Podcasts about wsjt x

Foundations of Amateur Radio A recent comment by a fellow amateur sparked a train of thought that made me wonder why there is a pervasive idea within our community that you need a radio transmitter and antenna to be a radio amateur, moreover that for some reason, if you don't have either, you're not a real amateur. I suppose it's related to the often repeated trope that the internet enabled modes like Allstar Link, Echolink and even IRLP, are not real radio, despite evidence to the contrary. Instead of fighting this weird notion, I figured I'd get on with it and find a way to play even if you don't currently have the ability to erect an antenna or key a transmitter for whatever reason. Before I dig in, a WebSDR is a Software Defined Radio connected to the Internet. It allows a user to open a web browser, pick from a massive collection of receivers around the world and listen in. Some of these also have the ability to transmit, but more on that later. Here's the idea. Have you ever considered tuning to a WebSDR, using it to pick a signal and using your computer to decode that signal? I'm aware that some sites provide a range of in-built decoders, but that doesn't cover the wide spectrum of modes that amateur radio represents, let alone the modes that are not specific to our hobby. As I've said previously, many of the modes in use today are essentially the width of an audio stream. This means that if you tune a WebSDR to a frequency the audio comes out of your computer speakers. If that's voice, your job is done and you can hear what's going on. If it's something else, then you're going to have to find a way to decode this to get the message. So, if you send the audio from your web browser into something like Fldigi or WSJT-X, you'll be able to decode the signal if it's supported by those tools. This is true for all the other tools too, Morse, RTTY, you name it. Depending on which operating system you're using the way to implement this will differ. Starting with a search for "WebSDR and WSJT-X" will get you on your way. You might ask why I'm advocating WSJT-X, even though it only supports a small set of modes and that's a fair question. In my experience, it's the simplest to get running and get results. Two tips, make sure you set your configuration to indicate that you don't have a radio, otherwise it's going to attempt to control something that isn't there, and make sure that your computer clock is set accurately using NTP or Network Time Protocol. You can thank me later. Now I hinted earlier at transmitting. There's a growing range of places where your amateur license will give you access to a station somewhere on the internet and with that the ability to get on air and make noise. An increasing number of radio amateur clubs are building remote stations for their members to enjoy. There are also individuals and small groups doing the same independently. A few organisations are offering this as a service to paid subscribers. These tools often implement a remote desktop session where you connect to a computer that in turn is connected to a radio. The supported modes depend on what is installed at the other end. Others implement a slightly different method where you run specialised software locally, sometimes inside a web browser, that connects to a server across the internet, allowing you to run whatever digital mode you want on your own computer. I'll point out that even if you start with receiving digital modes using a WebSDR, you can expand that into transmitting at a later stage. So, no antenna, no transmitter, no problem, still an amateur! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the basic aspects of being human and growing up is the process of learning. From a young age we explore our environment, play with others, have fun, fall over and bruise our knees, get up and try again. The playing aspect of this is often discussed as a way to keep things interesting. We add a competition element as an added incentive, so much so that we formaulate it into global competitions and call it sport. As a species it might surprise you that we spend about 1% of all Gross Domestic Product on sport, compared to science, which is about 2% of Global GDP. To give you some context, Agriculture accounts for about 4%, Manufacturing is 15%, Industry is about 26%, and Services account for roughly 62%. If you noticed that this is more than 100%, take it up with the World Bank, I'm a radio amateur, not an economist. Over the years I've explored different aspects of our chosen hobby of amateur radio. Time and again I return to experimentation, learning and having fun. Now I absolutely concede that my idea of fun and yours might not match, my GDP side quest is likely evidence of this, but in my opinion, this embodies the range of how we as a disparate community interact and exchange ideas across the ionosphere and closer to home using what we all can agree on is pretty close to magic. So, what is my point? Fair question. Having fun and learning. If you've ever had the opportunity to listen to aviation radio, and I'd encourage you to, the YouTube channel, VASAviation is a great place to start, comes with maps, explanations and subtitles. You'll discover that the complex domain of aviation communication is a dynamic environment where miscommunication matters and often has severe consequences. It's not all incidents and accidents though. If you look for Air Traffic Control legend "Kennedy Steve", you'll come across some of the funniest exchanges captured on ATC frequencies, all the while staying professional. So, how does this relate to amateur radio and you? Well, at the moment we have a few types of exchanges where we can practice our skills. The most obvious one is a thing we call contesting. A scored and rule bound activity where you're expected to exchange information and are declared the winner in a category. It's a little like sport and some have attempted to rephrase amateur radio contesting into a field that they're calling "radio sport". I have mixed feelings about this because there isn't much in the way of spectator activity associated with this. Another exchange is calling for DX contacts, sharing an exchange across distance, attempting to contact as many countries as possible, with the prize being membership into the fabled DXCC, the Century Club that acknowledges your prowess in making contact with a hundred countries. The most common exchange is the net or discussion group. It can be formal, like the weekly F-troop I've been hosting since 2011, or it can be ad hoc, one amateur chatting to another, sparking spontaneous discussion among several stations on frequency. We also do things like radio direction finding, someone sets up a transmitter and everyone playing tries to find the source as quickly as possible. First one to find it wins. It made me wonder if there are other things we might come up with. Has anyone played chess across HF? Or if you want to involve a larger group, what about playing Bingo! or a game of trivia? Anyone considered an MMORPG, or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game? The point being that we can play games, have fun, and learn in an environment where there are many factors affecting your ability to communicate, so we can all get better at keying the microphone and getting the message to the intended recipient. While we're having fun, nobody said that this needs to be a voice activity. An FT8 session could well be coerced into transmitting chess moves and nobody said that you have to do FT8 on the same frequency that WSJT-X is using. So, what games can you come up with and learn from? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

En este episodio de CQ en Frecuencia hablamos sobre varios temas clave que te interesarán si eres radioaficionado: ✅ El Experimento de PSK Reporter con nuestro compañero Fabián (EB1TR), quien está llevando a cabo un interesante análisis del rendimiento de distintas estaciones de radio en tiempo real. Descubre cómo recoge los datos, qué conclusiones ha sacado y qué resultados ha obtenido comparando receptores como el AirSpy HF Plus Discovery y distintos programas de decodificación como WSJT-X y JTDX. ✅ Problemas de interferencias en mi estación: Te cuento qué problemas estoy teniendo y cómo estoy trabajando en su solución. Entre las medidas que estoy adoptando está la colocación de chokes para evitar que el coaxial irradie, algo que puede ser clave para reducir el ruido y mejorar el rendimiento de nuestra estación. ✅ Diploma Especial del Centenario de la IARU: En este episodio hablo con EA1M y EA5U sobre el diploma que la URE pondrá en el aire del 15 al 30 de abril de 2025 para conmemorar el 100.º aniversario de la IARU. Un evento que reunirá a radioaficionados de todo el mundo en torno a las bandas de radioafición. ¿Nos apoyas para que podamos seguir haciendo este podcast? Puedes apoyarnos en QRP con 1,99€ al mes o un poco más de potencia en QRO, con 5,99€ al mes aquí: https://cqenfrecuencia.com/apoyar/ Envía tus preguntas, propuestas de temas o lo que quieras: https://cqenfrecuencia.com/contacto/ O en nuestro canal de Telegram: https://t.me/cqenfrecuencia Y no olvidéis de visitar nuestra web: https://cqenfrecuencia.com No olvides el like, suscribirte y/o darle a la campanita para no perderte ningún episodio de nuestro podcast! Nos encontrarás también en Spotify y Youtube.

ハムのラジオ第636回の配信です。 (2025/3/9　ラジオ成田から放送) 特集「WSJT-X2.7.0リリース」をお送りします。 2年振りに正式にバージョンアップが発表されたWSJT-Xですが、 バージョンが上がるた […]

Foundations of Amateur Radio Every now and then you come across an idea that throws you for a loop. It comes seemingly out of nowhere and once you've seen it, you cannot unsee it. It's a lot like a 1929 painting I like called "The Treachery of Images", also known as "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", or in English, "This is Not a Pipe" by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. If you're not familiar with it, it's a painting of a pipe, and by being a painting, it's not a pipe. Obviously. Before I go into the idea that rocked my world, I need to set the stage a little. There are several modes I've discussed before, WSPR, or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter, FT8 or Franke-Taylor design, 8-FSK modulation and plenty others. Each of these modes has one thing in common. They require that all participants are using the same time. That is, both sender and receiver need to agree on when "now" is for this to work. A WSPR signal takes 110.6 seconds, every 120 seconds, starting on the even minute. It requires that the transmitter and receiver agree on the time within about 2 seconds. An FT8 signal takes 12.6 seconds within a 15 second window. It requires an accuracy of about 20 milliseconds. These timekeeping requirements are pretty easy to achieve in a modern network connected computer. You turn on a thing called NTP, or Network Time Protocol, point it at an appropriate clock and off you go. If you're not connected to the Internet, then things get squirrelly pretty quickly. You could buy yourself a GPS, set up a link between the GPS and your computer, run some software and use the GPS clock to synchronise time on your computer. Of course, this requires a GPS, a serial cable, software, configuration, battery power to keep the GPS running and probably a couple of other things. I've never done this, but given what I'm about to share, I don't think I ever will. What if you used a WSPR, or an FT8 signal, from someone else to synchronise your clock? If you've ever launched WSJT-X, you'll have seen a column marked DT, that's Delta Time, or the difference in time between the clock on your computer and that of the transmitter. If you could read the difference and use it to adjust your clock, you'd be in business. Charles NK8O pointed me to a GitHub Gist with a single little Python script, written by Peter K6PLI. It updates the clock on your computer using the Delta Time from WSJT-X. I'd point you at the script from here, but 3a730575, and 24 more characters, and that's just one element of the URL, doesn't run quite off the tongue, so I've cloned it into my VK6FLAB GitHub repository where it's called wsjt-time-sync. I added Peter's description to the ReadMe file, but I can take no credit for the effort, or the idea, that's all Peter. So, synchronise your clock using the signal that you're trying to decode. Seems pretty obvious now, but that was a brand new notion for me. Of course now I'm excited and wondering where else I might use this. Let me know if there's more to this that tickles your fancy. Also, just because I know Charles will poke my eye out with a Morse key if I don't mention this, you could use this script on your next POTA, Parks On The Air, or WWFF, World Wide Flora and Fauna activation, or anywhere else you go portable to make some noise. I know, right, Charles, using FT8 instead of Morse Code, what's next, the end of the hobby? I'll tell you a secret. From time to time, he even uses his voice! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

ハムのラジオ第607回の配信です。 (2024/8/18　ラジオ成田から放送) 特集は「スーパーフォックスモードって何？」 WSJT-X 2.7に搭載される新しいDXペディションモードを取り上げます。 従来のFOX/HO […]

GB2RS News Sunday the 28th of July 2024   The news headlines: Two new Directors have been co-opted to the RSGB Board The RSGB welcomes two new Regional Representatives The RSGB National Radio Centre is looking for volunteers   When Paul Nichols, M0PVN resigned as an RSGB Director in May, it created a vacancy on the Board. The Board decided that it was in the Society's interests to expand the Board to nine people to help implement the Society's strategic priorities. Under Article 37 it has co-opted Peter Bowyer, G4MJS and Peter Ransom, M0SFZ as Directors to serve until the 2025 AGM. Peter Ransom recently passed his Full licence so that he could build and tinker with RF equipment, to add to his ongoing interest in writing amateur radio software and designing his own PCBs. He has a passion for technology and communication and has had a career that combines technical expertise with strategic vision. He hopes to use that knowledge and experience to help the Board to ensure that the Society remains relevant to the amateur radio community. Peter Bowyer has been in and around IT all his career and currently helps organisations with their Agile development strategies. He has been licensed for 45 years, but says he is still learning new things. He's an avid contester, having served on the VHF Contests Committee, he has written a column for RadCom and is a past chair of the UK Six Metre Group. The RSGB welcomes them both to the Board. The RSGB is delighted to announce the co-option of two Regional Representatives. Peter Lowrie, MI5JYK is based in Region 8 and Brian Woolnough, M5ADQ in Region 12. They will serve in these roles until the RSGB 2025 AGM. You can see contact details for either of them, or any member of the Regional Team, on the RSGB website at rsgb.org/regions There is so much happening at the RSGB National Radio Centre that it needs to expand its team of volunteers! The NRC has a fabulous set-up and you'll be given full training on using the GB3RS radio station. You should enjoy meeting people and be able to volunteer for one or two days per month as part of a friendly and dedicated team. NRC volunteers also enjoy numerous benefits associated with volunteering at Bletchley Park. For more information, please email NRC Coordinator Martyn Baker, G0GMB via nrc.support@rsgb.org.uk From the 27th of July to the 3rd of August, the Essex International Jamboree is welcoming around 10,000 scouts and guides, including 2,000 supporting volunteers from around the world, to Boyton Cross near Chelmsford. As part of the programme, amateur radio station GB24EIJ will be running a wide range of communications and electronics activities. The organising team intends the station to be active on the HF, VHF and UHF bands, using various modes. To read more about the Essex International Jamboree visit eij.org.uk The Broadcast Engineering Museum near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire is new and a work in progress, so it only opens a few days each year. The next open days are coming up on Saturday the 14th and Sunday the 15th of September from 11am to 4pm. The Museum contains a vast collection of historic broadcasting equipment and memorabilia, some restored and working, on display in a former RAF sergeants' mess. Free parking is available on site. For more information email contactus@becg.org.uk or visit becg.org.uk Don't forget to book your tickets for National Hamfest 2024 which is taking place on the 27th and 28th of September. There is still a chance to secure early-bird ticket discount, but this is only available until the 31st of August. National Hamfest promises to be an unforgettable celebration of all things amateur radio. As always, the traders and manufacturers are lining up to bring you the best in amateur radio equipment and accessories. Many exhibitors will be offering exclusive deals, making it the perfect time to upgrade your gear or add new items to your shack. For more information, and to purchase your tickets, visit nationalhamfest.org.uk  Please send details of all your news and events to radcom@rsgb.org.uk  The deadline for submissions is 10am on Thursdays before the Sunday broadcast each week. And now for details of rallies and events   Today, the 28th, Wiltshire Radio Summer Rally is taking place at Kington Langley Village Hall, Kington Langley, SN15 5NJ. The event is running from 9am to 1pm, admission is £3 and indoor tables cost £10. To take part in the car boot sale, a car-sized pitch costs £10 and a van-sized pitch is £15. Hot and cold refreshments are available on site. For more information email Chairman@Chippenhamradio.club Part 1 of the British Amateur Television Club Convention for Amateur TV 2024, also known as CAT 24, will take place on Sunday the 4th of August from 10am to 4pm. The venue will be Midland Air Museum, Rowley Road, Coventry, CV3 4FR. The Convention provides opportunities for amateurs to meet, take part in show-and-tell activities, use test and fix equipment, and enjoy a bring-and-buy event. For more information follow the ‘Events' tab at batc.org.uk King's Lynn Amateur Radio Club's 34th Great Eastern Radio Rally is taking place on Sunday the 4th of August. The Rally will be held at Gaywood Community Centre, Gayton Road, King's Lynn in Norfolk. The doors open at 9am and admission will cost £2.50. Traders are welcome from 7am. An outdoor pitch will cost £8, and indoors it will be £10 per table. Car parking is free. There will be trade stands, a bring-and-buy area and catering will be available on site. For further information and reservations email rally.klarc@gmail.com Now the Special Event news Special event station TM67JO is active to celebrate the Paris 2024 Olympic Games which began on Friday the 26th of July. The operators include F1LFL on SSB, F5PZT using FT8 and FT4, and F5TFW on CW. QSL to F1LFL via the Bureau or directly. For more information about the special event station, which will be operating until the 11th of August, visit QRZ.com Marking the 25th anniversary since Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, special callsign HF25NATO is active until the 31st of August. QSL via Club Log's OQRS. Only 100 limited edition QSL cards will be distributed. These will be issued first-come, first-served so call in quick! For details of a certificate that is available visit tinyurl.com/hf25nato Now the DX news Jeff, W7BRS is active as VK2/W7BRS from Lord Howe Island, OC-004, until the 1st of August. He is operating using CW, SSB and FT8 on the 40 to 10m bands. QSL via OQRS. A team of five UK operators will attempt to activate MM0UKI from the Flannan Islands, EU-118, in August. The uninhabited island group is 20 miles west of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. It is the 6th most wanted IOTA location in Europe and the 2nd in the UK, after Rockall. The team consists of Rockall DXpedition veteran Nobby G0VJG, John G4IRN, Paul G4PVM, Mike GM5AUG and Jamie M0SDV. The trip is weather dependent and departure to the island is planned for the 1st of August, with the 2nd being a contingency day. Activity will be on the 40 to 6m bands, using SSB and CW from three stations. Operating will continue until the first available weather window for departure on the 4th of August or thereafter. The QSL Manager for the trip is Charles, M0OXO. Now the contest news The IOTA Contest started at 1200UTC on Saturday the 27th and finishes at 1200UTC today, Sunday the 28th of July. Using CW and SSB on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report, serial number and IOTA reference. Today, the 28th, the UK Microwave Group 5.7 and 10GHz Contest runs from 0600 to 1800UTC. Using all modes on 5.7 and 10GHz frequencies, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Saturday the 3rd of August, the 4th 144MHz Backpackers Contest runs from 1400 to 1800UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number, locator and two-letter postcode. Also on Saturday the 3rd, the 144MHz Low Power Contest runs from 1400 to 1800UTC. Using all modes on the 2m band, the exchange is signal report, serial number, locator and two-letter postcode. On Sunday the 4th, the 432MHz Low Power Contest runs from 0800 to 1200UTC. Using all modes on the 70cm band, the exchange is signal report, serial number, locator and two-letter postcode. On Saturday the 3rd, the EU HF Championship runs from 0000 to 2359UTC. Using CW and SSB on the 80 to 10m bands, where contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and the last two digits of the first year you were licensed. The Worked All Britain 144MHz SSB Low Power Contest will take place on Saturday the 3rd of August from 1400 to 1800UTC. The maximum power allowed for this contest is 25W. The exchange is report, serial number and Worked All Britain square. Entries need to be with the contest manager by the 13th of August. Full rules for the contest are available on the Worked All Britain website. The UK Six Metre Group Summer Marathon started on Saturday the 4th of May and ends on Sunday the 4th of August. Using all modes on the 6m band, the exchange is your four-character locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Thursday the 25th of July 2024 We had yet another week of high sunspot numbers and low geomagnetic disturbances, but will it last? We dodged a bullet last week after a weak coronal mass ejection, or CME, on Tuesday the 23rd failed to generate a geomagnetic storm. This was from a faint halo CME observed on Sunday, which was much weaker than expected when it hit Earth. A further M2.4 flare, near the eastern limb on Tuesday, produced a coronal mass ejection, but that was directed away from Earth. So, we ended the week with a Kp index that never rose above 2, despite up to 19 M-class solar flares occurring. Our luck must run out some time! The main HF DX this week has been the K8R DXpedition on American Samoa. This has been workable on all bands from 20 to 10m, especially using FT8. They have been trialling a new Super Fox mode on FT8. If you are interested in using this mode, you will need the latest version of the WSJT-X software. Daylight maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs, over a 3,000km path have reached more than 24MHz, with 28MHz available at times on some paths. This will, no doubt, improve as we head towards the autumn. Nighttime MUFs over a similar path length have exceeded 14MHz and often reached 18MHz at times. Make the most of the nighttime openings as they will die off as we head towards the end of the summer. Next week, NOAA predicts the solar flux index will be in the range of 165 to 175 and the Kp index will be a maximum of 2 all week. As ever, this will be dependent on any solar flares and associated CMEs. A CME could easily push the Kp index up and the MUF down. Four sunspot groups have just rotated into view so keep a close eye on them on solarham.com  At least one is classed as “growing” and could be a contender for trouble over the next week by way of solar flares and CMEs. And now the VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO The area of high pressure which develops over this weekend will bring the prospect of Tropo conditions at the start of the new week. The high will drift slowly east towards Denmark by midweek but could still provide the chance of Tropo conditions across the North Sea until Wednesday. Meanwhile, a weather front will reach northwest Scotland on Monday and edge slowly south whilst a small thundery low develops near the southwest of Britain. This combination will bring a gradual transition to more unsettled weather with a chance of rain scatter on the GHz bands for the second half of the week. The Delta Aquariid meteor shower is active from the 12th of July to the 23rd of August. With no noticeable peak, it is expected to reach its maximum rate of 25 per hour on or around the 30th of July. We should have more than just random meteors to use for meteor scatter operation, so it's worth trying meteor scatter on the VHF bands. Also, given clear skies and darkness over the next few weeks, it's worth having a look out for them with the naked eye or photographically. This extra input of meteors may well improve the prospects for Sporadic-E, which have perhaps seemed a little less than enthusiastic recently. Meteor debris from meteor showers, or random meteors, provides the fuel for Sporadic-E. These ionised trails in the E region above 100km can be affected by wave motion caused by jet streams much lower down at around 10km. Fortunately, there are a number of useful jet streams on the forecast charts for next week with a slight preference for paths to Scandinavia and eastern Europe. Moon declination is positive and rising, reaching maximum on Thursday the 1st of August, so Moon windows are long with high peak Moon elevation. We passed perigee on the 24th so path losses are on the increase. 144MHz sky noise is low to moderate all week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

