What use is an F-call?

What use is an F-call? This podcast started life in 2011 when I was asked to record a story I shared during the production of the weekly amateur radio news in Western Australia. I'd been a licensed radio amateur, or ham, for a few months and found myself surrounded by people who perceived the basic Australian foundation amateur licence wasn't worth anything. What use is an F-call? is my response to that sentiment. It's produced weekly. In 2015 after long deliberation it was renamed to Foundations of Amateur Radio so people outside Australia might also enjoy the experience. Although most of the items stand alone, I'd recommend that you start at the beginning in 2011 and listen in sequence. Enjoy. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? It seems that there is a disease within the amateur radio community. It's spreading and seems to be contagious. There doesn't seem to be a cure and it seems to be pretty virulent. Symptoms include listlessness, deafness, stubbornness and apathy. Community members have aptly named it as L.A.S. or Lead Arse Syndrome. I receive a regular stream of emails and phone calls from fellow amateurs who share with me their latest idea or plan for an activity in the hobby. It's often a group activity, a plan to do something with the wider community, or a group of people with a common interest. It might be an outing, a meeting, a build-day, an activation, a web-site or some or other thing. The conversation often includes the question: "Do you think it's a good idea?" Often I'll say: "Absolutely, great, wonderful." Sometimes I'll suggest alternatives or point at an existing activity that is already underway. After that the response from the other person is often: "Well, I'll leave it with you." Fortunately I'm made of sterner stuff, having only a few other commitments in this community and I'll often suggest that they take on the project and I'll do whatever I can to support them. I can almost guarantee that's the very last I hear of the activity. So, what is it that stops people from making their idea into reality? Are they dense, lazy or is their idea wrong? No. It's that they lack the confidence to stick their neck out and do something, anything. You might wonder what this has to do with L.A.S. or Lead Arse Syndrome. It's simple. The rest of the community doesn't particularly care one way or the other. They might respond or not, often not; commit to something, or they might not, they might say they're coming, but don't show, they might start an activity but never finish it, they might participate for an hour during a 24 hour contest, but there is no commitment. I know, I should be grateful that they spend the hour, or tell me that their pet parrot died and they cannot attend. But frankly, I'm not. I think that this lack of participation, lack of engagement, lack of commitment is embarrassing. It's not community minded, it's not encouraging to new entrants and it sets a very bad example to the community. I understand that circumstances change and that people have commitments outside the hobby. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about an advanced level of apathy that infuses others and has them give up on their idea before they begin. I'd rather be surrounded by those who think that this is a fun hobby with stuff to learn, people to meet, things to do and places to go. Of course, if you're one of the few with an idea, then I salute you. Hold your head high, scream your idea from the rooftops, share it with the active community and get on with it. Unfortunately there is one of me and many of you. I'm happy to be your sounding board, but I've not yet figured out how to have more than 24 hours in a day. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? When you make contacts around the world with other amateurs the traditional way of confirming a contact is with a QSL card. It's a postcard-like affair that has the details of the station, and if all is well, the details of the contact between their station and yours. Traditionally if you want a QSL card, you'd go to your local post office and buy an International Reply-paid Coupon or IRC, but increasingly this has become more and more difficult, to the point where many post offices have no idea what you're talking about and will deny any existence of an IRC. Anyway, if you did manage to secure an IRC, you'd put your card and an IRC in an envelope and send it off to the remote station and hope that they'd send you back a card using the IRC as a way to pay for their stamp. In effect you're using the postal service to buy stamps for the other station. There is another hybrid version of confirming a contact using QSL cards, the Online QSL Request Service or OQRS. It's an online mechanism where instead of sending an IRC in an envelope and dealing with the post office, you send cold hard cash - via payment, like PayPal - to the other station and they send you a card, either in the mail, or via the QSL bureau. Note that often the QSL bureau option is free. You use OQRS to request the card, but the delivery is free, so no cash involved. I should mention that online-only versions of QSL-cards have also sprung up left right and centre. The two most trusted ones are Logbook Of The World, also knows as LOTW and eQSL. Both these services allow you to upload your contact log and when the other station does that as well, matching log entries result in a confirmed contact. If you're a fiend for pretty QSL cards, you don't need to compromise, online, offline or in-between. You can still get your contact confirmed. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Recently I witnessed a discussion about callsigns. As you know, your amateur callsign is akin to your personal on-air identity. It's the thing that distinguishes your station from all the other stations on the globe. My callsign was assigned to me randomly, it was intended as a temporary stepping stone to a higher license, but over time I was distracted by all the things I could do as a Foundation Class amateur and my callsign now feels like "me". The discussion was about the re-issuing of callsigns. In Australia, if you don't renew your callsign, after a period of time, it becomes available to be re-issued to another amateur. This allows people to obtain that one particular call that they feel represents them. Some amateurs have the same callsign for many years. It's their identity, it's the thing they used in contests, camp-outs, chats and the rest of their amateur life. When an active, well respected amateur relinquishes their call, often when they become a silent key, there are amateurs who feel that this call should not be re-issued. The practice is different across the globe. In some countries, a callsign is for life, though it's unclear what happens when an amateur becomes silent. Likely there are places where the call becomes available, and in other places it doesn't. In Australia we have calls that come with two letters, VK6YS, Wally, or VK6AS, Andrew are examples of that. In total there are 26 times 26 different options, that is, 676 different two letter callsigns per call area. If we were to lock up each deserving two-letter callsign, we'd run out of two letter calls. While we're chopping down this idea, how would we decide who is deserving and what criteria would we use? If we ever get a single letter callsign, there would be 26 different callsigns. We'd run out even faster. There was much written about retaining and protecting two letter callsigns, but I'm sure I've shown that this is not a sustainable idea. I've seen, heard and read much about amateur radio since I joined the community. There is much rubbish among the gems. Retaining two-letter callsigns for ever is an example of rubbish. I wish those amateurs who want to protect their hobby went back to inventing, back to innovating, back to trying, testing, playing and having fun, rather than attempting to retain the racist, sexist, 1950's that they seem to think represents the pinnacle of Amateur Radio. And if you want to honour a callsign for a mate, then record their history, tell their stories, share their exploits, emulate their kindness and encouragement. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? We are part of an amazing hobby where inventiveness, inquiry and exploration is part and parcel of the thing we do. It's that spirit that got me interested in this hobby and fortunately I have enough friends in the hobby who share that view. Unfortunately, this hobby seems to also attract a group of nay-sayers, people who are always denigrating others, starting from the perspective of saying No, before asking How? Let's call them the whingers. These are the ones who complain about the ineffectiveness of the WIA, the ones who complain that when the license fee goes down, jump up and down for a refund of their five year payment which they made to save money in case the fees went up. These are the ones who want to quarantine callsigns for "deserving amateurs" but have several and want to have a particular callsign and can't wait until the holder becomes a silent key. The ones who say that F-calls should not be allowed on air, or should have their license expired automatically after 12 months because they must upgrade, the ones who tell people off on air, complain about how a contest is run, or want to continue to submit their contest logs on paper. I could go on, but it's depressing and this is a fun hobby. To all those whingers I say, get real. Stand up, be an amateur and get with the times. It used to be that you were in the forefront of exploration, but now you're just a whinging, whining old man. Join in or get out. To the rest of us, I encourage you to call out these whiners and point out to them that their complaints are misguided at best and downright destructive and malicious at worst. This is a hobby. You're supposed to have fun, laugh, make merry, enjoy the community, learn, explore, and lead the way. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. I'm Onno VK6FLAB.

What use is an F-call? I'm a child of my time and my perspective is the result of input from fellow amateurs. I'm often in the group of amateurs who would rather buy than build, rather get something done, than do it yourself. The black box brigade if you like. The same is true for the antennas I use. I've been struggling with some verticals on the back of my car for months. I've got it working, mostly, but it was a lot of stuffing around. In the end, I added a black box, in the form of a tuner to make it work, sort of. The radio clubs I associate with have towers and multi-element beams, there are antenna farms, rotators, switch boxes, amplifiers and the like, all far removed from a simple set-up. Most of these are purchased and put together, rather than designed and built. During the week I spent some time with the other side of radio. A simple fishing pole with a string of wire, sitting on a groin pointed into the ocean, picking off signals left and right. Until now I've been approaching this along the lines of "get the antenna that works, make contacts, rinse and repeat". Sitting on the groin in the warm sun it occurred to me that there is nothing wrong with that idea, but that I was missing out on the journey along the way. I've been looking at my antenna problem as an annoyance, preventing me from getting on air, and while it did annoy me, it also taught me lots about vertical antenna design, about inductance, reactance, impedance and more. I like shiny new things, radios, computers, antennas and all the rest of it, but I've come to the realisation that there can also be a journey along the way. I'm not sure it's smelling roses, let's call it, enjoy the electrons. It remains to be seen if that translates into me making wacky antenna designs or not, but one thing I learned is not to be afraid of trying anymore. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? When you start in Amateur Radio you'll come across the problem of rolling up coax and rope. If it goes the way it went for me, you'll be doing what you always did, that is, winding up the coax on your arm until someone stops you and tells you that you're doing it wrong. Then you're likely to be told about rolling out the coax into a straight line and when you want to take it home after a field-day, you'll either be rolling it onto a roll, or physically hand-over-hand be rolling the coax into a circle. This is a regular pain in the Alpha. I managed to seek some advice from people who do this for a living. Film crews and audio technicians have to roll up cable on a regular basis and they don't do anything like I was told. Head on over to YouTube and search for "How to Properly Roll Cable". You'll come across a 1 minute 4 second video by Randy Coppinger. He shows you the Over-Under technique and once you've mastered that you'll never twist coax again and your coax won't get damaged when you unroll it. You can use the same technique for power leads, for garden hoses and in some cases rope. For many of the thin ropes you might use as guy wires for temporary antennas you might want to look for a butterfly coil. There are lots of videos around, but the one that seems to explain it simply is the one by Joe Kuster, "How to Butterfly Coil a Slackline or Rope". These two techniques, Over-Under and Butterfly Coil will make your coax and rope last much longer and you'll spend many hours less untangling the mess or replacing kinked coax. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? I've talked in the past about the community spirit that is embodied by Amateur Radio. Yes, I know there are several not very nice people around, some even brag about it, but by enlarge, that's absolutely not the case. I had the opportunity to use an antenna from a friend over a long weekend recently. He's building a tower at his QTH and had a spare Buddipole available that he handed to me while I was having problems getting my mobile verticals to work. It made me think about all the other things that I've been able to do thanks to friends I've made in Amateur Radio. One went on holidays for several months and wanted to make sure that I felt comfortable warming his antennas in his absence. Another brought along his multi-band yagi and helped me configure my hand-held for satellite operation. Another helped set-up contacts with the International Space Station early on in my Amateur career. I've had countless antennas given to me and loaned to me. I've used people's stations and portable gear. Had use of their camping equipment, generators, tents, beds, contesting hardware, computers, radios and tools. I've been able to bring my antennas to friends and test them using their equipment, had advice and assistance when building my station, had replacement bits shipped to me overnight and the list just goes on. I hope that I've been able to return the favour to all those amateurs who've helped me get to where I am and I hope I'll continue to be able to help out as this wonderful hobby evolves. Every now and then something happens that makes you remember all those amazing things. I hope your friends are as helpful as the ones I've found. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a contest that was specifically set-up for QRP. That is, 5 Watts or less. There was an hour for digital modes, including Morse, but I don't yet speak that, so I sat tight for the second hour, for phone. This particular contest was a single band only contest, 80m. When I planned for the contest, I set my watch wrong by an hour, so I almost didn't make it, but fortunately my XYL queried my delayed departure and I was out the door in the nick of time. I headed out to the beach, only to be confronted with S8 noise from the local housing estate, so I retreated rapidly back into the bush and found myself a lovely little nook where I could park the car without causing any disruption and start twiddling the dial. I immediately learned that my vertical was very, very narrow in bandwidth, that is, there was a limited range of frequencies I could use which curtailed the activities somewhat. Undeterred I hunted up and down the workable range, heard lots of stations and even made one contact. I almost tickled the eardrum of a station on the other side of the country, but he was being bombarded by other noise makers, so that didn't eventuate. I got my ear drums belted by some locals who hadn't heard that it was a QRP contest, but all in all, there was lots of fun to be had. My take home was that I should prepare better. I should have scouted a location earlier, used a more suitable antenna and considered if the locals would be pulling out of a side-road, shining their headlights on me parked in the bush on a continuous rotation. The contest was easy to do, reminded me that prior planning prevents piss poor performance and that I should really think about a better way to log contacts on the road in a contest situation. So, every outing is a learning opportunity. If you don't think back about the experience, how do you go about learning from it? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? If you're into contesting, you're likely to have heard of a thing called the Super Check Partial list and if you haven't then you should. It's a simple thing, maintained by Stu, K6TU, it contains a rolling list of the callsigns of all the stations that appeared in a minimum of 6 contest logs as a worked station over the past two years. This means several things. First of all, it means that you need to make contacts. Then each of your contacts needs to submit their log and it has to happen on a regular basis. If all that works, you end up with a text file that has some 43000 callsigns in it. This is a useful tool if you have logging software that can use the list to do partial matches on callsigns. If your callsign is only partially heard, lets say the other station only hears the LAB out of the whole call, VK6FLAB, it might return two or three hits and that might be enough to narrow down your whole callsign. So, instead of the backwards and forwards of exchanging letters, the other station might be able to give you a contest number in one hit. If you're into contesting, that's a big deal. But it's not just for contesting. If you're into DXing, it might also help you, since the Super Check Partial list is commonly used in day to day DX operation, so you might find yourself with a brand new country on your DXCC because you're actively contesting, making contacts and appearing in other people's logs. Now for the catch. This only works if you actually submit your log to Stu, so every time you do a contest, take an extra moment to also submit your log to the Super Check Partial robot lovingly processing your logfile via email. The address is logs@supercheckpartial.com Stu mentions that VK and ZL are severely under represented, so put your log into the system and reap the rewards. Super Check Partial, a free service by another volunteer radio amateur like you. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? If you're new to Amateur Radio like I am, it's easy to turn on your radio, set it up to key your local repeater and call CQ. After the first time it's a trivial matter that you might take for granted. The repeater just sits there on frequency, making communication possible between you and the rest of the Amateur Community. In many ways it's like turning on your mobile phone and dialling a number and talking to someone. When people ask me what the difference is between Amateur Radio and Community Radio, I often jest that in Community Radio you come into the studio, sit behind the microphone, press the red button and talk. Amateur Radio is exactly the same, but you also need to bring the red button. Repeaters are like that. Unless you've been personally involved, it's just a case of pressing the button. Of course that's not actually what happens. Often a group gets together, spit-balling ideas, coming up with a plan, finding money, equipment, support and the like. Then there is the logistics of obtaining a mast or using an existing one, finding bricks, concrete, roofing, batteries, solar panels, radios, antennas, cavities, coax, connectors, a license, perhaps an internet connection, getting all this to site, having helpers and resources to build the repeater hut, cranes, bob-cats, concrete mixers, terminating the coax, erecting the mast, installing guy wires, running coax up the mast, attaching antennas, tuning the thing, testing it, programming the controller, programming the radio, etc. etc. The list just gets longer and longer the more you think about. And, this is done by people like you. People who gave of their free time, who saw a need and using their collective skills and effort made it possible for you to key up your local repeater. Of course, then there's the linking of repeaters, internet connectivity, news relays, time-outs, DTMF controllers, lightning strikes, insect infestations, thieves and vandals. It never ends. So, when you next key up your repeater, think about that. And when there's a busy-bee in your local area, consider sharing some of your resources. I'm Onno VK6FLAB.

What use is an F-call? Recently I talked about a digital mode that had the ability to give you an estimated gain of 13dB over Analogue FM. It's the equivalent of gaining more than 2 S-points or like turning up your transmitter power from 10 Watts to 200 Watts. Of course, the receiver at the other end doesn't all of a sudden see their S-meter go up and neither does the power draw from your transmitter spike. The actual transmitted power is still the same and the actual received power is also the same. What's going on for this magic to happen? If you've ever listened to Morse code, not to understand it, I'm not there yet either, but just to hear it, you'll notice that you can detect individual dits and dahs at a very low signal level, much lower than it would be possible to hear an SSB signal in the same environment. The reason that happens is because your ear only needs to detect the presence or absence of a tone. Once you can hear the tone, you can work out how long each tone is and then your brain can decode a dit or a dah. Do that enough and you can decode a letter, then a word, then a sentence. So, under Morse conditions there are two basic variables, a tone or not and the length of that tone. If you had a great filter you could make it possible to filter out all but the wanted signal, making it possible to hear even weaker signals. What we're really talking about here is something called a signal to noise ratio. That is, the difference between the background noise, coming from the atmosphere, the neighbours and the radio itself, and the signal, or the Morse code you're trying to detect. The simpler the signal, the easier it is to hear. Of course there are limitations. You can only key so fast, your radio can only key on and off so fast, etc. What if you could key your radio differently? What if you used multiple tones, could you get the same effect? If you look at JT65, a weak signal digital mode, originally designed to do Earth-Moon-Earth communications, but now widely in use on HF, it does exactly that. Instead of on and off, it uses 65 tones to encode information. It uses a whole lot of mathematics, error correction and the like to ensure that each of these tones is decoded correctly and the message is either conveyed entirely, or ignored. Doing this allows JT65 to work in an environment where the noise is higher than the signal. And get this, the performance is entirely dependent on the software decoder in the receiver. What that means is that as we figure out how to improve software signal processing, the performance of JT65 will get better. The rabbit hole goes deep when you start digging and I can assure you, this just scratches the surface. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Operating from your shack is a different experience from operating in another station. It's a completely different experience again if you operate your station portable. At first glance, what's the problem, you pack your radio into a bag, travel to the destination and start operating. If you spend a little more time, you'll soon realise that you'll need to take many other variables into consideration. Things like power, coax, structures for your antenna, antennas, operating position and the like. Let's start with power. Do you have access to mains power where you'll be operating, or will you need to bring a generator, or do you have batteries? If you have batteries, how will you charge them? Are the batteries going to last for the whole operation? How do you know? Is any of the power system going to generate noise on HF? Did you actually test it? What are you going to do about grounding, what about fuel, fire safety, fuses, etc.? I could spend the next 40 minutes going through a list with caveats, gotchas and lessons learned, but ultimately, this needs to be your experience, so, before you go portable, sit down at your current station, happy and dry, and have a look around at all the things that go into the station running smoothly. Now imagine sitting on a desert island and getting your signal out. Make a list, in addition to recording what you're bringing, if there are more than one of you going on the outing, who's bringing it? Also include where an item currently is, include what its status is, for example, does it need a spare battery, or recharging, or repairing. I've now been portable more times than I can count and while it gets easier with time, I can guarantee you that I'll be sitting at my station, looking around for a thing that I forgot. Hopefully it won't be mission critical. Before I forget, resist the urge to bring your whole shack. The car isn't big enough. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Recently I spoke about digital voice communications. I made mention of the CODEC2 project being developed by Dave Rowe, VK5DGR. I also made reference of the kinds of things that digital voice improves, battery life, channel separation and bandwidth. One of the things I didn't mention, mainly because I still had to learn what it meant, is that CODEC2 has an estimated 13dB gain over Analogue FM. To explain what that actually means, you might recall that an S-point is 6dB, that means that if you use CODEC2, you gain more than two S-points, that's a little like turning up the transmitter power from 10 Watts to 200 Watts. If you look at it another way, if you have a Yagi and you install the same Yagi next to it, and connect it up properly, you've doubled the power and gained 3dB. If you do that again, you have 4 antennas and 6dB, if you do it again, you have 8 antennas and 9dB, again, 16 antennas or 12dB gain. So, the performance that we're talking about is something that you can either visualise as turning up the power from 10 Watts to 200 Watts, or using an antenna array with 16 antennas. So what is this magic thing called CODEC2? Well, as I said previously, a CODEC is a piece of software that encodes and decodes stuff. An example that you might be more familiar with is an MP3 file. You open your sound file, and save it as an MP3. The new file is much smaller but it retains most of the fidelity of the original when you play it back. The same is true for other things in use. Your mobile phone uses a GSM CODEC to make your voice travel across the airwaves as bits, rather than raw audio, like the old analogue phones we used to have. The aim of all of this is to reduce data use, to increase availability of channels and to deal with error correction. CODEC2 does all that, for us, here, in Amateur Radio Land, and of course, it can also be used in the rest of the world, for example for mobile phone communications, making it possible to use less power to transmit the same signal and thus use less battery, making your phone last longer. I'm looking forward to a CODEC2 mode on my radio to go with the AM, FM and SSB modes already there. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? During the week I had the opportunity to hear several people use a radio in day-to-day communications. In this particular instance it was a water taxi speaking to their base. They were using their own frequency and essentially used it to coordinate their activities across their coverage area. Listening with an Amateur ear, if there is such a thing, I noticed that there was a lot of back-and-forth, missed communications and misunderstandings. We take for granted, once we've learned, that there is a sequence in successful radio communications. Consistency, brevity, simple vocabulary, microphone handling, antenna placement, hand-held use and the like. It's not the first time I've noticed that. I wondered if there was a way that we as amateurs can actually extend our wings beyond our hobby and share some procedural skills that we almost take for granted. We often lament that Amateur Radio is declining in it's scope, size and community involvement. Perhaps radio skills are something that we might share around. Wouldn't it be great if we could share our airwaves with others who also know how to communicate on air? I know I'll be monitoring some commercial frequencies from now on to see if there are things that I could do as an Amateur to help make radio communications more reliable and less stressful for the various users of the radio spectrum. Perhaps it could be a new activity to add to the wide range that Amateur Radio represents. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? As you might recall, I've been struggling to get an antenna installed on my car. It's been a process that started seven months ago, resulted in the purchase of four single band antennas and finally the purchase of an antenna tuner. I could spend hours discussing the things that were recommended, tried and tested, but I won't. It's a sorry tale that I'll share with you over a beer or six one day. On the first day that everything "worked", and I use the term loosely, since it's not been long enough yet to compare the performance of the antennas to my squid-pole solution and other antennas I've used over the years; on that first day I spoke to about six different stations scattered around me, at varying distance, from less than 5km away to 700km away. During that time I was parked up in front of a friends house and after a contact we'd position the car in a different direction to see what the impact of that change might be. Since this was my first contact with this setup, we kept the movement to the four directions of the compass, North, East, South and West. Generally speaking, there was a difference for some contacts, depending on which way the car was pointing. The difference could be as much as two S-points, that's 12dB difference, which is a big deal. You might recall that this is similar to the difference between an F-call using 10 Watts and a Standard Call using 100 Watts. Without actually measuring, since this was a rough-and-ready check, my car, with the antenna mounted on the boot has a better performance when the nose of the car is pointing at the remote station. Incidentally, the side and the rear seem to perform similarly, that is, there is no particular difference if the station is off the side or the rear. As I said, this is a rough-and-ready check. I'm going to do the same test several more times, and with the cooperation of a friendly remote station, hopefully add some data points between the four directions of the wind, because it's likely that there are weird artifacts that distort the radiation pattern and it might just be that if you point the car to the north-east, you get another s-point, thanks to the vagaries of the build of my particular car. In the end, I plan to log my direction, the S-point reading and with that I'll be able to draw the radiation pattern that my car represents and in turn I'll be able to use that to figure out which way to point when I'm working the grey-line or when I absolutely have to make a contact with a rare DX station. A mobile rotator on four wheels. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is about communication as much as anything else. The whole idea is to get a message from one place to another. This hobby attracts people from all walks of life, people who are physicists, truck drivers, pastry chefs, accountants and dentists and everything else under the sun. One thing is common among us is, we're all Hams. It's not unusual to see people from completely different walks of life bond over a beer and a soldering iron. With the recipe set, you'd imagine that while people have different outlooks, they'd come back to the single thing that they love, radio. Now that I've been an amateur for a while, the cracks in this potentially idyllic view are beginning to appear. There is bickering, abuse, insults and confrontation. We pitch people against each other, state against state, club against club, brand against brand, license against license, achievement against achievement. While humankind is a warmongering species, I am saddened that this is carried on within our small community. We have the potential to be a "League of Extraordinary Gentleman" and my apologies to the females among us, but instead we're a "Rabble of noisy, angry men". Why is it that when a fellow amateur reveals that they don't know something, they are jumped on, rather than supported and educated? Why is it that we work as adversaries, rather than a cooperative? Why is it that we don't rise above the noise and have fun, laugh, enjoy our hobby and make friends. Why are we not civil to each other when things go wrong or mistakes are made? The original Amateur Code written by Paul W9EEA back in 1928 still applies today: The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE...never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others. LOYAL...offers loyalty, encouragement and support to other amateurs [..] PROGRESSIVE...with knowledge abreast of science, a well-built and efficient station and operation above reproach. 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. BALANCED...radio is an avocation, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community. PATRIOTIC...station and skill always ready for service to country and community. So, are you an Amateur or not? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Over the years that I've been an amateur I've spent many hours discussing the ins- and outs of being an amateur. I've talked about what you're allowed to do, where the LCD falls short, what things you can build, what activities you can participate in and where to find and learn more about this wonderful hobby called Amateur Radio. I've received emails from many different people, amateurs and non-amateurs alike, each sharing with me their take on what excites them, what mistakes I made, or what things I should investigate next. An increasing theme over the past few years is that I should admonish amateurs for their misbehavior, that I should be telling people off for doing things that fall outside their license condition. A recurring theme is the idea that there are F-calls who are using more than their allocated 10 Watts of power. It's getting to the point where a growing group of amateurs are expecting me to become an amateur radio police officer and that I should be policing the misdeeds of "my F-calls". Seriously? First of all, they're not "my F-calls". I have no more control over them than they have over me. Second, I'm not qualified to assert one way or another that another amateur is breaking the rules. We have a government body specifically for the task, the ACMA. Third, F-calls breaking the rules? Really? And they're following the lead from who? So, no, I'm not a police officer, I'll not be telling F-calls or anyone else off for exceeding their license condition. If they think it's fine to break the rules, that's their problem. If you think that it's a problem that someone is exceeding their conditions you should tell the ACMA. If you don't think it's a problem big enough to warrant doing that, why are you telling me about it? So, no more "this amateur did this and it's wrong". If you want me to talk about learning to find out if you're breaking the rules, or if you want it to be a training opportunity, by all means, keep the emails coming, but I'm not your cop, not today and not until such time as I accept a job at the ACMA. Finally, if you are knowingly breaking the rules, you really should ask yourself why it is that you are doing this. If you need more power, get a higher license. If you are already using the highest power available, then become a member of the WIA and canvas your local politician. The only thing that has ever changed the world is a small group of individuals making a concerted effort. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Last week I spent a little time talking about lightning. I discussed how lightning can affect many different things, not just by being a direct hit, but by having a nearby hit, that is, something that is in some way electrically connected to you or your station. We all know that the ground has some level of conductivity, just like air does - the lightning that you see during a thunderstorm is the visualisation of the conductivity of air. In the earth, you don't really see it that clearly, but the same thing happens. Conductivity is measured in Siemens per Meter. Deionised water has a conductivity of about 5.5 micro Siemens per meter, sea water is about 5 Siemens per meter, so, sea water is approximately a million times more conductive than deionised water. Since Siemens is a measure of conductivity and Ohms a measure of resistance, you can convert one into the other as their inverse. A resistor made of 1 cm of seawater at 20C has a resistance of 2 milli Ohm. Ground conductivity is in the order of 1000 times worse than sea water and is typically expressed in milli Siemens per meter. As we're talking about the ground, the conductivity is seasonal, since rain comes and goes, and to add to the mix, this conductivity is frequency dependent. So, In Australia, for a frequency up to 30 kHz, the conductivity varies from 1 to 10 milli Siemens per meter, or 1 cm of ground has a varying resistance between 1 and 10 Ohm. If you look at 1MHz, the conductivity varies much more, from 2 to 50 milli Siemens per meter, depending on where you are, how far you are from the ocean, a river or lake or what the ground is made up of. Back to lightning. Imagine an earth stake next to your shack for your radio and another stake next to your antenna. In a circuit diagram, both of them would show as being connected to earth and you could just look at that and think that all was well with the world. Both are earthed, so you're safe. Unfortunately that's not the case. If you drew the circuit diagram properly there would be a resistor between the two earth stakes. There would also be a conductor, namely your coax between the radio and the antenna. So you have a path of low resistance, the coax, and a parallel path of high resistance, something like 10 kOhm for 10m, between the earth stakes. No points for guessing which one the lightning will take. But the coax is capable of handling that, isn't it? If you have coax rated at 3kV, like RG213, a direct lightning strike will only exceed it's capacity by a million times. So, no, coax is not a good earth path. As an exercise, you can use 300kA as the current for a direct lightning strike. Based on the ground conductivity of 10 milli Siemens per meter, you can work out how far lightning needs to be in order for your RG213 to survive if your earth stakes are 10m apart and not bonded. So the lesson is, bond all of your earth stakes together. Connect the coax shield to the tower and create a Single Point Ground by connecting them all together. There are several online lightning maps showing real-time lightning activity which can also help. Weatherzone incorporates the Bureau of Meteorology Radar images and superimposed lightning strikes. Of course you can also use lightning data to check to see what the noise level might be like at a DX station you're trying to work. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? During the week we were subjected to some unusual lightning activity. There was lots to go around and it raises the issue on what to do when lightning is nearby. The obvious comments about disconnecting your radio from your antenna is pretty common knowledge, but there are other things that might happen that you hadn't thought about. Lightning is an electrostatic discharge, and strangely enough, RF is closely related, in that your antenna system converts electric energy into voltages that you then insert into your radio. So, lightning will just as easily affect your antenna as it does your radio. We have a basic understanding that a lightning strike directly into the radio is a good way to let out the magic smoke and a comment should be made that you don't need lightning for this to happen; just static electricity in the air is enough to build up enough charge for your radio to die. It's not uncommon to see sparks between the center and shield on an antenna connector while thunderstorms are about. While all this is going on, I'd also like to point out that the feed-line can be affected by lightning and it doesn't have to be a direct strike. Your coax may be heated up, a short might happen, a connector might be affected and if you have lightning arrestors, they might be fused. The point of this is that even if you disconnected your antenna from your radio to protect it, the rest of the system might be affected and it pays to check the state of your antennas and feed-lines before resuming the operation of your station. If you don't, you may find yourself in a situation where your radio survived the lightning storm, only to die when you put full power into your antenna system. Finally, lightning doesn't only have to come from above. If you are near a strike, the earth might come up and bite your hardware from the other end, it's called earth potential rise or EPR and it can kill. The killer isn't that there is a high potential, it's that there is a difference in potential. From the impact point of lightning, potential is dissipated in all directions. As the distance from the impact point increases, the potential decreases. Imagine a field where lightning strikes. Cows who are facing the lightning will have a different potential between their fore and rear legs, causing a current to flow through their bodies, including the heart. This is enough to kill. A cow standing side on has the same effect, but the distance is the width of the cow, not it's length, so the currents are less. This same phenomenon happens within your station. The earthing system, the radio, power supply and the like. So, lightning, it can ruin your day if it hits directly, but you should pay attention to it even if it didn't hit you. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Digital Voice in Amateur Radio is broken. It's a big call for a mere F-call to make, so let me back that up with some facts. There are three basic digital voice products you can buy as an amateur today, D-Star made by ICOM, System Fusion made by Yaesu and MOTOTRBO or TRBO by Motorola. There is also Project 25, or P25. Each of these systems are based around technologies and patents owned by a company called Digital Voice Systems Inc. or DVSI. In essence, each of these systems use the same maths to encode and decode an audio signal. This process of encoding and decoding is embodied in a thing called a Coder / Decoder or CODEC. While each of these use the same maths, owned by the same company, they don't actually inter-operate. What that means that if you want to use a D-Star repeater, you need a D-Star radio, and if you want to use a System Fusion repeater, you need a System Fusion radio, even though both radios use the same maths to make your voice into a digital signal. It gets worse. If Elecraft wants to build a radio that talks to three systems for example, they would need to license the same technology three times, at exhorbitant cost. Most of these are actually achieved by buying a chip from DVSI, not to make it faster, but to protect their maths against people reverse engineering it. It also means that if you want to experiment with Software Defined Radio, you cannot use it to decode D-Star, System Fusion or TRBO, because the costs to license the technoogy is not viable for anyone other than commercial users. In January 2014 I was lucky enough to attend the Linux Conference Australia which at the time was being held in Perth, 15 km from my QTH. Being a comper nerd and becoming a radio nerd meant that this was an opportunity too good to miss. You may have heard some of the 50 interviews I did at that conference. One of the reasons I did those interviews is to begin the process of making my fellow amateurs aware of other ways of doing business. Open Source and Software Freedom are important concepts that relate directly to Amateur Radio. People like David Rowe VK5DGR and Bruce Perens K6BP are at the forefront of developing and advocating alternatives, like Codec2, a piece of software written by David to address this specific problem. Amateur Radio is an experimental hobby. What we do is play with stuff, break it, put it together in new and innovative ways, research and develop. None of those things are possible with Closed Source encombered products like the stuff that ICOM, Yaesu and Motorola are flogging. Yes it's great, it's digital, it improves many things like battery life, bandwidth use and channel separation, but it's also broken. There are 4 and a half D-Star users in VK6, 2 System Fusion users and I'm not aware of any TRBO users. Those numbers are in jest, but this is not widely used technology, despite the fact that digital voice adds many benefits to Amateur Radio. On the other side of the fence, every Amateur Radio has AM, FM, SSB and CW, precisely because there are no such restrictions. Next time you buy a shiny new radio, or advocate a new technology, or invite a trojan horse like a free repeater, it would pay to notice the other issues that the sales people gloss over. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? As you've heard me talk about making contacts with other countries on many occasions, I thought I'd spend a little time describing what I do when I've actually made the contact. At the moment I'm logging my contact on CQRLOG, it's a Linux based programme that manages each contact, tracks to show if I've uploaded it to Logbook of the World, eQSL and Clublog. I chose those three services based on their functionality and their availability. I won't go into each of them, but combined they allow me to confirm the contacts I've made. Once I've done that I also log into the WIA members section of the Awards system where I upload my contacts. The awards system confirms my contacts with those same three services, Logbook of the World, eQSL and Clublog, to confirm that I have in fact made the contact. There is a ranking system, and if you're into league tables, there is ample opportunity to rank yourself against others. There is even a special section for Foundation Licensees, so you can compare your contact prowess against that of others. For me, it's a place to log what I've done and to keep track of where I'm at. While it's a thrill to be ranked against others, for me it's about my personal achievement. I get the thrill when I make the contact and another one when I see it confirmed. I special mention should go to Marc VK3OHM who spent many emails making sure that the upload actually worked as expected. He helped me figure out that my previous logging software had the grid locator in the wrong field and helped me work out that I needed a later version of CQRLOG to upload to the WIA Awards System, because there was a bug in the one I was using. So, however you keep track of your own progress toward world DX coverage, be it on a piece of paper in a binder, in a notebook or online, I recommend you check out the WIA Awards System. So, where was I, 39 countries towards my QRP DXCC, 5 Watts SSB. More to go. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? In the normal day-to-day interaction between amateurs on air we use the procedure to say the other station's call-sign, followed by our own. If there's two people on-air, this is a simple way to have a discussion. But what if there are more? If it's informal, we tend to talk in a circle, that is, we keep handing the microphone to the next person in the line. For this to work, you need to remember who comes after you, so you can hand it over to them. If you want to join in a discussion like this, say your callsign between hand-overs and you'll be asked to join in. It's best to wait for a whole circuit, so you know who is in the discussion and what the sequence of people is. Again, you need to remember who comes after you. Sometimes this descends into anyone talks to anyone, but often that means that one or more people miss out, so be mindful of those who are sitting on the side, they too might have something to share. If the discussion is a more regular occurrence, it might turn into a more formal thing, called a net. There are many different ways of managing a net, but all of them require that you leave some time between each over, to allow new people to check in, or for the net controller, often the convener of the net, to manage the net. A net can be run with a master controller. Picture it like a spoke and hub. The controller sits in the middle like a chair person in a meeting and you speak to the chair, they hand the microphone to the next person. So the controller will call you and you'll call them. You only need to remember their callsign (and yours of course). To join in, announce your callsign between overs, and the next station should acknowledge you and if it's the controller will invite you in. Sometimes you'll be next, sometimes you'll be added to the list, sometimes you'll be placed where the controller thinks it fits best. If you have urgent business, you might say your callsign with the words "with urgent business", so the controller can hand the microphone to you sooner. The 7130 DX net has a controller, often its Roy, VK7ROY in Tasmania. He'll call for stations to check in and create the master list. He'll then call for stations wanting to make a contact. Roy will run through the contact list, encouraging each station to make one or two DX contacts. When the call-list is done, Roy will ask for more stations on the master list, and so on. As an F-call, it's a great way to be heard and make some DX contacts. As a tip, write down each callsign, name and signal strength you hear, since it will help you figure out who Roy is talking to, and it will help you figure out who you might be able to contact. A station in the USA with a signal strength 2 might not be able to hear your station, then again they might. Each on-air discussion has its own set of conventions, or rules. It pays to have a listen to a discussion before you barge in. If two guys are on air discussing their personal lives, they might not want to talk to you and may ignore you. On the other hand, they might want to hear your contribution, since they too were new hams at one point in their life. Have a listen to on-air discussion, be respectful, and participate. It's lots of fun and often leads to lifetime friendships. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? When was the last time you went online and downloaded a copy of the LCD? Do you even know where to find it? Do you know when it last changed and what changes it contained? If the answer is, "I have a copy from 2005 when they introduced the Foundation license.", you have a problem. The LCD changed in 2005 twice, again in 2008, also in 2010 and again in 2013. In total, between 2005 and 2013 there are 546 changes to the document that sets out the conditions to which your amateur license is subject to. Some of those 546 changes are trivial, renaming the department from ACA to ACMA account for about 5 changes, others are more significant. For example, between the 2010 and 2013 issue of the LCD, there were only 21 changes, little ones like changing the date and bigger ones like removing zone restrictions from around Melbourne, Perth and Sydney and adding two new exclusion zones, one off the coast of Exmouth with a 1000km radius and one in the Timor Sea with a 2000km radius. If you add those two exclusions to a map of Australia, you'll find most of the Northern Territory is excluded, half of Western Australia and a big chunk of the north of Queensland. Excluded from what you ask? If you'd read the LCD, you'd know that this was the formal allocation of the 630m band and that Australia added it to the allowed bands for Amateur use, with a few provisos about where you couldn't use it. Between 2008 and 2010 there were 34 changes, gems include conditions under which you can pass message traffic, the addition of the 2200m band and permitting different access control methods. Some of these affect every Amateur, others only the lucky few with ample spare space to run some large antenna systems. In Aviation there is an assumption that the conditions under which you're flying today are different from what they were yesterday and that tomorrow they'll be different again. There are processes for keeping up to date, notification services, subscriptions and the like. In Amateur Radio, there is an assumption that the conditions under which you're operating don't change much at all. The truth is that your Amateur Radio License Conditions are a living thing. Conditions change regularly and sometimes in more ways than you expect. So, get yourself a copy of the LCD, make sure you read and understand it and look for little snakes in the grass that might significantly impact the operation of your station. Tip for new players. In your favorite word processor, you can open the current version of a document and compare it with the previous version using the Compare Document feature. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? I recently spent some time talking about the Grey Line, about the way it moves around and how it will help you make contacts along its path. If you recall, the direction of the Grey Line changes throughout the year. As the tilt of the earth affects the direction of the sun on your head, it also affects the shadow line that's drawn across the planet as sun-set and sun-rise occur at your QTH. Of course, you already know this. We experience this change as our seasons. So, if the Grey Line changes direction, the obvious question is, "Which way should you point your antenna?" If you are using a vertical, there isn't much pointing going on, but if you have anything that is rotating, even a mobile station qualifies, there is benefit in actually aligning yourself with the Grey Line. Of course you can look online and see a lovely Grey Line map and use that, but that does require that you have access to the Internet, or a phone with an App or some other technology. But you don't really have to get that technical at all. The antenna you're using has a beam-width that is going to be several degrees wide and local environmental factors are going to impact on your experience, so, here's some figuring. At the equinox, the Grey Line runs North - South, that is, twice a year around 20 March and 22 September. For our quick and dirty calculation, March and September is more than accurate enough. At summer and winter solstice, 21 December and 21 June, the Grey Line runs at the maximum angle, the tilt of the earth, 23.5 degrees. So, every quarter of the year, the Grey Line moves about 23 degrees, call it 21 degrees. So every month the Grey Line moves by about 7 degrees. This is about equal to the width of a man's fist held at arm's length. (104mm) So in December, you'll see the Grey Line running at about a bearing of 21 degrees, in January, about 14 degrees, in February about 7, in March about 0, that is North, and so on. Now the only tricky part is, which way do you go around 0 degrees? Is February 7 degrees east, or 7 degrees west of North? It depends on whether you're north or south of the equator. Here in VK, February is East, April is West, August is East, October is West. To remember that, think that the Grey Line is a FEAST. February is East and August is East. Have fun working the Grey Line. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? I've now been an amateur since December 2010. In the time that I've been part of this hobby I've come to understand that a large part of the experience is to tinker. We tinker with radios, batteries, antennas, coax, connectors, mobile set-ups and software. We fiddle with circuits, with antenna designs, with locations, with anything and everything. Of course the fiddling is all about improvement, or sometimes, it's just about getting on-air. The more you fiddle, the more you learn and the more experience you gain. So there is good to be had from doing these things. Yesterday I was at a fellow amateur where he had his radio scanning 15m. It was just sitting in the background and as we finished lunch and went into the afternoon, we could hear signals picking up. Eventually the signals became strong enough to work. I managed to add another DX country to my list with his gear and it reminded me that fiddling is only one part of the hobby that I love. I've been so busy getting my station to work and getting more and more frustrated by my inability to get it going that I lost track of the other side of the fence, the actual operating of the radio. So, tinker and fiddle all you like, but remember, sometimes you need to lift your head up from the soldering iron and actually get on air. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Man-made interference is a wonderful thing. It allows you to appreciate that there are both people and morons on air. Some people become morons, either by accident, or on purpose, but every now and then you have special people who share our airwaves. In case you're wondering, a moron is someone with the intellectual age between 8 and 12. In the past we as amateurs have chosen to ignore them. In general that works pretty well. The moron doesn't know that they're having any effect and they soon move on to greener pastures, hopefully one six foot under, but that's a story for another day. I have a special friend. He's special because he thinks it's particularly funny to disrupt a weekly net that I host called F-troop. He likes to send DTMF tones, play audio tracks and generally be a pain in the rear. This isn't a new thing. I've been logging activity from this moron since April 2012. He comes in every now and then, completely disrupts the net and then pisses off. You could infer from this that I'm angry. That's not true. I'm annoyed that other Amateurs bear the brunt of this particular moron's fetish for my on-air activities. It's a sad day when you cannot run an introductory amateur radio net without special attention from people who clearly haven't understood that large fines exist specifically for the likes of them. I'm glad to report than when we do actually catch this particular moron, there will be a long list of his behavior and if we're particularly fortunate their fine will cost them their house. We can only dream. Got any morons on your repeater? Got any tips. Share them with the community. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? In the past I've mentioned the Grey Line. If you recall, this is a twice daily phenomenon. During dawn and dusk, and often slightly before and after, there is an enhanced level of DX propagation. That is, if you're listening while it's happening, you'll notice far-off stations you didn't hear before, clear as day, then five or ten minutes later they're gone. Today I'm not going into the actual process that makes this happen, absorption, D and F layers and the like. The more you read about the physics of this, the more you'll get bamboozled with different and vociferous views. Instead I want to talk about something that hadn't occurred to me until earlier in the week. Once I tell you the response is likely going to be the same as mine was: Duh! So, propagation along, not across, along the Grey Line, is enhanced. So, the line is North-South, right? Well, yes and no. Twice a year it is, at the equinox, when the length of the day and the length of the night is the same, but otherwise, it's not North - South at all. In fact, in my case, when I first learned about the Grey Line, I saw it pointing about North-North-East, South-South-West, perfect for communication with Japan from VK6 and if you're exceedingly lucky, communication with South America. But the earth doesn't rotate vertically on an axis, we have Summer and Winter because the earth is tilted. That means that the Summer/Winter offset of the earth also affects the Grey Line. The effect this has is that your Grey Line target countries change as the year progresses, from Plus 23.5 degrees to Minus 23.5 degrees and of course, also the opposite, from 203.5 down to 156.5 degrees. Thats 47 degrees of rotation across the whole year, twice. So, as your hunger for DX entities intensifies from "anyone, anywhere" to "I gotta get Israel and Brazil", you now can start planning when that might be something that could be achieved with the Grey Line. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is a personal thing. It's an expression of communication, of exploration, of invention, learning, electronics, physics and personal achievement. The community we are members of is a living organism. We pick up random people from the global community, spark their interest and gain another member. For new entrants to our community there is much to see and do. Often the choices are overwhelming and common mistakes are made. While every person has their own journey through this, there are things we as a group could do to help. Any Amateur can be a mentor or Elmer, to new member of our hobby. As Rob W9BRD said in 1971, "We need those Elmers. All the Elmers, including the ham who took the most time and trouble to give you a push toward your license, are the birds who keep this great game young and fresh." In your local club, is there a mentoring program? Is it explicit? Have people put their name up as a point of contact to new members? Are there activities that your club does that helps new and prospective entrants to our hobby? Of course, if you are not a member of a club, you can still be an Elmer. Nothing to it. Hang your shingle out, talk to people, help them, encourage them, guide them and inspire them. The challenge of being "an unsung father of Amateur Radio" is that you're unsung and often invisible. You might be able and willing to help people, but if nobody knows that you exist, you're not going to be that effective. So, if you have an urge to inspire the new generation of Amateurs, let your community know. Make some noise, get on air on your local repeater or DX net and make it known that you can help. And finally, if you've just come to this magical world of Amateur Radio, Welcome. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? You purchased a shiny new radio and it's all you imagined and it works great and you're over the moon with your purchase and you're raring to go, but you find yourself constantly typing in the frequencies, or twiddling the VFO to change repeaters. As a last ditch attempt, you've got out the manual and you're busily typing in each repeater, one at a time, and then when you've finally done it, you hit the wrong button and you have start again. Only 22 repeaters more to go. Does this sound familiar? If it doesn't then we should talk. You really should be programming in all your local repeaters, and better still, all the national ones as well. I know that some radios don't have enough channels for all of that, but I must confess that this limitation is becoming less and less. So, if you should do all that and you really don't want to manually do all of that work, how do you actually get all the frequencies into your gear without going insane? You could clone a radio from a friend. They'll need to have the same radio as you do and the radio will need to support a clone mode, but in essence, you make a copy of the settings of their radio into yours. This does require a cable, a friend and two of the same radio, and it requires that they have programmed their radio. That's a lot of requirements. Friends are hard to come by at times, and lazy ones are often close at hand, so likely you'll be the one supplying your frequency list to them, rather than the other way around. Instead of all that, I'd like to point you at a piece of brilliant open source software that runs on Linux, OS X and Windows and has a pretty good chance of being able to program your radio. It's called CHIRP. The list of radios is extensive and increases regularly. You'll still need a programming cable, which will start a whole discussion about which one. It will also head you down the slippery dip of cheap knock-off cables with fraudulent driver chips, so beware when you start hunting for the cable for your radio. Get cracking, no excuse to have your radio sit on one repeater for the rest of its life. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Recently I was part of a discussion about emergency preparedness. The idea being that as radio amateurs we're ideally suited to being communication hubs and conduits to pass messages along. Of course as part of that we need to have skills and equipment to make those things possible. I've often said that doing contests are a great way to improve your radio skills. It's an adverse environment in which sending and receiving messages is related to your score and as a bonus, it's a great way to pick up some DX stations that are not yet in your log. There are other things that you can do as an amateur to improve your level of preparedness. I recently conducted an informal survey among a group of amateurs to see which repeaters they had programmed into their radios and which ones they'd actually used. Turns out, in our little group, two repeaters were being used, the rest, around 15 were sometimes programmed into radios, but hardly ever used. As part of improving our skills we want to make sure that we actually know which repeaters we can use, have the ability to actually use them and while we're at it, take the opportunity to pass along some message traffic, just for the fun of trying and the fun of practicing. This is really part of a much larger conversation. For example, you might have a radio and batteries, but do your batteries work with the radio of your mate? Do you have conversion cables to deal with this, are their polarities the same, is there a standard that you might follow? If you're getting into SOTA, Summits On The Air, that is, climbing up mountains and setting up a radio and making contacts, you're well and truly on your way to being prepared for an emergency, with a pack, food, shelter, power and a portable radio. If you have all that and you don't have the skills to pass on messages, then what do you need to do to get those skills? There are formal processes, some of them encompassed by associations like WICEN, the Wireless Institute Civil Emergency Network, the local SES and other first responders. What is your level of preparedness, not only your radio, but your skills? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? I've just built myself v1.0 of a Raspberry Pi SDR. It still has some way to go until I can show it off - needs a touch screen, a power supply that runs on 12V, some user interface elements, but the functionality is there. If you're unfamiliar with the nature of a Raspberry Pi, it's a single board computer, the size of a credit card, has Ethernet, USB, HDMI, audio, video and a MicroSD card slot. My version comes with 512Mb of memory. It's 17mm high. This is a tiny fully functional computer. From a geek perspective, it's running a version of Debian Linux, called raspbian. It's the same version of Debian as my main computer, Wheezy, which means that everything you have on your main computer, you could theoretically use on a Raspberry Pi. I've plugged in a USB Television Dongle, one that allows it to be reprogrammed into a versatile receiver. After a little bit of programming, nothing too complex, I can now see wave forms and spectrograms of 2 MHz of bandwidth. I'm aiming to make this enclosed and self-contained, so I can take it with me in the field and use it as a pan-adapter with my Yaesu 857d. So far it's cost me $38 for the Raspberry Pi, $15 for the SDR dongle. I'm waiting for a screen to come back in stock, but in the mean time I've just plugged it into my monitor on my desk. It's only a little hack, but it was fun to do. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is a social activity. It's about communication and community. Ironically, as much as we are about talking to one and other, we still do some activities all on our own. If you're hunting for a rare station, trolling up and down the bands, looking for that elusive callsign or country, or sitting in a pile-up, calling and calling and calling some more, hearing your callsign and confirming a contact, that kind of activity is very solitary. It doesn't have to be. I know the feeling of getting a hard get and putting down your microphone and jumping up and down, yelling in celebration, wanting to tell someone, your XYL, the neighbors, the cat, anyone about your amazing feat of achievement, I've been there. If you do this with a fellow amateur, either both of you in the same shack or via a local repeater, or on 850MHz, or via email, that experience means something to the other person. I just got a message from a great friend who managed to speak with Israel on 6m, something he's been trying to do for 38 years. I have a pretty good idea how he feels. Mind you, I'm not old enough to have tried contacting someone for 38 years - well, technically, I suppose I am, but I get it, the exhilaration of the achievement, the swelling of the chest, the smile on your face, the hairs standing up on the back of your neck. That's what Amateur Radio is all about. I've said previously, one person's achievement is another's bread and butter. I'm still trying to get my first contact with Israel on any band - one station heard me once, but they couldn't get all the letters in order in one go. It's not yet percolated through the Amateur consciousness that an F-call comes with an extra letter, but at least I proved to myself I could get there. I'm not yet allowed on 6m and I'm sure I'll spend many hours at some future time attempting to make the same contact, but right now, I'm happy to celebrate the achievement someone else made. In case you're wondering, VK6YS and 4X4DK. So, share your achievements, it makes them sweeter! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? As an F-call, working DX, you'll spend many hours looking for that elusive contact, or you'll turn on your radio, tune around, hear a station, call back and bag a new country. It's all there for the taking, one contact at a time. As you operate on HF, you'll notice a whole range of operating skills, from amazing to atrocious and everything in between. You'll hear stations who keep calling two letters of their callsign, or those who run a pile-up for 40 contacts without once uttering their own callsign. You'll hear people who are not sure about their microphone and seem afraid it might bite, and those who are seemingly completely deaf to the world. As you listen around you'll begin to discern those operators who are doing an amazing job, who, apparently without effort, pull your callsign out of the muck and come back to your first call, and you'll hear those who say all the letters of your callsign, but never in one sentence or in the correct order. The difference between you and all those operators is that hopefully you have no habits yet. You don't yet know how it's done and you're yet to learn about the ins and outs of what's going on. So, starting at the top. Listen. Then, listen some more. Understand that if a station is giving out 5 and 9 for everyone, that unless the bands are amazing, it's likely that all they're doing is collecting callsigns and yours can be one in the mix. They don't want to hear about your dog, or your antenna or your radio, and often they don't even care about your name. So, jump in with your callsign, give them a 5 and 9 report and move on. KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. While you're at it, don't get into the habit of calling part of your callsign. You have no idea what part of it they recognized, since you're transmitting at the same time as everyone else, you might find that your F-call ends later than most and ends up being the last few letters they hear. Finally, the prefix, the VK6 part of your callsign is just as important as the suffix, the FLAB part. Arguably much more so, since it tells people roughly where you are, so don't swallow the VK6 when you're giving it out. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? On previous occasions I've discussed the QSL system in Amateur Radio. It's a mechanism that uses what's known as out-of-band communications to confirm contacts. For over a hundred years that has been mostly in the form of QSL cards. Since the introduction of the Internet, websites and pervasive computing, some of the confirmations have been moved from card to electron. I've had about 29 countries confirmed electronically and two via card. Until about 10 minutes ago I was convinced that electronic QSL confirmation was the way to go. Before I explain why, there is a place for both, electronic confirmation is simple, cheap and often very quick. QSL cards on the other hand are involved, sometimes costly and often take a long time. I'm sitting at my desk with a stack of QSL cards for the VI103WIA callsign which was activated during the Wireless Institute Conference which was held here in Fremantle in May of 2013. These cards are about contacts made a long time ago, though I've had it told that some QSL cards can take more than a decade, these were a little faster than that. I'm looking at these cards, each a little story told by an operator who shares my hobby, a person who is interested in Amateur Radio, who lives with their family in some far-flung country, who took the time to acknowledge that they made contact with a callsign back here in Western Australia. I wasn't the operator for each of these contacts, but I did operate that callsign and I shared some of the on-air experiences. The two countries that I have confirmed with cards directly sent to me are memories of a contact made. I recall when I was sitting in a particular location, with my radio, trying to talk to the world and here is a card saying that it really happened and that there was another person on the other side of the contact. You can think of this as sentimental cods-wallop, and for some it might well prove to be that, but for me, it connects me more to the world of Amateur Radio and some of the long history that it represents. I'll continue to use electronic QSL, I mean there's still a thrill to see a confirmation of a contact made with Amsterdam Island, even if it's just a tick in a box on a computer screen, but I'll cherish the contacts sent to me via card, either direct or via the Bureau. If only I'd written down what my very first QSO was. Now go and make some contacts and send out some cards. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Yesterday I learned an interesting lesson. It wasn't a simple lesson to learn, but I'm guessing it's going to take me some years to come to grips with what I experienced. Said plainly, "Small Changes can have a Big Effect" That's pretty straight forward as a lesson, but when you actually experience it head on, it tends to make more impact. As you've heard in the past, I operate my radio mostly from my car. I recently purchased some antennas that I want to mount on my car and want to use without an antenna tuner. Don't get me wrong, my antenna coupling unit has done some amazing things. It continues to work well with my 12m squid pole and I'll continue to take it with me when I go camping. With a friend and fellow amateur we spent most of yesterday fiddling with my antennas on my car. I have to say, doing this with someone else makes life a lot better. You can bounce ideas off each other, prod the other into action with a calculator, argue about the merits of your idea and figure out what's going on. In my experience, nothing beats having someone with you to figure stuff out. Originally I mounted my antenna on the center of my boot lid, between the front of the boot and the back window. I set the mount to be parallel with the boot, about a 4 degree angle. So, one of the silly ideas we had, and really the credit goes to my friend Allen VK6XL, was to make my mount more vertical. I looked at him, he looked at me, I shook my head and called him silly names. We were getting all manner of responses from the antenna analyzer and nothing made sense. I undid the bolt and adjusted the angle by less than 4 degrees. When you look at it from the side, the antenna started with a slight lean, now it was standing straight up. All of a sudden the recalcitrant antenna started playing ball. It was finally resonant within the band and finally had an SWR that wasn't embarrassing. I am still working through what I saw, capacitance between the antenna and the car, between the antenna and the ground, between the various parts of the car, but somehow this minute change made all the difference. Suffice to say, I owe Allen a beer. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? I've recently purchased four verticals, one for each of the HF bands I'm allowed to use. I installed them and started playing, only to be confronted with some interesting results. The 80m and 40m verticals have a very high Q, that is to say, they resonate on a particular frequency and you can make contacts at those frequencies with about 22 kHz variation. This is as expected. My antenna analyser picture looks just like the one on the box. This is great. In theory all I should need to do is trim them a little bit and have them resonant at the frequency I want to operate on. I did hold off on the trimming, since cutting antennas longer is pretty hard to do, and because I got some weird results for the other two verticals. On 10m and 15m the antennas are resonant outside the band. On 15m it's below the band and on 10m it's above the band. I could just cut the 15m antenna shorter, but there is something strange going on here. I tried using different mounts, even a magnetic - not recommended - mount and still got strange things happening. I consulted some amateurs with more experience, one suggested that I remove the stinger and see if the result was in keeping with what was expected, that is, would it move the resonant frequency by the amount of shortening that removing the stinger would mean. Another explained that the roof of my car was getting in the way and that it was changing the characteristics of my antenna. I tried all manner of things, but trimming the stinger was not one of them. I'm glad I didn't. Yesterday I removed the 2m vertical from my house and as an experiment put the 15m antenna in its place. They're within 5cm length of each other, so the neighbours won't actually notice. I hooked up the analyser and found that it was perfectly resonant on 15m, worked with the same high level of accuracy that the 80m and 40m antennas represent. I also took the analyser for a spin up and down the band and found that my 15m antenna is also good for 2m and 70cm, so I don't have to pull it down every week while I experiment. I've yet to hear a strong enough signal on 15m to work anyone, but I'm not yet sure if that is because my antenna isn't working or because propagation is up the creek. I'm crossing my fingers it's the latter. I've not worked out what my car is doing to this antenna, but now at least I know that it's unlikely to be the antenna itself, which is great news. Off to do some more reading and consulting of fellow amateurs. Who knows, one of them might have some ideas. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? In our hobby we come across terms and names that we use and commonly understand, that is, we think we understand them. I mean, what's a velocity factor and what is a dielectric? Simple right? The velocity factor is something to do with coax and the dielectric is something to do with capacitors. Next. Hold on. Let's have a little closer look at this. The velocity factor is the wave propagation speed, or the velocity of propagation, relative to the speed of light. That is to say, it's a percentage of the speed of light. In a piece of RG58, the velocity factor is anywhere between 66% and 73% of the speed of light. You already know that the wavelength of a frequency is dependent on the medium it's traveling through, so when you calculate the wavelength of 21 MHz, you do some maths and out drops around about 15m. If you want to make a resonant antenna, it has to be some part multiple of that wave length, so a piece of wire 15m long will be a single wave length. Well, no. The velocity of a wire will in effect slow down the radio wave, thus it will mean that the resonant length is the velocity factor of the wire times the wave length, or in our first example, 66% of 15m. Yes, I've not taken into account end effects and all manner of other things, but it's a good first approximation. One thing to note that a piece of wire with a low velocity factor can be shorter, thus likely take up less space and perhaps even be cheaper, since copper is not a cheap element. So if metal is metal, and we ignore the hyperbole about $200 HDMI cable, how does one piece of copper get a higher velocity factor than another? That's where the dielectric comes in. Another term for dielectric constant, is the relative permittivity. It's the measure of resistance that is encountered when forming an electric field in a medium. We start with vacuum, which by definition has a permittivity of 1. Teflon has a permittivity of 2.1, Polyethylene is 2.25 and for comparison, paper has a permittivity of 3.85 and water at room temperature is 80.1. Each of these materials resists the creation of an electric field in different ways. If you create coax with a dielectric that has a high relative permittivity, you end up with a low velocity factor which means a shorter antenna or coax run. This is a simplified version of what's going on, since I've not talked about the thickness of the dielectric, the thickness of the copper, the spacing of the center core and outer shield, but the basic take-away is that everything is related to everything else. A simple term like velocity factor or dielectric hides a myriad of other concepts. Have a look around next time you think you know what something means, a surprise is sure to be waiting around the corner. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? When you operate your station on a regular basis you might find yourself lulled into the belief that all is well with the world and that your station will continue to operate as expected. It worked yesterday, so why wouldn't it work today - nothing changed. Having now operated my station for several years and having been granted the opportunity to operate stations built and maintained by others I can categorically state that nothing stays the same, ever. In fact, it's probably better to work on the assumption that your station is changing all the time, that it's different than it was yesterday and even different than it was an hour ago. This variation is the result of a number of things that affect the operation of your station. The weather is an obvious influence. Antennas are subject to the wind, the rain and the sun, not to mention lightning and atmospheric ionisation. But the weather is not the only variable. Power supplies are fed by the grid which fluctuates, power supplies heat up and cool down, so does your radio, the connectors that connect the coax to your radio and the like. If you have an amplifier, it too heats up and cools down. Contraction and expansion slowly doing their physics to trip you up. Jostling a connector, or a coax might disconnect something that has been connected for years, or doing a test, plugging an antenna into another radio, might just be the straw that broke the camel's back. My point is that even in a so-called static environment, things change, all the time. If you pick up your radio and go mobile with it, you're used to things being in different places, wear and tear and the like, but in your home station, you might not find such things nearly as easily. So, pay attention to what your radio is saying, watch the SWR, the power, the voltage, use the meters that are there to tell you that something is wrong. One day it will make the difference between a quick fix and a $1000 repair. Just because it's working right now, doesn't mean it will be the next time you key the mike. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Having a Foundation License, the basic amateur licence in a three tiered system that is in use in Australia, means that you have access to low power only. 10 Watts PEP is the limit today, though that might change as reviews get underway. I've said in the past that if you operate an advanced call as a QRP station, that is, SSB 5 Watts or less, and you make a contact, you're showered with accolade. This illustrates that there is a disconnect between an F-call who legally needs to use QRP and an advanced call who chooses to. At the time I suggested that as an F-call, you look at the QRP community who will be sharing your experience of low power, because they want to, even if you're required to. There are other activities that you can participate in as an F-call, using your low power station. SOTA, or Summits On The Air is an Amateur Radio activity where some stations are activated on the top of summits, that is, an energetic individual climbs up a mountain with radio gear, erects their antenna, switches on their station and starts making contacts. You as an F-call can be the climber, or you can be a home-station, making contacts with such activated summits. There is a whole community around this activity and it's not limited to summits either. You'll find groups who are activating national parks with the Keith Roget Memorial National Parks award, islands on the air, Rapidly Deployed Amateur Radio, and many others. You can be the ham in the middle, making contacts, or you can be the ham at home chasing contacts. Since many of these activities are limited by the amount of gear you can carry, they're often QRP stations, making contacts and having fun. So, look around you, there are QRP stations everywhere. They don't make much noise it's the thrill of the hunt that makes the catch all the more rewarding. Get on air, QRP or not. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? As I've said many times before, Amateur Radio blows me away. Every week I see new and imaginative things that this community achieves through trial and error, from contacts across new bands, coordination of new activities such as fox-hunts and SOTA activations. We are a fool hardy lot, climbing up hills to "activate" them, or doing the same thing for light-houses, or museums. There's a surfing contest where you collect callsigns to spell the locations of surfing beaches as outlined in the Beach Boy's "Surfin USA" song, which includes an Australian beach as well. It's wonderful to hear about Amateurs talking to other Amateurs, both using portable gear, both standing on top of a summit and exchanging reports across the country. Recently an F-call decided that he wanted to try to build a cavity from bits purchased at a hardware store. Complete with video of the achievement, testing and SWR measurements, a $15 experiment to see if he could do it. Wanting to learn more about his build he sought and found assistance from other Amateurs offering suggestions and equipment to help out. There's a group of Amateurs who are experimenting with a new Internet linking protocol, AllStarLink. Using single board computers like the BeagleBone Black to run copies of embedded Linux with a full dynamic switching system on board to deal with nodes dropping in and joining. Think telephone exchange with roaming handsets. There are amateurs experimenting with different types of antennas, made from Horse Tape, advanced calls learning about tuning up 40m dipoles on 80m, antenna manufacturers building 80m single frequency dipoles in the space of a 40m dipole, repeaters being built, control systems being updated, new services being invented and masts being erected. Don't for a minute think that Amateur Radio is just about sitting in a shack with a microphone, talking to another Amateur in a similar shack somewhere else, doing the same thing. Having an F-call is being part of this community, warts and all, it's an amazing place to hang out and do stuff. So get off your terminator and go to it. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? In the past I've mentioned that we're not alone on the bands. We as a community, Hams, or Radio Amateurs have radio spectrum we can use, specific ranges of frequencies that are available to our exclusive or shared use. Radio being radio means that we're also able to be heard by other radio users. Those users come from all walks of life. Not only do we have diversity within our own little community, the listeners beyond our license add a whole new range of variety. We sometimes refer to them as short wave listeners, but that's not all and it's not particularly accurate either. We have of course our share of CB listeners, sometimes disparagingly referred to as Chicken Band, there are members of HF clubs and associations, people with scanners, and many other individuals and groups that are able to hear our transmissions. Some of those people might one day feel welcome enough to join in the party that Amateur Radio represents. They'll feel part of the community because they've been listening for years. So my first point for today is that you should be mindful of your audience. Being less than complementary to other listeners, disparaging of mere SWL'ers, or CB'ers is not an inclusive activity and should be frowned on just as much as abuse of F-calls. Secondly, our extended audience has lessons learned, skills acquired and has its own eco-system around their activities. If Amateurs reach out to those communities, you might find a whole range of new hams, just itching to join in. If you are part of our extended family. Hello. Welcome, good to have you with us. If you'd like to talk to us, or if you'd like to learn more about how this magic of radio works behind the scenes, or how you might improve your own station, don't be afraid to ask. Find a group of Amateurs, a club, or contact your local training arm. If all that fails and you're not sure where to go, drop me a line. You can send email to my callsign @ wia.org.au, so that's vk6flab@wia.org.au I'm Onno VK6FLAB.

