Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today propagation is what it is, yesterday it was different and tomorrow it will be different again. It's one of the fundamental aspects of amateur radio. We talk about propagation on air, like we do the weather. Rain, sun, snow or storm, there's always something. Of course most of those weather events have no impact on radio. A rain drop isn't going to make a great deal of difference to a HF signal, other than potentially making the operator wet, or creating a short-circuit in an unexpected way. Propagation on the other hand has little or no effect in day-to-day life, other than your GPS, mobile phone or other electronic device. In radio however, propagation makes the difference between only hearing your neighbours and speaking to another station on the other side of the globe. In the past I've mentioned that if you skip a stone across a lake, you get a good idea about how radio waves bounce off the ionosphere and in doing so, make it possible to hear and be heard beyond the

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I read a comment a fellow amateur made about an antenna. He said: "Of course, that antenna is a compromise..." Let me say that again: "That antenna is a compromise ..." It was the funniest thing I'd seen all week and the person making the statement wasn't even trying to be funny. Unless you're looking at the Sun from a distance, or checking out the propagation associated with the Big Bang, All Antennas are a compromise. We can prove that an isotropic antenna, one that is a theoretical point source of radio waves, cannot actually exist, so that basically means that you cannot have it all, ever. Once you've got your head around the notion that no such thing as a perfect antenna actually exists, or can exist, it makes sense that amateurs around the world spend so much time discussing and trialling antennas. As you get involved in Amateur Radio, you'll soon realise that the number of variables to construct an antenna is large. The more you learn, the more variables you

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today we have a standard for our on-air phonetic alphabet - technically it's called a spelling alphabet, but I digress. As you should be aware if you're a licensed Amateur, we use the so-called standard phonetic alphabet. It's used and defined by several organisations, including the International Telecommunications Union, the International Civil Aviation Organisation and NATO. It should come as no surprise that each of those organisations defines their own alphabet. It just so happens that today each of these definitions is the same, but that hasn't always been the case. In the United Kingdom, Alpha went through Apples, Ack, Ace, Able an Affirm. In the United States, Alpha has been Able, Affirmative, Afirm, Able, Alfa. In Amateur Radio we've heard America, Amsterdam and even Australia. All that for just the letter that we spell as Alpha. If that's not enough, try on Adams, Adam, Anatole, Anton, Ancona, Antonio, Anna, Aarne, Adana, Aveiro, Amor, Ana and Avala. No wonder we

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I want to talk about things to say and do in a contest. Before I begin, I must point out that there are many views on this and depending on your aim for the contest, what I'm going to talk about will be different. First of all, a contest is an Amateur Radio activity that starts and stops at a particular time. Often this time is expressed as UTC, or Universal Time. Since there are several official time-zones and more unofficial time-zones here in VK alone, you'll need to check your own location to determine what the actual local time is, but for my money, I have a watch that is set to UTC and during a contest I put it on my wrist. Apart from the rules for each contest, often described in mind-numbing detail with particular exceptions for different issues, often grown over time, there is a basic aim to get on air, make contact with other stations and exchange a salient piece of information. This information of course varies with the contest, but the most common exchange is

Foundations of Amateur Radio The hobby we call Amateur Radio is hard to explain to anyone outside. I was recently asked about what it was about the experience that had me hooked. I talked about Summits on the Air, SOTA, Islands on the Air, IOTA, World Wide Flora and Fauna, WWFF and satellite communications. DX hunting and competitions, but I never quite managed to capture what it all really means. Since then I came across a really wonderful explanation about what it is that we have here. Said simply, Amateur Radio is a thousand hobbies in one place, each with their own community, their own skills, their own gear, pursuits and club-songs. For some it's the pursuit of making a contact using low power and Morse-code, for the next it's building the key to make that happen, the next person wants to build the radio, the amplifier, the twin-feed, the mast, go camping, etc. etc. The characterisation of 1000 hobbies in one place under the umbrella also helps in other ways. It highlights that we're all different,