Foundations of Amateur Radio So, I have a confession. I don't know everything. Shocking right? Over the past too many months, actually, come to think of it, years, I have not been on-air with my station on HF using FT8 or Olivia, modes that use tools like "WSJT-X" and "fldigi". This has not always been the case. For a time I used a tiny computer running those tools. It had plenty of issues related to its size and capacity. Overwhelmingly it was slow, unsurprising since it was released in 2009. After one particularly frustrating session where I had to recompile WSJT-X on an older 32-bit operating system using an Atom processor, I decided that this was not helping me, and I put it away. The idea was to use my main computer that could do all the heavy lifting without cracking a sweat. To make this happen the traditional way, I'd be expected to physically connect the radio to the computer. I'm not a fan of doing that, given the potential damage that RF could do to my computer, not to mention that I have a sit-stand desk on wheels that I move around my office as the mood or the light takes me, if you're interested, I found a mobile lectern that the computer is clamped to. Works great, been using it for years. RF aside, moving around the office is not conducive to plugging in a radio that comes with power, coax, audio, control, microphone and expects to have some space around it to actually use it. No problem, I have a RemoteRig, a device that comes in two parts. You connect one unit to the radio, the other to the head, that is, the removable faceplate of the radio, and using a network connection, you can have the head in one place and the radio in another. The two units don't have to be in the same room, let alone the same country. I figured that I could replace the second half of the system, the head and its unit, and instead use software on my computer to get the same functionality and be up and running in minutes. That was several years ago. Interestingly, whilst I'm putting this together I did a search for "RemoteRig protocols" and learnt a few things, so perhaps this path isn't quite as dead as I feared. I've reached out to Mikael SM2O and if that comes to anything I'll let you know. In the meantime I've been trying to figure out how to operate my radio in software only. I can control the radio if I physically connect a computer like a Raspberry Pi to it and use "rigctld" to interact with it. This gives me access to all the standard CAT, or Computer Assisted Tuning commands. In other words, I can change band, mode, frequency, trigger the transmitter, all the stuff that you need to get on-air to make noise. There's only one bit missing, the noise, as-in audio, either coming from the radio, or going to it. I suppose I could trigger a carrier and use it to send Morse, but that doesn't give me receive capability. I've tried using network audio using "pulseaudio" - it never worked right. I've made USB hot-plug scripts that allow you to connect a USB device into a computer and access it across the network on another computer - it mostly works for sound, but reliable is not a word I'd use. I've looked at using the USB sound card in the audio mixer on my desk, but it's subject to all manner of funky restrictions and random audio dropouts. I could use a virtual screen and connect to a Raspberry Pi that's physically connected to the radio, but that's leaving all the hard work on the Pi, rather than the computer that I'm currently using with several orders of magnitude more capability. Whilst we're discussing this, one of the reasons I like the idea of a software defined radio like a PlutoSDR, is that the stuff coming out of the radio, and going into it for that matter, is already digital. It takes away a whole lot of complexity, admittedly replacing it with software, but that's where I feel more comfortable. Which brings me to you. As I said, I don't know everything. What are you doing in this space? Are you actually on-air with your contraption, or is it still in the planning stages? Are you sending audio, or digital data across the network? Does your system have the ability to swap out a radio and replace it with something completely different? Do you rely on functions available on the radio, or could it be used for a 1950's valve radio, a twenty year old one, a current model, or any number of software defined radios without issues? Finally, is it Open Source? I confess that I'm not holding my breath for an answer, but there is a chance that you're similarly intrigued by this collection of questions that you will poke your head above the fence and make yourself known. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I stumbled on a project called Maia SDR by Daniel EA4GPZ. Maia, spelled Mike Alpha India Alpha, is a star in the Pleiades cluster. The Maia SDR project homepage proclaims that it is "An open-source FPGA-based SDR project focusing on the ADALM Pluto". Now, I can completely understand if that collection of words is gibberish to you, but take it from me, it's not, let me explain. PlutoSDR or Pluto is the common name of a piece of hardware which is officially called the ADALM-PLUTO Evaluation Board. It's a sophisticated device made by Analog Devices that provides a radio platform with some very interesting properties. Specifically it's both a radio transmitter and receiver with the ability to use frequencies between 70 MHz and 6 GHz. It runs embedded software you can tinker with because it's all Open Source and it's all very well documented. Many people have used the Pluto as a remote transceiver by controlling the on-board radio with a USB cable. While that's neat, it's not what I have been wanting to do for a number of reasons. The Pluto has the ability to sample data at a rate of 61.44 mega samples per second or MSPS. That translates to a bandwidth of 56 MHz. A typical amateur radio has a bandwidth of 2.5 kHz. This bandwidth comes at a price. For starters, USB on the Pluto isn't fast enough to handle 56 MHz of data, so if you're using it as a remote radio over USB, you need to lower your expectations. However, the hardware itself can process data at that rate, as long as it stays inside the radio. So, if you had a way to process data inside the radio and a way to show what you did with the data across USB, you could use all of the 56 MHz at once. The Maia SDR project does exactly that. It processes the data and presents it to the world as a waterfall image, like the one you might have seen in WSJT-X, fldigi or SDR++. If you've seen the voice version of my podcast on YouTube, you'll also have seen a waterfall. It's an image that scrolls vertically, showing frequencies left to right, and signal strength by colour, traditionally, a rainbow that uses blue for low power and red for high power. Every time period the image scrolls adding another row representing the radio spectrum at that time. It's a very useful way to show massive amounts of radio spectrum data in close to real-time. The waterfall that WSJT-X produces is about 2.5 kHz wide. The waterfall that Maia SDR produces is 56 MHz wide. To give you some context, the entire HF spectrum, between 2200m and 6m easily fits within 56 MHz. Now, there's a wrinkle. As I said, the Pluto frequency range starts at 70 MHz, so that means we can't use it to listen to HF. Well, not without the help of another gadget, called a transverter. Essentially it moves a set of frequencies from one range to another. The gadget I have, a SpyVerter 2 HF Upconverter, translates anything between 1 kHz and 60 MHz and moves it to between 120 MHz and 180 MHz. If you combine the Pluto with Maia SDR and a SpyVerter, you can plug your antenna into the SpyVerter, connect that to the Pluto, connect to the Maia SDR website that's running on your Pluto, tune it to 120 MHz, and see 56 MHz of HF bandwidth scrolling past as fast or slow as you want. You'll find the 10m band at 148 MHz, the 15m band at 141 MHz and the 20m band at 134 MHz. Now if that's not cool enough for you, Maia SDR is as I said Open Source. This means that the project publishes all of the code that makes this happen. The Pluto comes with a number of devices on-board that process information. At the antenna end is an AD9363, essentially a chip that converts RF into digital and back. The digital information is processed by a device called an FPGA, a Field Programmable Gate Array. Field Programmable means that mortals like you and I can change the software that it runs. Essentially an FPGA is a programmable circuit board used for information processing. To scratch the surface of what that means, you could for example program an FPGA to behave like a microprocessor, or you could use it to do accelerated matrix multiplications used for neural networks like you can with a graphics chip, or in this case, a device that does all of the digital signal processing. Finally the Pluto has a dual core ARM processor. You'll find those inside most Android phones and Raspberry Pi's to name a few. It's used to extract data from the FPGA and present it on a web page. Oh, and there's a progressive web app for your phone, so you can see this waterfall on your mobile phone if you want. So, thank you to Daniel EA4GPZ for sharing your project, it's very much appreciated! There are some caveats. The Pluto is easily overwhelmed by strong signals, so you probably need filters. I'm using a wide 2m band pass filter between the SpyVerter and the Pluto, just so that my local WiFi network doesn't overwhelm the whole thing. You're receiving between 0 and 56 MHz, so you'll need an appropriate antenna. The frequency response for the Pluto isn't linear, so the same colour on two bands might not be the same signal strength. You need to update the firmware of the Pluto, so make sure that you have a copy of the official firmware before you start because some of the FPGA functionality has been removed by Maia SDR to make this stuff work, most notably, the ability to use the Pluto across USB as a remote radio which is restored if you re-install the official firmware. It's all documented really well and I'd encourage you to have a go if you're so inclined. If you're a software developer, Maia SDR aims to encourage FPGA development in the radio sphere using Amaranth, the project About page has more details. As random Internet searches go, Maia SDR was a lovely surprise and I can't wait to dig deeper, but that will have to wait until my computer stops processing something like 6 billion WSPR records, which it's been doing for the past two weeks. What have you found worth sharing? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

01. Russia ISS SSTV Diploma 02. AMSAT-Argentina ISS SSTV Diploma 03. SmallSat Education Conference 04. WSJT-X beta version 05. AMSAT Symposium Registration 06. AMSAT Symposium Hotel Registration 07. ARRL Minnesota State Convention 08. Below are recurring links that normally do not change 09. FO-99 Schedule 10. AMSAT Keps Link 11. AMSAT Distance Records 12. AMSAT President Club 13. Satellite Status Page 14. Satellite Status Page 2 15. FM Satellite Frequencies 16. Linear Satellite Frequencies 17. ISS pass prediction times 18. FO-29 Schedule 19. AMSAT Getting Started with Amateur Satellites digital 20. AMSAT News Service 21. AMSATs GOLF Program 22. AMSAT Hardware Store 23. AMSAT Gear on Zazzle 24. AMSAT Remove Before Flight Keychains 25. AMSAT Membership 26. AMSAT Donations 27. AMSAT on X (Twitter) 28. and more.

ハムのラジオ第525回の配信です。 (2023/1/22放送) 今回は「WSJT-X　2.6.0　リリース」をお送りします。 WSJT-Xで待望のバージョンアップが行われました。デコード性能向上や、コンテスト機能の拡充などが行われています。今回は、追加された機能、改善された機能など探ってみたいと思います。 ※　1月13日付で、2.6.1がリリースました。以下のリンクから、ダウンロードできます。 h […]

Foundations of Amateur Radio In 2016, Daniel EA4GPZ, documented how to discover the weakest signal that could be decoded using several weak signal modes, including WSPR, or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter. This is an interesting question because as you might recall, I've been experimenting with very weak signals coming from my shack. To date, my 20 milliwatts has been heard over 13 thousand kilometres away. When you tune to a weak station you'll often hear both the station or desired signal as well as interference or background noise. The stronger the signal, the less noise you perceive. The weaker the signal, the more noise. You can express the relationship between the power of these two, the signal and the noise, as a ratio. If the power levels are the same, the so-called signal to noise ratio or SNR is 1:1. A higher ratio, like 2:1, indicates that the power of the signal is higher than the noise and a lower ratio, like 1:2 indicates that the signal is lower than the noise. If you express this ratio in decibels, you'll end up with positive numbers where the signal is stronger than the noise and negative numbers where the signal is weaker than the noise and zero when they're the same. If I tell you that the signal report for my WSPR decode from Denmark was -28 dB, it means that the noise was much stronger than the signal. For today I'm going to leave alone just how WSPR can report a negative signal to noise ratio and still successfully decode the signal, even though the signal appears to be buried in the noise. That said, in this experiment, we're trying to learn something else. Using the technique detailed by Daniel, we test using different, known, signal to noise ratios to discover at what point the WSPR decoding process breaks down. This might help me understand if I can reduce my beacon output power even further and still anticipate a good chance of being decoded successfully. To conduct his experiment, Daniel used the then current version of WSJT-X, version 1.7.0-rc1 and I'm using the current version today, 2.6.0-rc5 to repeat those tests. You might ask why I'm not taking Daniel's word for it and just using his findings. The process to decode a WSPR signal is all software and can be improved with better methodologies and algorithms. It's not unreasonable to think that in the years since Daniel's experiments things have changed, hopefully improved. So, how does this work? If you generate and attempt to decode one hundred different files, you can use the number of times that you count your callsign in the decode list as a percentage of success. If all of your files decode properly, the decode percentage is 100%. If only half of them are decoded successfully, it's 50% and so-on. Similarly, if a different callsign, locator or signal power is decoded, you can count those as a percentage of false decodes. This is important because noise coming from the ionosphere can corrupt any signal. I should point out that because we know in advance what the decoded signal should be, since we created the message, we can actually count the ones that don't match what we sent. In the real world it's very hard, if not impossible, to do this, unless each transmitter also starts recording their efforts so data cleaning can be done after the fact. A false decode happens when the software decodes a message and the result is not what was sent. Due to the way that WSPR works, this is not a case of a single character error and as a result the whole message is corrupt, wrong callsign, wrong grid square and wrong power level. Just how prevalent this issue is, has to my knowledge so far not been discussed. Over the past year I've been working with the entire WSPR data set, nearly 5 billion reports, and mapping the data to explore just what's going on behind the scenes. Based on the raw data every single grid square on the planet has been activated. Of course this is not really the case, since there's plenty of parts on Earth where we haven't yet turned on a WSPR beacon. Back to our experiment. Two tools are used, "wsprsim" to generate an audio file and "wsprd" to decode it. Both come with WSJT-X and when you build the application from source, you get them as part of the process. The generator takes several parameters, one of which is the desired signal to noise ratio. If you ask it for a signal to noise ratio of -20 dB, wsprsim will generate the appropriate noise and the desired signal, combine them and build an audio file. You can then use wsprd to decode that file. If you repeat this many times, you end up with some data. How many times? Well, I probably went a little overboard. I generated a set for each SNR reading between 0 and minus 50 dB in 0.01 dB increments and then generated one hundred for each of those. At the point where the process broke down I doubled the resolution further to get a better idea of what was going on. About three quarters of a million tests. It took a while. What did I learn from this? First of all, false decodes happen at every signal level. I saw the first false decode at a signal to noise ratio of -0.07 dB. This is significant because it means that even at excellent signal levels there is a percentage of incorrect reports which explains why I'm seeing that result in real world data. When you start playing with really big numbers, even if the error rate is low, with enough data, it starts to matter. In my tests I saw an error rate of 0.03%. This means that there's at least 1.5 million false decodes in the current WSPR data set, likely more because wsprsim cannot emulate the real world of ionospheric and local noise. On the flip-side, I also saw an overall success rate of nearly 94%. At -29 dB things start to change. Until then the decode is 100% successful, then it starts to decline to 0 at about -34 dB. Comparing Daniel's results directly, he saw 34% success at -30 dB, I'm seeing 95% at that same noise level. At -31 dB Daniel saw 6%, I'm seeing 75%. I don't see 34% until we get down to -31.6 dB and 6% at -32.4 dB. This indicates that the software has improved over the years. It also means that with a signal report of -28 dB from Denmark, I've got a few dB to play with. I've now reduced my output power by another 3 dB, making it 10 mW. Point your antennas at VK6 and see what you can hear on 10m. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

I've got the new X6100 QRP Radio from Xiegu, which has a built-in sound card and is fairly simple to setup to work with WSJT-x and run FT8. Today I show a quick over-view of the radio, what quirks I have found with it, and I would like to know what additional videos you would enjoy in the future on this new QRP Radio.Link: http://hr2.li/6dkx4

