current events prove it again, when all else fails ham radio works

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk2FLaetmY8#bottom-sheet

FT8 is a lot more than just pushing buttons

 I run a fair amount of FTx.
Indeed, it amounts to a bit over half of the QSO's in my log. I've had a fair amount of derision sent my way over it, most suggesting that it's effortless and thereby worthless.

Let's set the record straight:

I designed the station. I selected and in a few cases built the antennas I'm using. I erected the antenna field, in my case in the smallest backyard I could have imagined. I selected one smaller computer and rebuilt from the ground up, the computers that are doing my heavy lifting. I generally have 6 screens running as follows.

1:Cat control via WIN4YAESU, along with the waterfall and transmit audio screens.
2 WSJT-X

3: PSK Reporter

4: Another browser, generally running QRZ's log page
 

 On the Second computer:

5: and 6 Grid Tracker.

Oh... and a tablet running HAMCLOCK. So, 7 screens.

With this system running, I have all 50 states and 161 countries confirmed in about four years time.

The systems I have running to accomplish all of this are (and I'm sorry to have tos ay this) beyond the skill sets of most folks who are complaining about FT8.... they couldn't operate the thing, much less build it.

Yes there are folks who are using the mode with little to no skill, and getting fair results. So be it.
I'm getting fabulous results and I built and I maintain the thing myself. To do that you need both radio and computer skills.

New radios

We've been getting loads of info on new raios coming out next Q1.
For starters, there's Yaesu's new FTX-1F. I'll let  Peter explain this one:

Plus side: There's a lot to like in this one. I love the display, for starters.It really is a nice looking unit.,

The interfaces on this thing are mostly USB. About time they caught up with this trend.

They designed this thing for field duty. The folks at Yaesu observed the rise of POTA, SOTA and so on and put together a design that will shine in that environment. ... a huge battery inside which means you can run for quite a while without external power.  Just get to your POTA site, string up your end fed or what have you, hook up, and go.... for hours.

Personally I wouldn't look twice at the thing, because I don't do QRP, (it only does 6w on the battery and 10 if you've got an external supply) nor do I do anything much outside the shack, on HF.  I'll work POTA stations all day long, and help them get their contacts, but I don't actually DO POTA. To each his own. 

Still, I can't deny I like the look of the thing. I will tell you what, though.... Get the power to 100 w or better, and all mode and put it into this package with this display, and I'll be standing in line, with a kilobuck plus in my hand,  to replace my beloved 991a. Truthfully, there's not much that would cause me to give up the 991a.  And I have to admit if I was to do POTA for whatever, I'd be looking seriously at this one.... it is specifically designed for that kind of work.

Downside: QRP. Not my brand of beer.
Downside.... the multi-layered menu structure. No, I've not seen it in action, (who has, at this point?) but it's got to be that way given he dearth of controls as you can see in the pic. I got around this issue with WIN4YAESU some time back. Puts all the controls out front. But in a small package designed for field duty, you're going to need to make some compromises.

Downside: No internal tuner. This one is a bit edgy... most folks will be running EFHW's or similar and won't need the tuner.  Some folks will, or simply feel uncomfortable running that way.Yeah, they could have put one in but only at the expense of the better size, and therefore the amount of available operating hours  per charge.  (mitigating factor.... the tuner is available as a tack on along with a cooing fan, for those will run higher density modes such as FT8.  Yaesu apparently figures if you're running in those modes you're going to be packing a laptop or perhaps a Arduino or something, so the added external size won't be much of an issue. They're probably right.

Conclusions: It'll be popular with the field day/POTA/SOTA crowd, no doubt.


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The other new box is the ICOM 7760.
Well, as you can see, it's actually Boxes, plural, with a control head you can separate
from the RF deck.



Indeed, at Icom says:

The IC-7760 offers a new “innovative Shack Style” consisting a full control head with separate RF deck, connected through a control cable for greater installation flexibility. The supplied control cable is 3 m, 9.8 ft long, and by using a commercially available LAN cable, the RF deck can be installed in a more remote location. Furthermore, the control head and RF deck can be connected through a wired home LAN connection for remote operation. This simple configuration does not require a PC, and can be easily operated from nearly anywhere in the home as long as a LAN connection is available.

Here's a post Tokyo rundown on the unit:

Impressive.  It just doesn't have 2m/70cm, as the 991 and the FTX-1F do. I personally find the addition of VHF/UHF in new rigs attractive... and for a premium rig like this cannot understand the thinking behind not including them. 