What use is an F-call? When I started recording this weekly segment, there were lots of things I didn't know. I was apprehensive about how my contribution to Amateur Radio might be received, about what I should talk about, how long it should last, what tone I should set, how technical I should be and all manner of other considerations. When I started in Amateur Radio itself, not long before I started this segment, I had similar concerns and considerations, things I was worried about and skills I was unsure about. Today that is still the case, but of course in time, the what's and the hows have evolved. I still question the things I know to be true, just to make sure that I understood what I was being told, or that I had completed the procedure correctly. I speak to new Amateurs almost every week. I also speak to senior members of our community regularly. One thing is clear is that human frailty is universal. There is one thing that sets the experienced members aside from the new members, that is how they react to this uncertainty. New members almost universally defer to their seniors, to the point of being silent when a senior member speaks out and says or does something wrong. In an aeroplane, such circumstances can lead to planes crashing, in Amateur Radio, the consequences are less likely to be quite that catastrophic. Nonetheless, if you're a new Amateur, it doesn't mean that you're wrong or what you might know is something that the other person didn't know, or, might have forgotten. So, don't let your newness to the hobby prevent you from speaking up and asking questions. There's nothing wrong with asking someone to explain something, perhaps you'll learn something or perhaps they'll learn something from you. Communities like ours can only thrive if all members participate, so, new or old, go out, get on air, play during field days and participate in contests. Have fun! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Recently I received an email from an Amateur who has had their license for over 30 years and been in the electronics field for more than 40. He shared with me an experience that goes to the heart of why it pays to share, even if this particular experience left his mates with sore bellies from laughing so hard. Without going into too much technical background, the devil is in the detail. Our amateur, was working on a project which required a particular part. He was a little short, so after a quick check of the specs, substituted for a part with similar performance. The parts were duly soldered onto the board - bit of a mammoth task, 1.5mm separation, 21 components in a double row next to each other. A little later, more parts were needed. At this time our friend discovered that there was a difference between the two parts, one was an NPN Darlington transistor, the other a PNP Darlington transistor. If you don't know what that means, think of it as two identical devices that work in reverse, not the same, but similar to installing a diode back to front. So, the next task was to remove all those diligently soldered parts - without destroying them - since they were needed elsewhere. The morale of this story is: "Act in haste, regret at leisure." In this case, a quick read of the specs was the cause of the incorrect substitution, which resulted in extra soldering, belly aches for his mates and embarrassment for our friend. How does this affect you? It doesn't. But next time you're building a project you might think twice about quickly substituting parts and protecting your friends from hurting themselves when they laugh too hard. The German language has a wonderful word for this: "Schadenfreude" - pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. You know you shouldn't laugh, but you can't help yourself. No matter how experienced, how senior, or how junior. We all make mistakes. Share them with your mates, so they can learn and tell the story a couple of times, so you can learn. Tip for young players, a BC517 is an NPN Darlington transistor and a BC516 is a PNP one. I'm Onno VK6FLAB.

What use is an F-call? When you get an amateur radio license, you learn that different license classes have different power limits. The basic power limit in Australia, the foundation license, or f-call, has 10 Watts as the limit. The standard license has 100 Watts and the advanced license has a maximum legal limit of 400 Watts. It's natural to think that more power gives you more reach, but realistically, what does that look like, what is the difference between 10 Watts and 100 Watts? Can you really notice a difference? From my own experiments, I can confirm that it's possible to talk to the opposite side of the earth with 5 Watts, but was that a fluke, or is there more to it? What is the difference? All things being equal, that is, the same radio, the same conditions, the same antenna, the same location, etc. - the difference between 10 Watts and 100 Watts is a 10-fold increase, or, if you have 400 Watts at your finger-tips, that's 40 times more - right? Not quite. If you recall, a dBm is a decibel-milliwatt, or said differently, 0dBm is the equivalent of 1 milliwatt. If you double the power, 3dBm, you're looking at roughly 2 milliwatt. 10 Watts is the same as 40dBm. 100 Watts is the same as 50dBm. That means that between 10 Watts and 100 Watts, there is 10dB difference, that is, there is a 10dB gain if you go from 10 Watts to 100 Watts. On a HF radio, on your S-meter, an S-point is defined as 6dB. That means that the difference between a 10 Watt contact and a 100 Watt contact is less than 2 S-points. The difference between 100 Watts and 400 Watts is even smaller. 400 Watts is 56dBm. As I said, an S-point is 6dB, so, the difference between a contact made using 100 Watts and one made with 400 Watts is one S-point. An F-call using 10 Watts, is 3 S-points worse off than an Advanced call using 400 Watts, all else being equal. Of course, depending on the conditions and the deafness of the operator on the other end, that might well be the difference between making the contact or not. If you start at S-9 with 400 Watts and there's 30dB path loss because of band conditions, you end up at S-4, but if you start with 10 Watts at S-6, you end up at S-1. The path loss has a bigger impact on your readability than the amount of power you're putting out. The main take-home is that an F-call can make contacts with their 10 Watts and they're only 3 S-points behind the big guns with their fancy Advanced license. Before you start mouthing off about the 1500 Watts allowed in the United States, that's just under 62 dBm, so just one more S-point. That's not to say that there is no benefit in upgrading your license; access to bands and modes, home built transceivers and other perks, but power shouldn't be why you upgrade. One final observation. I've noticed that if you're confident on-air, other stations hear you better. That might mean that the 400 Watts that you have as an advanced licensee might make you more confident, thus making more contacts. Be brave, be confident, make your contacts with as little power as you can. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? If you've just gained your license and you're still not sure what to do with it, I can strongly recommend that you have a go at the Remembrance Day contest. It's an annual event where amateurs spend 24 hours commemorating the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific. The contest happens every year on the weekend closest to the 15th of August and runs from Saturday at 03:00 UTC until Sunday, 03:00 UTC. The aim is to make as many contacts as possible between amateurs in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guniea, or said using Amateur Speak, VK,ZL and P2. I hear you asking how does it work? Very simple. One station calls CQ Contest, something like this: "CQ Contest, CQ Contest, CQ Remembrance Day Contest, this is Victor Kilo Six Foxtrot Lima Alpha Bravo, Victor Kilo Six Foxtrot Lima Alpha Bravo, VK6FLAB, CQ Contest." At that point you shut your mouth for a few beats and then you start again. If all goes to plan, you'll hear another station saying "VK6WI". At that point, you'll say something like: VK6WI, you are 59 004. They in return would say something like "Thank you for 59 004, VK6FLAB, you're 59 083". Then you'd say: "Thank you. CQ Contest, VK6FLAB." and you'd start again. In that interaction, I've sent my callsign to VK6WI and he's sent his back. I've also sent him a signal report, the 59 part and the exchange, which for this contest is the number of years you've had a licence. I'd enter these things into my contest log, which I strongly recommend should be VKCL. If this is too steep as a learning curve, and you might feel a little daunted, you can always participate with another station. Find a local club who is going to participate and join in. The RD contest is an excellent way to get your feet wet in contesting and it's simple to participate. New F-calls have won several awards over the years, so all you need to do is get going. The RD contest, do it for fun, learning and remembrance. And remember to put your log in! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? In a previous discussion I talked about decibels. The take home from that was that a decibel represents a ratio between two things. The gain of an antenna over the gain of a standard reference antenna, or the power loss between the start of a coax cable and it's end. I also mentioned that there are several other things with dB in them. Today I'd like to introduce the dBm, or Decibel milliwatt. It's a unit used to compare and contrast different levels of output. Unlike the Decibel, which is a ratio, the dBm is an absolute unit. It is referenced to a Watt. In audio and telephony, it's relative to a 600 ohm impedance, but in our RF patch, it's relative to a 50 ohm impedance. So, how do you use it, what does it mean and why is it useful? Let's look at some large and small numbers. If you look at an FM broadcast radio station, it typically uses 100 kilowatt, a 1 with 5 zeros. If you look at the received signal power of a GPS satellite, you might get 0.2 femtowatt, or 0.000 and 12 more 0's followed by a 2. Using those kinds of numbers side-by-side is a hand-full, prone to mistakes, and there are better ways. Instead of using Watts, we could also express the output power of an FM station as 80 dBm, and the GPS satellite signal strength as -127.5 dBm. Those numbers are much easier to work with. Think of it as 80 dB gain over 1 milliwatt. When you're dealing with ratio's, to string them together, to look at say the loss of the output coming out of your radio, through a connector, through the coax, through another connector into an antenna with a certain gain, using decibels, you can simply add the losses and gains up and get a number at the end that represents the total loss or gain of power leaving your radio and making it into your antenna and being emitted as a radio signal. Why is this useful? Let's say a connector has .04 dB loss at 28 MHz. 20m of RG58 has a loss of 1.6 dB. A 10m loop antenna has a gain of 2.1 dB over a simple dipole. How would this perform? Simply add and subtract. 2.1 dB antenna gain, less .04 dB connector loss, less 1.6 dB coax loss, less .04 dB connector loss, leaves you with .42 dB gain over connecting a dipole directly to your radio. If you have radio that transmits with 5 Watts, it puts out 37 dBm. If you connect it to the system we just invented, the total output of your radio is 37 dBm plus .42 dB gain, or 37.42 dBm. The effective radiated output of your radio is now 5.5 Watts. If you replace the RG58 with RG8, your antenna system changes from .42 dB gain to 1.95 dB gain, just by removing the 1.6 dB loss from the RG58 and replacing it with 0.7 dB loss from the RG8. The radio, again at 5 Watts, would effectively radiate 37dBm plus 1.95 dB gain, making 38.95 dBm, or 7.9 Watt ERP. Again, doing maths with loss and gain expressed in dB's and dBm's are simple addition and subtraction. If you do this for a 100 Watt or 50 dBm radio, the RG58 based antenna would be 50.42 dBm or 110 Watt vs, 51.95 dBm or 157 Watts ERP. Remember, all we're doing is adding and subtracting dB losses and gain to our transmitter output. If that blows your mind, you could now simply add the gains and losses between your radio, the coax, the antenna, the free-air path loss, the receiving antenna, their coax and their radio and actually calculate what an S5 report might mean when you get it for a DX contact. Or you could calculate how much antenna gain you needed for a QRP moon bounce. That's why it's useful. dB and dBm, they're your friends. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? As you might know or recall, I don't have HF at my QTH. So far my DX activities have been using other people's equipment and using my 12m squid-pole when I'm either camping or set-up at some waterside location. This seriously curtails my activities and I'm keen to do something about it. Over the past few weeks I've been looking at different options, it's a process that everyone goes through, and sometimes you come out of it having gained some experience. I'm not shy in asking questions, but the replies are sometimes a little more difficult. I've heard the "try it and see" reply many times, and while that's fine if you have a money tree in the back yard, that's not really going to work for me. I've also been advised to home-brew a solution. While I'm all for that, I've built a few minor things; if I add up the money I've spent on home-brewing antennas, I'm not doing so well. It's $5 here, $2.50 there, a roll of wire, a pole or two, sockets, plugs, rope, you name it, it's in my shack. I reckon I've spent more than enough money for the moment on building things that don't quite work as advertised. Of course I'll be the first to admit that I've learnt heaps from doing it, but at the moment, all I really want is to get on air and make some contacts. I hit on the idea of getting a heavy-duty boot-lip mount and using the same mount for HF and VHF/UHF. I realise that I won't be able to use the same antenna, or that any antenna that claims to work all bands is likely to be pretty inefficient, so I'm getting geared up for having several mono-band whips and exchange them as I need to. I'm not expecting to operate while I'm on the move, but I would like to be able to turn my engine on and drive away once I've had enough. My squid-pole prevents that, since packing up a 12m fibreglass pole with ground wires is not a trivial affair. I looked at screw-driver antennas, contraptions that physically move bits around to tune the antenna. The only one that everyone agrees works is a hulking big Codan antenna. If I have a truck or a 4WD, that would work great, but my little Holden Cruze is not suited to such a monster. The Yaesu ATAS120 antennas seem to be pretty fragile and I'm guessing the dust on a dirt road would seriously affect it. I saw several others, but so far none of these stick out. I'm leaning towards a 10, a 15, a 40 and an 80m whip, four in all, centre loaded, 2.2m long each. I don't yet know how they pack away, if I have to re-tune them every time I put them together, or even if they are built to be dismantled. They're made by Diamond, but the jury is still out on whether this is an actual usable, useful solution. The journey continues. What experience do you have in your adventures? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is a hobby that gains and loses members as does any other hobby. One aspect of the hobby differs, that of licensing. To join Amateur Radio, you need to be licensed, that is to say, if you want to transmit, rather than receive. In the vast majority of cases, the place where people join is as an F-call. They do their course, do their exam and after paying the requisite fees, they gain their license. After that they're pretty much left on their own. Amateur Radio clubs also gain and lose members. There is a certain movement of amateurs between clubs, but new members can essentially only come from one source, that is, New Amateurs. So, why is it that the majority of clubs in Amateur Radio are not geared up to dealing with New Amateurs? I know that there are occasional talks, the odd presentation, the infrequent training, but that's about it. I know there is at least one club who has lowered their fees for an F-call, and I'm sure it does something for people joining, but I cannot say that it fills me with a great thrill to see that this is the sum total of the marketing ability of Amateur Radio clubs. Why do clubs not have an induction manual, a buddy system, a club mentor, a new welcoming event, special F-call activities, inter-club events and public activities specifically geared towards those who have just, or are about to, join the community? It is staggering to me that a ready source of new enthusiasm that F-calls represent are not snaffled up, that clubs don't go the effort of sending a letter to new Amateurs as they appear in the ACMA database. I know for a fact that F-calls are hungry for information, for community, for belonging, for participating and often they have some money to spend. So, what are you waiting for, permission? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? If you're new to Amateur Radio, you may be surprised to learn that we have bullies among us, but if you've been around for a while, you'll have heard it, or perhaps even experienced it first hand. Yesterday I received two communications from two separate amateurs on different sides of the country. Both had been the victim of bullies. One was from an F-call and the other, an Advanced-call. Both of them described some of their experiences, how they felt belittled, hurt, humiliated and abused. One of these people stayed off air for a week, the other told me that they've left the hobby altogether. The vast majority of amateurs are wonderful people. They have fun, seek friendship, enjoy learning new things and meeting new people. Unfortunately there are those who feel that it's their right, privilege and sometimes even responsibility to police the airwaves and abuse others along the way. We have repeater trolls who sit on "their repeater" and tell you off for using it. We have bullies who troll up and down the bands looking for infractions. They yell "Pirate" when they perceive that someone is doing something wrong, without taking the time to actually ask what's going on. There are those who have the ACMA database on speed dial and check every callsign they hear, never mind if they mishear, and start abusing people on air. We have little darlings who think it's OK to abuse foreign accents, or to hit on women on air. There are "experts" who share their "expertise" by abusing people making mistakes. All of these examples are things I've personally heard or have spoken directly to the person to whom it happened. Bullying is no laughing matter, it's not funny, it's not cool, it's not smart and most of all it has to stop. You may think that this is an isolated case, that it isn't endemic, that F-calls are inviting this behaviour and really they shouldn't be on-air. I've got news for you. An F-call is a licensed amateur and should be afforded the courtesy and privilege that is afforded to all amateurs the world over. As I said, this has got to stop. I'm starting a bullying reporting form. It will take your details and the details of the bully, or if you heard someone else being bullied, it will take the details you heard and we'll start logging this abuse. Over time we're likely to find some repeat offenders and we'll start handing their details over to the ACMA and before long they'll find their licence revoked and their equipment impounded. In the mean time, if you are the subject of being bullied, log the details, as much as you can remember, at the time of the event. If you are able, record the audio. Don't engage the bully. Find a friend within 24 hours and talk to them. Pick up the phone, send them an email, get in touch with someone else. Don't stew on this on your own. You did nothing wrong, it's not your fault. Don't take matters into your own hands, don't look up their address and pay them a visit. It's likely to land you into lots of trouble. Play it cool. Ignore and log it. Karma is a bitch. The bullying reporters form is now live on the vk6.net website with some other resources for you. If you need to get in touch with me, you can: vk6flab@wia.org.au. No more bullies. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? On previous occasions I've spoken about contesting and what it might add to your amateur experience. I know that there are amateurs who are convinced that contesting isn't for them, you'll never hear them on air, they don't think it's worth while, it's too complicated, it's not fun, it's not them. I beg to differ. In my opinion, contesting is among the most fun you can have with amateur radio and it's the most challenging, rewarding and fundamental test of your amateur abilities. I know that you might be thinking that your station isn't up to the task, but I learnt at an early age that if you don't try, you're guaranteed to fail. Of course there are contests that are high profile, attract the bulk of the world wide amateur community and flood the band with their noise, but there are also smaller and even tiny contests where you can practice and get your feet wet. There is at least one contest every weekend of the year, that's 52 contests right there, but the reality is that there are many, many more contests than that. In essence a contest is the process of sending unique information to another station, and receiving unique information from then, logging the exchange and moving on to the next station. What the exchange is differs for each contest, for some it's a number that keeps incrementing each time you make a contact, for others it's your state, or your years in amateur radio, or your location, or any number of other forms of exchange. A contest is of course not just sending and receiving information, it's a test of your equipment, your radio, antenna, microphone, logging software and any number of other aspects of the hobby that will challenge you. You'll learn about propagation, you'll use your phonetic alphabet more than you thought possible and you'll learn that different countries have different preferences for their phonetics. Some contests run for a short time, an hour, others run for two or more days. In each contest, preparation is a big part of the experience, not just preparation of your gear, but also of yourself, your diet, sleep, fitness and the like. Depending on how seriously you take your contesting, you might find yourself in training before a big one and exchanging ideas and lessons with some of your friends. Perhaps you'll join together and run a contest station with multiple radios going at the same time, at which point you'll be learning about interference first hand. Getting started on a contest is simple, go on-line, do a search for amateur radio contests, you'll find calendars, rules, logging software, educational material, videos, documents and much more. Before you start a contest, read the rules and make sure you understand them, have a listen around the bands to get a feel for the tempo of the contest and dive in. Some terms you're going to come across are HP, or High Power, SO2R or Single Operator - 2 radios. You'll come across a concept of a multiplier, which is a scoring mechanism that often doubles your score every time you get a multiplier. For example, you might get a multiplier for each zone you work, or for each country, or for a contact on a different band. Sometimes the scores differ depending on whom you talk to on which band, sometimes it's a different score for a different distance, or more points for talking to a QRP station, so it pays to understand the rules. There are many tricks to learn, people to talk to and things to do, but the first step is to get over the mindset that contesting isn't your thing. If you have questions about contesting, drop me a line via email: vk6flab@wia.org.au I hope I've given you some food for thought. I'm Onno VK6FLAB