TV repair tools: screwdriver, wrench, drill...Did you say "drill"?

A few weeks back my Samsung DLP TV went on the fritz; showing a green tile pattern when playing analog sources, and randomly freezing when playing HDMI sources. After doing some research I found that this is known problem in the digital board on the HLR5067WAX/XAA and other TVs in the series where the DNIe chip (which is a BGA-type package) develops a loose connection. (Root cause was probably a mistake in the solder mask or poor QC on application of the solder paste prior to chip placement.)

The problem can be resolved by (of course) purchasing a new digital board for hundreds of dollars. Some of the sharp minds in the peer forums over at Home Theater Shack have found that if you can apply pressure to the DNIe chip, the problem goes away. So I opted to follow the process outlined by Leonard and Tito over at HTS for installing a mechanical pressure arm to push on the DNIe chip. I figured it was a few bucks, a trip to the hardware store, and some of my time.

I built the arm into the digital board's RFI/EMI cover, adjusted it to apply just a bit of pressure, and re-assembled the TV. Works 100%. Saved myself a few hundred dollars and now I can say I once fixed a TV with a drill and a tube of Loctite.

SO2R -- The hard way

This past weekend I had the privilege to be a guest operator for the Radio Club of America on their special event station W2RCA, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the RCA. The station was co-located with the anniversary event in Washington DC, and I wasn't able to attend in person, so the operation was handled using remote PC access and VOIP software, similar to the setup which I described back in late 2007.

A problem with remote setups is that they require a fast Internet connection to work well; the primary challenge being the speed (or lack thereof) at which you can switch from receive to transmit and back again. Because the W2RCA special event station was scheduled to happen during the ARRL's November SSB Sweepstakes, it was decided that we would work the contest as W2RCA. Being in a contest situation meant that rapid TX/RX switching would be a must.

As it turned out the network connection between my home and the RCA event location wasn't quite fast enough for the furious pace of the contest. I was having a hard time getting the remote radio keyed quickly enough to bust the pileups. In some cases I would bust the pileup only to have the target station get frustrated because I wasn't coming back to him fast enough. Not good, not good...

Out of curiosity I turned on my home station and tuned to the same frequency as the W2RCA remote. I found that despite being separated by 2,500 miles I could hear the target station well on both radios! Not wanting to give up on the contest for lack of fast TX/RX switching I decided to try an odd twist on SO2R (Single Operator-Two Radios) setup. I activated transmit on the W2RCA remote station, muted my microphone, and plugged my headphones into my home station. Because SSB is carrier-less mode the remote radio would not transmit any power with the microphone muted.

The next time the target station called QRZ I unmuted my microphone and called him, and heard him come back to me on my home station! I was able to work several stations this way, although there were still a few challenges. First was the effort of keeping the frequency of ftwo radios in sync. Second was some of the stations I could hear clearly on my home station were outside the range of the W2RCA remote station. But in general it worked and was an interesting way to get around the slow TX/RX switching issue.

..-. .. .-. ... - -.-. --- -. - .- -.-. - <= (First Contact)

This week marked a big milestone for me; I successfully completed my first radio contact using CW aka Morse Code. It was a tough contact; conditions were bad but the guy I worked was polite and patient with me so we managed to pull it off.

I had always believed that I simply did not have an "ear" for code; it sounded like noise to me and I was never able to get past a basic understanding of the mechanics. After the amateur radio code requirement was lifted I was thankful and quickly upgraded to the highest level license. Still, in the back of my mind I felt I should make a real effort to learn code; if for no other reason than to overcome a personal limitation. (If you think I have a strong aversion to being told what to do; I have an even stronger aversion to being told what I can't do -- even if I'm the one doing the telling.) So my 2009 resolution was to learn enough code to complete a radio contact. It took me nine months, but I made it. I don't know that I will ever be a "real" CW operator, but right now I'm having fun and feeling good about my accomplishment.

I would like to thank the following people who helped make this happen for me:

• Gerald Wheeler (W6TJP) - Author of the Code Quick learning method. A great basic foundations course.
• Fabian Kurz (DJ1YFK) - Developer of the LCWO.net website. An awesome online Koch-method trainer. Did I mention it's free?
• Leon "Skip" Stem (WB4DAD) - CW operator, FISTS member, and the first entry in my CW contact logbook. Thanks for being patient with me.

You, um, expecting trouble? BIG Batteries...

Through a contact at an SF Bay Area web hosting company I recently obtained for free a set of used -- but still very strong -- UPS batteries; the Deka/Unigy 31HR5000. This hosting company offers their customers a 100% uptime guarantee which means that they can't wait for their UPS batteries to fail; they are used for a number of months and then they're replaced. Since the hosting company has to pay someone to come haul them away they're happy to see them repurposed.

These batteries aren't the typical deep-cycle marine variety you see on Field Day. They weigh 95 lbs each. Fresh from the factory they're rated at 135 amp-hours, which is about 1,800 watt-hours. My main HF rig (Kenwood TS-2000) consumes about 200 watts worst-case (when keyed on 2 meter FM, set for 100 watts) which means that using one of the Deka batteries I could leave my rig keyed-down on 146.520 FM @ 100 watts and it would remain on the air for about 9 hours.

