The Contest Blues

 I dunno what exactly it is, but I always get a little discouraged on contest weekends. Actually, I take that back. I can't get on the air as much as I'd like.

Oh, with the audio I'm running, I can bust a pile with the best of them, and if I were able to spend the duration of the contest without annoying my family, or taking time off from work, I might do fairly well, despite my station's limitations. A prime example is the CQ SSB contest this weekend. More than once I've heard what sounded for all the world like one of those spy "numbers" stations. The voice on the signal was obviously computerized, and spliced together by the computer to serve the purpose. I can only assume a high degree of automation in the shack there for logging and other controls such as CAT.

Before you start,  I'm by no means objecting to using computers in the shack.  I've often argued for such use in the forums.  I'm sure some of the older hands consider me a PITA on the point. But when that computer voice announces less than 6 hours into the contest (at S9+25dB)  that their latest contact is number 1747, it strikes me as overkill.  What is a more casual operator to do?

Well,  the first obvious answer is you lose the contest. There's no way in the Lord's EM spectrum that someone not running full legal power feeding a beam or four stacked, and a multi-seat operator.... and a few computers, is going to win anything. I'd like to get a ragchew or, at least do some "grid bingo." No such luck, I'm afraid. You're not going to find a quiet frequency to establish yourself on, either.  

 

As an example,a few weeks ago with the 10m 'test we were seeing wall to wall operators, some over the top of each other, others a kc and a half off, ... from 28.3 to 28.7  

Yeah, I know, I could go to one of the WARC bands. Thing is, there's nobody there, because of... (You guessed it) ...the contest.  So, depending on my mood, I either get generous and pass out a few points to the big guns, (And if I'm lucky get a grid or entity I need)  or simply shut the rig down for another day. Usually, there's a contest going on that day, too.

 There doesn't seem to be much of an answer for this problem... and I can't help but think I'm not alone in observing it.

It's not the callsign that denotes prestige, it's the operator

I was recently asked how I came by my 1*3 callsign. This came as a part of a discussion on one of the Ham radio forums, wherein an older gent complaining that there is little in the way of prestige  for callsigns anymore, since we're allowed vanity calls and not forced to change callsigns when we move to a different call zone, etc.  I'm not sure I buy either of those arguments.

But before getting into that, here's how I managed to come up with my chosen vanity call...

With the encouragement of some of the local "ham radio royalty" if you will in my neighborhood I applied for my 1x3 call sign when I had only been a technician for about a month.

(This gent, it should be noted,is a long time holder of an extra, and who retains the callsign he was originally assigned at random when he got his general back when Grok was hammering out licenses with a hammer and chisel in stone tablets. 😁😁😁)

I suppose there are those who would shake their head over that my getting the call so early in my Ham radio career, but my reasoning was that I wanted to print some QSL cards, and I didn't want to have to print a second batch when my call sign changed, which I was determined it was going to happen one way or the other, eventually. That thought was solidified by the oncoming policy changes which would have cost me $35, even assuming the call was available when I finally decided to pursue it.

As you've probably figured, the suffix on my call is my initials. I grabbed it when I did because I figured... with some convincing by the aforementioned local royalty, that the chances were pretty good that it wouldn't be available when I finally decided I was worthy of it. Thing is, I had that backwards.

After I attained this call, I actually did some research on the previous holder of the call, and best I can determine the holder of that call was an amateur from the Brooklyn New York area back in 1956.  I only found one rather vague reference to this call, and looking back as this is written, I can't find it, now, sadly.

Given that, it seems the safe assumption that the original holder of this call sign is SK by now. All I can do I suppose is to hope that I'm doing his call Justice. I say that because I figure the only prestige that my call sign indicates is the prestige that I bring to it with my operations.  

And that's going to be the thrust of my post, today.... I have found over the past few years,  I respectfully submit today, that the only thing that brings prestige to your operations, isn't your callsign, it's your operations themselves.   

Yes, it is true that often the holders of 1x2 calls, for example, often are very classy operators, but in my experience, there is no direct connection there. One call hold a 1x2 call (for example) and be a complete anus.  I've worked a few such people... something I suppose we've all run into at one time for another.  On the other hand, as an example of the opposite end of the band,  I consider the gent I mentioned earlier to be among the classiest  operators I know... and someone with whom I've enjoyed a wonderful friendship over the past few years.

I wanted the call I have because I thought it brought a personal touch.... and it was fairly easy to obtain.  But.... and I stress this, by repeating myself....the only prestige that my call sign indicates is the prestige that I bring to it with my operations. 

Think of it this way.... Your callsign, however derived, is your on-air name. It's how you identify yourself and your station. But... and I stress this....  what is at least equally... and probably more important is that your on air activities also identify you. They are what gives the reputation, and the prestige, not the call itself.  

Ham radio would be far better as a whole were we to keep that in mind when we activate that little red light. .

73,

de K2ENF

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.
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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.