Artificial intelligence?

 There is a lot of idle chatter and speculation about the supposed AI and it's uses in Ham radio on the Ham Radio forums, just now. I've become involved in one such discussion this week on QRZ.

I am reminded of Donald Fagens "IGY"...


The money lines from the tune, in this context, are these:

"Just machines will make big decisions
Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision.

We'll be clean when their work is done... We'll be eternally free and eternally Young."

That was the vision back in 1958, the so-called " international geophysical year".


Overly optimistic, certainly. But there is always a certain reality detachment attached to such optimism, if for no other reason than we don't fully understand what the reality ahead of us IS. but consider the context of the time: After the horrors and sacrifices of WWII, there hardly seemed to be anything we couldn't accomplish.  

And there's a subtle point nestled in those lyrics, written in 1981, with the added understanding that hindsight brings:  For the machine to be effective toward the stated goal, it needs to know know what's going on, what's good, what's bad, what's fact, what's fiction, etc, someone has to teach the machine.

Indeed, I hold that AI simply doesn't exist... not as such; That AI only knows what we tell it.  The very reason we usually don't put functional legs on computers is that they'll march off a cliff if we tell it to.... they know nothing at all beyond what we tell them. 


So the question then becomes this: Since computers especially large ones can make human mistakes with much greater speed and efficiency, the question must be raised, who do we trust to teach the machines, and who do we trust to monitor their output?

For example, do we trust the Chinese communists? Do we trust the Russians? A pertinent question, since both are heavily invested in software creation, and would certainly bend the facts there software is allowed to divulge to reflect their own worldview and will.

For that matter do we trust the American government? Any of those seems to me destined for immediate failure.. in the form of fact-checking on steroids. You want to talk about mind control, ultimately? That's what we're looking at here under those circumstances.

And look by no means am I playing the Luddite here. I'm not suggesting at all that we should shove the technology up on the shelf someplace and ignore it. It's here. We're not going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle.That forces us to consider the large number of philosophical and moral questions to address as this thing grows.
 

That said, there's a major difference between using AI to aid you in the shack, and using AI to run the world. So we don't have to worry about A HAL or a WOPPER launching all missiles just yet. 

Indeed, a lot of you are already using some form of AI in your chack if you have any degree of computer in your rack.  Those of you who are using grid tracker are already using AI of a sort when it predicts what the MUF is going to be for a given area of the world. You're already using AI of a sort when it spell checks you as you're (mis)-typing.

In the end, just about any computer operation, regardless what you call it,  is some level of AI which in turn is little more than a series of if/then statements.

I suppose we can argue about how much in the way of if /then constitutes what we now call AI.... at what point does the machine "wake up"... But in my view, AI has been coming for some time and growing.

Some of you will remember that I have already mentioned that I run a heavily computerized shack. I find it a very effective way to operate.

That said caution is advised. There's a limit to how far I plan on taking this.

Ya gotta wonder, sometimes

I'm banging away on FT8 10 m this morning and I see a CQ SOTA coming from an N3 call. It usually takes a second for my system to resolve new calls as they come up. And this one resolved to Erie Pennsylvania.

Well, you can imagine the look on my face wondering how in the heck he managed to get up a mountain in the weather they've got down there, today, as evidenced by this pic I've included that was taken at Erie this morning.

Turns out he was out in California, as revealed by the SOTA website. That made a lot more sense on two levels. The band would have to be running awfully short to get 12 DB over the noise level from Erie from rochster, and Erie is up to their pips in snow and the West Coast was coming in pretty strong anyway.

But man....
it had me going for a minute.

The hole in the pattern

 What you see above, is where my signals have been heard, in the last 24 hours.
Not too bad. A litle disappointing, though, that there's such a large hole over China and India, etc.
More power, apprently, won'

t t solve the problem, because I'm not hearing any operators from these areas, despite there beinga  fair number of Ham operators in that area, particularly in India. Oh, well. You do what you can.

My FT* operations

I'll give you a quickie overview of my FT*  operations, in response to several questions on the topic.

My big shack computer is being rebuilt, so at the moment, I'm running a mini-PC, running Windows 10 with 2 screens.  This is the PC I have connected to my Yaesu FT991a.  Understand that the graphic below is actually a capture of both screens at once. This is the normal digital config I've been running for quite a while now. It's been quite effective for me.