GB2RS News Sunday the 12th of December 2021 The news headlines: Lincoln hams help TV program Exams Committee report published WSJT-X core developer goes SK In the December issue of RadCom, page 14, we reported on the television programme outlining the design, specification and crews of the WW2 Lancaster bomber. The production company asked Lincoln Short Wave Club to help with a CW sequence during which their anchorman, Guy Martin, would familiarise himself with the vintage Marconi R1155/T1154 and send a short message in Morse using a ‘bathtub' key. The programme is available to view next Sunday, the 19th of December, on Channel 4 at 9 pm. The RSGB Examinations Standards Committee has published its 2021 annual report that covers activities in 2020. Despite the challenges of Covid, the Committee was quick to support proposals for changes to the exam system, such as approving online remote invigilation and the suspension of practical assessments. This allowed people to continue to take exams and get involved in amateur radio during the lockdown. The total number of exams administered by the RSGB Exams Department in 2020 increased by 41.9% compared to the previous year. You can read the report on the Committee's page on the RSGB website. Sad news now. From Joe Taylor, K1JT, we learned that Bill Somerville, G4WJS, died suddenly and unexpectedly. He was only about 65 years old. Bill was the first to join Joe in 2013, forming a core development group for WSJT-X. He helped to bring the overall programme structure more nearly up to professional standards. Moreover, he devoted countless hours to programme support, patiently answering users' questions on WSJT-related forums. You can read a fuller obituary on the RSGB website. Our thoughts are with his family and many friends. This month marks the Centenary of the first amateur radio signals crossing the Atlantic. Signals from the USA were received by Paul Godley, 2ZE, at a specially prepared receiving setup at Ardrossan in Scotland. A commemorative sked has been organised for the 12th of December at 0155 UTC between ARRL CEO, David Minster, NA2AA as the W1AW operator, and the Ardrossan station operating as GB2ZE. RSGB President Stewart Bryant, G3YSX will be present in Ardrossan for the sked, as will be Board Director Len Paget, GM0ONX and General Manager Steve Thomas, M1ACB. The RSGB representatives will also visit the new exhibition at the Heritage Centre at Ardrossan that celebrates these transatlantic achievements. From the 1st to the 26th of December, all UK and Crown Dependency licensees may add the suffix /2ZE to their amateur callsign to mark the centenary. Learn more on the story at rsgb.org/transatlantic-tests. The ARRL and the RSGB jointly sponsored the 160m Transatlantic Centenary QSO Party that ran between 0200 and 0800UTC today, the 12th. Certificates and prizes are available. For more details go to rsgb.org/transatlantic-tests. Amateur Radio on the International Space Station has received schedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact with astronauts. This will be a telebridge contact via amateur radio between astronaut Matthias, KI5KFH onboard the ISS and students in Germany. The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800MHz narrowband FM and may be heard by listeners in Europe that are within the ISS footprint. The ARISS radio contact is scheduled for Monday the 13th of December at 0951UTC. The RSGB has been granted the callsign GB21YOTA, for allocation to youngsters to operate throughout December for Youngsters on the air. Today, the station will be operated by the Radio Society of Harrow using G3EFX. On Friday evening, M0YTE will operate the callsign and next Saturday M0SDV will put the callsign on the air. To see what operating slots are still available please look up GB21YOTA on QRZ.com. And now for details of rallies and events Now is the perfect time to let us know your group's rally or event plans for 2022. Email radcom@rsgb.org.uk with details and we'll publicise your event for free in RadCom, on GB2RS, and online. If you don't tell us, we can't publicise your event. Now the DX news Ferdy, HB9DSP has had to postpone his December trip to Kenya and now plans to be active as 5Z4/HB9DSP around mid-January. DJ6TF and DL7BO have also had to postpone their December trip to Zimbabwe and now plan to be active as Z21A and Z22O in early February. Celebrating Christmas and the New Year, special callsigns PH21XMAS will operate until the 3rd of January and PH22HNY will operate until the 31st of January. Both will use SSB and digital modes. QSL via the operator's instructions. Mario, IK1MYT is active as 9J2MYT from Lusaka, Zambia until June 2022. He operates SSB on 40, 20, 17, 15 and 10 metres. QSL direct to IZ3KVD. The S21DX operation from St Martin's Island, Bangladesh, IOTA AS-140, has been brought forward and is now expected to take place until the 16th of December, in accordance with the operating permission granted by the licencing authority. S21AM and S21RC will run one station on the HF bands SSB and FT8; a second station will be on QO-100. QSL via EB7DX. Now the Special Event news Today, the 12th of December is the 120th anniversary of the very first wireless signals across the Atlantic by Marconi. Ofcom has licensed a number of special event stations to mark the event. Chelmsford ARS has been granted GB120MT, licenced up to New Year's Day. Special event station GB1002ZE will be operated by Crocodile Rock Amateur Group near Ardrossan. In addition to the radio celebrations, North Ayrshire Council have jointly created an exhibition surrounding this Centenary that will be hosted in the North Ayrshire Heritage Centre, Saltcoats. This exhibition is open until mid-December. Kilmarnock and Loudoun ARC will operate GS2ZE, a commemorative station adjacent to the site of the original transatlantic experiment at Ardrossan. It will be on the air for 24 hours ending at 1200UTC today, the 12th. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the historic Transatlantic Tests of December 1921, members of the HB4FR Amateur Radio Club will be active as HB1BCG throughout December. 1BCG was the callsign of the Connecticut station whose message crossed the Atlantic Ocean to be received in Scotland. QSL via HB9ACA. Now the contest news When operating in contests, please keep yourself and fellow amateurs safe by following relevant pandemic-related government recommendations. December is a quiet month for contests, indeed there are no RSGB HF contests at all this month. The ARRL 10m contest runs for 48 hours ending at 2359UTC today, the 12th. Using CW and phone, the exchange is signal report and serial number, with US and Canadian stations, also sending their State or Province code. On Tuesday the 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2000UTC. It is followed between 2000 and 2230UTC by the all-mode 432MHz UK Activity Contest. The exchange for both is signal report, serial number and locator. Thursday sees the 70MHz UK Activity Contest from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Next weekend it's the Stew Perry Top Band Challenge. Running for 24 hours from 1500UTC on the 18th to 1500UTC on the 19th, it is CW only. The exchange is your 4-character locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO on Friday the 10th of December The predicted elevated Kp index that we talked about last week didn't amount to much at the end of the day. The solar wind remained reasonably calm and the Kp index only peaked at three. This rapidly fell to one by Tuesday and stayed at one or two for the rest of the week. Solar activity has also been quiet, with the solar flux index falling to the high 70s on Tuesday, where it remained until at least Thursday the 9th. In fact, on Thursday there were zero sunspots and an SFI of 77. Looking at the STEREO Ahead spacecraft data shows very little activity turning into view and, as a result, the NOAA forecast is for only a slight increase in the SFI to the low 80s, perhaps climbing to 87 by the end of next week. It is not surprising, therefore, that Propquest is showing that the extrapolated MUF over a 3,000km path is often below 21MHz during daytime. The long-range forecast from the US Air Force is for the SFI to remain below 90, at least until the third week in January, so get used to operating in this low SFI domain for a while longer. The good news is that sunspots can appear at any time, so our forecast may be inaccurate. Let's hope so! And now the VHF and up propagation news. We are fighting our way through a very disturbed weather pattern, and the unsettled pattern over this weekend will bring some rain scatter possibilities, but as it's winter, these may not produce the DX as summer storms do. Often local rain overhead produces strong rain scatter signals from relatively local stations that seem independent of beam heading. There are signs of high pressure returning during next week, so hopefully not long to wait for tropo now. There are signs that from Tuesday, a stronger build of pressure will occur. Initially, this will be over the south of the country but gradually extend to northern areas during the second part of the week. This will bring some good Tropo opportunities, especially into the near continent and across the North Sea to southern Scandinavia. Meteor scatter and aurora is always worth checking, but the key one to focus upon this week will be the Geminids meteor shower that peaks on Monday night, the 13th to 14th. Expect plenty of strong bursts, especially in the early hours of the 14th. Moon declination goes positive again on Sunday so the EME week will be characterised by lengthening Moon windows and increasing peak Moon elevations, which occur later in the evening. The Moon reaches apogee next Saturday so path losses will be at their highest. 144MHz sky noise will be low for most of the week. And that's all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS News Sunday 24th of October 2021 The news headlines: Get on the microwave bands Become an RSGB Director SAQ Grimeton transmits today   Are you looking for a new challenge? The RSGB has just released an updated video that gives a short introduction to amateur radio on the microwave bands. It explains how microwave technology is involved in everyday life and highlights the opportunities as well as the challenges of this aspect of amateur radio. You can watch the video on the RSGB YouTube channel or on the RSGB's microwave web page at rsgb.org/microwaves The RSGB Nominations Committee includes representatives of the Board, Regional Team and the Committees who work together to select Nominated Directors to serve on the RSGB Board. The Nominations Committee is seeking a wide range of new candidates with skills that will complement the existing skills and knowledge on the Board. If you are an RSGB Member with the skills, time and energy to help lead the Society as a Board Director, please contact the Chair of the Committee via email to nominations.chair@rsgb.org.uk. Today, the 24th of October is United Nations Day and the historic Alexanderson alternator in Grimeton, Sweden, with callsign SAQ, is scheduled to send out a message on 17.2kHz using CW. The live stream on YouTube starts at 1425UTC, with tuning at 1430UTC. The transmission begins at 1500UTC. Just search for SAQ Grimeton to find out more. The RSGB QSL bureau is continuing to search for a new sub-manager for the G4T to G4Z group. Members in this call group are encouraged to check the RSGB website for the latest information and not to send further collection envelopes until a new appointment is made. If you enjoy QSL cards, have space and time, plus some basic spreadsheet skills to record and distribute around 20,000 cards a year, plus a desire to support your fellow amateurs, email your interest to qsl@rsgb.org.uk. Don't forget that in the UK the clocks change to UTC or GMT next weekend. Clocks go back 1 hour at 2am on Sunday the 31st of October. The WSJT development team has announced the General Availability release of WSJT-X version 2.5.1. This release mainly contains improvements and defect repairs related to Q65 and JT65 modes when used with non-standard and compound calls. Also included is a new feature for microwave aircraft scatter, and repairs for defects detected since the 2.5.0 release. Just type WSJT-X into your favourite search engine. Eclipse and Frequency Measurement Festivals are worldwide citizen science campaigns in which amateurs and short wave listeners measure Doppler shift from their home stations, using their regular HF receivers. As the shadow of the moon passes across Antarctica on the 4th of December, it will generate travelling ionospheric disturbances that will, in turn, affect radio propagation. Data collection will run from the 1st to the 10th of December and the results will be made available for scientific analysis. All radio amateurs and short wave listeners are invited to join in, even those located far from the path of totality. In 2020, more than 100 individuals from 45 countries took part in eclipse festivals. For more information, go to hamsci.org. The Yasme Foundation Board of Directors has announced that it will be giving a grant to the Seychelles Amateur Radio Association to establish a facility for its amateur radio club. And now for details of rallies and events Before travelling to any rally or event, please check the event's website as there may still be alterations or cancellations due to the pandemic. The Holsworthy Radio Rally will take place on the 7th of November at Holsworthy Leisure Centre. Doors open at 10 am. Several rallies have been cancelled, as previously publicised. The Galashiels Rally, scheduled to take place today, the 24th of October is cancelled. The Bush valley ARC rally due for the 7th of November has also had to be cancelled. Finally, the Bishop Auckland RAC rally due to be held on the 28th of November is now planned for 2022. Now the DX news A team of four operators will be active as C5C from Kololi, in The Gambia between the 24th of October and the 19th of November. Expect activity on all bands using SSB, CW and FT8 in Fox & Hound mode, plus the QO-100 satellite. See QRZ.com for their planned operating frequencies. QSL direct to F5RAV. Bart, PD1BAT will be working on Saba, NA-145, from the 30th of October to the 5th of November. In his spare time, he will operate as PJ6/PD1BAT on the 40 and 20m bands using FT8 and some SSB. QSL via his home call. Miguel, EA1BP will be active as FM/EA1BP from Martinique, IOTA reference NA-107, from the 27th of October to the 5th of November, including an entry in the CQ WW DX SSB Contest as TO7O.  QSL via his home call; the logs will be uploaded to Logbook of the World and Club Log. Toni, EA5RM and a large multi-national team will be active as HD8R from San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands, SA-004, from the 26th of October to the 7th of November. They will operate CW, SSB and FT8 on the 6 to 160m bands, plus RTTY on 20 metres, with at least four stations on the air simultaneously. QSL via EA5RM. Now the Special Event news From the 25th of October, British Railways ARS members Mark, G1PIE and Pam, 2E1HQY will be operating GB0LMR as part of the society's 55th anniversary year. Operations will be from Preston in Lancashire and 40m will be the main band. More at brars.info. Until the 2nd of November, West of Scotland ARS will be running a special event station GB4GDS, celebrating 90 years of the Guide Dog Association. More information about the station can be found at www.wosars.club. Cray Valley Radio Society will be active as GB75CV until the 29th of October to celebrate its 75th anniversary. QSL via Club Log's OQRS and Logbook of The World only. Now the contest news When operating in contests, please keep yourself and fellow amateurs safe by following relevant pandemic-related government recommendations. This weekend, the UK EI Contest Club DX SSB contest ends its 24-hour run at 1200UTC today, the 24th. Using the contest bands between 3.5 and 28MHz, the exchange is signal report, which is optional, serial number and your district code. On Tuesday the SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1830 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the bands between 2.3 and 10GHz, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the UK EI Contest Club 80m contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. Using CW only, the exchange is your 6-character locator. The 80m Autumn Series runs from 1900 to 2030UTC on Thursday. Using SSB only the exchange is signal report and serial number. Next weekend is the 48-hour CQ World Wide DX SSB contest. Ending at 2359UTC on the 31st, it uses the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands. The exchange is signal report and your Zone, which for the UK is 14. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA & G4BAO on Friday the 22nd of October. After a week of sunspots and DX fun it looks like we are back in the doldrums again. The Sun currently has just one sunspot visible, meaning the sunspot number is 11. This represents one sunspot in one group. There has been DX to be had, mostly thanks to DXpeditions, including Guinea Bissau, J5T, The Kingdom of Eswatini, 3DA0WW, and Sao Tome and Principe, S90K. These have been relatively easy to work and brought much-needed excitement to the HF bands. Geomagnetic conditions have been mixed, with the Kp index hitting four on Tuesday. This was the result of a large coronal hole that was Earth-facing earlier in the week. Next week, NOAA predicts the solar flux index will climb again to the high 80s, ending the week in the low to mid-90s. This is likely due to a large active region that is visible on the STEREO Ahead spacecraft's imager and which should rotate into view over the next few days. This may bring a surge in activity again, which should be welcomed by HF operators. And now the VHF and up propagation news. After a reminder of how unsettled Autumn can be, this weekend will see a weak and transient ridge crossing the country, and a possible brief Tropo window, especially to the east across the North Sea. Apart from that, the unsettled autumn flavour continues through the whole of next week and, as we have seen recently, that can mean some pretty wet and windy weather. Rain scatter on the GHz bands is, of course, an option in these conditions, but there is little else to bring cheer unless meteor scatter and aurora come into play. Today the Moon is at apogee, so EME path losses are at their maximum. Moon declination reaches maximum positive declination again on Tuesday so we'll see the Moon reaching its highest elevations at its zenith. The Orionids shower is still active and the Leonis Minorids peaks today, so there's still some interest for meteor scatter enthusiasts. The best time for reflections is, as always, around dawn. And that's all from the propagation team this week.  

In this edition: 01. AO-109 Health 02. Notre Dame Jogakuin Jr and Sr HS ISS contact 03. David, AD7DB, rove updates 04. New 2021 AMSAT Frequency Guide for members 05. NU1U tutorial on YouTube for WSJT-X and SatPC32 06. Videos from AMSAT-SA Space Symposium 07. John, KG4AKV operating RS-44 portable 08. Registration for AMSAT 2021 Symposium 09. ISS pass prediction times 10. Satellite distance records 11. FO-99 Schedule 12. AMSAT Keplerian Elements 13. ARISS Operation Mode 14. Join the 2021 Presidents Club 15. AMSAT Getting Started with Amateur Satellites digital 16. AMSAT Getting Started with Amateur Satellites print 17. AMSAT News Service 18. AMSATs GOLF Program 19. AMSAT Hardware Store 20. AMSAT Gear on Zazzle 21. AMSAT Remove Before Flight Keychains 22. AMSAT Membership 23. AMSAT Donations 24. AMSAT on Twitter 25. and more.

Tonight I welcome Sebastián from the GridTracker team to come and show us how to setup GridTracker for WSJT-X and connect to SmartSDR for FlexRadioWebsite: https://gridtracker.org

Foundations of Amateur Radio The hobby of amateur radio is about communication. When you go on-air and make noise, you initiate a communications channel, sending information out into the world and hoping for another station to receive and decode what you sent. The channel itself can be used in an infinite number of ways and each one is called a modulation mode, or mode for short. The popular ones come with most radios, CW, AM, SSB and FM. Those few are not the only ones available. In fact as computers are being integrated into the radio at an increasing pace, signal processing is becoming part and parcel of the definition of a mode and new modes are being introduced at break neck speed. I've talked about WSPR as an example of one such mode, but there are many, each with their own particular take on how to get information between two stations. As you listen on the bands you'll increasingly find yourself hearing a bewildering litany of beeps, pops and clicks. Some of those are due to ionospheric conditions, but many are different modes that are being experimented with across our spectrum. If you have access to a band scope, a way of visualising radio spectrum, you can actually see the shapes and patterns of such signals over time and getting to that point can be as easy as feeding your radio audio into your computer and launching a copy of fldigi or WSJT-X. Every mode requires a specific tool to decode it and with practice you'll discover that there is often a particular look or sound associated with a mode. Over time you'll confidently select the correct decoder, using your brain for the process of signal identification. Of course if you don't have access to the library in your brain yet, since you've only just started, or if the mode you've come across is new, you'll need another library to discover what you found. There is such a library, the Signal Identification Wiki. It's a web-site that hosts a list of submitted signals, grouped by usage type, including one for our community. On the amateur radio page of the Signal Identification Wiki there are over 70 different modes listed, complete with a description, an audio file and a spectrogram. With that you can begin to match what you've discovered on your radio to what the web-site has in the library and determine if you can decode the incoming information. I will mention at this point that the Signal Identification Wiki is far from complete. For example, the Olivia mode has 40 so-called sub-modes of which about 8 are in common use. Each of those sub-modes looks and sounds different. The wiki shows only a single line for Olivia. I'm pointing this out because the wiki allows you to submit a mode for others to use. If you have a signal, either by recording it off-air, or better still, recording it directly from the source, consider submitting it to the wiki so others can benefit from your experience. If you've come across a signal and you cannot figure out what it is, there are other places you can go for help. The four and a half thousand members of the /r/signalidentification sub on reddit will happily look at and listen to your signal and try to help. Make sure you contribute some meta data like the time, frequency and location to accompany the spectrogram and audio. You might have come to this point wondering why I'm encouraging you to use and contribute to the wiki and ask for help on reddit. Amateur radio is about experimentation. We love to do that and as we make signal processing easier and easier, more people are making new modes to play with. The speed at which this is happening is increasing and as an operator you can expect to come across new signals. I remember not that long ago, it was last month, tuning to an FT8 frequency and the person I was with asking what that sound was. They'd heard it before but never discovered its purpose, even though FT8 has been with us since the 29th of June 2017. What interesting signals have you come across and how did you go with decoding them? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

ハムのラジオ第440回の配信です。 (2021/6/6放送) 今回の特集は「WSJT-X 2.4.0 正式リリース」です。 WSJT-Xの新しいバージョンガリリースされました。すでに、rc版で、試されていた方も多いと思い […]