I now have 3 of these monsters running in parallel on my home station. That's over a full day of continuous talk time. Left in receive-only mode my station will run off-grid for about 8 days.

Total cost? About $40 for some 4-gauge jumpers and misc hardware.

Bring on the zombie attack. I'm ready.

Secret History of the Silicon Valley

I'm really enjoying Steve Blank's article series on the Secret History of the Silicon Valley. A very well-written series that has also been presented live at venues such as Google TechTalks, etc.

Most interesting for me is the confirmation of something I've believed for a long time; the "Silicon" Valley might might just as well have been named the "Wireless" Valley.

Frankly, I prefer the latter...

-- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. .

For a while now I've been forcing myself to spend time studying Morse Code. It's no longer required for amateur radio but I felt I needed to have some proficiency in it, and it's something that I've never been able to quite grasp. I've always believed that I simply don't have an "ear" for code; some people can hear it and some can't. Now I think that's probably true for fast code but I believe now that with some effort an "effective speed" of 6 words-per-minute can be achieved.

The method I've been using might seem unusual. I started out by obtaining W6TJP's Code Quick audio CDs. This is an innovative method for learning which teaches you to associate a "sound-alike" and a humorous image with every Morse character; for example when you hear "DAH DAH dit dit DAH DAH" the sound-alike is "Coma, it's a coma" the image is a bear laying in a hospital bed, and thus the character is "comma" (coma). W6TJP claims that this method ties the Morse Code sounds into your brain's language center, and I can believe that it in fact does. For slow code, to pass a basic test or decode repeater IDs it works and it's good enough.

The problem is that it takes time to mentally process the sound-alike, the funny image, and then recognize the character. So there's an upper limit to the "effective speed" you can reach with this method. I should make a note here about the difference between "effective speed" and "character speed". Character speed is a function of how long the dots and dashes last, and their timing relationship to each other. Effective speed is a function of the duration in pauses between characters. You can send Morse Code at a character speed of 18 wpm, but at an effective speed of only 6 wpm; this gives the receiver time to process each character before the next is sent.

Thus once you've mastered the sound-alikes, and you want to increase your effective speed, you need to "unlearn" the sound-alikes and learn to hear the code directly. One method for doing this is called the "Koch Method" where you start out with two characters and after you reach 90% correct copy you add another character. This type of method typically requires a computer to handle generation of the audio and "grading" of what you type in response. The best trainer I've found for this is "Learn CW Online" at www.lcwo.net. The reasons LCWO is so great are (1) it's free and (2) unlike a lot of websites done by hams it's very well designed.

I started out with LCWO doing fairly well; the number of characters was small (the first 4 taught are K, M, U and R) so if I got stuck I knew the right answer had to be one of those. As the lessons progressed I no longer had that luxury; the answer could have been any one of 40 characters (26 letters, 10 digits, plus comma, period, slash, and equals sign). And yet I also found that I was actually more accurate than I thought I would be! As you increase the effective speed you can't dwell on each character; you have to make a choice and move on. If you get stuck you'll likely not only miss the character in question but also the next few after. So in some cases I'll hear a character but won't be sure, and will just type what I think it is. At the end of the session I'll be thinking "Well, I must have really flubbed this one" but in reality I only missed one character out of 40. So clearly there's some kind of subconcious connection being formed here between my ears and my fingers which is bypassing the rational/analytical part of my brain.

I'm not sure I'll ever be one of those 50+ wpm code guys who hears entire Morse Code sentences in his head, but with luck I might be able to actually hold an on-the-air conversation using Morse Code some day.

The Sound of Silence, Part II

After the recent surge in 10 meter contacts due to Sporadic E propagation I reported in my last post it seems that hams have again lost interest, yet meanwhile the 11 meter CB DX scene is still going strong. This echoes observations I've made in the past about the differences between what hams and CBers consider "good" propagation.

Here's what I observed... Around 1630 UTC (0930 PDT) on 22-May-2009 I was mobile near San Jose International Airport. Figuring that 10m Sporadic E might bless us again with another day of great propagation I was tuned to 28.400 MHz, but heard nothing on or near that frequency. I figured at first that the Es just weren't there, but then remembered that the CBers and Freebanders often congregate around 27.385-LSB as their "DX calling channel". I tuned down to 11 meters and man, what a ruckus! I was hearing stations from all over the western US, some on the pre-defined CB channels and some were VFO-tuned to whatever frequency they happened to be on.

So as I've asked before; why the dramatic difference in activity? Clearly there was Es propagation to support contacts in the 10 meter band. Yet 28.400 MHz sat there idle, while 27.385 was so crowded CBers were changing frequencies to continue their conversations. One explanation suggested to me was that since CBers have only 11 meters they're forced to make the best of what they have, while hams can easily say "10 meters isn't yet as solid as I'd like, I think I'll drop down to 20/17/15 meters and see who's around down there." Fair enough, I guess. It still seems to me a shame that we're not making better use of the spectrum we have available to us.

