

1951- To encourage home emergency power, a home emergency power class is added Class D while home stations off power mains are class E.

1957- Simultaneous starts return, starts 4 pm EST and ends 4pm PST the next day. Anyone can operate 24 of the 27 operating period. 10,000th ham participates.

1963-ARRL rules that a FD site can only use one callsign.

1968- Setup within the 27 hr period is mandatory and the start time is moved to 1900z. All home stations are moved to Class D.

1969- The setup rule is hugely unpopular so ARRL changes the rule so that if you wait to set up you can operate the whole 27 hrs, otherwise you can only operate 24 hrs of the 27.

1970- A free Novice station is allowed. Starting time is moved to 1800z.

1972- Battery results are listed separately.

1973- Repeater rule is waived for satellite contacts and a 50 point sat bonus is included for the first time.

1974- A 100 point bonus is added for making contacts solely by natural power. 15 minutes rule for band changes is instituted.

1975- the Explosion of SSB leads the ARRL to institute a 2X multiplier for CW contacts.

1976- 10,000 qso mark is broken by W1VV/1

1977- The natural power bonus disappears and techs are now allowed to operate the Novice station. The 2X CW rule becomes permanent.

1980- RST is replaced with category and class for the exchange. Setup time is changed again, nothing can be set up before the 24 hr period. natural power comes back as a 100 point bonus. Sat and FD message bonuses increase to 100 points.

1981- Due to the popularity of packet radio, a 100 point bonus is instituted for one packet QSO and the repeater rules are waived for qso's through a digipeater. The Yankee Clipper Contest Club W2RQ turn in an impressive 11,201 qso total for Field Day.

1984- power multiplier is changed from 200 watts to anything less than 150 watts.

1993- Due to the influx of Technicians, a 100 point bonus is added for making 10 VHF/UHF contacts and a free VHF/UHF station is allowed class A and B.

1994- The modern FD record is set by K6CAB 15A by getting 3450 QRP QSO's for a total score of 30,150

1998- Free packet station and bonus are eliminated, but RTTY/PSK31 are added as a 3rd FD mode. The 100 point bonus for VHF/UHF stations is deleted.

So that is the history of Field Day. We've come a long way Baby!

Credit: December 1999 QST

Dayton Hamfest-The Future????

Inspired by a post on K9ZW's blog , He is having a discussion about the future of Dayton hamfest.

I was going to go to Dayton this year, but due to work issues at the last minute I was not able to attend.

Many of the posters on Steve's blog say that Hara Arena was in bad shape, that the Crowne Plaza (where many of the contesting and dx groups hold their hospitality rooms) was in bad shape.

Should the Dayton hamfest be moved to another city? Has Dayton had its heyday?

Vendors at Dayton this year reported an increase in sales much to everyone's surprise.

Tell me what you think and read Steve's blog as well.

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

6 Meters

The last few days 6 meters has been opening up like crazy here in EM67.

If you have 6 meters give a listen.....if you have 6 on your radio, but dont have an antenna, you can make a 6 meter dipole and it doesnt take a lot of room.

Click on the link below on instuctions on how to make a 6 meter dipole!

http://www.hamuniverse.com/6mdipolekk5id.html

73,

Jack K4SAC

International Marconi Day 2008

The Maritime Radio Historical Society (MRHS) is pleased to announce that its amateur station K6KPH will be participating in International Marconi Day 2008.

International Marconi Day (IMD), sponsored by the Cornish Amateur Radio Club, is a 24-hour amateur radio event held annually to celebrate the birth of Guglielmo Marconi on the 25th April 1874.

IMD is usually held on the Saturday closest to Marconi's birthday, when amateur radio stations are operated from original historic sites around the world.
Stations may apply to the Cornish Amateur Radio Club for awards for contacting these stations.

With transmitters at the site established in Bolinas, CA by the American Marconi Company in 1913, K6KPH has a direct connection to the great inventor.

K6KPH will begin IMD operations at 5:00pm pdt (0000gmt) on Saturday, 26 April. Transmitting frequencies will be 3550.0, 7050.0 and 14050.0kc. All transmissions will of course be in Morse code.

The public is invited to visit K6KPH to observe the station in action. Qualified Morse operators wishing to operate K6KPH are invited to bring their keys and headphones. No amateur license is required.

Those intending to visit should reply to this message for detailed information and directions.

For more information about International Marconi Day see the Cornish Radio Club's Web page at:

http://www.gb4imd.org.uk/