Foundations of Amateur Radio The activity of amateur radio revolves around experimentation. For over a century the amateur community has designed, sourced, scrounged and built experiments. Big or small, working or not, each of these is an expression of creativity, problem solving and experimentation. For most of the century that activity was accompanied by the heady smell of solder smoke. It still makes an appearance in many shacks and field stations today, even my own, coaxed by an unsteady hand, more and more light and bigger and bigger magnification, I manage to join bits of wire, attach components and attempt to keep my fingers from getting burnt and solder from landing on the floor. I've been soldering since I was nine or so. I think it started with a Morse key, a battery and a bicycle light with a wire running between my bedroom and the bedroom of my next door neighbour. In the decades since I've slightly improved my skill, but I have to confess, soldering isn't really my thing. My thing is computers. It was computers from the day I was introduced in 1983 and nothing much has changed. For reasons I don't yet grasp, I just get what computers are about. They're user friendly, just picky whom they make friends with. When I joined the amateur community, it was to discover a hobby that was vast beyond my wildest imagination, technical beyond my understanding and it was not computing. Little did I know. Computing in amateur radio isn't a new thing. For example, packet radio was being experimented with in 1978 by members of the Montreal Amateur Radio Club, after having been granted permission by the Canadian government. In 2010 when I came along we had logging, DX-clusters and the first weak signal modes were already almost a decade old. Software Defined Radio has an even longer history. The first "digital receiver" came along in 1970 and the first software transceiver was implemented in 1988. The term "software defined radio" itself was 15 years old when I joined the hobby and truth be told, it's a fascinating tale, I'll take a look at that at another time. When I started my amateur journey like every new licensee, I jumped in the deep end and kept swimming. From buying a radio, to discovering and building antennas, from going mobile to doing contests and putting together my home station, all of it done, one step at a time, one progressive experiment after another, significant to me, but hardly world shattering in the scheme of things. Now that I've been here for a decade I've come to see that my current experiments, mostly software based, are in exactly the same spirit as the circuit builders and scroungers, except that I'm doing this by flipping bits, changing configurations, writing software and solving problems that bear no relation to selecting the correct combination of capacitance and reactance to insert into a circuit just so. Instead I'm wrestling with compilers, designing virtual machines, sending packets, debugging serial ports and finding new and innovative ways to excite transceivers. For example, today I spent most of the day attempting to discover why when I generate a WSPR signal in one program, it cannot be decoded by another. If that sounds familiar, that was what I was doing last week too. This time I went back to basics and found tools inside the source code of WSJT-X and started experimenting. I'm still digging. As an aside I was asked recently why I want to do this with audio files and the short answer is: Little Steps. I can play an audio file through my Yaesu FT-857d. I can receive that and decode it. That's where I want to start with my PlutoSDR experiments, so when I'm doing this, I can use the same audio file and know that the information can be decoded and that any failure to do so is related to how I'm transmitting it. Back to soldering irons and software. In my experience as an amateur it's becoming increasingly clear that they're both the same thing, tools for experimentation, with or without burning your fingers. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio As you might recall, I took delivery of a device called a PlutoSDR some time ago. If you're not familiar, it's a single-board computer that has the ability to transmit and receive between 70 MHz and 6 GHz. The system is intended as a learning platform, it's open source, you get access to the firmware, compilers and a whole load of other interesting tools. I used it to play with aviation receive using a tool called dump1090 which I updated to use Open Street Map. If you're interested, it's on my VK6FLAB github page. Over the past few months I've been steadily acquiring little bits and pieces which today added up to a new project. Can I use my PlutoSDR to transmit WSPR? This all started because of an experiment and a conversation. The experiment was: "Using my FT-857d on 70cm can I transmit a weak signal mode like WSPR and have my friend on the other side of the city decode the transmission?" The answer to that was a qualified "Yes". I say qualified, since we weren't able to transmit a WSPR message, but using FT8 we were happily getting decodes across the city. We're not yet sure what the cause of this difference is, other than the possibility that the combined frequency instability at both ends was large enough to cause an issue for a WSPR message, which lasts about two minutes. On the other hand, I learned that my radio can in fact go down to 2 Watts on 70cm. I've owned that radio for over a decade, never knew. Now that I have a band pass filter, some SMA leads and the ability to talk to my Pluto across the Wi-Fi network, I can resurrect my Pluto adventures and start experimenting. I mentioned that this was the result of an experiment and a conversation. The conversation was about how to create a WSPR signal in the first place. At the moment if you run WSJT-X the software will generate audio that gets transmitted via a radio. All fine, except if you don't have a screen or a mouse. Interestingly a WSPR transmission doesn't contain any time information. It is an encoded signal, containing your callsign, a maidenhead locator - that's a four or six character code representing a grid square on Earth, and a power level. That message doesn't change every time your transmitter starts the cycle, so if you were to create say an audio file with that information in it, you could just play the audio to the nearest transmitter, like a handheld radio, or in my case a Pluto, and as long as you started it at the right time, the decoding station wouldn't know the difference. As an aside, if you're playing along with your own Pluto, and far be it for me to tell you to go and get one, you can set the Pluto up using either USB, in which case it's tethered to your computer, or you can get yourself a USB to Ethernet adaptor and connect to it via your network. If you have a spare Wi-Fi client lying around, you can get that to connect to your Wi-Fi network, connect the Pluto via Ethernet to the Wi-Fi client and your gadget is connected wirelessly to your network. I can tell you that this works, I'm typing commands on the Pluto as we speak. As is the case in any experiment in amateur radio, you start with one thing and work your way through. At the moment I want to make this as simple as possible. By that I mean, as few moving parts as I can get away with. I could right now fire up some or other SDR tool like say GNU Radio and get it to do the work and make the transmission, but what I'd really like to do is actually have the Pluto do all the work, so I'm starting small. Step One is to create an audio file that I can transmit using the Pluto. It turns out that Step One isn't quite as simple as I'd hoped. I located a tool that actually purports to generate an audio file, but the file that it builds cannot be decoded, so there's still some work to be done. On the face of it the level of progress is low, but then this whole thing has been going for months. The experiment on 70cm lasted half an hour, the discussion took all of a cup of coffee. So far, I've spent more time on this project making the Wi-Fi client talk to my network than all the rest put together and that includes finding and ordering the Pluto in the first place. You might well wonder why I'm even bothering to talk about this as yet unfinished project. The reason is simple. Every day is a new one. Experiments are what make this hobby what it is and every little thing you learn adds to the next thing you do. Some days you make lots of progress, other days you learn another way to not make a light bulb. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio A little while ago I was gifted a new radio, well, new to me. A Kenwood TS-480HX. It's an all mode HF transceiver with 6m. Does 200 Watts, but you know me, I'm into QRP, low power, so I first had to figure out how to dial the transmitter down to 5 Watts and that was after figuring out how to feed the dual power supplies from one source and have the fuses work as expected. When I received the radio, I took stock of all the bits that it was packed with, all complete, all the accessories, even the user manual was laminated. The previous owner, Walter VK6BCP (SK) whom I never met was an amateur after my own heart. I've talked about how he meticulously documented his alterations to a power supply for example. Previously I've taken this radio on holidays to operate portable in a field day. The experience was underwhelming, in that I didn't hear anyone and nobody responded to my CQ calls. At the time I put it down to a poor antenna and unfamiliarity with the radio, despite reading the manual, well, at least scanning it. Today I finally set some time aside to do some more testing. I decided that the first step would be to actually set it up in my shack, next to my trusty Yaesu FT-857d and see how it performs in comparison. So, I plugged everything in, found a coax switch so I could switch the antenna between the two radios and learned that the audio connector that I've been using for digital modes on the Yaesu is actually compatible with the Kenwood. Now I need to make another adaptor for this radio, but in the meantime I can move the audio plug between radios when I swap. In doing this I learnt a few things. One is that there's plenty of scope for things to break. For example, I was reaching over the desk to plug a connector into the coax switch when I leaned on the keyboard and touched the space bar. This caused the radio that I was working on to start its tuning cycle without an antenna connected. Fortunately I was using 5 Watts and I caught it within seconds, so no white smoke this time around. It does remind me to turn off the radio when fiddling with connectors though. I'm embarrassed to report that I thought I'd learnt that lesson already, nothing like a refresher course in transmitter safety and dumb things not to do in the shack. Then there was the thing about using remote control. In my naivety I thought that the connector that the Yaesu uses for computer control is also used on the Kenwood. Turns out that it isn't. Fortunately I read the manual before plugging that in. The Yaesu has a specific digital mode with individual gain and filter characteristics, which seem to be completely lacking on the Kenwood. I'm still attempting to learn the differences in receive performance between the two. I started this process by running WSJT-X and listening to WSPR or Weak Signal Propagation Reports and testing how both radios decode things. I cannot yet do this side-by-side, but for now I can swap and see signals coming in on either radio. This is not the first time I've put a different radio on my desk to see how it works and it's not going to be the last time. What I'm looking to achieve is to swap over from the Yaesu to the Kenwood in my shack, so I can put the Yaesu back in the car and have a mobile shack operating again because I have to admit, I do miss that. What kinds of testing regimes to you have when you're trying out a new radio? I'd love to hear your thoughts. My email address as always is cq@vk6flab.com. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio Every community has its own language. As a member of that community you learn the words, their meaning and their appropriate use. For example, the combination of words "Single Side Band" have a specific meaning inside amateur radio. Outside of radio, those same words are random words with no relationship. Sometimes a term like "FM" can be heard across many communities with similar understanding, though not identical. It gets tricky when a word is used widely but doesn't have a common understanding at all. A word like "software" for example. A question you might hear in amateur radio is: "Can I buy a software defined radio or SDR that has digital modes built-in?" It's a perfectly reasonable question, the radio runs software, the digital modes are software, so the answer is obvious, right? What about: "Can the hundred or more computers in my car play Solitaire?" Aside from the perhaps unexpected fact that your car has computers on board, you most likely know the answer to that. No, since the computers are specialised for different tasks - and if you're driving a Tesla right now, yes, you can play Solitaire, but I'd recommend that you keep your eyes on the road instead. My point is that not all software is created equal. The software inside an SDR is essentially doing signal processing, often by several components, each running software, transforming an antenna signal into something, that can be used somewhere else, likely sound. The applications WSJT-X and fldigi, both software, use a computer running Linux, MacOS or Windows, software, to decode and encode digital modes while providing a way for you to interact with it. Software running on software. You might well argue that we should be running applications like that directly on our radio and on the face of it that sounds perfectly reasonable, except that to achieve that, you'd also need to build a system to install and update different types of applications, so you could run SSTV, APRS, RTTY, PSK31, FT8 or any of the other hundreds of digital modes and new ones as they are developed. If you did that, you'd also have to provide a way to manage the operating system, to connect to the Internet and provide security. You'd need to develop a user-interface, perhaps a keyboard and mouse solution, a screen, etc. Before long you'll have developed a whole computing infrastructure, much like the one we already have in the form of the computer on your desk or the phone in your pocket. Computers are getting faster and faster every day. This allows for the software on them to become more and more complex. The inter-dependencies are increasing by the second, but that doesn't mean that specialisation isn't useful. A software defined radio likely has a Field Programmable Gate Array, an FPGA on-board that is great at processing data in streams. It too runs software. Your microwave is running software, as is your television, your smart-watch, your battery charger, the gearbox in your car and your electric tooth brush. Making a distinction between the various types of software is helpful to understand what is possible and what is not. Being a computer nerd, I must point out that I've only barely scratched the surface of software here, in-case you're curious, microcode, firmware, hardware abstraction, the rabbit hole goes very deep. Not all software is created equal and every now and then it's a good idea to remember that when you talk about a word in one community, it might mean a completely different thing in another and sometimes the distinction is significant. As for having an SDR that runs WSPR, no. You can transmit from a computer though, but that's a whole other thing. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Tonight I welcome Hayden from Ham Radio DX onto the Livestream and we will be talking about connecting the Icom IC-705 to WSJT-x and using it with FT8. In the latest firmware update for the IC-705, which is version 1.20, there is a "preset" for FT8. Are you using it? What settings should be used on the IC-705 and WSJT-x itself? Let's find out together.Links for this episode:Ham Radio DX on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/hamradiodxGospel Socks: https://gospelsocks.comQSO Today Virtual Ham Expo: https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.comKA6LMS Special Event: https://youtu.be/TsVlzBMJz2A

In this episode, Martin (M1MRB) is joined by Chris Howard (M0TCH), Martin Rothwell (M0SGL), Ed Durrant (DD5LP), Frank Howell (K4FMH) and Bill Barnes (WC3B) to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and in this episode’s features is the Joy of VHF and Above with Tim Kirby (GW4VXE) followed by your listener feedback. ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS We would like to thank Terry Perry and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate - Amateur Radio on Hackaday - French Military Seeks Radio Receivers / Jammers - A New Version of WSJT-X is Now Available - Beware of Fake SDRplay Devices - Using Powerline Noise to Map Sporadic E - Extension to Field Day Rule Waivers from 2020, Add Class D and E Power Limit - RSGB's 'Get on the Air to Care' Construction Competition Winners - Additional Free UK Ham Radio Foundation Online Course Planned

Foundations of Amateur Radio So, there's nothing on TV, the bands are dead, nobody is answering your CQ, you're bored and it's all too hard. You've run out of things to try, there's only so many different ways to use the radio and it's all too much. I mean, you've only got CW, AM, SSB, FM, there's Upper and Lower Side-band, then there's RTTY, the all too popular FT8, then there's WSPR, but then you run out of things. I mean, right? What about PSK31, SSTV, then there's AMTOR, Hellschreiber, Clover, Olivia, Thor, MFSK, Contestia, the long time favourites of Echolink and IRLP, not to forget Fusion, DMR, D-STAR, AllStar, BrandMeister or APRS. So far I've mentioned about 20 modes, picked at random, some from the list of modes that the software Fldigi supports. Some of these don't even show up on the Signal Wiki which has a list of about 70 amateur modes. With all the bands you have available, there's plenty of different things to play with. All. The. Time. There's contests for many of them, so once you've got it working, you can see how well you go. Over the past year I've been experimenting with a friend with various modes, some more successful than others. I'm mentioning this because it's not difficult to get started. Seriously, it's not. The most important part of this whole experiment is getting your computer to talk to your radio. If you have FT8 already working you have all the hardware in place. To make the software work, you can't go past installing Fldigi. As a tool it works a lot like what you're familiar with. You'll see a band-scope, a list of frequencies and a list of decodes. It's one of many programs that can decode and generate a multitude of amateur digital modes. If this is all completely new to you, don't be alarmed. There are essentially two types of connections between your computer and your radio. The first one is audio, the second is control. For this to work well, both these need to be two-way, so you can both decode the audio that the radio receives and generate audio that the radio can transmit. The same is true for the control connection. You need to be able to set the transmit frequency and the mode and you need to be able to read the current state of the radio, if only to toggle the transmitter on-and-off. If you already have CAT control working, that's one half done. I've spoken with plenty of amateurs who are reluctant to do any of this. If this is you, don't be afraid. It's like the first time you keyed up you radio. Remember the excitement? You can relive that experience, no matter how long you've been an amateur. Depending on the age of your radio, you might find that there is only one physical connection between your computer and the radio, either using USB or even Ethernet. You'll find that your computer will still need to deal with the two types of information separately. Notice that I've not talked about what kind of operating system you need to be running. I use and prefer Linux, but you can do this on any operating system, even using a mobile phone if that takes your fancy. Getting on air and making noise using your microphone is one option, but doing this using computer control will open you to scores of new adventures. I will add some words of caution here. In general, especially using digital modes, less is more. If you drive the audio too high you'll splatter all over the place and nobody will hear you, well, actually, everyone will, but nobody will be able to talk to you because they won't be able to decode it. If the ALC on your radio is active, you're too loud. WSJT-X, the tool for modes like FT8 and WSPR, has a really easy way of ensuring that your levels are right, so if you've not done anything yet, start there. Another issue is signal isolation. What I mean by that is you blowing up your computer because the RF travelled unexpectedly back up the serial or audio cable and caused all manner of grief. You can get all fancy with optical isolation and at some point you should, but until then, dial the power down to QRP levels, 5 Watts, and you'll be fine. A third issue that was likely covered during your licensing is the duty cycle. It's the amount of time that your radio is transmitting continuously as compared to receiving only. For some modes, like WSPR for example, you'll be transmitting for a full 2 minutes at 100%, so you'll be working your radio hard. Even harder might unexpectedly be using FT8, which transmits in 15 second bursts every 15 seconds, so there may not be enough time for your radio to cool down. Investing in a fan is a good plan, but being aware of the issue will go a long way to keeping the magic smoke inside your radio. I'm sure that you have plenty of questions after all that. You can ask your friends, or drop me an email, cq@vk6flab.com and I'll be happy to point you in the right direction. Next time there's nothing good on TV, get on air and make some digital noise! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1145 Release Date: February 6, 2021 Here is a summary of the news trending This Week in Amateur Radio. This weeks edition is anchored by Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Fred Fitte, NF2F, Eric Zitell, KD2RJX, Will Rogers, K5WLR, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Running Time: 1:37:41 Download Podcast here: https://bit.ly/TWIAR1145 Trending headlines in this weeks bulletin service: 1. ARRL Board of Directors to Reconsider the Use of Electronic Balloting 2. ARRL Board of Directors Confers Awards 3. Upcoming National Contest Journal CW and RTTY North American Sprints to Start One Hour Earlier 4. Plans to Retrieve Titanic Wireless Equipment Put on Indefinite Hold 5. A New Version of WSJT-X is Now Available 6. ARISS is Seeking Hosts for Ham Radio Contacts with the Space Station 7. MARS Announces Schedule of Dates for 60-Meter Interoperability 8. ARISS and Partners Are Investigating Space Station Ham Radio Anomaly Following Spacewalk 9. IARU Receives Gift of hamradio.org Domain - UK Ofcom Clarifies VP8 Hams License Responsibilities 10. RadFxSat-2 Satellite Signals Detected, AMSAT Engineering Continues to Assess Status 11. FT8 and the Other WSJT-X Digital Modes are Tools K1JT Says 12. Upcoming ARRL Learning Network Webinars 13. Space X Launches French Amateur Radio Sateliites 14. New Invention Will Help Clean Up Junk In Earth Orbit By De-Orbiting Satellites 15. World War Two Enigma Machine Restoration Project Gets Underway - Australian Air Force Centenary 16. Indian Amateurs Assist In Identifying A Missing Australian Person 17. Canadian Amateur Club Offers Microwave Network For Emergency Communications In British Columbia 18. Amateurs In A Georgia Club Demonstrate Radio Science During Winter Field Day Plus these Special Features This Week: * Technology News and Commentary with Leo Laporte, W6TWT, will talk about how technology and social media caused a little bit of a problem on the stock market last week. * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News * Tower Climbing and Antenna Safety w/Greg Stoddard KF9MP, will have is fifth installment of writing a successful public service announcement to promote your amateur clubs activities on local broadcast radio stations. * Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB, will tell us about the "Changing Of The Guard" * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL * Bill Continelli, W2XOY - The History of Amateur Radio. Bill returns with another edition of The Ancient Amateur Archives, this weeks edition, entitled "Hams versus the ARRL", will relate the story of the introduction and reaction to Incentive Licensing. ----- Website: https://www.twiar.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/twiar RSS News: https://twiar.net/?feed=rss2 iHeartRadio: https://bit.ly/iHeart-TWIAR Spotify: https://bit.ly/Spotify-TWIAR TuneIn: https://bit.ly/TuneIn-TWIAR Automated: https://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, changed weekly) ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built in identification breaks every 10 minutes or less. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, and all around the world on amateur radio repeater systems, weekends on WA0RCR on 1860 (160 Meters), and more. This Week in Amateur Radio is portable too! The bulletin/news service is available and built for air on local repeaters (check with your local clubs to see if their repeater is carrying the news service) and can be downloaded for air as a weekly podcast to your digital device from just about everywhere, including iHeart, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, TuneIn, AnchorFM, Stitcher, iVoox, Blubrry, Castro, Feedburner, gPodder, Listen Notes, NetVibes, OverCast, Player.FM, PocketCast, Podnova, and RSS feeds. This Week in Amateur Radio is also carried on a number of LPFM stations, so check the low power FM stations in your area. You can also stream the program to your favorite digital device by visiting our web site www.twiar.net. Or, just ask Siri, Alexa, or your Google Nest to play This Week in Amateur Radio! This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with our Executive Producer, George, via email at w2xbs77@gmail.com. Also, please feel free to follow us by joining our popular group on Facebook, and follow our daily feed on Twitter!