Summer Es - Sporadic E season

In the past week we've seen some increased solar activity; solar flux peaked at 74 and that led to some interesting band openings. I worked LY1000A in Lithuania late last night (20-May-2009) on 20 meters -- an opening to Europe near midnight local time certainly qualifies as "interesting".

The summer sporadic E season (often referred to as "Es") kicked in today with reported 10 meter openings from the west coast to the east coast. I worked KJ7OX in western Washington state just before midnight local time; solid copy on him and after I signed off he was still going strong.

Given that 10 meters was pumping I also listened up on the 11 meters CB band. As expected they were going strong too; I was hearing a lot of AM stations down below channel 23 and I also learned that apparently CB channel 38-LSB (aka 27.385 MHz) is the popular sideband DX calling channel. It was good to see the hams having as much fun as the CBers for a change.

There was an interesting study done on Es propagation by Art KA5DWI; compiled over four years of PropNet monitoring data it shows that "sporadic E" may not be so sporadic after all. One noteworthy finding; Es propagation during ARRL Field Day weekend is typically poorer than the preceding and following weeks.

S 649 : Radio Spectrum Inventory Act

I posted this because I think Senate Bill 649 : Radio Spectrum Inventory Act (intro'd by Sen. John Kerry-Heinz, D-MA) is the first shot in a battle I've been predicting for some time; the application of populist politics towards spectrum management and allocation. You need only spend an hour tuning around with a decent all-band receiver to discover that the vast majority of spectrum is nothing but static. The real targets of this "spectrum socialism" are the big guns; broadcasters, the military, and even divisions of the government itself (such as NTIA) which has been "warehousing" spectrum for years while hypocritically requiring auction-winning licensees for cellular/PCS spectrum to demonstrate high levels of loading; i.e. subscribers.

Radio amateurs, I believe, are especially at risk from unintended consequences if this bill becomes law. I've previously blogged that many amateur radio frequencies are largely unused. Some amateur bands; such as 1.25m (aka 222 MHz) and 23cm (aka 1.2 GHz) are used only in certain regions of the US. (1.25m is popular in the Los Angeles area because 2m is so laden with bootleggers and jammers it's effectively become CB radio.) One reason for this is that the radio manufacturers are not selling equipment for these bands; the last 1.2 GHz equipment was the Kenwood TS-2000X which was introduced 9 years ago. Alinco is reported to be releasing a 1.2 GHz handheld, but that's not enough to drive adoption of the band. If the RSIA is an attempt to document usage of spectrum as a precursor to re-allocation based on purpose and usage, then 23 cm is one of the most likely targets for re-allocation once the limited use of that band becomes public knowledge. Our only hope is that the proximity of 23cm to radio astronomy likely precludes the allocation of that band to commercial use; but it could still be lost.

Equipment availability is one issue but at a higher-level the problem amateurs face with RSIA is simply that there are fewer radio amateurs than there were in the past; younger people prefer communicating via the Internet and if they do express an interest in amateur radio they're all-to-often turned off by the arrogance of a few hygiene-optional curmodgeons who tend to hang around at club meetings and hamfests complaining loudly and constantly about how the demise of Morse code testing will lead to the death of amateur radio; ignoring the fact that it's their own urine-soaked elitism that's probably a key element in keeping younger people from the hobby. So when faced with a trend towards populist politics and thus policies, a Congressional Budget Office estimate that the federal deficit may exceed $1.5 Trillion dollars, and huge swaths of amateur spectrum laying increasingly fallow as the number of amateurs continues to decline; the likelihood that the government will pull spectrum from amateurs and attempt to auction it off as a revenue source is increasingly likely. It's critical that we change the face of amateur radio (even if it means slaying a few sacred cows) in order to attract licensees or the day will come that some lawmaker will decide that it's politically low risk to start pulling spectrum from amateurs in order to pay off the deficit.

Economy takes a dive; amateur radio vendors fail to notice

You'd have to be living in a cave to not know what's going on with the economy, or at least what Washington D.C. is trying to terrify us into thinking is going on. Setting aside this Recession vs Depression debate for the moment; it's clear that the economy is struggling at some level. We're seeing home values drop sharply, credit is hard to obtain, auto dealers in some parts of the country offering 2-for-1 deals, etc. One need only visit your local Best Buy, Fry's, etc to find smoking hot deals on consumer electronic equipment. A buyer's market you say? Apparently not for amateur radio.

Recently I decided to buckle down and learn CW aka Morse Code. I've been using various tools, including a great online trainer called LCWO (Learn CW Online). I've also been using W6TJP's Code Quick; good for getting the sound-alikes for each character but my advice would be to save your money on the optional software and focus on sites like LCWO.

Needing a paddle/key in order to practice sending CW I decided to stop by Ham Radio Outlet (aka "the candy store" and buy the Bencher BY-1 for what their printed catalog said was $99. I pulled up in front of the store and the parking lot (normally full of vehicles festooned with antennae) was so empty I had a momentary thought that maybe it was a holiday and I'd just forgotten. I walked into the candy store (normally full of amateurs festooned with antennae) and was greeted by one lonely salesman. Recession? Depression? Clearly business is slow.