Foundations of Amateur Radio The origins of names of things in Amateur Radio has a long and internet riddled history, with hear-say and false memories added. The humble BNC connector was patented in 1951. BNC doesn't stand for Baby N-Connector, Bayonet N-connector, British Naval Connector, Berry Nice Connector, Berkeley Neucleonics Corporation or any such name. Apparently, it's named after it's inventors Paul Neill and Carl Concelman, the Bayonet Neill-Concelman connector. They went on to invent the Threaded Neill-Concelman connector, the TNC. A sub-miniature version of these connectors came in three types, A, B and C, called SMA, SMB and SMC. Also, the N-type connector was invented by the very same Paul Neill at Bell Labs, and the C connector came from Carl. The Yagi antenna, was invented in 1926 by Shintaro Uda in collaboration with Hidetsugu Yagi, both of Tohoku Imperial University in Japan. It's actually called an Yagi-Uda antenna. Yagi described the antenna in English in 1928 and his name became asso

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today in Amateur Radio is no different from yesterday, last year, last decade or longer. The hobby today is filled with people who are here to have fun, learn stuff and experiment. This hasn't changed since our hobby came into being. You can argue that the hobby has seen a great many changes. We have seen spark-gap transmitters, valves, transistors, miniaturisation, chips and now software defined radios. The experimental nature of our pursuit has not changed. We still spend time looking for cool stuff to do and people to do it with. And that's the single point I'd like to make. Finding people "to do it with". If you're a new amateur you might look to a club or your fellow classmates to combine your efforts. This can be a great way to forge life-long friendships and it's a sure fire way to find exposure to other ideas and activities. There might come a time when you find yourself at a loss what to do next, or who to do it with. You might lament that the group you're hanging

Foundations of Amateur Radio There are things that surprise me about this amazing hobby of Amateur Radio every day. One thing that is not a surprise is that some part of the general public thinks that I'm crazy, a lunatic, or worse, someone or something to be feared. Picture this. My car is parked in a car-park, next to some bush-land. Behind the car is a 12m fibre-glass squid-pole with a delta-loop hanging off it. The car-doors are open, it's a warm day, and I'm sitting in the driver's seat with a good friend coaching from the passenger side. I'm calling CQ and trying to figure out if this antenna works. Cue, Isobelle, she's the local ranger for the park we're in. She pulls up in her truck and comes out with "So, what's going on here then?" We explain that we're radio amateurs and that we're testing an antenna. She tells us that someone has seen us, phoned it into the ranger and she's been tasked to come out and check. We'd been set-up for all of 15 minutes. Two days later, I'm in my local park, 2 m

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I learned something new. A good antenna makes a big difference and you can hear it. Of late, I've been using the antennas on the boot of my car and have for some time all but abandoned my 12m spider-beam squid pole. As you might recall, the very first antenna I ever built was a quasi-random length vertical with 16 radials. Each of the 17 wires is about 12.5 meters long, so there is a lot of wire, wound onto a garden hose reel for transport, lots of effort in setting up, lining up and stuff to do before I can actually get on air. In a HF quiet area it works pretty well but it's too big for most back yards; it takes up a circle of 25m diameter and needs either guy wires or a car at the base. I went back to the drawing board. Using my trusty SG237 antenna coupler, I found a design online for a delta-loop. It's 120 foot or just over 36.5 meters of wire, setup in a triangle with the SGC coupler at the middle of the base. Yes, I know, the take-off angle isn't optimal, but oh my

Foundations of Amateur Radio There is a persistent perception among a small part of the amateur community that you need to build, buy or use antennas with a perfect 1:1 SWR to get the best results. Sometimes a contest erupts with who can get the lowest SWR. Without getting technical, since that could take hours and you have better things to do. A 50 Ohm dummy load has a perfect SWR of 1:1 and you should already know that a proper dummy load doesn't radiate, so while it has a perfect SWR it's not a perfect antenna. If your SWR meter reads 1.5:1, you're losing 3% of your signal, at 2:1 it's 11%, so just because the SWR is 2, doesn't mean you've got a dud antenna. Now I should point out that this can be a particularly dense topic if you get into the finer detail and if you do a search for "Understanding SWR by Example", you'll come across a delightful and very detailed document written by Darrin K5DVW and published in QST magazine that goes into pictures, graphs and explanations and also discusses ladder lin