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the past little while I've been experimenting with various tools that decode radio signals. For some of those tools the signals come from space. Equipment in space is moving all the time, which means that the thing you want to hear isn't always in range. For example. The International Space Station or ISS has a typical orbit of 90 minutes. Several times a day there's a pass. That means that it's somewhere within receiving range of my station. It might be very close to the horizon and only visible for a few seconds, or it might be directly overhead and visible for 10 minutes. If it's transmitting APRS on a particular frequency, it can be decoded using something like multimon-ng. If it's transmitting Slow Scan TV, qsstv can do the decoding. I've done this and I must say, it's exciting to see a picture come in line-by-line, highly recommended. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, has a fleet of satellites in a polar orbit that lasts about 102 minutes and they're overhead at least every 12 hours. You can use something like noaa-apt to decode the images coming from the various weather satellites, or a python script and I'll talk about that at some point. There is a growing cloud of cube satellites with interesting telemetry. They're in all kinds of orbits and you can attempt to receive data from each one as it's in sight. Keeping track of what's where and when is a full time job for plenty of people. As a radio amateur I'm happy to defer to the experts who tell me where a piece of equipment is and when I'm likely to be able to receive a radio signal from the transmitter I'm interested in. Previously I've mentioned in passing a tool called gpredict that does this heavy lifting for me. It presents a map of the world and shows what's visible at my location and when the next acquisition of signal for a particular satellite might occur. It talks to the internet to download the latest orbital information. It also has the ability to control a rotator to point your antenna, not that I have one, and it can update the transmit and receive frequency of your radio to compensate for the Doppler effect that changes the observed frequency as a satellite passes overhead. All this works with a graphical user-interface, that is to say, you have a screen that you're looking at and can click on. Whilst running gpredict, you can simultaneously launch the appropriate decoding tool for the signal that you're trying to receive. If you have a powerful enough computer, you can run multiple decoding tools together. You'll have separate windows for controlling the radio and antenna, for decoding APRS, SSTV, NOAA and if you're wanting to do sunrise and sunset propagation testing using WSPR, you can also run WSJT-X or any other decoder you're interested in. There are some implications associated with doing this, apart from needing a big enough screen, needing considerable computing power and burning electricity for no good reason, the signal that comes in from your radio will be fed to all the decoders at the same time and all of them will attempt to decode the signal, even when you know that this serves no purpose. That's fine if you don't know what you're listening to, but most of the time you know exactly what it is, even if the software doesn't. Manually launching and quitting decoders is one option, but what if the next ISS pass is at 3am? Aside from the computing requirements, so far this works fine with a standard analogue radio like my Yaesu FT-857d. The only limitation is that you can only receive one station at a time. If you replace the analogue radio with an RTL-SDR dongle, you gain the ability to record and decode simultaneous stations within about 2.4 MHz of each other. Another option is to use an ADALM Pluto and as long as the stations are within 20 MHz of each other, you can record and decode their signals. If you're not familiar with a Pluto, it's essentially a computer, receiver and transmitter, all in a little box, the size of a pack of cards. This is where it gets interesting. The Pluto doesn't have a screen, or a keyboard for that matter, but it's a computer. It runs Linux and you can run decoders on it. I've done this with ADS-B signals using a tool called dump1090. You'll find it on my GitHub page. One of the sticking points in decoding signals from space was the ability to predict when a satellite pass occurs without requiring a computer screen. Thanks to a command-line tool called "predict", written by John, KD2BD and others I've now discovered a way to achieve that. My efforts are not quite at the point of show-and-tell, but I've got a Docker container that's building and running predict on its own and using a little bash script it's telling me when the ISS is overhead. You'll find that on GitHub as well. My next challenge is to do some automated decoding of actual space signals. I'm going to start with the ISS, predict and multimon-ng. I'll let you know how I go. What space signals are you interested in? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 7th of February 2021 The news headlines: New GB2RS Newsreaders hamradio.org URL donated to IARU New short RSGB video The RSGB is delighted to announce some enhancements to the GB2RS News service. Kelvan, M0KEL is now broadcasting the news via GB3IW on the Isle of Wight at 1015UTC each Sunday. The repeater is on 433.225MHz FM with a sub-audible access tone of 71.9Hz. The repeater has an impressive coverage on the south coast too, and our thanks go to the repeater-keeper Paul, G4IKI who has kindly granted permission for this broadcast. And a new digital amateur television broadcast is being made on 1308MHz at 1000UTC each Sunday via GB3EY, located in a commanding position near Hull 155 metres above sea level. The newsreader Clive, G3GJA also listens for reports on the ATV talkback frequency of 144.775MHz. The latest GB2RS Broadcast Schedule can be downloaded from rsgb.org/gb2rsschedule. We’re always looking for new readers to join the teams around the UK and Crown Dependencies. If you would like to find out more, and you are an RSGB member with a Full or Intermediate licence, please contact the GB2RS Manager via email to gb2rs.manager@rsgb.org.uk. Andrew, KI7RYC has donated the hamradio.org domain to the International Amateur Radio Union for non-profit educational use to promote the amateur and amateur satellite services. In accepting the gift, IARU President Tim Ellam, VE6SH said, “The hamradio.org domain offers a unique opportunity for which we are deeply grateful to Andrew. It is our intention to develop a website that can serve as a focal point for anyone, anywhere, who may be seeking information on amateur radio.” The RSGB represents UK radio amateurs both nationally and internationally. Strengthening this representation is part of the Society’s strategic goals. A short video explaining more about this has been added to the Spectrum Forum web page at rsgb.org/spectrum-forum. Girl Guides from Australia will be operating the ALARA Echolink conference station, node 286905, from 2200UTC to 2359UTC on Saturday the 20th of February for their International Thinking Day activities. Contacts from Girl Guides and Leaders would be appreciated. The preparatory work for WRC-23 has started across all regions in both the ITU R and the Regional Telecommunications Organisations. The IARU has representatives contributing to the studies and helping to develop the regional positions on all the WRC agenda items. The IARU Administrative Council has agreed the first preliminary positions covering the six most important agenda items for the amateur and amateur satellite services. Read more at iaru-r1.org. The RSGB nominations process has closed for its forthcoming elections. Only the current co-opted Regional Representatives in Regions 6 and 12 were nominated in those areas, so they have been elected unopposed. We congratulate Liz Cabban, GW0ETU and David de la Haye, M0MDB who will continue in their roles. No nominations were received for the Regional Representative in Region 2, which covers Scotland North and the Northern Isles. The UK and Ireland Contest Club has been assigned the historic callsign EI5G as its club call. Its previous holder was the late Pete Daly, who held the call from the early 1930s until 1961. He was a keen participant in field days and contests. Reviving the callsign honours the memory of its previous holder and, with its EI and G components, captures the ethos of the UK and EI Contest Club. The WSJT Development Group has announced the general availability release of WSJT-X Version 2.3.0. A summary of new features can be found in the User Guide. The Release Notes offer additional information, including a list of important program changes since the WSJT-X 2.2. Upgrading from earlier versions of WSJT-X should be seamless and it’s not necessary to uninstall a previous version or move any files. Just search online for WSJT-X 2.3 User Guide. Congratulations to Lincoln Short-Wave Club, whose 100th birthday is on Wednesday this week. Due to current Covid restrictions, the celebratory dinner will be delayed, but members will probably raise a glass at home. Now the DX news Gareth, M0MOL will be active as MM0MOL/P from the main island of Shetland, IOTA reference EU-012, in February and March. He will operate QRP with what he refers to as a typical portable setup and he will be QRV mainly in the evenings after work. Kang, DS4DRE will be active as DS4DRE/4 from Komun Island, AS-060, until the 31st of January 2022. He plans to operate SSB and CW on the 80 to 10m bands. QSL via home call, direct or bureau. Now the Special Event news Hull & District ARS is continuing to celebrate 100 years of amateur radio clubs in the Hull area with its year-long special event station, GB1OOH. The station operates most days on bands ranging from 160m to 70cm using different modes. Further details about the operation can be found on QRZ.com. IQ3DD will be active during the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Cortina, Italy from the 7th to the 28th of February. A special QSL card will be available. More information on qrz.com. TM18AAW will be on air from the 14th to the 28th of February to celebrate the 18th Antarctic Activity Week. All information is on QRZ.com. The operation will be on the 10 to 40m bands. Now the contest news Please remember to check before the contest for any new rules due to lockdown and social distancing, which may differ around the world. The RSGB strongly advises obeying your national and local government’s advice. Today, the 7th of February, the 432MHz AFS contest runs from 0900 to 1300UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The first European Union DX Contest ends its 24-hour run at 1800UTC today, the 7th. A variety of operating categories are offered, including SWL, and everybody works everybody. Just search for European Union DX Contest Club to obtain full details. On Tuesday the 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955UTC. It is followed by the all-mode 432MHz UK Activity Contest from 2000 to 2230UTC. The exchange is the same for both, signal report, serial number and locator. On Wednesday the data modes leg of the 80m Club Championships runs from 2000 to 2130UTC. The exchange is signal report and serial number. On Thursday the 50MHz UK Activity contest runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Saturday the 13th, the 1st 1.8MHz contest runs from 1900 to 2300UTC. It’s CW only and the exchange is signal report, serial number and District code. Next weekend the CQ World Wide WPX RTTY contest runs from 0000UTC on the 13th to 2359UTC on the 14th. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Also next weekend, but running for 24 hours, is the PACC Contest. It starts at 1200UTC on the 13th. Using CW and SSB on the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Note that PA stations also send their Province code. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA & G4BAO on Friday the 5th of February. Last week was dominated by unsettled geomagnetic conditions. These were due to the effects of a high-speed stream from a solar coronal hole. The stream resulted in a co-rotating interaction region or CIR. CIRs are transition zones between slow- and fast-moving streams of solar wind. Solar wind plasma piles up in these regions, creating density gradients and shock waves that can affect Earth’s magnetic field much like a coronal mass ejection, or CME. The net result was a Kp index that hit four with widespread visible aurora in the early hours of February 2nd. Unsettled geomagnetic conditions continued until at least Thursday with the Kp index eventually settling back to two. Propagation wise, Tuesday morning saw 10 metres alive with FT8 signals. There was short-skip to Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well as longer paths to Croatia and the Canary Islands. Wednesday saw 4X4DX in Israel coming through. Chris, G0DWV managed to work Namibia and South Africa on 10 metres from his well-equipped station. He then moved to 12 metres and bagged the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Venezuela, Ecuador and numerous North American stations. And all this with virtually no sunspots! Next week NOAA predicts the solar flux index will be in the range 72-76. But a high-speed stream from another solar coronal hole may impact the Earth this weekend, sending the Kp index up to four. It will be interesting to see if we have an enhancement to the upper HF bands again. Keep an eye on 10 and 12 metres and also for a rapid rise in the real-time solar wind speed at solarham.com. And now the VHF and up propagation news. A disturbed end to this week with rain and snow giving us plenty to do without worrying about band conditions. There’s always GHz bands snow and rain scatter to try if you have the equipment. 10GHz rain scatter QSOs can be made over short ranges using high elevation, so put that tripod out in the back yard, chuck something waterproof over the equipment and make a sked! On the Tropo front, there’s a hint of a temporary weak ridge down the spine of the country at the start of next week, and it may produce some sharp nocturnal temperature inversions over snow cover to bring up the odd distant repeater. Thereafter another low moves up the Channel with rain and snow for the south, while wintry showers affect northern areas. Later in the week a more vigorous Atlantic low pushes active fronts across the whole country. For VHF/UHF propagation this is not a good period, apart from some scattering on the GHz bands. February is the minimum month for Sporadic-E. The Moon is at minimum declination on Monday, so visibility windows are at their shortest and peak Moon elevations are minimum. Perigee was last week so path losses are still low. 144MHz sky noise is high, over 2000K on Monday. On Thursday afternoon the Sun and Moon are within a few degrees of each other so Sun noise will dominate. The Alpha Centaurids meteor shower peaks tomorrow, Monday, but with a zenithal hourly rate of just six, you’ll only see a slight enhancement on meteor scatter conditions. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1142 Release Date: January 16, 2021 Here is a summary of the news trending This Week in Amateur Radio. This weeks edition is anchored by Chris Perrine, KB2FAF, Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Will Rogers, K5WLR, Eric Zitell, KD2RJX, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Running Time: 1:39:13 Download Podcast here: https://bit.ly/TWIAR1142 Trending headlines in this weeks bulletin service: 1. ARRL Life Member Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, Is 2021 Carole Perry Educator Of The Year 2. Seven US Schools Move Forward In ARISS Selection Process 3. Dayton Hamvention, and Others, Cancel 2021 Shows 4. New Amateur Very Low Frequency Transatlantic Record Set 5. International Amateur Radio Union Preparing For World Radio Conference 2023 6. FCC Invites Comments On Expanding The Number Of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators 7. WSJT-X 2.4.0 To Introduce New Digital Protocol Q65 8. ARRL Seeks Nominations For Seven 2021 Awards 9. Upcoming ARRL Learning Network Webinars 10. UPDATE: FCC To Require Email Address 0n Applications Starting On June 29, 2021 11. UPDATE: FCC Reduces Proposed Amateur Radio Application Fee To $35 12. 2021 AM Rally Set for First Weekend In February 13. International Amateur Radio Union Adopts Theme Based On The Pandemic 14. QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo Returning in March 15. Northernmost Reverse Beacon Net Node in Europe Launched 16. Donna Snow Of DIY Network Reality TV Series Texas Flip 'N Move Becomes An Amateur 17. Finland Radio Amateurs Seek Replacement Spectrum for 1240 To 1300 MegaHertz 18. Israel's Radio Hams Lose Access To Much Microwave Spectrum 19. United Kingdoms Brexit Makes Importing Radios A Little More Difficult 20. Radio Caroline North Will Be Broadcasting This Weekend on 648/1368Khz & Radio Caroline App 21. The All Star Network Expands To The Northwest United Kingdom 22. Sun Emits A Shockwave That Sparked Rare Blue Aurora In The Skies 23. Germany Raises Maximum Emitted Power On A Few Amateur Bands Plus these Special Features This Week: * Technology News and Commentary with Leo Laporte, W6TWT, will talk about 2021 Internet and Technology anniversaries, and will explore inexpensive podcast microphone recommendations. * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News * Tower Climbing and Antenna Safety w/Greg Stoddard KF9MP, will present Part Two of his six part series on producing a broadcast public service announcement to promote you radio clubs next event, on local broadcast stations, and what is required to actually get it on the air. * Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB, explores "The Other Radios In The World" with a quick look at emergency communications. * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL * Bill Continelli, W2XOY - The History of Amateur Radio. Bill returns with another edition of The Ancient Amateur Archives, this week, Bill continues his look at the FCC and the 1940's Frequency Allocation Battle" for FM broadcasting and something new called television. * The Random Access Thought with Bill Baran, N2FNH/SK - Audio Clips of 2m DX band openings ----- Website: https://www.twiar.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/twiar RSS News: https://twiar.net/?feed=rss2 iHeartRadio: https://bit.ly/iHeart-TWIAR Spotify: https://bit.ly/Spotify-TWIAR TuneIn: https://bit.ly/TuneIn-TWIAR Automated: https://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, changed weekly) ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built in identification breaks every 10 minutes or less. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, and all around the world on amateur radio repeater systems, weekends on WA0RCR on 1860 (160 Meters), and more. This Week in Amateur Radio is portable too! The bulletin/news service is available and built for air on local repeaters (check with your local clubs to see if their repeater is carrying the news service) and can be downloaded for air as a weekly podcast to your digital device from just about everywhere, including iHeart, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, TuneIn, AnchorFM, Stitcher, iVoox, Blubrry, Castro, Feedburner, gPodder, Listen Notes, NetVibes, OverCast, Player.FM, PocketCast, Podnova, and RSS feeds. This Week in Amateur Radio is also carried on a number of LPFM stations, so check the low power FM stations in your area. You can also stream the program to your favorite digital device by visiting our web site www.twiar.net. Or, just ask Siri, Alexa, or your Google Nest to play This Week in Amateur Radio! This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with our Executive Producer, George, via email at w2xbs77@gmail.com. Also, please feel free to follow us by joining our popular group on Facebook, and follow our daily feed on Twitter!

This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1140 Release Date: January 2, 2021 Here is a summary of the news trending This Week in Amateur Radio. This weeks edition is anchored by Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Eric Zitell, KD2RDX, Fred Fitte, NF2F, Will Rogers, K5WLR, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Running Time: 1:31:36 Download Podcast here: https://bit.ly/TWIAR1140 Trending headlines in this weeks bulletin service: 1. December YOTA Month Participants Hoping to Top Last Year's Contact Total 2. ARRL ARES Volunteers Stood By to Assist if Needed in Wake of Nashville Blast 3. Special Call Signs In Belgium During The Second Lockdown Period Will Operate Until January 31, 2021 4. ARRL Staffers to be On the Air from W1AW for Straight Key Night 5. Texas’ Biggest Ham Radio Show Ham-Com is Closing 6. The ARRL RTTY Roundup is on January 2nd and 3rd 7. New Zealand Adds Wireless Power Transfer As Unlicensed Systems 8. Finland Radio Amateurs Seek Replacement Spectrum For 1240 To 1300 MegaHertz 9. ARRL Member Designs New Ham Radio License Plate For Kentucky 10. FCC Reduces Proposed Amateur Radio Application Fee to $35 11. WSJT-X 2.4.0 Introduces New Digital Protocol Q65 12. Federal Communications Commission To Require Email Address On Applications Starting June 29, 2021 13. Amateur Radio Is Part Of Mauritius' First Satellite 14. California Community Creates GoFundMe Page To Fund Repairs To First Responder Radio Tower 15. Amazon Unveils The Ground Station Antenna Design For Its Project Kuiper LEO Internet Constellation 16. RSGB Get On The Air To Care CW Key Auction Benefits A Charity In The UK 17. Japans Ham Numbers Shrink, South Africa Gains, While Switzerland Changes License Procedures 18. Clandestine Indoor Antenna Article Appears On The Hackaday Blog 19. How Claude Shannon Invented The Future 20. Amateurs Are On Stand By For Earthquake Response In Croatia 21. A Major Solar Cycle 25 Flare Causes Radio Outages as the Sun Wakes Up Plus these Special Features This Week: * Technology News and Commentary with Leo Laporte, W6TWT, will cover the end of life for Adobe Flash is coming up in a few days, and will answer the question, Are Lithium Batteries Safe? He will discuss their care and feeding. * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News * Tower Climbing and Antenna Safety w/Greg Stoddard KF9MP, will talk about what tools you should bring as you head up the tower for that antenna repair you have been putting off. * Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB, will tell us that you should test a link on one band at a time. * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL * Bill Continelli, W2XOY - The History of Amateur Radio. Bill returns with another edition of The Ancient Amateur Archives, this week, Bill covers how amateur radio fared at the very first International Radio Conference. ----- Website: https://www.twiar.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/twiar RSS News: https://twiar.net/?feed=rss2 iHeartRadio: https://bit.ly/iHeart-TWIAR Spotify: https://bit.ly/Spotify-TWIAR TuneIn: https://bit.ly/TuneIn-TWIAR Automated: https://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, changed weekly) ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built in identification breaks every 10 minutes or less. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, and all around the world on amateur radio repeater systems, weekends on WA0RCR on 1860 (160 Meters), and more. This Week in Amateur Radio is portable too! The bulletin/news service is available and built for air on local repeaters (check with your local clubs to see if their repeater is carrying the news service) and can be downloaded for air as a weekly podcast to your digital device from just about everywhere, including iHeart, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, TuneIn, AnchorFM, Stitcher, iVoox, Blubrry, Castro, Feedburner, gPodder, Listen Notes, NetVibes, OverCast, Player.FM, PocketCast, Podnova, and RSS feeds. This Week in Amateur Radio is also carried on a number of LPFM stations, so check the low power FM stations in your area. You can also stream the program to your favorite digital device by visiting our web site www.twiar.net. Or, just ask Siri, Alexa, or your Google Nest to play This Week in Amateur Radio! This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with our Executive Producer, George, via email at w2xbs77@gmail.com. Also, please feel free to follow us by joining our popular group on Facebook, and follow our daily feed on Twitter!