Inquiring about the Bencher paddle I found it was in stock...and that it cost $109. Ex-squeeze me? Catalog says $99. Yes, but the price went up. Since when? Since the catalog was last printed, apparently. I see... So other retailers are slashing prices, people are spending less, your store is completely empty for the first time I can recall...and you're raising prices.

To his credit my friend gave me the catalog price. Normally I'd also get a discount for being a member of the Cactus Intertie group, but not this time. It started me thinking that I've not really seen prices fall on amateur radio equipment the same way that mass-market consumer electronics have fallen. For example; I've been saying that I'll buy an IC-7000 once the sale price drops below $1,000. And yet the price remains above $1,300 and from some retailers seems (like my Bencher paddle) that the price have actually increased.

Is amateur radio immune to economic downturns? Sure seems like the manufacturers and retailers think they are.

Looking forward...

With 2008 officially behind us I've spent the last few weeks (as I'm sure many did) contemplating where we've been and where we're going. There seems to be a pervasive sense of relief, some trepidation about what 2009 might bring, but also a growing sense of hope that we're leaving behind a lot of baggage and moving into a period of revitalization and renewal. I believe that it's human nature to think that the troubles of today are unusual, unprecedented, and thus we long for days of old when "life was simpler". The reality is that in each generation there occurs a crisis of some sort that must be addressed. As the saying goes, "This too shall pass". Fortune, bad or good, is a fleeting thing. Our forefathers struggled, we struggle, and I guarantee our children will struggle. In between these struggles are periods of great happiness, and periods relative calm which often pass by almost unnoticed. From an amateur radio perspective I think 2008 will be remembered as a period of struggle, and hopefully in hindsight will be seen as a time when things began to change.

Amateur radio struggled during 2008. We ended the year with the lowest number of sunspots since the early 1900's. The sun's been so quiet for so long that any time the sunspot number isn't zero, or the solar flux index climbs over 70, everyone gets excited. The quiet surface of our sun was echoed in many ways throughout amateur radio. At the 2008 Dayton Hamvention (and smaller events such as Pacificon 2008) equipment manufacturers offered almost nothing new. In some cases popular equipment such as the Kenwood TH-D7A APRS handheld was suddenly discontinued. (It's speculated that certain parts in the TH-D7A were not ROHS-compliant and Kenwood couldn't get drop-in replacements.) It's worth noting that two of the biggest product offerings of 2008 were the Icom's IC-7200 HF transceiver, and Yaesu's VX-8R quad-band APRS handheld. The IC-7200 has "new" features such as (drum roll please) a USB port for audio I/O and control! How innovative! (I'm being sarcastic.) The VX-8R was shown at Dayton in early 2008 but wasn't actually shipped to customers until mid-December. It contains cutting-edge features such as APRS - which works if you buy their "GPS-Mic" which is insanely large and quite expensive. How is it that my Blackberry Curve can feature a high-contrast LCD display, QWERTY keyboard, battery, multi-band voice/data radio and a GPS in a housing that fits in my hand, but Yaesu needs that much room just to house a microphone and GPS? To add insult to injury; I had an on-the-air QSO with KI6CRL once he finally received his VX-8R after several months on a waiting list -- and it turns out it's got a thermal problem where his transmit audio level drops to nothing as the radio gets hot. This is the hot (no pun intended) new product people waited almost a year to buy?

Perhaps the Japanese manufacturers simply observe that amateur radio is struggling to grab the attention of younger people and believe that it's therefore not capable of producing a good return on investment. I would say that this is both a correct and incorrect observation. It's correct that in its current state amateur radio is largely unattractive to younger people. It's incorrect in that it doesn't take into account the concept of "making a market"; more on this later.

Why are young people not getting into amateur radio? It's not because it's technically challenging; you need only look at the surging popularity of the Maker Movement to know that technical innovation is alive and well among the younger generation. The fact of the matter is that it's our own Luddite mindset that's at fault: It's hard to recruit younger people into a hobby where the equipment manufacturers have only just this year discovered that USB is a viable interface option! I once watched a guy at Ham Radio Outlet whine for five minutes about how hard it was to get RAM modules for his 486 laptop; and amazingly he was finding a sympathetic audience. (By the way this happened in 2006, not 1996.) I was once chastized in an online discussion group for promoting the proliferation of APRS iGates; devices that route packet radio traffic onto the Internet -- my detractor stated that he felt "anything which blurred the lines between ham radio and the Internet" was a bad idea. Finding ways to revitalize older technology with the most pervasive technical revolution since the telephone is a bad idea? Give (unto) me a break.