Foundations of Amateur Radio This week I spent several hours in a park with a mast, guy wires, some coax, an antenna analyser, copper wire, a balun, cable ties and a pair of pliers, not to mention a tape measure, a calculator and several experienced amateurs. We set out to create a linked dipole antenna for a portable activation that we're working on. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of a linked dipole, it's simple. Imagine a dipole for 10m. It's about 5m long with a connection to the feed in the middle. At each end of the dipole is a connector of some sort - in our case, just some bare wire while we were building the contraption - and then some method of joining a piece of wire, in such a way that you can either opt to have the bits electrically connected, or just physically. If you repeat this, then you end up with a normal dipole that's made up of segments that you can either connect or not. This means that when a segment is connected, the dipole becomes resonant on a lower frequency, since the el

Foundations of Amateur Radio Amateur Radio is as much about having fun as it is about learning. Sometimes they go hand-in-hand, sometimes not so much. The 7Ps of Amateur Radio are as valid today as they were 100 years ago, Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Amateur Radio Planning can take many forms, but the basics include creating a permanent checklist. The notion of creating one every time means that you forget every time what you learned last time, so if you create a permanent one and then revise it from time-to-time, you'll be able to incorporate lessons learned, like "bring the radio face-plate control cable", and "bring the quarter inch jack adaptor", so you don't end up repeating the same lesson over and over. Test your gear at home. Not just turn it on, but set up the mast, check that you have guy wires and anchors. Check that you have enough coax to connect your antenna to your radio, spare batteries, etc. One trick I learned recently is to have a red and green label

Foundations of Amateur Radio Cabrillo and ADIF are likely two terms you've heard if you've done anything with logging or contesting. So what are they, how do they work and why does it matter? Let's start with Cabrillo. It's a file format used for submitting an electronic log to a contest manager. It was developed by Trey N5KO in 1999 for the ARRL. It's up to version 3.0, but the intent is that the older v2 files are still readable by todays programmes. The aim of the Cabrillo format is to provide some meta information, like the contest name, the person who did the contest, what club they're part of, where they live, what category, etc. After that, each contact is shown as a single line with a fixed format that shows the frequency, the mode, time-stamp, exchange and other pertinent details. Significantly it does not contain any point information, because the intent is that the contest manager imports each log and their software calculates the actual score, dealing with the rules as defined by the contest,

Foundations of Amateur Radio There are questions that happen, over and over again. In computing they're called FAQ's, or Frequently Asked Questions. Here are some that happen in Amateur Radio. What radio should I buy? It depends on your budget. Where are you going to be using this radio, at home, in the car, in a park or on a mountain? Will you have power where you are, will you be using HF, or will you be using VHF, UHF and above? Ask other amateurs around you, use their radios and have a play. What is the best antenna? The one that works. You can buy, build or borrow. Try out several ones, trade off size, space, cost, functionality and simplicity. It can be as simple as a single piece of wire, or as complex as a remote controlled and adjustable multi-band antenna. When should I be trying to make a contact, or what is the best frequency to be on? The one that works. If you're tuning up and down the band and you hear nothing, and you've checked that the squelch isn't closed and your antenna is conne

Foundations of Amateur Radio A regular question that I hear from amateurs, both new and experienced ones, is "What radio should I purchase?". It's a simple question that doesn't have a simple answer. The obvious variables, budget, size, frequency and modes are one side of the coin, and when you start looking, you'll learn that there is a lot of information on the subject. You'll learn that you can get amateur radios from $15 to $20,000 and everything in between. To be clear, I'm just talking about the radio, not the power supply, the amplifier, microphone, computer, antenna, interfaces, Morse key and the like. Unless you won LOTTO yesterday, and not even then, you should probably not buy a $20,000 radio first up, but if you do, make sure you give me a call and I'll help you test it. The question that often happens is, should I buy a Yaesu or Icom, which is like asking, should I buy a Mac or PC, or a Holden or a Ford. As you know, there are many different options and the same is true for your radio. The r

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I had the opportunity to operate mobile in 30 different locations within a 24 hour period. I'd done some preparatory work, in the way of looking closely at maps and plotting my expected route to know where I was and how far it was to the next location. One of the things I noticed while operating was that my signal reports varied greatly. I also noticed that the local noise floor was quite variable, power lines don't realy show up on a map and I can tell you that they are not your friend. One aspect of operation that took me a little by surprise, though it probably shouldn't have, was that different soil types made a big difference. I know that when I'm playing with antenna modeling software you have the opportunity to specify the soil type, but that doesn't really translate into anything that you can personally experience. The way I mainly noticed the effect is that for any given frequency, my ATU was unable to tune for some soil types, wet was good, rock wasn't. Thi

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