(Although I personally am annoyed that nobody seems to want to include 220MHz, we all know why... it's only available in ITU region 2. As a result, the market isn't large enough to support it's inclusion. I suspect the 4m band in Europe will suffer the same fate as the 1.25m band here in the states..... But, I digress)

For a lot of folks, the Flex radio is  their dream rig. This has enough similar features, and if the build quality is up to Icom's usual standards this thing is going to turn some heads. 

I'm not sure on the availability of either of these boxes short term, but estimate they'll have them out by Q1 2025.

The Joy of Linked Repeaters

A short while back I posted a bit called Why are repeaters more quiet than they used to be? In that post, I mentioned....

The wide area networks that I mentioned earlier will also aid in getting traffic going. I'm afraid that the RF only purists aren't going to like it much, but WANs like EchoLink,  AllStar, and so on are going to be more than any other Factor responsible for making repeaters active again, particularly amongst younger hams who are just getting into the hobby.

"You mean I can get on my little 5 watt walkie-talkie that I paid $30 for and talk to somebody across the country?"

Yeah it's going to be like that.

Being a truck driver who travels all over the northeast and occasionally, outside that area, I have begun to find the attractions  of wider area linked repeater systems.  An example would be the East Coast Reflector. Another would be the one I've been playing with for the last several days.... the N3KZ system. 

For those unfamiliar with the concept, what we have in both cases is a number of repeaters in various localities, which are linked together. What one repeater hears, the rest repeat.... often in huge distances, which are unavailable by other means on the VHF and UHF bands.

Now there are many systems that are regional in nature. for example, my friend Bob, N2HJD here in my hometown of Rochester, runs a lined system that is focused on the Genesee Valley around Rochester.  As he says,

The repeater system consists of 13 Amateur repeaters cross linked on 6 different Amateur bands. There are 11 sites all radio linked in two counties around the Rochester,NY area.
The system also contains a translator, remote receiver, 2-meter remote base, an internet interface, and a  DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER
The N2HJD repeater system is all home brew with 17 CONTROLLERS, 26 receivers, and 21 transmitters, and has evolved from May of 1988 to it's current state.

The N3KZ system is a bit larger and is mostly focused on Pennsylvania though it has repeaters on the fringes of the state.... for example, New Jersey and Southern New York state. The result is I can keep track of the system and the folks active on it from anywhere in the state, and often outside of it. (Here's a list.)

The East Coast Reflector, is much larger than either of those two.  The founder of that whole deal , Dick WB2JPQ lives just down the road from me, in Buffalo, NY. I had the happy chance to meet him at Dayton this year. The thing is flat out huge, and there's no way for me to list all of the ways to connect to that net in this smallish blog post. I suggest looking at the link above to start your journey.  However, here's a graphical taste:

Practical examples? Many, but the most recent on the N3KZ system is a good one. For the last few days, I've been chatting at 4am with a fellow driver based out of the Harrisburg/York area.  One day I caught up with him from Borderntown, NJ on the Philly machine while driving down I295. On another, I spoke with him from farm country in Delaware, out on the Delmarva Peninsula, and finally, the next day from the PA Pike near Breezewood, and again later that day in Pittsburgh. All I could do at each instance was shake my head and smile. This is stuff that someone figuring on the shorter ranges that UHF and VHF usually offer, wouldn't expect. I mean, yeah, as a logical thing I certainly understand the process, but it's still a bit staggering in some ways.

Mind you, my radio is not a huge power monster. Then again, it doesn't need to be. The expense on tying into such nets can be as small as $150, even in today's messed up economy. The 779UV cost me $105. It is about the size of a pack of smokes. The pic on he right isn't my own, but I can vouch for it's accuracy. This thing is TINY.  The antenna coax and mount around another $60 though of course what you use for an antenna can be ajusted for your situation and will of course affect the total cost.
 

The 779UV offers 5,10,and 20w output, which I normally keep at 10w. (Gets a bit warm, running full power for extended  QSO's, and really there's no point to running high power most of the time since I'm making it just fine with the lesser power levels.... often I even cut the 10w to 5w.) I'm running a half-wave stick on my truck's mirror at the moment. Works just fine.  One advantage of this particular radio is that it has some 200 memories available, so plugging entire networks into this tiny box is a breeze.  The other advantage is that  with it's smaller power demands, it's powered by a cigar lighter plug. Which means no permanent wiring to the truck. Makes the boss happy.

Anyway, back to the linked systems. There is a consistency of feel, contacts, and community on these systems that I find attractive to say nothing of the ability to work the usual crowd from just about wherever I happen to be at the time. All on a radio that is smaller than a lot of HT's.  

HF in the truck is a bit more than I want to get into at this point, but tying onto linked systems is more than enough to keep my Ham radio addiction growing properly. Perhaps yours, as well?