Even when amateurs use computing they often miss the point. Many people who use APRS are still using the DOS version. One of the most popular APRS applications is UI-View32; the author of which (G4IDE) has been dead for several years -- and specifically asked that upon his death the source-code be destroyed rather than be placed into the public domain as an Open-Source project. How about despite the fact that it's marketed as a stand-alone APRS/packet solution Kenwood continues to build its TM-D710A without a USB or even a PS/2 keyboard jack. Simply put: Amateur Radio can't reach a younger audience until it integrates modern technologies and embraces development/collaboration concepts such as Open Source that younger people associate with "good technology".

You might be saying, "So what? Who cares if we fail to attract and retain younger people into amateur radio?" The answer is simply; we stand to lose everything. The current mood in Washington DC is already somewhat negative towards the FCC; there have even been calls for Obama to dismantle the FCC and implement a new innovation-centric technology governance model. Amateur radio is nothing without our spectrum allocations, and given how we're not really using the spectrum we have it's likely that under the new FCC leadership we'll lose some spectrum in the coming years; someone's going to have to pay back that $700 billion bailout and spectrum leases can be auctioned off to raise cash. As time progresses the incoming FCC leadership is going to be increasingly younger, and likely resistant to the idea of leaving large swaths of potentially cash-generating spectrum in the hands of older amateurs who insist on using out-dated computing technology that increasingly doesn't integrate with modern systems.

So how can we solve this problem? How can amateurs help "make a market" and create a potential for vendors to recoup long-term return on their engineering investment? First and foremost we have got to actively embrace modern computing technology, Maker-style hardware re-purposing concepts, and an Open Source licensing model for software and firmware. This means that:

• All amateur radios going forward should have USB ports, and if appropriate should support USB host-mode.
  
• I should be able to plug my HF transceiver or my handheld into my laptop and control it or configure it over USB.
  
• I should be able to plug a keyboard into my TNC-capable rig and type text without a computer.
  
• Rather than a proprietary interface, and a proprietary configuration app, all amateur radios should contain an on-board web browser (just like a $30 Linksys router does) running from an embedded controller and an Ethernet jack. I should be able to connect the radio to my LAN, and ideally I should be able to plug in a USB Wi-Fi dongle and attach to the radio wirelessly.
  
• The embedded controller should be some kind of standard (ARM-core, etc) and the operating system firmware should be Open Source and modifiable; picture OpenWRT or some variant.

We must start doing this now, or by the time we realize our mistake it will be too late. I firmly believe that a radical departure from our current mindset is the only way to move amateur radio forward.

Where's David?

Been a while since I posted. Most of the summer was spent doing various projects; some for pay and some for fun. One of my new interests is APRS - Automated Packet Reporting System. It started when a ham friend of mine decided to hike the John Muir Trail and wanted me to keep in touch with him and his girlfriend as they hiked. He carried a Kenwood TH-D7A(G) APRS handheld; so I decided that I would set up APRS to track him.

In the process of doing this I learned a lot about APRS and the mechanics of routing packets through RF. I set up an "I-Gate" which is a system that passes received RF packets into the APRS servers via the Internet. Turns out this was quite useful to some local hams that carried Kenwood TH-D7A(G) APRS handhelds which could not normally reach the mountain-top APRS repeaters aka "digipeaters". So now my station's running 24/7; not great for keeping the electric bill small but I guess that's why I have a 3 KW solar PV array on my roof, yeah?

In exploring APRS I learned that when it comes to digipeaters "more" is not necessarily equated to "better". RF packet is about passing packets to the target (or targets) with little (or ideally no) redundancy. For the most part we enjoy a great VHF environment here in the Bay Area; the Silicon Valley is ringed by mountain ranges which provide line-of-sight at nearly any time to at least one of the wide-area digipeaters. Any additional digipeaters are redundant and therefore create extra packet traffic. (The exception to this is of course low-level/low-power "fill-in digipeaters" designed to serve small pocket valleys, urban canyons, etc.) With a dense population and a lot of hams using APRS it's a constant battle to keep the 144.390 MHz APRS channel from becoming too crowded. I-Gates don't contribute to the crowding problem; that is if they're set up as receive-only I-Gates.

I'm having a good time with APRS; besides just being able to track locations I've also been exploring how it can be used for text communication; I had a nice QSO with YB2TJV in Indonesia recently. It's also proving useful to study VHF propogation in the area. I have no idea why my callsign was used by OH7LZB as an example in his blog post on the new I-Gate coverage function on aprs.fi; but I was flattered anyway!

I'll be hosting a forum on APRS at Pacificon 2008 which runs from October 17th - 19th in San Bruno, CA. My forum is scheduled for 8:00am Sunday the 19th; if you're in town please do come by and say hi!

Tech Note: Radio Shack Pro-2018 Scanner

I recently purchased a cheap radio scanner to replace my venerable I recently purchased a cheap radio scanner to replace my venerable Electra Bearcat 250. I bought a Radio Shack Pro-2018 (catalog # 20-424). Reading through the Radio Shack website a few days ago I was amazed to find that they were selling the programming cable for my scanner for 97 cents!? The cable (catalog # 20-429) is being discontinued, apparently. I found a store which had one and picked it up.