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I wanted to know what kind of communication was possible between my station and the station of a friend of mine. We want to do some experiments and for that to be possible, we need to have a reliable communication channel. Traditionally you would get in touch with each other and attempt to find a suitable frequency on a band to make a QSO or contact. That generally involves picking a band, then tuning around the band, finding a frequency that's not in use, then listening, asking if the frequency is in use, then telling your friend via an alternative method where you are, only to have them tell you that they have noise at that particular frequency. You go back and forth a couple of times, finally settle in on a mutually convenient frequency and have a contact whilst keeping note of the signal strength shown on your receiver. On a good day that will take a few minutes, on a bad day that might take much longer or not work at all. If you want to do this across multiple bands, you have the fun of doing this whole thing multiple times. In case you're wondering, I've done this plenty of times and I will confess that it's an interesting combination of joy and frustration in attempting to get the answer to a pretty simple and common question: "Can I talk to my friend?" In my shack there are plenty of tools, digital multimeters, LC meter, antenna analyser and the like. No doubt you have some or more of those. Perhaps you have an oscilloscope, a vector network analyser, or other gadgets. None of those are particularly useful tools to solve this particular problem. On the other hand, you are likely to have a receiver and probably a transmitter. If you're reading or listening to this, you're likely to have a computer as well. Using a receiver and a computer as a tool to solve this problem might not have occurred to you. It hadn't occurred to me until recently that these are ideally suited for this particular repetitive task. So, I fired up my copy of WSJT-X and set it to WSPR mode. Changed the band to 2m and set it up to transmit. The other station did the same. Within a couple of minutes the results were coming in. We could both see what the link quality was like between us. Then we changed to 70 cm and did it again. Rinse and repeat for 10m. As it happens, the other station was receive only and they had to attend to some family activities and I was in my office earning a living, well actually, doing my bookkeeping, but you get the idea, you can do this test while you're doing something else. I checked in a couple of times to see how it was going when he pointed out that I could see his actual results on the WSPRnet.org website. I had been looking at the map with mixed results because it had been timing out for most of the day and when it did work, all I could see was that a message was decoded, not how well it was received. Randall VK6WR, the other station, then pointed me at the link to the database which I hadn't seen until then. If you're looking, it's at the top right. Out pops a list of all the WSPR spots his station reported, and as a bonus, the spots reported by another local amateur. If you know me at all it will come as no surprise that I used the opportunity to make a chart. Actually I made several, one showing the frequency drift between our stations, one showing the signal strength. Between the three bands it looks like 2m gives us the best opportunity for experimentation, though 70cm does appear to have some possibilities. Sadly 10m isn't with the antennas currently in the air, but I saw an email the other day with reports of a new vertical at the other end, so we'll have a go at doing the 10m test again in the very near future, perhaps even today. Right now from the WSPRnet.org website I'm downloading this month's WSPR reports from the Downloads section to see who else saw my signals. No doubt I'll make a chart or six. I'll keep you posted. I must thank Randall VK6WR for pointing me at the database link on the WSPRnet.org website, because that made propagation and link testing so much more useful and repeatable. Tools come in all shapes and sizes. What's one that unexpectedly helped you lately? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio Antenna testing in the field. If you've been around amateur radio for any time at all, you'll know that we spend an awful lot of time talking about antennas. How they work, where to get them, how to build them, how strong they are, how cheap they are, how effective, how resonant, you name it, we have a discussion about it. It might not be immediately obvious why this is the case. An antenna is an antenna, right? Well ... no. Just like the infinite variety of cars on the road, the unending choice of mobile phones, ways to cook an egg and clothes to wear to avoid getting wet, antennas are designed and built for a specific purpose. I've talked at length about these variations, but in summary we can alter the dimensions to alter characteristics like frequency responsiveness, gain, weight, cost and a myriad of other parameters. If we take a step back and look at two antennas, let's say a vertical and a horizontal dipole, we immediately see that the antennas are physically different, even if they're intended for exactly the same frequency range. Leaving cost and construction aside, how do you compare these two antennas in a meaningful way? In the past I've suggested that you use a coax switch, a device that allows you to switch between two connectors and feed one or the other into your radio. If you do this, you can select first one antenna, then the other and listen to their differences. If the difference is large enough, you'll be able to hear and some of the time it's absolutely obvious how they differ. You might find that a station on the other side of the planet is much stronger on one antenna than on the other, or that the noise level on one is much higher than the other. Based on the one measurement you might come to the conclusion that one antenna is "better" than the other. If you did come to this conclusion, I can almost guarantee that you're wrong. Why can I say this? Because one of the aspects of the better antenna is dependent on something that you cannot control, the ionosphere, and it is changing all the time. I have previously suggested that you listen to your antenna over the length of a day and notice how things change, but that is both time consuming and not very repeatable, nor does it give you anything but a fuzzy warm feeling, rather than an at least passing scientific comparison. A much more effective way is to set up your station, configure it to monitor WSPR, or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter transmissions using one antenna, for say a week, then doing it again with the other antenna. If you do this for long enough you can gather actual meaningful data to determine how your antenna performs during different conditions. You can use that knowledge to make more reliable choices when you're attempting to make contact with a rare station, or when it's 2 o'clock in the morning and you're trying to get another multiplier for the current contest. You don't even have to do anything different and spend little or no money on the testing and data gathering. You can do this with your normal radio and your computer running WSJT-X, or with a single board computer like a raspberry pi and an external DVB-T tuner, a so-called RTL-SDR dongle, or with an all-in-one ready-made piece of hardware that integrates all of this into a single circuit board. If you want to get really fancy, you can even use automatic antenna switching to change antennas multiple times an hour and see in real-time what is going on. You also don't have to wait until you have two antennas to compare. You can do this on a field day when you get together with friends who bring their own contraptions to the party. If there's any doubt in your mind, you can start with a piece of wire sticking out the back of a dongle. I know, I'm looking at one right now. I've been receiving stations across the planet. One thing I can guarantee is that the more you do this, the better you'll get a feel for how the bands change over time and how to go about selecting the right antenna for the job at the time. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the more fundamental aspects of long distance radio communication is the impact of the ionosphere. Depending on how excited the Sun is, what time of day it is and what frequency you're using at the time will determine if the signal you're trying to hear from the other side of the planet makes it to you or is on its way to a radio amateur on Proxima B who is likely to hear this podcast in just over 4 years from now. In other words, the ionosphere can act like a mirror to radio waves, or it can be all but invisible. As luck would have it, this changes all the time. Much like waiting for the local weather bureau for the forecast for tomorrow's field-day, there are several services that provide ionospheric predictions. The Australian Space Weather Service, SWS, is one of those. You might have previously known it as the Ionospheric Prediction Service, but Space is much more buzz-word compliant, so SWS is the go. If you're not a radio amateur, space weather can impact stuff here on Earth, like the ability to communicate, transfer energy across the electricity grid, use navigation systems and other life-essentials. The SWS offers alerts for aviation and several other non-amateur services. If you're interested in HF communications, the SWS offers HF prediction tools that allow you to check what frequencies to use to communicate with particular locations using visualisations like the Hourly Area Prediction map. If you're more of the Do-It-Yourself kind of person, you might be pleasantly surprised that you can have your very own ionospheric monitoring station at home. Not only that, it's probably already in place, configured and ready to go. If you're using WSJT-X to monitor WSPR transmissions, then you'll have noticed that the screen shows all the stations you've been able to decode and you can scroll back as far as you like to the time when you launched WSJT-X. If you want to do some analysis on that, copy and paste is an option, but it turns out that there's a handy little document being stored on your computer called ALL_WSPR.TXT that contains the very same data going back to when you installed and launched the first time. This information represents what stations you heard, at what time and with what level of signal to noise at your shack, not some fancy station in the middle of nowhere with specialist hardware, your actual station, the one you use to talk to your friends, with your antenna, your power supply, the whole thing. For my own entertainment I've been working on a way to visualise this. I created a map that shows the location every station I've logged, 30,000 of these reports in the past four months. It's interesting to see that I can hear most of the globe from my shack. Notably absent is South America but that is likely a combination of band selection and local noise. In the meantime I've gone down another rabbit hole in figuring out if I can use an image file to visualise all this without needing fancy software, unless you consider a web-browser and bash fancy. The idea being that a simple script could take the output from your station and convert that into a map you can see on your browser. In case you're wondering, I'm thinking that a style-sheet attached to a Scalable Vector Graphic or SVG might be just the ticket to showing just how many times I've heard a particular grid-square. If you have ideas on what else you might do with this data, get in touch. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio When you start playing with software defined radio, you're likely to begin your journey using something with a display that shows you a lovely waterfall, gives you a way to pick out a frequency, decode it and play it over your speakers all over the house. Likely your first effort involves a local FM radio station. These graphical tools come in many and varied forms available on pretty much anything with a display. Tools like SDR#, cuSDR, fldigi and WSJT-X. That can be immensely satisfying as an experience. Underneath the graphics is software that is essentially translating an antenna voltage to a sound, in much the same way as that happens in an analogue radio. There are the parts that get the signal, then they get translated and filtered, translated some more, decoded, and eventually you have sound coming from your speakers. During the week I caught up with a fellow amateur who pointed me at the work of Andras HA7ILM who for a number of years has been quietly beavering away making various tools in the SDR landscape. One of those tools has the innocuous name of "csdr", a command-line software defined radio digital signal processor. It started life on November 1st, 2014 and has had many updates and community changes since. This tool has no graphics, no user interface, nothing visible that you can toggle with a mouse and yet it's one of the coolest tools I've seen in a long time and from a learning perspective, it's everything you might hope for and then some. Before I explain how it works, I need to tell you about pipes. They're much like water pipes in your home, but in computing they're a tool that allow you to connect two programs together so you can exchange data between them. One of the ways that you can think of a computer is a tool that transforms one type of information into another. This transformation can be trivial, like say adding up numbers, or it can be complex, like filtering out unwanted information. The idea is that you take a stream of data and use a pipe to send it to a program that transforms it in some way, then use another pipe into another program and so on, until the original stream of numbers has become what you need them to be, creating a transformation pipeline with a string of programs that sequentially each do a little thing to the data. That stream of data could be numbers that represent the voltage of the signal at your antenna and the final output could be sound coming from your speaker. If you were to take that example, you could use one tool that knows how to measure voltage, pipe that to a tool that knows how to convert that into FM and pipe that to a tool that knows how to play audio on your speaker. Converting something to FM is, in and of itself, a series of steps. It involves taking the raw numbers, extracting the part of the samples that are the station you want to hear, decoding those and converting that into something that is ready to be played on your speakers. This process is fundamentally different from using a so-called monolithic tool that does everything behind the scenes. The person writing the software has decided what to do, how to do it, in what order and in what way. If you want to do something that the author hadn't thought of, like say listening to a new type of broadcast, you'll be waiting until they update the software. In another way, this is the difference between making a cake from raw ingredients and buying it up the road at the shops One final part of the puzzle. There's nothing preventing you from piping the output of your program to another copy of the same program. So, if you had a tool that knows how to do the maths behind filters, AM and FM decoding, translating Lower Side Band into Upper Side Band and vice-versa, band filtering, etc., you'd be able to set up individual steps that translate a signal, one step at a time, from raw antenna data into a sound you can hear. You would have all the building blocks for the fancy tools that you are used to. csdr is such a tool. For example, it knows how to set the gain of a signal, how to up and down sample, how to shift frequencies, how to decode them, it knows about RTTY, PSK, AM, FM and do about a hundred other things. So far I've mentioned decoding, but there's nothing stopping you from starting with plain text, piping that into csdr and converting that to a PSK31 audio signal and transmitting that audio on your radio. To make it even better, because it's so modular, you can look at the math behind what's going on and begin to understand what's happening behind the scenes. Of all the tools I've found in the past decade, I have to confess, this is the one that has stopped me in my tracks. Thank you to Randall VK6WR for introducing me to this tool and to Andras HA7ILM for writing it. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio In 1958 The Kentucky Engineer published an award winning student article by Copthorne "Coppie" MacDonald. He described a Slow-Scan T.V. System for Image Transmission. If you get the opportunity, have a look for the link on his archived home-page which you can find from the Wikipedia SSTV page. The purpose of this narrow band television idea was to be able to send images using cheaper equipment and less bandwidth than normal television. The idea caught on and it's still in use today. In 1959 the idea of slow scan tv was used by the Luna 3 mission to transmit images from the far side of the moon. The NASA Apollo program also used SSTV to transmit images from Apollo 7, 8, 9 and from the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. In 1968 SSTV became a legal mode for radio amateurs in the United States. The International Space Station regularly uses SSTV to send images to radio amateurs across the globe. The version of SSTV in use by radio amateurs today is different from the earlier grainy black and white images coming from the moon and if you're expecting a moving image, something that TV implies, you're going to be disappointed, since the popular SSTV modes send images one at a time, taking up to a minute or so to send. With a frame-rate of one frame per minute, watching anything other than grass grow is going to be a challenge. That said, SSTV is a lovely and relatively simple way of sending images across the air. In my quest for new adventures I like to play with things I know nothing about. I suspect that it's ingrained but it does keep me off the street. The other day I received an email from a local amateur, Adrian VK6XAM, who sent a message describing a new SSTV repeater he'd set-up for testing purposes. It's a local 2m repeater that waits for an activation tone, then it expects you to transmit an SSTV image and it will replay the image back to you. If you've familiar with a parrot repeater, this is a similar thing, just for SSTV rather than audio. The repeater is running on solar power and with the 100% duty cycle of SSTV, it's only available during daylight hours. Technicalities aside, I couldn't resist. So, I fired up QSSTV, a piece of Linux software that among other things knows how to receive and send SSTV images. After turning on my radio, tuning to the correct frequency, I received my first ever SSTV picture. On a bright red background a yellow symbol appeared. At first I thought it was a hammer and sickle, but on closer inspection it was a micrometer and caliper, which absolutely tickled my fancy, having just taken delivery of some precision measuring tools - a Mitutoyo Test Indicator and a few other bits and pieces for another project I'm working on. Had to learn how to drive QSSTV, make a template so you can overlay text on an image, learn what a signal report should look like, then when I figured all that out I triumphantly hit send and it made all the right noises, but nothing was happening. More time looking at the inter-web taught me that if I want to use the rear connection on my FT-857d to send audio using FM, as opposed to SSB which is what most digital modes need, you need to set the radio to PSK mode and magically it starts to work. My first ever SSTV image was sent an hour and a half after receiving my first image and the repeater dutifully sent it back. Then I got a picture from Keith VK6WK. Of course the paint isn't even dry on any of this, so there's plenty more to learn, but the process is not too complex. I will note a few things. I had already set-up digital modes, that is, my radio was talking to my computer via CAT, that's Computer Assisted Tuning, essentially a serial connection that controls the radio and the audio was already being sent and received from the rear connector of my radio. Getting SSTV running was really an extension on those activities, so if you're going to do this, take some time to make things work. I continue to recommend that you start with WSJT-X since it helps you get your levels and connections right. Now I suppose I should start playing with SSTV over HF, but first I would like to figure out how to make the templates work better for me and how to actually seriously log an actual contact. More adventures ahead! Remember, have fun, play, get on air and make noise! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio It's the morning after the day before. I've been calling CQ for 24 hours and for the first time in my life after a contest I still have my voice. That in and of itself is novel. I also don't have ringing ears, that's a blessing. I have learnt heaps and had fun doing it. I made contacts and I heard stations across the globe and I did it all from the comfort of my shack chair. Before I dig in and expand, the contest I just completed ran for 24 hours. I didn't sit at my radio for all of it, nor was my radio on for all of it. I managed to have lunch, dinner, desert, breakfast and morning tea. I snuck in a few naps and I managed to help with bringing in the shopping. My station did not transmit unattended at any time in case you're wondering. My setup consisted of a little 11 year old netbook computer running the current version of Debian Linux and the heart of this adventure, the software called fldigi. The computer is connected to my Yaesu FT-857d via three cables, well, two and a half. A microphone and a headphone lead that combine into the data port in the back of the radio. The other cable is a USB CAT cable, a Computer Assisted Tuning cable, that plugs into the CAT port on the back of the radio. I also used an external monitor to have my main contest screen on and used it to display the main fldigi window. My license class allows me access to a selected number of amateur bands, 80m, 40m, 15m, 10m, 2m and 70cm. I managed at least one RTTY contact on each band. As I described previously, my radio is set to use Single Side Band and the audio from the radio is fed via the microphone socket on the computer into fldigi that processes the information. Similarly, when I transmit, the audio is generated via fldigi and leaves the computer via the headphone socket and goes into the radio as a Single Side Band audio signal. The information in the audio is all RTTY, a digital mode that I've described previously. The software is using Audio Frequency Shift Keying, AFSK, simulating the switching between the two RTTY frequencies. On my screen I have a waterfall display that shows all the signals that are happening within the 2.3 kHz audio stream that's coming from the radio. Fldigi is also decoding this in real-time and showing each decode as a virtual channel in a list. Click on a channel entry and your next transmission will happen at that frequency. If you've ever used WSJT-X this will sound very familiar. That's the mechanics of what I've been doing. So, what did I learn in this adventure? Well, most of Australia goes to sleep at night, at least the ones that do RTTY. I have evidence of exactly one station on-air, and that was only because they were named in the DX Cluster, which by the way this contest allows as assistance. Since then I've found logs from at least two more stations. Local contacts did happen during the more civil hours and in total I managed ten of them. You may think that's not much for say 12 hours of work, but that's 5 Watts QRP, or low power, RTTY contacts, in an actual contest, on a new antenna, from my shack, dodging thunderstorms and learning to use filters and levels. You might not be impressed, but I'm absolutely stoked! During the midnight-to-dawn run, on 40m, when there were double points to be had, which I missed out on, I did manage to hear several stations across Europe, 14,000 km away, which means that I can pretty much count on global coverage with my current setup. Sadly they didn't hear me, too many competing stations, but I'm sure that with practice I'll manage to contact them too. The software crashed once. That's not nice. It seems to have a habit of corrupting one of the preference files, which prevents it from starting up. That's also not nice. I hasten to add that I don't yet know the source of this. It may well be a dud-hard-disk sector on my ancient laptop, rather than the software, so I'm not assigning blame here. Getting started with fldigi is an adventure. It's not point-and-click, nor plug-and-play, more like running a mainframe whilst cranking the handle, but when you get it to fly there's lots to love about this tool. Other things that worked well were that I'd spent some preparation time getting the keyboard macros right. These are pre-defined bits of text that you send as you're calling CQ and making a contact. They're a whole topic in and of themselves, so I'll skip past the detail and just mention that I was very happy with the choices I made, gathered from years of voice-only contacts, reading RTTY contest information and looking for exchange details. From a technical perspective, I used both contest modes, "Running" and "Search and Pounce". Running is when you call CQ, Pouncing is when they call CQ. The running was by far the most successful for me. I'm not yet sure if that was a reflection on how much I still have to learn about levels. One thing that I can say with confidence is that there's absolutely nothing like having a wall of RTTY signals to learn how to make sure you're actually decoding something useful. I spent a good couple of the wee hours tuning my levels. I would like to thank the stations who came back to my call and for those who tried without me noticing them. I had a blast. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day day I managed my first DX contact using a new mode, FT8. It wasn't very far away, all of 2600 km or so, but it evoked memories of my first ever on-air DX contact nearly a decade ago. I should say thank you to YD3YOG for my 15m contact, fitting because my first ever was also on 15m as I recall. Unfortunately I never did log my first. Recently a friend asked me how the two compared. 15m and logging aside, there's a lot of similarities, even though I'm a more experienced operator today when compared to when I made my first ever contact. The preparation and the building anticipation is what made the contact all the sweeter. A while ago I managed to connect the audio of my radio to a computer. This is pretty much the first step in starting to use digital modes. Essentially many common digital modes use an SSB transmission to generate and receive audio that in turn contains digitally encoded information. There are hundreds of modes like this, from PSK31 to RTTY, WSPR, FT8, SSTV and many more. If you've not yet dabbled in this area, I'd recommend starting with WSJT-X. The software is so far the best tool I've found to make sure that your digital levels are correct and offers several popular modes to see how your station is operating. If you're asking for a first mode recommendation, I'd start with WSPR. Just do the receive part first, then work on from there. There are many tutorials available, some better than others, so if the one you find doesn't float your boat, keep looking. A fly-over view is that there are several things that you need to get working and if they don't all work together, you'll get no result. Obviously you'll need to install the software, but that's not the whole story. For the software to be able to control your radio, change bands, frequency and set-up things like split operation, you'll need to set-up the hardware to do this, in my case a CAT cable between the radio and the computer. You'll also need to set-up control software that knows how to talk to the hardware. In my case that's Hamlib on Linux, but it could be Hamlib or flrig on MacOS or something like OmniRig on your Windows machine. The purpose is to control the radio. When you're troubleshooting, keep that in mind, hardware plus software need to work together to control the radio and this is before you actually do anything useful with the radio. Then you need to have both hardware and software to have audio go between the computer and the radio. In my case the headphone and microphone connectors on my computer are connected to the data port on the back of the radio. If your computer doesn't have access to sockets you might need to use a USB sound-card. If your radio doesn't have an easily accessible port, you might need to have an interface. The computer software in this case is likely setting the volume levels using the audio mixer in your operating system. I will add that some radios have a USB socket on the back that combines both CAT control and audio. The principle though is the same. You need to make the CAT interface work, which is essentially a serial connection, and you need to make the audio work, which is essentially a sound-card. Nothing else will make sense until you've managed to make those two work. Then, and only then, can you try to launch something like WSJT-X, point it at the various things you've configured, then you can actually start decoding signals. For WSJT-X to work properly, there's one more thing. An accurate clock is required. Likely you'll need to use a piece of software that knows how to synchronise with something called NTP or Network Time Protocol. The simplest is to point your clock tool at a time-server called pool.ntp.org which will get you global time coverage. Each operating system does this differently, but getting it right is essential before WSJT-X will actually make sense. You can visit time.is in a web browser to see how accurate your clock currently is. So, get computer control of your radio working, get audio working, set the clock, then you can run WSPR, FT8, JT65 or any other mode. I will note that I'm not attempting to give you specific computer support here, just an overview of what's needed before anything will work. If you've been contesting then CAT control might already be operational. If you've been using a computer voice-keyer, then audio might also be ready. Depending on where you are on your digital journey, these steps might be complicated or trivial. Once you've done all that you can start doing things like figuring out where satellites are or how to talk to the International Space Station, or use Fldigi to make a PSK31 contact or send a picture using SSTV or decode a weather fax. When you've made that first digital DX contact, I'm sure that you too will have a sense of accomplishment! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1113 Release Date: June 27, 2020 Here is a summary of the news trending this week. This weeks edition is anchored by Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Rich Lawrence, KB2MOB, Will Rogers, K5WLR, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Running Time: 1:22:56 Download here: http://bit.ly/TWIAR1113 Trending headlines in this weeks bulletin service: 1. Rescued Radio Amateur Says, Ham Radio Saved My Life 2. Vanuatu Special Event will Celebrate 40th Anniversary of Independence 3. FCC Orders Shut Down Of Radio Station Run by Chinese Propaganda Outlet 4. Registration Open, Plans Firming Up for ARRL-TAPR Digital Communications Conference 5. ARRL Foundation Awards Grant to Open Research Institute 6. WSJT-X 2.2.2 Update Released for Field Day 7. ARRL Seeks Vintage DX Logs for Archive 8. ARRL to Hold National Convention at Orlando HamCation in February 2021 9. Balloon Launched by Popular Web Show Host Completes Second Circumnavigation of The World 10. Bell Labs Proves Existence Of Dark Suckers 11. QSO Today To Host The First Virtual Ham Expo This August 12. New Video Explains the Mission and Purpose of the International Amateur Radio Union 13. ARISS Volunteer Tony Hutchison, VK5ZAI, Named Member of the Order of Australia 14. SAQ Announces Annual Alexanderson Day Transmission 15. Registration now available for RAC Advanced Course During Summer 2020 16. ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR, Issues Field Day 2020 Statement 17. Dayton Hamvention Announces New Chair, Assistant Chair for 2021 Show 18. Researchers In Tropical Areas Find Power In Humidity 19. Hams In Norway and Australia Looking For A Magazine Editor 20. Yet More Amateur Radio Events are Moving To Video Platforms On-Line 21. Virginia Air & Space Center Ends Relationship with Ham Radio 22. Illinois Section Manager Steps Down, New Section Manager Appointed 23. MARS Announces HF Skills Exercise Plus these Special Features This Week: * Technology News and Commentary with Leo Laporte, W6TWT, will answer that eternal question, "Why Does My Wi-Fi Suck So Bad?" * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News * Tower Climbing and Antenna Safety w/Greg Stoddard KF9MP, talks about maintaining those tower guy wires. * Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB, asks, What if You WSPR and Nobody Hears You? * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL * Bill Continelli, W2XOY - The History of Amateur Radio. Bill returns with another edition of The Ancient Amateur Archives, this week, Bill talks about the Radio Amateur During World War Two and The War Emergency Radio Service. * Classic RAIN: Classic Rain: Field Day...A Humorous Look. ----- Website: http://www.twiar.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/twiar RSS News: http://twiar.net/?feed=rss2 iHeartRadio: http://bit.ly/iHeart-TWIAR Spotify: http://bit.ly/Spotify-TWIAR TuneIn: http://bit.ly/TuneIn-TWIAR Automated: http://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, changed weekly) ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built-in ID breaks every 10 minutes. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, and all around the world. on amateur radio repeater systems, the low bands, and more. This Week in Amateur Radio is portable too! You can find us among talk radios best on TuneIn.com, or via Google Play. We are hosted by various podcast aggregates like Spotify and Stitcher too. Visit our site for details. You can also stream the program to your favorite digital device by visiting our web site www.twiar.net. This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with us via our Facebook group. Search for us under This Week in Amateur Radio.