As an aside, let's consider the normal repeater system and explaining such things to the non-ham. It can be done fairly easily... I've done it often enough, myself. Now explain however many repeaters linked together to that same person.

Smoke will be coning out their ears.

Why are repeaters more quiet than they used to be?

 

I'm seeing a LOT of folks asking where the traffic for Repeaters has gone. 

First let me say that, yes, the traffic is down some from the 70s to the early 90's but there's still traffic out there.

I had a 2/70 rig in my truck but took it out for a few months, but took it out for a while for a couple reasons not having anything to do with Ham Radio. More recently, I re-installed my little 779 UV into the truck again because of the fact that I was headed for Dayton Ohio for. Hamvention. Being the lazy slug that I am I just never bothered taking it out. Rather I started programming repeaters for the areas that I go into across five different states.

I'm glad I didn't take it back out because I have begun to discover the joys of hitting some of the local repeaters in the places that I normally go to. New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.

Some of these repeaters are what I will call single Spike machines. In other words, they only have one signal, or perhaps they're a UHF and VHF combination from the same Hill.  Those are usually fun, although sometimes you're going to find that there really isn't that much traffic on them. Other days you will find the there's a network going on and you get a taste for some of the local people and that's usually worthwhile. You can usually jump in after the net is over and get some nice ragchew.

I have begun to develop a serious appreciation for the linked repeaters, configured in wide area networks, however. These are kind of like the well-known East Coast Reflector. I happened to cross one going through Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania yesterday that I initially thought was a single spike. Turns out it was anything but, having (I was told)  something like 80 different repeaters spread across the country, all tied together. I was fascinated to learn that,and I enjoyed a conversation between one individual in San Francisco and the other in Washington DC, and myself. All with my little 20 watt radio in the middle of Pennsylvania.

My recent exposure to FM repeaters from around the northeast leads to a few conclusions on the question of why we are seeing less traffic these days. I've seen the blame being put on PL tones (of all things!) claims of "distracted driving", the fact that cars are getting harder to find a place to mount antennas...(I've had problems with that, myself the last couple cars) I've seen folks blaming Chinese radios...(though getting them to describe just why is a bit of a challenge). I've seen folks mention that it's the users who often simply aren't very welcoming.... but that's also true on HF in places. I've seen folks blame cell phones... but let's face it, most people on cell phones aren't hams anyway. Frankly, I don't put much stock in these explanations.

As a result of my being an SWL who spent a fair amount of time monitoring local machines in my youth... and the more recent experience as well, I have a few observations to offer to explain the complaints.

 1: The butter is being spread over too much bread:

Back in the real heyday of the repeaters, early '60s and through the 70s up to say, 1990 or so, the number of repeaters active was relatively small and as a result a lot of the traffic was concentrated on to a relatively small number of active "channels". I would compare that to about 10 or 15 years ago on CB where a lot of the traffic on that bad graduated to channel 19. Ostensibly, 19 was supposed to be a trucker's channel but in eventually developed into some place where there was always some kind of traffic. Repeaters of the 70s through the 90s saw the same phenom, where traffic generates traffic. If you know that there is going to be people someplace speak with, you're going there.  Its the place to be. While it's true that there are less people overall that are active on repeaters it's also true that the numbers that remain are spread out amongst a much larger number of machines thus increasing the chances that when you land on one of them you're not going to hear anything going on and eventually you're going to turn the knob.

Part of the problem too, is the number of different modes that one can work on repeaters these days. When everybody was on analog it was a lot easier to find traffic. Add a half dozen incompatible digital voice modes and the number of people in active conversation dwindles.

2: Sunspots:

No, I'm serious. We're in the middle of a very good sunspot cycle and the HF bands have for the most part been cooking. I can tell you that I personally have been spending a good deal of time on HF, chasing root squares and DXCC. This takes away from the repeater traffic, too.... and it's natural that this happens. In fact it's been going on for Decades... Sunspots come in, and all the cool kids move to HF. And who can blame them?

 

3: Rudeness:

KC8VWM rightly says that people complain when there's too much activity occurring on a repeater.... and of course now we see people complain when there's no activity occurring on a repeater. He recounts his own experience:  "I remember when stations would come on asking (complaining?) the users to clear the frequency and leave the repeater open for others to use. And after they got chased off as requested, not a single person used the repeater for hours after that."  

And yeah, I've heard the same thing, myself.