Radio Shack also offers a free programming software package. It is quite frankly one of the lamest applications I've ever seen; an absolutely horrid GUI and it would only import from DBase III format (.dbf) files. A quick Google search revealed an open-source scanner loader application "ProLink" which looked promising. It doesn't specifically state support for the Pro-2018 but it does support the Pro-2017 and the Pro-79 which are (from a serial port interface perspective) the same.

The nice thing about ProLink is that it can open text and CSV files, so creating a frequency list from copied text is fairly easy. I used Excel, and copied a lot of data from RadioReference.com and K6SCC's SCCFreqs.info page. Caveat: Apparently most of these low-end scanners don't have a download function. So don't expect to use ProLink to download the painstakingly-created frequencies you may have already on your scanner.

I ran into two small but annoying glitches which I'd like to share. One glitch was that when I initially tried to open my CSV in ProLink the application would lock up and require a process-kill. I knew the application could open CSV files because it successfully opened a sample file included with the application install. Examining the good vs the bad CSV revealed that Excel did not maintain all of the commas and quotation-marks around text which apparently ProLink expects. So I had to open the CSV in a text editor and manually reformat the file. Thank you, Bill Gates.

The second glitch was in trying to get the serial interface to work. Turns out the I needed to reconfigure my USB-serial dongle for the following config: 4800-8-N-2 (4800 bps, 8 data bits, Parity=None, 2 Stop bits) and Flow control set to "None".

Once I did this the data file loaded into the scanner no problem. I'm not sure I saved any time doing it this way, but at least now I know that I have a soft copy of my frequency list and should I need to make any changes I can do this in the file and then reprogram the scanner.

Wireless at Maker Faire 2008

Last weekend my wife went on a short trip with some friends, leaving me home to try my hand at single fatherhood. Still, I managed to get away from my "Mr. Mom Weekend" for a few hours on Friday and Saturday nights (paid a babysitter on Friday, and cajoled my mother-in-law into service on Saturday). On Friday I attended the PAARA amateur radio club meeting in Menlo Park, and on Saturday I drove up to the Maker Faire in San Mateo. The role of wireless technology at the Maker Faire was very evident, but not in the way you might expect. For the uninitiated; the Maker Faire is a combination of Burning Man + science fair + flea market. People come to show off their contraptions and creations; robots, alternative fuel vehicles, lots of stuff which uses embedded controllers, and (especially after the sun went down on Saturday) enough fire and explosions to satisfy even the most ardent pyromaniac. The highlights for me were:

• A carriage being pullled by a walking-robot made up to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger (lower-half exposed to show Terminator endo-skeleton)


• A chamber which made hydrogen-filled soap bubbles that were detonated by electric ignitors


• A seriously huge Tesla coil display which was throwing nine-foot plasma streamers


• Some kind of pressure-sensitive podium which caused twelve-foot tongues of flame to shoot up into the air


• The "Pinbowl" - a perpetual pinball machine

The contrasts at the Maker Faire are numerous and glaring. The parking lot is filled with hybrid cars, and the usual "Impeach Bush"/"Obama 2008" bumper-sticker polemic you expect to find in the SF Bay Area. So you'd think the Maker Faire would be focused heavily on eco-friendly and minimal carbon footprint exhibits. And yes, there were a huge number of exhibits showing off renewable energy and transportation technology; solar, wind, algae-fuel, bio-diesel, electric motorcycles, pluggable hybrids, etc. But after sunset there were also many combustion exhibits and shows using propane, kerosene, lamp oil, etc. The smell of incompletely burned hydrocarbon was everywhere, as tongues of smoke curled up against the deepening sunset in the chilly evening air. How to reconcile this? I don't know that I can. Is the Maker Faire a neutral zone in the global warming debate, a sort of United Nations of carbon consumption? Or is this yet another example of hippie hypocrisy? Best if we leave that one to the philosophers.

If you're still reading, you might be wondering how this all relates to wireless. It does, and thanks for sticking with me as I get around to that. Wireless technology of all types was very evident and widely used at the Maker Faire, but the operating word here is "used". There were no exhibits (that I saw) which showed off anything related to innovation in the wireless space. There were a ton of people using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, proprietary ISM data-link radios, radio-controlled servos, etc. Wireless was everywhere, but in all cases it was "user wireless"; projects created with off-the-shelf modules and in some cases chipsets. Wireless is a tool to complete projects, not the project in and of itself. I find that this echoes a growing trend I've observed at the WCA and in the wireless industry as a whole: Put plainly, wireless technology is becoming a commodity.

Some of the hams from PAARA set up an amateur radio special-event station to make 20m and 2m/70cm contacts from the Maker Faire. I never found this exhibit, but a few people on the N6NFI repeater say the station had to contend with some bad RFI; which I can imagine given that a giant Tesla generator was operating nearby. I'm quite sure that most of the Maker Faire was essentially a gigantic FCC Part 15 violation.