Foundations of Amateur Radio The day came to pass when all my set-up and configuration was going to culminate in the moment of truth when I enabled TX on my WSPR mode station. Before I tell you of my experience, I should give you a little bit of background. A few weeks ago I managed to erect a HF vertical at my home or QTH. That in and of itself was news worthy, well at least to me it was, since it was the first time since I became licensed in 2010 that I had actual real all-band HF capability at home. Last weekend I ran some RG6, yes, 72 Ohm Quad Shield, low-loss coaxial cable, from my antenna, through the roof, into my shack. I was thrilled. Immediately set about getting my HF station up and running. This involved installing WSJT-X, a tool that allows you to do weak signal work, perfect for when you're a low power or QRP station like me. I've previously reported using WSPR, Weak Signal Propagation Reporter on a Raspberry Pi and a dongle, but this time I was using my Yaesu FT-857d. Reports were coming in thick and fast. Managed to hear stations on all the bands I'm allowed on, 80m, 40m, 15m, 10m, 2m and 70cm. Managed to make it report online and update the various maps around the place. Brilliant! Now I wanted to do the next thing. Transmit and see who could hear me and how far my beautiful callsign might travel on 5 Watts. So, after some abortive attempts, I configured the levels correctly, made sure that my antenna coupler, an SG-237, was tuned and hit "Enable TX" on the screen of my computer. Dutifully my computer did what was expected, turned on the transmitter and happily made the fan run on my radio for two minutes at a time. I tried 80m, 40m and 15m. All worked swimmingly. Then I looked on the map to see who had heard me. Nobody. Nothing. Nada. Niets en niemand. I could hear N8VIM using 5 Watts, 18649 km away, but nobody could hear me, not even the station VK6CQ who is 9 km from me. So, what's going on? Turns out that I'm not using a "standard" callsign. That's right, my VK6FLAB, authorised by the World Radiocommunication Conference 2003, implemented by the Australian regulator, the ACMA in 2005 and issued to me in 2010 isn't a standard callsign. Seems that the deal-breaker is the four letter suffix, FLAB, that's killing my attempts at making contact. Now I know that there are moves under way, not quite sure what stage they're at, to allow Australian amateurs to apply for any three-letter suffix and keep that regardless of their license level, but that to me doesn't really solve the underlying issue, where a perfectly legal callsign isn't allowed to be used by one of the most popular modes today. I've lodged a bug report on the WSJT-X mailing list, but to accommodate this callsign will probably require a fundamental change in the way the WSPR mode and likely several other JT modes will work, not to mention the databases, the maps, API calls and other fun things like logging. Technically I could have figured this out back in September 2019 when I was first allowed to use digital modes with my license, but I didn't have an antenna then. In case you're wondering. I also investigated using a so-called extended, or type-2 message, but that allows for an add-on prefix that can be up to three alphanumeric characters or an add-on suffix that can be a single letter or one or two digits. I could use something like VK6FLA/B, but I'm sure that the owner of VK6FLA would be upset and using VK6/F0LAB might have a French amateur yell Merde! at me when they spot their callsign being transmitted from VK6. One suggestion was to upgrade my license. What's the fun in that? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I was getting ready to go out when rain started pelting down. Not unexpected in this part of the world at this time of year but inconvenient for my plans. I didn't particularly want to carry an umbrella and the thought of wearing a rain hood brought back memories of water trickling down my back. For reasons I'm not quite sure of, my eye fell on my hat on its hook at the door. The hat I wear in the heat of summer to keep my brain from frying, the hat I use whilst camping with my amateur radio friends, the hat I've worn whilst loading massive hay bales with a tractor and the hat I've worn swimming in the Ord River - well, a descendent, third generation if I remember correctly. I shook my head in disbelief, after donning my raincoat, put my trusty Akubra Territory on my head and stepped out into the rain. Perfect. Kept me dry, kept my glasses clear and no drips down my back. You may well wonder what this has to do with radio and that's a fair question. I will preface this with a disclaimer that you might not have this set-up in your shack just now, but perhaps it will inspire you to get started. I've been talking a lot about Software Defined Radio, and I do believe that it represents the future for our hobby, but that doesn't mean that my traditional radio, in my case a Yaesu FT-857d, is headed for the scrap heap just yet. As you might know, with some preparation you can connect your radio to a computer and control it. You can also connect both the send and receive audio to a computer using a variety of techniques which I probably should get into at some point. Assuming that you have, and I realise you might not yet have done this, but assuming for a moment that you have made this all work, you can use this to do things like JT65, FT8, PSK31, SSTV and hundreds of other modes. One thing I did during the week was use this set-up to listen to noise. Seriously, that's what I did. I picked a spot on the band with nothing but noise. No discernible signal and fired up the application WSJT-X, it's the tool you use for many weak signal modes. As an aside, as a tool, it is also helpful in getting your digital mode levels set correctly. One of the windows in WSJT-X is the waterfall and spectrum display. On it you can see the signal as it is right now and how it's been in the past. If you turn on one of the filters on your radio, you can see the display change. You can literally see what gets filtered out. On my radio I've got the standard filter, as well as a 2 kHz and a 300 Hz Collins filter. Using this technique, you can specifically see what each filter does. If I turn on the built-in Digital Signal Processor, the DSP, I can see what the adjustments do, as well as the impact of the mode on the filter. And how the various settings interact. For example, until I saw this display, I didn't know what the "DSP HPF CUTOFF" and "DSP LPF CUTOFF" specifically did and how they interacted with the other filters. Similarly what "DSP BPF WIDTH" did and how. I also didn't know that even if you set both the high and low pass filter frequencies to the same value, you still have a usable filter, even if you might think that nothing could get through. Now I do realise that your radio may not have those specific settings, but I am confident that if you pick a spot on the band, set up a frequency display and waterfall, you'll discover things about your radio that you hadn't before. I also realise that you can hear some of this by just playing with filters, but seeing it on the scope adds a whole other dimension to the experience. Just one example is to see how a narrow filter interacts with the in-built DSP, something that's difficult to hear, but easy to see. If you have a Morse beacon to hand, you can also see how various frequency shifts work and the impact of selecting filters in relation to that signal. No need to just listen to the beacon with just CW mode either. Have a look at it using SSB. Using something for an unexpected purpose can give you many great rewards. As for the hat, really, I hadn't used my hat to ward off the rain until then; you live and learn. What have you discovered recently? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1109 Release Date: May 30, 2020 Here is a summary of the news trending this week. This weeks edition is anchored by is anchored by Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Fred Fitte, NF2F, Will Rogers, K5WLR, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Running Time: 1:44:27 Download here: http://bit.ly/TWIAR1109 Trending headlines in this weeks bulletin service: 1. Historic SpaceX Launch Carrying Radio Amateur, Fellow Astronaut, Got Scrubbed, Rescheduled 2. Hurricane Exercise Carried Out in Southeastern US 3. Another New Beta Version of WSJT-X is Available 4. IARU Region 2 Workshops and Seminars Are A Success. More to Come 5. Is the Earths Magnetic Field South Atlantic Anomaly Splitting in Two? 6. Temporary Rule Waivers Announced for 2020 ARRL Field Day 7. Global Pandemic Radio Event Set for June 6th and 7th 8. Social Distancing Exam Sessions Demonstrate Pent Up Demand for Testing 9. Moonbounce Contact via FT8 Could be a First 10. Rocky Mountain Vice Director Resigns to Accept Appointment as Colorado Section Manager 11. AO-27 Vintage Amateur Satellite Becomes Partially Active 12. General Electric Is Saying Goodbye To Its 129 Year Old Light Bulb Business 13. Hytera Subsidiary In The U-S Files For Bankruptcy Protection 14. India Hamfest Cancels Event Scheduled For November - More Activities Switch To Virtual Events 15. Virtual Amateur Radio Teams Present 100 Watts and a Wire Tune-Up 16. Strange Recurring Microwave Signal Traced By Scientists To A Black Hole In Space 17. Radio Society Of Great Britain Is Looking For Interference Reports 18. This Week in Amateur Radio Debuts A Brand New Web Site 19. ARRL Director, Vice Director Nominations Invited In Five ARRL Divisions 20. Planning Your ARRL Field Day 2020 Operation. Important tips Not To Forget Plus these Special Features This Week: * Technology News and Commentary with Leo Laporte, W6TWT, will talk about web cookies, and the European General Data Protection Regulation. * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News * Tower Climbing and Antenna Safety w/Greg Stoddard KF9MP, will give you tips to stay safe while climbing your tower at night. * Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB, will talk about how the Antenna and Coax you use really matters. * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL * Bill Continelli, W2XOY - The History of Amateur Radio. Bill returns with another edition of The Ancient Amateur Archives, this week, Bill takes a look at "The Student Information Network" of the seventies. * Classic RAIN: Classic Rain: QSO Today interview with Gordon West WB6NOA. Part One ----- Website: http://www.twiar.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/twiar RSS News: http://twiar.net/twiar.rss iHeartRadio: http://bit.ly/iHeart-TWIAR Spotify: http://bit.ly/Spotify-TWIAR TuneIn: http://bit.ly/TuneIn-TWIAR Automated: http://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, changed weekly) ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built-in ID breaks every 10 minutes. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, and all around the world. on amateur radio repeater systems, the low bands, and more. This Week in Amateur Radio is portable too! You can find us among talk radios best on TuneIn.com, or via Google Play. We are hosted by various podcast aggregates like Spotify and Stitcher too. Visit our site for details. You can also stream the program to your favorite digital device by visiting our web site www.twiar.net. This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with us via our Facebook group. Search for us under This Week in Amateur Radio.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 24th of May 2020 The news headlines: YOTA Online programme launched SARL celebrates 95 years Change to the exam booking system As all planned YOTA 2020 events have been cancelled until September, a new programme called YOTA Online has been developed. This will be a monthly Livestream gathering, free to all participants and available afterwards as a recorded version. In each meeting, the YOTA team will present different topics and answer questions from the YOTA community. There will also be opportunities to share stories of recent YOTA events. The first meeting will be on the 28th of May. Details of the Livestream link will be publicised on the YOTA website and social media channels the day before Last Wednesday, the 20th, the South African Radio Relay League celebrated its 95th anniversary. It was formed on Wednesday the 20th of May 1925, just a month after the world’s radio amateurs met in Paris to form the world body, the International Amateur Radio Union. In 1947 the word Relay was dropped from the name. Their message is that amateur radio has withstood the test of time because it is based on three major guiding principles: communication between people, continuous technology development and self-education and training. In response to the demand for remote invigilated exams, the RSGB is launching a new, automated booking system. It will make each part of the process smoother for applicants and HQ staff. As all 600 exam slots in June have now been filled, the new booking system will go live on 1 June in readiness for booking July exam slots. Over the next ten days, the Society will share more details about the system and how to use it. In the meantime, please note that the RSGB is not accepting any new bookings via the old application form. The RSGB’s national ‘Get on the air to care’ campaign in partnership with the NHS has received more media coverage this week, including a BBC radio interview with 11-year-old Anne-Marie who was nominated by her primary school headteacher as the local hero of the week for the two weekly nets she has been running during the lockdown. Telford and District Amateur Radio Society were featured in their local paper and other radio amateurs have been sharing their stories with us. Thank you to everyone who is showing their support by getting on the air, caring for other radio amateurs and trying new aspects of amateur radio. More details about the campaign, media coverage and stories from clubs and radio amateurs can be seen on the RSGB website at www.rsgb.org/gota2c. Users of the Islands on the Air programme may now obtain contact credits via the ARRL’s Logbook of The World. A similar arrangement is already in place with Club Log. To claim a new island group from matched Logbook of The World contacts, users should click on Retrieve QSOs from LoTW to retrieve matching records. Within 30 minutes, IOTA users will receive an email listing the matches added to a list of pending contacts. Joe Taylor, K1JT reports what is possibly the first FT8 contact via Moonbounce that took place on the 21st of May between Paul, W2HRO and Peter, PA2V. They used WSJT-X 2.2.0-rc1, a beta-release candidate for version 2.2 of the program WSJT-X. Both stations have moderate 4-Yagi setups on 432MHz. Conditions were not particularly good, with degradation around 3dB and the Sun only 20 degrees from the Moon. The Royal Air Force Air Cadets are pleased to announce that the next Exercise Blue Ham will be held on the MoD 5MHz shared band over the weekend of the 6th and 7th of June. There are plenty of call signs available for Cadets over the period of the exercise using both SSB voice and data modes. Details can be found at https://alphacharlie.org.uk/exercise-blue-ham Now the special event news Since the change of regulations applying to special event stations in the UK, many activations are now able to go ahead. UK amateurs would like to thank Ofcom for their help in making this happen. The RAF Amateur Radio Society will be activating the special event GB75VED until the 28th of May. Operations will be from members’ homes. Details are at www.rafars.org/GB75VED and on QRZ.com. Dragon Amateur Radio Club and North Wales Radio Society are operating GB0GIG throughout May, named after the National Health Service in the Welsh language. The station will be active on HF, VHF and UHF using as many modes as possible. An award certificate is available and full details can be found on QRZ.com. Durham and District Amateur Radio Society is participating as one of the bonus stations in the popular 13 Colonies special event. The special callsign GB13COL has been issued for this event and will run from 1300 UTC on the 1st of July to 0400 UTC on the 8th. The primary focus of the event will be the HF bands, including VHF & UHF for QSOs using SSB, CW, FM and various digital modes. Now the contest news Please remember to check before the events for new rules due to lockdown and social distancing, which may differ around the world. RSGB strongly advises obeying your own government’s advice first and foremost. Today, the 24th, the third 70MHz Cumulative contest runs from 1400 to 1600UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Tuesday the SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 2.3 to 10GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday it’s the CW leg of the 80m Club Championships. Running from 1900 to 2030UTC, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Next weekend is the CQ World Wide WPX CW contest. It runs for 48 hours from 0000UTC on the 30th to 2359UTC on the 31st. Using the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number. Next Sunday, the 31st, the UK Microwave group High Band Contest runs from 0600 to 1800UTC. Using all modes on the 5.7 to 10GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK Six Metre Group’s Summer Marathon runs until the 2nd of August. Using all modes on the 50MHz band, the exchange is your 4-character locator. And finally, join the fun of the next round of RSGB Hope QSO Party on weekdays. See www.rsgbcc.org/hf. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Friday the 22nd of May. Last week was dominated by extensive Sporadic-E openings that made 10 metres sound like 20 metres on a good day. The openings were steady and stable, with lots of stations around Europe being very workable. These openings extended to multi-hop as well, with Chris, VO1CH being heard on 10m FT8 at 1240UTC on Monday the 18th for example. Low-power beacons have also been heard – the IW4EIR beacon, running just 1.5W, was heard on 28.195MHz at 1600UTC on Monday as well. If you are interested in monitoring 10m beacons, Martin, G3USF has updated his 10 metre beacon list. It is available on the RSGB website under the Propagation section, using the link on the right-hand side, Propagation Beacons. Hopefully, the Sporadic-E season will continue to improve over the next few weeks. Other than Sporadic-E, HF conditions have been average for this time of year. Late Spring and Summer are traditionally times when maximum usable frequencies decline during the day due to a change in ionospheric chemistry. However, the good news is that night-time MUFs are higher, with bands like 20 metres remaining open long after sunset if there is sufficient ionisation. The Sun remains very quiet. Two lighter plage areas – bright regions in the Sun’s chromosphere – have moved into view, but are unlikely to turn into sunspots. As a result, NOAA predicts the solar flux index will remain around 70. It also predicts that the Sun will remain stable geomagnetically, bringing a maximum Kp index of two. So it looks like Sporadic-E will continue to provide the HF fun on the higher HF bands. And now the VHF and up propagation news. Most of next week will be dominated by high pressure just south of the UK and hence Tropo will be a good mode to try. At this time of the year, the strong sunshine makes any nocturnal enhancement of conditions temporary and soon disappears after sunrise and the new thermals destroy the night-time cooling inversion. However, the main high-pressure subsidence inversion is a different case and extends across the same region as the area of high pressure and will be present throughout. This will mean paths across the North Sea, English Channel or Bay of Biscay should do well. Unlike Sporadic-E, Tropo contacts need not be rushed. A fairly strong Atlantic jet stream will push across the UK this weekend and when it reaches the near continent it will be in a good place for Sporadic-E in a broad direction range from Scandinavia round through the Balkans to Italy and Spain. Meanwhile, the Atlantic will continue to provide jet stream segments for openings across the pond. The association of Sporadic-E with jet streams is useful since the charts show the meandering jet stream extending well east over Russia and could be used for paths to the Far East. There is a hint that a region of showers may develop around the middle of next week to give an opportunity for some GHz rain scatter propagation. The Moon’s reaches peak declination on Tuesday and path losses are falling all week. 144MHz sky noise is low. A number of small showers keep May and June an active time for meteor scatter operations, so keep looking for early morning opportunities before the Sporadic-E. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 17th of May 2020 The news headlines: More media coverage for #GOTA2C 2nd Hope QSO Party starts tomorrow New beta of WSJT-X updates FT4 & FT8 The RSGB’s national campaign ‘Get on the air to care’ in partnership with the NHS has received more media coverage this week, including two BBC radio interviews with local radio clubs and a video message from the NHS. Thank you to everyone who is showing their support by getting on the air, caring for other radio amateurs and trying new aspects of amateur radio. More details about the campaign, media coverage and stories from clubs and radio amateurs can be seen on the RSGB website at www.rsgb.org/gota2c. The RSGB Contest Committee is running a second Hope QSO Party event, starting on Monday the 18th of May. The rules are at tinyurl.com/Hope-QSO – please note that there are two rule changes for this second event. The calendar is at www.rsgbcc.org/hf. A new beta version of the WSJT-X software suite has been released. It includes the first updates since last autumn to the popular FT8 and FT4 protocols. Installation packages for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh are available on the WSJT-X Development Group web page. Scroll to Candidate Release WSJT-X 2.2.0-rc1. The WSJT-X Development Group request those using the new beta version to alert the developers and to report any bugs or improvements they have implemented, using instructions included in the User Guide. The transponder on HuskySat-OSCAR 107 has been activated and is open for use and testing. It’s fairly sensitive, and 5 to 10W of uplink power is plenty most of the time. The linear transponder is inverting, with an uplink passband of 145.910 to 145.940MHz and a downlink passband of 435.810 to 435.840MHz. The 1200-baud BPSK telemetry beacon is at 435.800MHz. The Air Defence Radar Museum at RAF Neatishead usually runs the permanent special event station GB2RAF. But, with the museum closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, G4PSH has obtained permission to operate the callsign from his home under a temporary licence. This will continue until the museum is able to open to the public again. QSL cards are available via the RSGB or RAFARS bureau, EQSL.com or direct to G4PSH with a SAE. The Radio Amateur Society of Australia has conducted a 60 metre band monitoring program over the past few months to build a picture of 60m activity during daylight and evening hours. The information will be used in a response to the latest Australian radio authority’s paper that proposes various options for sharing of the band between amateur and commercial users. Now the special event news Since the change of regulations applying to special event stations in the UK, many activations are now able to go ahead. UK amateurs would like to thank Ofcom for their help in making this happen. GB2SHS for STAY HOME SAFE will be on air until the 24th of May in support of the NHS and care workers. It will operate from the QTH of G4ISN, a member of Welland Valley ARS, on the HF bands. QSL via e-QSL. The RAF Amateur Radio Society will be activating the special event GB75VED until the 28th May. Operations will be from members’ homes. Details are at www.rafars.org/GB75VED and on QRZ.com. Dragon Amateur Radio Club and North Wales Radio Society are operating GB0GIG throughout May, named after the National Health Service in the Welsh language. The station will be active on HF, VHF and UHF using as many modes as possible. An award certificate is available and full details can be found on QRZ.com. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day and VJ Day, the RSGB has organised the VE/VJ Day amateur radio marathon on the HF bands and 6m using SSB, CW and digital modes. Three special UK callsigns, GB75PEACE, GB1945PE and GB1945PJ, will be on the air throughout May and again between the 1st and the 31st of August. If you wish to operate one of these stations, please email csc.chair@rsgb.org.uk. Full details are at www.rsgb.org/ve-vj-marathon. Kent Active Radio Amateurs will run GB80MQ on the 22nd and 23rd of May. This station is usually run from the vessel Medway Queen, but will be operational from operator’s home addresses instead this time. Durham and District Amateur Radio Society is participating as one of the bonus stations in the hugely popular 13 Colonies Special Event. The special callsign GB13COL has been issued for this event and will run from July 1, 2020 1300 UTC to July 8, 0400 UTC. The primary focus of the event will be the HF bands, including VHF & UHF for QSOs using SSB, CW, FM and various digital modes. Now the contest news Please remember to check before the events for new rules due to lockdown and social distancing, which may differ around the world. RSGB strongly advises obeying your own government’s advice first and foremost. This weekend, the 144MHz May Contest ends it 24 hour run at 1400UTC today, the 17th. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number, locator and postcode. Today, the 17th, is the UK Microwave Group millimetre-wave contest, running from 0900 to 1700UTC. Using all modes on the 24 to 76GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Monday the fourth FT4 series contest runs from 1900 to 2030UTC on the 80m band. The exchange is your 4-character locator. On Tuesday the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday it’s the 70MHz UK Activity Contest from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Next Sunday, the 24th, the third 70MHz Cumulative contest runs from 1400 to 1600UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK Six Metre Group’s Summer Marathon runs until the 2nd of August. Using all modes on the 50MHz band, the exchange is you 4-character locator. And finally, join the fun of the next round of RSGB Hope QSO Party on weekdays. See www.rsgbcc.org/hf. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Friday the 15th of May. We had another week dominated by Sporadic-E openings. While the Sun remained quiet with zero sunspots, Sporadic-E proved to be the major mode of propagation. It offered both single and multi-hop openings, with 10m being open to Spain, Portugal and beyond on most days. Likely multi-hop paths have seen openings to Chad, Mauritania, St Lucia and further afield. On 20m and 15m there have been F2-layer openings to the Far East, Hawaii, Alaska and South America reported, although most of these have been on FT8 by well-equipped stations. An easier catch for Chris, G3SJJ was C31CT in Andorra who “popped out of the noise” on 17m. This shows the importance of monitoring the bands and watching the cluster for those elusive short HF openings. Next week NOAA predicts that the Sun will likely remain spotless with a solar flux index of 68-70. On Thursday a polar coronal hole with a long finger pointing towards the solar equator was likely releasing a high-speed solar wind stream. This could result in unsettled geomagnetic conditions over the weekend. NOAA predicts the Kp index could rise to three on Monday the 18th. And now the VHF and up propagation news. The weather models are showing a mainly high-pressure week and therefore there should be some good prospects for Tropo. Since the high does not have a great source of moist air underneath the inversion, the Tropo may be less than ideal. However, the position of the high over this weekend may allow better Tropo conditions across southern Britain and across the Channel into France. The north and west of the UK are going to be close to fronts on several occasions next week, and on Monday a weakness in the high may allow a few showers to develop and bring some rain scatter on the GHz bands. One of the models does break the high-pressure trend and bring a deepening low past northwest Britain in the second half of next week with further rain scatter possibilities. We have seen a good number of Sporadic-E days in the last week, especially for digital modes, but CW and SSB have produced results too. The position of the jet streams suggests that Scandinavia, the Baltic and northern Europe may be the preferred regions of interest next week. Check the beacons and clusters for signs of activity, and keep QSOs short, since conditions can change suddenly from an easy 5/9 to lost in the noise. We should see the start of the Arietids meteor shower this week lasting from the 22nd of May until the 2nd of July, peaking on the 7th of June. Moon declination is increasing again, going positive on Monday but this coincides with apogee, so path losses are at their highest. 144MHz sky noise is low apart from Friday afternoon where the Sun and Moon are close to eclipse. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