4:Jammers: 

They're pretty much a universal issue, anymore. Just about every city has them. It's ssad to see, but not much can really be done about it.Let's say you manage through some coordinated effort to localte the source. I have my doubts that much will be done by the commission. Consider: People have been complaining to the commission about 7.ZOO for years now. Get the picture?

 Not a one of these factors is individually conclusive. Rather, I suggest that they are cumulative. That is to say none of these factors of themselves have left us in our current situation, but add 'em up, and what you see is what you get.

OK enough of the complaints.
I speculate the these things  are going to happen that will bring traffic back to FM repeaters:

Rebound 1:
In about 5 years, the current sunspot cycle will settle back down and the currently hopping HF bands will mostly be ghost towns again, particularly the shorter bands like 10 m. That will cause of itself a fairly significant uptick in repeater traffic.

Rebound 2:  

Next we will see a push forward some kind of standardization of digital voice modes. I suggest that  thus far digital voice modes have been proprietary black boxes. The company is involved with creating those black boxes are not going to be cheerful about giving them up for a different standard so this one may take a while and will most likely come from the ham radio community itself not one of the manufacturers such as Icom or Yaesu. Instead it will come from an independent developer or a developer that is adapted at open standard and modified it for the purpose such as was done with FT-X.

Rebound 3:

 The wide area networks that I mentioned earlier will also aid in getting traffic going. I'm afraid that the RF only purists aren't going to like it much, but WANs like EchoLink,  AllStar, and so on are going to be more than any other Factor responsible for making repeaters active again, particularly amongst younger hams who are just getting into the hobby.

"You mean I can get on my little 5 watt walkie-talkie that I paid $30 for and talk to somebody across the country?"

Yeah it's going to be like that.

And finally there is this.

Rebound 4:
You're not going to see what's at the bottom of the pot until you stir the soup. Toss your call out there and see what happens. All these other factors I've spoken of are long-term factors and won't see fruition for months or years. The best short-term Factor is just hitting the key and letting your voice be heard

It is surprising I think when you understand how much of our amateur radio activity is driven by habit. Well, get into the habit of stirring the pot. Toss your call out there.

Bonus Rebound:

Club activity. Many of the repeaters I've been active on here in the northeast, are club machines which are used by the club and it's members to keep informational and social lines open. Make no mistake here, folks... the weekly nets for each club is great but making a concerted effort to keep the lines of communication open even when ite weekly net is not in session is beneficial. Make the repeater the place where your members, ...as well as outsiders... WANT to be.

6m? Oh, wow....

I haven't spent much time on 6m, mostly because I was convinced my IMAX wasn't working well there. Oh, I could get it to load up, but I never got responses when I called CQ, even using FT8.The numbers work out a couple different ways but my guess at this point is that I'm losing about 9bd in the tuner for 6m.

Today, in the midst of the NAVHF things changed. I happened to pass by 6m this morning and decided I'd see about passing out some points, to a few of the locals, even though I'm not really competing. What I found amazed me....

 The band must be super hot this morning for me to get those kind of reports.

I guess I should see about getting a better antenna for 6m.

Looking at the world through a windshield

Some of you don't know this abouyt me, so.....  I spent many years in the Broadcast business. from there I went into computer support for about 10 years. From there, I started driving truck.... and it's what I do now.

My home away from home

This where I spent the vast majority of my time. It's a 2020 Freightliner Cascadia. Without question, it is best I've ever had. 

I think it LOOKS killer. The Black on Black with that livery is a standout. You might pick up I'm rather proud of it...Let's just say the company treats me VERY well, and this is one result of that.

 

Got the biggest Detroit DD15 engine they make, (505hp,1750 ft lb tq) an DT12, 12 speed automatic, and all the bells and whistles... adaptive cruise, blind spot radar. Disk brakes.(Rare even today for a tractor trailer to have disc brakes.)

Got a huge amount of battery available.. I could start Frankenstein with this thing. .(four glass mat batteries under my drivers seat, four more under the back porch) which means the HVAC can run on the battery for over 12 hours. When it runs out of battery the truck starts itself and charges the battery. Got a complete kitchen, (grill, microwave, coffee maker, fridge/freezer) 19" flat screen TV, the 2/70 and the CB.... Top line stereo. Got 470,000 miles on it, give or take.

Trust me.... I'll be sorry to let it go when the time comes.

  And my Ham radio contacts are a big deal in this thing. It's apparently less of a rarity than it used to be to have an active ham driving truck but still raises eyebrows. In my two trips to Xenia, I've run across more than a handful to fellow drivers on.520, and I'm making friends all over the north east, where I run. I'm getting to be a regular on a couple of Harrisburg systems,, for example I run NY, PA, NJ,MD etc, so if you're in those states you might just hear me....