It's unfortunate that the hams did not have a bigger role at Maker, because amateur radio has its roots in innovation and home-brewed technology; ham radio is a great-great-granduncle of the Maker movement and should rightfully hold a place of honor and respect in the Maker community. I think that the problem is that a lot of amateur radio has become consumerized and is now ironically an example of the "culture of learned helplessness"; ironic because the technology consumerism which is the fastest growing segment of amateur radio (i.e. people who chose to buy versus make) is at odds with the hacking/creation/innovation core elements of the Maker movement.

The amateur radio community still certainly has a lot to say about innovation and technology; the huge number of hamfests, tech days, field days, DXpeditions, etc is evidence of this. The problem seems to be that amateur radio events have become somewhat insular; we're doing events for ourselves, and not reaching out as much as we should to non-hams. By way of example; this month's AM-TECH Day is on May 10th. Past proof shows that it will be popular, or at least popular with hams. Wouldn't it have been better to push AM-TECH up a week and hold it at the Maker Faire? How many Makers could we have licensed if we'd held AM-TECH and a VE test session a week earlier at the Maker Faire?

I also think that we need to seriously rethink our approach to new technologies. Hams are spending way too much energy on "maintaining the tradition" in modes of operation such as CW and voice, and not exploring how amateur radio might benefit from integration with other technology. I think radio amateurs still have a lot to offer the wider technical community, but we need to reach out and open our doors. This means far less worrying about nurturing traditions and whining about the evils of no-code HF, and a lot more mold-breaking. The concept of the Maker Faire and amateur radio is to hack, to repurpose, to change forms and function. We can learn a lot from the Maker community, and they from us. How do we make this happen?

$20 Billion dollars later [700 MHz auction]

Article from InformationWeek which talks about the 700 MHz spectrum auction. (Verizon, AT&T Big Winners In 700 MHz Auction) I'd been hearing projections of between $15-$20 Billion; so this tracks with expectations.

The point I think nobody has yet addressed is "what will happen to all the money that didn't win the auctions?" Presume that in total the amount of money which smaller players had available to bid was equal to the amount that was bid by the winners. This is a conservative estimate; in fact I suspect the number is larger. So that means that as of yesterday there's $20 Billion dollars sitting around which must now be re-purposed.

Let's look at this in perspective... The worldwide semiconductor market is approximately $200 Billion dollars. The entire worldwide electronics industry is approximately $1 Trillion dollars. Presuming that all of the unspent bidding dollars are put back into technology; this means that the worldwide electronics industry as a whole grew yesterday by 2%. If my suspicions are well-founded, it could in fact be greater than 2%.

So...where's the money going to be spent? What's if anything is the net effect on the technology markets?

The Sound of Silence

Last November we drove down to Disneyland in my wife's van, and I wired up a VHF/UHF rig and mag mount for the trip. Ever since the phone systems failed due to overloading during the relatively minor October 2007 Alum Rock quake I've been nervous about relying on cellphones in emergencies. I spent some time researching repeaters along the route, and more time programming everything into the radio.

All for naught, apparently. During the trip I was struck by the almost complete lack of traffic on every repeater I tuned in. It wasn't a problem with my equipment; there just wasn't anyone on the air. Even in the densely populated Los Angeles area, the entire twelve hour trip was mostly a never-ending chain of silence. The most traffic I heard was on linked systems such as the Cactus Intertie and the WinSystem, but that's to be expected because they have dozens of connected repeaters and all it takes is one person talking somewhere on the system to light them all up.

On my base and mobile rigs I have a lot of local repeaters programmed, ready to go. And yet at any given time; nobody's talking. Pick up the mic, announce "W6DTW monitoring".... and listen to silence. Reminds me of the This Week In Amateur Radio "Random Access Thought" segment by Bill N2FNH about a repeater that died when a spider crawled across a circuit board; shorted himself across a resistor; killed the repeater...and nobody noticed. And yet; try asking your local frequency coordination council for a frequency pair and you'll get told "there's nothing available". The howling wind of silent FM static is blowing through most of our local repeaters just as it was through the repeaters I tuned into on the trip to Southern California. So how is it that all of the frequencies are spoken for..?

Things are not much better down in the HF bands, or perhaps I should say not much better in the legal HF bands. Given that we're currently coming out of a low point in the 11-year sunspot cycle you might be tempted to allow that the amount of traffic will be low. Especially in the higher frequency bands like 10 meters, where popular wisdom says there's little propagation during the day and certainly none at night. So the 40 and 20 meters bands have some traffic (mostly contesting), 17 meters opens up around noon for a while, and we're starting to hear folks on 15 meters. But for the most part; few stations are on the air and silence above 21.5 MHz is the rule.