On the far left, is the main screen for WSJT-X. To it's immediate right is  WIN4YEASU, which controls the radio itself via CAT.  It also makes available com port repeaters, so as to allow both WIN4YAESU and several other packages to run simultaneously.  As you can see, all the controls normally hidden on the 991's main screen are right up front on WIN4YAESU.... which is why I speak so highly of it.

Immediately below that, is the waterfall from WSJT-X.  That should be self explanatory to anyone who has run FT*.

Then we move to the right hand screen.

The biggest window is GridTracker's main screen.  This keeps updating with what the system is hearing and where you're being heard in real time.

Upper right is the current roster of active stations that you've not contacted yet.  The system uses a local copy of my QRZ logs to determine what is on that list,
 

 Below that is the station I'm currently working.

My bigger computer, once it's rebuild process is completed, will maintain 4 screens in pretty much the same basic config.
.

A new vertical for the house: Xiegu VG4

 Been a busy few weeks which is why I've not posted much here.
First, we had a bit of an accident.... my older boy ran over my VHF/UHF coax feed with a lawnmower. Expensive ouch. So I'm waiting to get the coax replaced for the short stuff. More on that in another post.

As some of you will know, I started a new job just recently and as a consequence of that, I'm now driving a new rig. Been having some problems with getting an antenna to work on the thing. If anyone has experience installing VHF/UHF antennas on a Volvo, drop me a line, please. I'll post more on that in another post as well.

The good news on the home front, and the subject of this post is the new VG4 antenna I have waiting to go up.

It showed up several days early.

It's a multi-band trapper, some 25-26ft tall (just about the same height at my IMAX2000, and it is resonant on 40,20,15 and 10m.... though many reports suggest it's quite good on 6m as well... and the other bands in between it's stated coverages... 30m17, and 12 can be turned with just about any tuner.

Cool beans!

The attraction for me was the lack of ground radials needed, since the whole thing is elevated.  Being elevated, it will have a performance advantage over ground-mounted verticals with buried radials, amounting to about 4db or so, vs a 1/4 wave vertical on a given band.  (Rudy, N6LF gets into this aspect of the general performance of elevated vs buried radials Here, if you're interested. (PDF)

 I'm hoping that it's top loaded design will allow it to perform within shooting distance of the IMAX2000 I currently use. As most of you know, that's a tall order.... the IMAX is tough to beat on the short end of HF.  Being top-loaded, the VG4 will not suffer from lower elevation on the shorter bands, such as 10m for example.   (I'm still running the ROC City 10m net these days, and obviously want the best signal I can get for that band. )

 On the other hand, since the IMAX only works well on 15-10m without the external tuner... And down to 20m and up to 6m with it, with some serious signal losses below 15m  for efficiency reasons, it's a little constricting. I've been really looking forward to getting live on 40 again and to better signal on 20, so, this may end up being a hard choice. 

I may end up setting up both verticals if the top-loaded VG4 doesn't perform as well as the collinear design of the IMAX.

If, on the other hand they're fairly close, I may end up taking the IMAX down. That thing is a signal monster and I'll hate to lose it.  We'll see.  Because of some space  and hardware limits I'm dealing with, I'll have to take the IMAX down anyway, at least initially.
 
I gatherthe VG4 is going to be a handful to put up, and get tuned. Tuning it will require a number of ups and downs, and that doesn't appear to be a one man job. Have a look at the dimensions to see why. It weighs around 15lbs, too, and that's without the weight of the mast and the coax and so on.

As for tuning it, I've seen reports that only a couple of cm adjustment per band, give around a 500kc shift in center tuning on 40, with the remaining bands being somewhat more forgiving. The Q on 40m is a bit high, as you might expect from a trapper of only 26 feet or so.

Once up however, it looks like it'll be pretty much bullet- proof. the Radio Oddity site suggests:

The VG4 is rated for high wind environments. After a normal installation, it can resist a category one hurricane with no guying required.

I do have high hopes for this stick. we'll see if that mans out over the next couple weeks.

Of course I'll be posting results here.

UPDATE: 

I've decided due to time and work factors to put off the install until Thanksgiving weekend. I'll be taking thanksgiving off as well as black Friday.   In looking at the thing I suspect I'm going to need most of a day to get it up and tuned.

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

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.