Hello and welcome to Episode 344 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss the Contest University, learning Morse Code, virtual online club meetings, 6-meter season, open-source N95 masks, WSJT-X, BSD, Solaris...what the??? Anyway, hope you enjoy the episode, stay home, stay safe and play amateur radio and open source. [...]

In this episode I use WSJT-X and SmartSDR connected via a FlexRadio SmartLink account that is tied to a radio we left in Costa Rica with a 20M dipole in the air. The transmitting antenna is at our DXpedition location, so we can remote into the radio and work DX as if we were there, through FlexRadio's easy-to-use remote control features. Check out some of the contacts I make on FT8 from a transmitting antenna in Costa Rica, while sitting at home in Texas#FlexRadio #HFradio #FT8

In this episode I use WSJT-X and SmartSDR connected via a FlexRadio SmartLink account that is tied to a radio we left in Costa Rica with a 20M dipole in the air. The transmitting antenna is at our DXpedition location, so we can remote into the radio and work DX as if we were there, through FlexRadio's easy-to-use remote control features. Check out some of the contacts I make on FT8 from a transmitting antenna in Costa Rica, while sitting at home in Texas#FlexRadio #HFradio #FT8

Welcome to Episode 287 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss several topics including sunspots and planetary alignment, proprietary encryption protocols in common browsers, high-altitude balloons, satellite LIDs, new malware, new WSJT-X and much more. Thank you for listening. 73 de The LHS Crew [...]

Hello and welcome to the latest short-format episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss improvements to the Nano editor, Indian satellites with amateur radio payloads, Puerto Rico bracing for a year of emcomm, add-on applications for WSJT-X, network time protocol (NTP) and much more. Thank you for listening [...]

Foundations of Amateur Radio Previously I've spoken about the joy of making something out of not much. On that theme I've covered WSPR, the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter, a mechanism to use a modest station to report signals received, which is something any suitably interested person can participate in, no license required. For a time I had my radio, a Yaesu FT-857D connected to a Windows XP notebook running WSJT-X, a piece of software that has the ability to set the frequency of your radio and then listen to what the radio is hearing, attempt to decode it and then report on what was heard. The beauty of this system is that you're using your own station to report signals heard, that is, your own antenna, your own coax, your own radio. Essentially you can use it to see what can be heard from around the world at your station. I had this running for a while, but the set-up was less than satisfactory, because I use the same radio and antenna to run weekly nets, the computer was running Windows XP and running out of disk space since WSJT-X has the option to save all the audio heard, which was clogging up my drive. It also meant that I was required to remember that I needed to reset the volume of the radio, set the squelch just so, disconnect and more importantly reconnect the antenna when there were storms about and a few other annoyances that became just a little too much for it to be fun. After doing this for a couple of months I just gave up and put it into the too-hard basket. The other day I started afresh. I started with a Raspberry Pi. It's a single board computer, about the size of a credit card, that comes in at about $30, is powered off a USB adaptor and runs Linux. Since I've been using Linux for around 20 years now, it seemed like a natural fit. I managed to obtain an RTL-SDR dongle which if you're not familiar, is essentially a USB device that you can use to listen to RF frequencies. Without going too deep, these gadgets started life as USB DVB-T and FM receivers, you know the USB dongles that you can plug into your computer to watch free-to-air TV or listen to FM radio. Back in March of 2010 Eric Fry got curious about figuring out if he could make a Linux version for one of the dongles work by reverse engineering the communication between the dongle and the supplied Windows software. In 2012 Antti Palosaari built on that and published his findings on the linux-media mailing list. Things exploded from there. So, an RTL-SDR dongle, connected to a Raspberry Pi, running Linux. At this point it would be great if I could report success and show and tell everything I've learnt, but then for that to happen I would need to actually have had success and I'm not quite there yet. I managed to decode one, count 'em, one, WSPR packet on 6m, once. Of course I couldn't help myself and started to improve things and since then I've not heard anything. I can tell you that there is plenty of documentation online about the subject, and I'll be adding my version of that once I've got mine up and running. There's a few things to work on, for example, listening on 6m is all fine and well, as long as there are 6m stations within hearing that are on and transmitting. Turns out that the station that I heard once last weekend has been switched off for a week. I've just changed bands, to see if that improves things, but only time will tell. I have also been using a mechanism to change bands automatically every 15 minutes, but without any spots I'm not sure if my set-up is working or not and I've just been unlucky not to hear anything. The challenges continue, but then I suppose that's why I'm here in the first place. I will add that a problem shared is a problem halved. I mentioned my challenge to a local amateur who sprang into action and set-up a WSPR beacon, just so I can test against it. I'll let you know how I go, or you can monitor for my spots on the WSPR website and celebrate when you see a spot with my callsign on it, because I will be, celebrating that is. As an aside, it continues to surprise me that this hobby has its fingers in so many different pies and my chosen profession of IT Geek is just another aspect of amateur radio. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Chris Howard M0TCH , Martin Rothwell M0SGL, Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Ed Durrant DD5LP and Frank Howell K4FMH to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is When HF is Quiet. ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS We would like to thank David Cripps (G7IDB) and Bill Seward (KG4SAQ) along with our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate National Security Risks with Amateur Radio Violations The CWops Award 2019 for advancing the art of CW 1940s Radio Times now online WSJT-X 2.0 Full Release now Available "Suspicious" Post Office Package Was Ham Radio Equipment Worked All Postcodes 2018 QST Antenna Design Competition Winners Announced Scouts at AJ2019 Awaiting Amateur Radio Call Logbook of The World Tops 1 Billion QSO Records New Amateur Radio Packet Gear for International Space Station

This Week in Amateur Radio #1029 Release Date: November 17, 2018 Here is a summary of the news trending this week. This weeks edition is anchored by Will Rogers, K5WLR, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Fred Fittee, NF2F, George W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by W2XBS. Running Time: 1:20:33 Download here: http://bit.ly/TWIAR1029 Trending stories in this weeks bulletin service: 1. Eastern Mass. SEC Rob Macedo, KD1CY, Receives Blue Hills Observatory Outstanding Service Award 2. ARRL Executive Committee Recommends Small Addition to Articles of Association 3. SpaceX launch from KSC to achieve 'dream' of ham radio enthusiasts 4. Montenegro, Lithuania Latest to Join the 60-Meter Band Community 5. Radio Amateurs of Canada Corporate Secretary Sukwan Widajat, VA3WID, SK 6. Amateur Radio Issues under Discussion in Geneva in Advance of WRC-19 7. Inaugural Green Keys Night Set for January 1st 8. Maritime Mobile Service Network Operators Assist Vessel with Ill Crew Member 9. Southern New Jersey ARES Team Assists in Missing-Person Search 10. New Beta Version of WSJT-X is Now Available, Mock FT8 Contest Set 11. ARRL November Sweepstakes CW 2018 Log Count Tops Last Year's 12. SpaceChain Foundation advances Blockchain-based satellite network 13. Amateur Radio Volunteers at the Ready for California Fire Duty 14. SKYWARN Recognition Day 2018 is Saturday, December 1st UTC 15. FCC Approves Use of Chinas Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System in the US 16. AMSAT Fox 1-Cliff satellite is launching on November 19th 17. December is Youth On The Air month Plus these Special Features This Week: Technology News and Commentary with Leo Laporte, W6TWT Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB RAIN: Bob Heil/K9EID - Part Two of Three on the History of Heil Microphones Weekly Propagation Forecast National Grid Chase Update with Steve Ford WB8IMY and Bart Jahnke W9ZJ ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built in ident breaks every 10 minutes. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, ands all around the world. on amateur radio repeater systems, the low bands, and more. This Week in Amateur Radio is portable too! You can find us among talk radios best on TuneIn.com, or via iTunes and Google Play. We are hosted by various podcast aggregators like Stitcher too. Vist our site for details. You can also stream the program to your favorite digital device by visiting our web site www.twiar.net. This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with us via our Facebook group. Search for us under This Week in Amateur Radio.

This Week in Amateur Radio #1022 Release Date: September 29, 2018 Here is a summary of the news trending this week. This week's edition is anchored by: Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Amy Jo Clarke, Fred Fitte, NF2F, Rich Lawrence, KB2MOB, George W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by W2XBS. Running Time: 1:26:23 Download here: http://bit.ly/TWIAR1022 Trending stories in this weeks bulletin service: 1. Sweden's Telecommunications Regulatory Agency to Require Fee to Run More than 200 W 2. Philippine Amateur Radio Association Activates HERO for Typhoon Mangkhut 3. VP6D Ducie Island 2018 DXpedition to Offer Near Real-Time Contact Posting 4. Window to Submit Proposals to Host Contacts with Space Station Crew Opens October 1 5. FCC Enforcement Advisory Targets Noncompliant Imported VHF/UHF Transceivers 6. Scouting's 2018 Jamboree on the Air Set for October 19 - 21 7. Get Your Park ON Operating Event Set for October 8. ARRL Foundation Invites Scholarship Applications for 2019-2020 Academic Year 9. HamSCI Expanding to the Southern Hemisphere 10. Emergency Preparedness Takes Center Stage for 2018 Simulated Emergency Test 11. Puerto Rico amateurs beef up their emergency preparedness and start new nets 12. Radio City announces that it will shutter its doors and the owners will retire 13. New beta version of WSJT-X 2.0 is released and boasts many new features Plus these Special Features This Week: Technology News and Commentary with Leo Laporte, W6TWT Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB RAIN: What Is Real Ham Radio? A Commentary.. FCC: "More Than Seven Dirty Words" : This Is Not A Drill ----- Website: http://www.twiar.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/twiar Google+: http://bit.ly/Gplus-TWIAR RSS News: http://twiar.net/twiar.rss TuneIn: http://bit.ly/TuneIn-TWIAR Automated: http://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, changed weekly) ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built in ident breaks every 10 minutes for you to legally identify your station. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, and all around the world. on amateur radio repeater systems, the low bands, and more.

I'll attempt to explain how to configure and run WSJT-X in DXpedition mode as a Hound to chase down high value Fox DX QSOs. It might look overwhelming, but it is very straightforward. https://www.patreon.com/hoshnasi for my newsletter We now have MERCH! https://teespring.com/stores/ham-radi... Current Shack Config: ICOM 7300: https://amzn.to/2sVdpOq ICOM 2730a: https://amzn.to/2JqrASg MFJ-4230DMP: http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product... G5RV: https://amzn.to/2KfETGv Interested in Peak Design products? Check out my link! COUPON CODE: Hoshnasi https://www.peakdesign.com/?acc=36 for a free gift! Discord.....................►https://discord.gg/xhJMxDT Facebook.................► https://www.facebook.com/Hoshnasi Twitter......................►https://twitter.com/Hoshnasi Instagram.................►https://instagram.com/hoshnasi SnapChat..................►@Hoshnasi Mail: P.O Box 5101 Cerritos, Ca. 90703-5101. (If your send me something PLEASE include a name or something you want me to give a shoutout to!)

Welcome to Episode 213 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss the proper installation of HF antennas, the HF Voyager project, FT-8 DXpeditions, Ubuntu 18.04 and Discourse, picking OSS licenses, the new release of WSJT-X and much more. Thank you for listening! 73 de The LHS Crew [...]

In this episode, your hosts discuss the monkeyshines at the ARRL, the overwhelming popularity of a certain digital mode, Spectre and Meltdown (of course), WINE 3.0, WSJT-X, twclock, CLLOG, dxSpot and a whole lot more. Thank you for tuning in and hope your 2018 is going well. 73 de The LHS Crew [...]

Foundations of Amateur Radio There is a saying in my family, which I'll translate into English for you, "No Onno, it's not slippery." This came about when I was ten or so and cycling with my grandmother. It was the middle of winter, it was cold, there was the promise of snow in the air, but nothing had actually fallen. On the little plants, twigs is probably a more accurate term, dotted alongside the cycle path you could see little signs of frost. I was cycling on my shiny new bike and my grandmother was following behind. We came up to a corner on the cycle path and from behind my grandmother called out that I should be careful going around the corner because it was slippery. Being the indestructible ten year old, I called back: "No grandma, it's not slippery." at which point I fell flat on my face. A few years ago I went on a camping trip with my local club to participate in a contest. One member had a tray-top ute and the idea that we could use that as the base of operation. We planned on putting up a 10m Yagi at the top of a pole. Before we started the process I was asked to test the antenna. I plugged it into my radio, keyed up the PTT and noted that the SWR was as expected, good to go. We then set about attaching the antenna to a telescopic mast. The mast is one of those awkward contraptions. Each segment is about 2.5m tall and standing on a ladder on the back of the ute is just enough height to get to the top of the segment, so you can push up the next and clamp it down. The segments are made of mild steel, so you need to be careful to keep the whole thing straight, guy-wires everywhere, people scattered all around holding on for dear life and needing a spanner to clamp down on the next segment because the locking pins had long vanished or ceased working. About 2 or so hours later we finally had this contraption in the air. Using the Armstrong rotator - a rope that you pull the Yagi around with - we could point the antenna and life was good. We had taped down the coax as we went, put in strain relief, got the whole thing just right. Plugged it in and whoa. What happened? The SWR was through the roof. No match on any band, all over the shop. Head scratching and animated discussion followed. After a little while one of my friends asked me if I'd tested the antenna. I confirmed that I had. They'd even seen me do it. More head scratching, more animated discussion. I was again asked if I'd really tested the antenna. I confirmed that I had. They asked me how I tested the antenna. I showed them. I plugged in my radio, keyed the mike and showed them the SWR meter. All good. What's the problem? At that point I was taught about having to actually put a signal out over SSB to test. If I'd used a mode like FM, or PSK on my radio, all would have been revealed. But no sound, means no power, means no standing wave ratio, since there's nothing to bounce. I am reminded regularly of this event whenever I meet my friends, not as snappy as "No Onno, it's not slippery", but memorable none-the-less. During the week I went to disconnect my radio. It had been sitting there for a fortnight monitoring WSPR signals on 6m, 2m and 70cm. If you recall, I set it up a couple of months ago to monitor the HF bands. I've not yet done the final analysis on that, but I figured I should see if I could monitor the VHF and UHF bands. I attempted to set my radio up with two antennas, but WSJT-X doesn't seem to like doing both HF and VHF monitoring in the same band plan. It complains with an alert that you have VHF mode turned on when you're monitoring HF and stays quiet when you're monitoring VHF, so in the end I turned off HF monitoring and started listening to 6m, 2m and 70cm. After two weeks of nothing, I turned it off, no reports, no point. A couple of amateurs contacted me and asked me if I was still monitoring, so I turned it on again. About a week later, I had to turn it all off overnight with a thunderstorm, but the next morning I turned it all on again and left it running. I got a few more emails from amateurs asking if I was hearing their signals. I even set-up a plan to do some testing this weekend, since we confirmed that I was listening to the correct frequency, but still not able to hear local 6m transmissions. As I said, during the week I went to disconnect my radio. I turned off the computer, turned off the power supply and went to disconnect the antenna. At that point I discovered that I'd been monitoring WSPR for the past fortnight or so without an antenna connected. For icing on the cake, this morning I discovered that the squelch was set for my FM use on the local repeater, so unless the WSPR signal was coming in loud and proud, even with an antenna connected, I would not have managed to hear it. All giggling aside, clearly doing something and failing, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes quietly to yourself, is the way to learn. I wonder what little adventures your life shared with you and what lessons you learned along the way. Feel free to share, I promise I won't laugh, much. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

It's time for Episode 198. Thank you for turning in. In this episode, we discuss earthquakes and hurricanes, WSJT-X and FT8, contesting and sweeps, Synergy and Wayland, caveats for open-source coders, the latest Linux kernel, CloudShack, Mexican food and a Scotch of a different color. There is also much, much more. All the best. 73 [...]

In this episode, Linux in the Ham Shack takes you a journey into sight and sound. Well, mostly sound. Topics include operating below 500kHz, new stuff in WSJT-X, an open letter from a young ham to the curmudgeons in the room, Ham Radio Deluxe being nefarious again, Ubuntu 16.10 with Budgie, a useful Debian utility, [...]

Series Seven Episode Twenty of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, Martin (M1MRB & W9ICQ) and Colin (M6BOY) discuss the 2014 JOTA Event and Martin (M1MRB & W9ICQ) reviews a visit to the HMS Belfast Radio Club.   WIA plans a submission on new VK operating conditions Beta release of WSJT-X v1.4 Postage stamp features ham radio satellites Brazil proposes 5275 kHz to 5450 kHz allocation No Ham Radio 4 metre band for US SARL change beacon frequency Melbourne man guilty of Radiocommunications Act offences