So then why is it that on any given weekend day, if you listen above 27.405 MHz into what's been termed the Freeband, you'll very likely hear a lot of traffic? I hear strong stations coming in from around the Western US and Mexico. Is there something odd about propagation that creates a difference between 27.915 MHz (aka the freeband "Redneck Skip Calling Frequency") and 28.400 MHz (aka the amateur "10 Meter Calling Frequency") so that one is active and the other not? Surely the Freebanders don't have some kind of secret technical prowess that allows them to punch through where amateurs cannot? The reality is likely that amateurs simply don't believe that there's good propagation without sunspots, so they don't tune in and "no propagation" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I find it amazing that while the great swaths of spectrum which amateurs can legally use sit idle; another group of people who are sometimes called "pirates" (agree or disagree with the term as you wish) are happily making use of frequencies which are right next to a band that amateurs will effectively ignore for a good 25%-40% of every sunspot cycle. Yes, Freebanders are operating illegally according to FCC regulations. No, I'm not a Freebander. However; I do have a sense of respect for them. They are (from what I can see) more enthusiastic and aggressive about pursuing the hands-on technical aspects of radio than many hams. They're out there modifying radio equipment on their own---which they have to do because there's no legal way to buy freeband radios. They're not sitting around waiting for sunspots to come back so they can get good propagation; they get on the air and take what the sun gives them on that day.

That's real radio.

Expensive Desktop Mic Get Pwned By $12 VOIP Headset

A while back I purchased an entire amateur radio set from a ham who was getting out of the hobby. A rare occurrence, mind you. I really only wanted the radio (a Yaesu FT-1000D) but the guy sold me everything except the feedlines and antennas for less than I'd expected to pay for the radio. Everything worked as expected. In the plethora of boxes I lugged home were a lot of accessories; among them a West Mountain Radio RigBlaster Pro.

The RigBlaster sat in storage for almost a year, until recently when I watched K7AGE on YouTube talking about his homebrew Bluetooth headset interface. One of the accessories which came with the FT-1000D was a Yaesu MD-100A8X desk mic. I've frankly been less than pleased with performance of that mic; it's very sensitive to any change in sound level due to distance from my mouth which means that keeping the FT-1000D's ALC from kicking requires that I constantly ride the PA drive control--and that's tough to do when I'm focused on maintaining a constant mouth-to-mic distance. So I started thinking about getting a headset. Of course, you can spend a ton of money on a "good" headset; e.g. Heil Sound is the name in radio mics and headgear and their stuff starts over $100 and goes up from there. Being the cheapskate I am I decided to experiment with a $12 General Electric VOIP headset I got from Target to do Skype while I was traveling through Asia in 2006.

Interface to Yaesu was a snap using the RigBlaster. As with most amateur radio accessory companies, West Mountain Radio's website and manuals are poorly written but I was able to decipher them enough to set the jumpers properly for the Yaesu. Most computer headsets are have electret voice elements which require a 5 VDC bias on the ring terminal; the RigBlaster can provide bias on the MIC2 jack which also happens to be the perfect size for a PC headset plug. I didn't bother to route any of the receive audio paths; for now I just have the receive side plugged into the headphone jack. I have the MD-100 plugged into the RigBlaster--just in case--but its primary function now is to act as a PTT switch.

The results were impressive. I checked in to the 75M late night net and got an unsolicited report of "great sounding audio" from W6EZV. A flattering report, considering that the 75M late night guys are used to hearing perfectly processed and equalized audio from people like W6OBB aka Art Bell. I'm now able to operate with both hands free, and the headphone has an added benefit of making sure the receive audio is not bothering my family after they've gone to bed. My audio settings are a lot more consistent and don't require constant fussing with the PA drive and speech processor levels. Best of all I'm no longer inclined to go out and spent hundreds of dollars to get a high-end Heil headset. I'm now curious to find out if my successful experiment is unique to this particular VOIP headset or if I can get the same results with other brands.

Pimp My Rig

During the recent severe storms we lost power at home a few times. I had my radios on battery power monitoring various emergency frequencies but at times I was struggling to read some of my equipment with non-backlit displays. A small LED flashlight worked well in a pinch, but afterwards I started to think about how I might improve the lighting at my station without using wall-socket power and/or consuming a lot of my station's reserve battery power.

The answer came to me while I was wandering around a Target store. There's a company called WinPlus that makes a line of auto accessories under the brand name "Type-S"; they offer a lot of dashboard gizmos, LED map lights, gadget holders, etc. Their stuff is actually quite well-conceived, for the most part. One of the items they sell is a "Dash Mood Light Set" which consists of two small "LEDs in a barrel" with 3M adhesive-backed swivel-mounts and a "cigarette lighter" accessory plug. Setup was very simple; all I had to do was plug in the lights (using an accessory socket) and stick the swivel-mounts on the radio faceplates. The lights draw less than 10 mA of current and provide great illumination of the displays even in total darkness. The wires are very slender so I was able to tape them down with black electrical tape and now they're essentially invisible.

What a day....

So today was quite a day. The stock market (and my 401k) tanked on job data and high oil prices. Britney Spears got carted away for observation at a mental hospital after a standoff with police. And the Silicon Valley got slammed by a major storm that toppled trees, knocked over my backyard fence, ripped the roof off of our rental property (complete with flying roof tiles smashing a car window in the process), and bending my Comet CHA-250BX antenna. I'd probably be more upset by all this (except the Britney Spears part) if not for the fact that I'm sick as a dog right now with some kind of nasty virus.

I'm hopeful that the amount of misery in any given year is limited and that I'm getting all of my ick for 2008 out of the way early.