Foundations of Amateur Radio

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Finding balance in Amateur Radio Sep 18, 2022

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

When you are absorbed in a hobby like amateur radio it's easy to lose track of the world around you. I freely admit to spending many hours on this hobby and it wasn't until I spent some effort taking stock that I discovered just how much time I spent.

The fifth clause of the Amateur's Code attempts to formalise this behaviour and I confess that it's taken me several years to find a more reasonable balance. Let's review the original 1927 published version of this clause. It reads:

The Amateur is Balanced. Radio is his hobby. He never allows it to interfere with any of the duties he owes to his home, his job, his school or his community.

It's interesting to note that in one of the oldest documents describing our community it refers to our activity as being a hobby. I'm noting this because there have been plenty of treatises written on the notion that amateur radio is a public service and not a hobby.

This clearly states that in the opinion of the General Counsel of the ARRL in 1927, Amateur Radio is a hobby and frankly, I'm fine with that.

The 2022 ARRL handbook removes the reference to hobby and words it:

The Radio Amateur is BALANCED...radio is an avocation, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.

The ARRL website reintroduces the concept of a hobby like this:

The Radio Amateur is BALANCED...Radio is a hobby, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.

I'll note that the definition of avocation is "a hobby or minor occupation" and I'm not sure what the clause gains by using a word that I had to look up in the dictionary. Consider for a moment if your first language isn't English, why use "avocation" when "hobby" is the same thing?

The original used the phrase: "never allows it to interfere with any of the duties he owes", this puts amateur radio as a hobby at the bottom of the pecking order in the list of things you do. The 2022 version waters this down to "never interfering with duties owed", essentially elevating the hobby above some of those other duties. I don't think that this is an improvement.

I'm a fan of amateur radio, but I think that in the scheme of things it needs to take the place of a hobby, not an activity that has the ability to be prioritised over any of your other duties. If it does, where is the line? What is more important and what isn't? Should this be something that we in our code of conduct endorse? What's next, telling amateurs specifically what they should be doing? I think not.

One thing that's worth exploring is the concept of "job". A job is your occupation, tow truck driver, radio astronomer, submariner or accountant. The original meaning, going back to the 1550's is "an activity that an individual performs in exchange for a specific fee or payment".

What if you don't have a job? What if you're retired, unemployed or have some other lifestyle?

What if we replace the word "job" with "work", defined as "a physical or mental activity that is performed in order to accomplish or produce something"?

This could make the fifth clause look like this:

The Radio Amateur is BALANCED...radio is a hobby, never allowing it to interfere with any of the duties owed to home, work, school or community.

It's short and sweet, uses simple language and it covers everything that the original document was attempting to achieve, and as a bonus it no longer requires you to have a job.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Being friendly in Amateur Radio Sep 11, 2022

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

The fourth clause of the original Amateur's Code, published in 1927 has a lot to say about the tone of amateur radio. It says:

The Amateur is Friendly. Slow and patient sending when requested, friendly advice and counsel to the beginner, kindly assistance and cooperation for the broadcast listener: these are marks of the amateur spirit.

The 2022 ARRL handbook tweaks that into:

The Radio Amateur is FRIENDLY...slow and patient operating when requested; friendly advice and counsel to the beginner; kindly assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the hallmarks of the amateur spirit.

The ARRL website adds a pronoun and updates some of the language:

The Radio Amateur is FRIENDLY...He/[She] operates slowly and patiently when requested; offers friendly advice and counsel to beginners; kind assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the marks of the amateur spirit.

I'm not quite sure what the idea behind this change is. The original referred to "slow and patient sending" in an era when that meant slowing down your Morse Code. I'm not sure what "operating slowly" means, unless it's asking the amateur to speak slowly or to operate their fixed speed FT8 station slowly, hardly the same thing as reducing the speed of your Morse key.

There's also a reference to the "broadcast listener", something which we refer to as shortwave listeners today. Essentially, be kind to the people around you and accommodate their limitations when you are asked, which is what the rest of the words have been morphed into.

I think that being friendly and patient is a worthy aim and I don't think that it should be requested. The original used the word friendly twice, added kindly and used counsel, advice, assistance and cooperation.

All this is collaborative language, encouraging the amateur to participate and being friendly and considerate when they do.

I also note the difference between a "mark" and a "hallmark". The word hallmark means a mark stamped on articles of gold, silver, or platinum by the British assay offices, certifying their standard of purity.

I think that certifying friendliness to a standard of purity is a worthy objective and I think that using the word "hallmark" instead of "mark" elevates the clause to a standard worth achieving. I think that the 2022 ARRL handbook use of the word "hallmark" is an example of an improvement of the code that should be embraced.

With that in mind, removing the superfluous pronouns, given that "The Radio Amateur" encompasses anyone with a license, here's an alternative for the fourth clause of the Amateur's Code.

The Radio Amateur is FRIENDLY...patient; offering friendly advice and counsel to the beginner; kindly assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the hallmarks of the amateur spirit.

It's a little longer than I'd like, but I think it leaves less room for ambiguity in the notion of operating slowly and it no longer requires that someone needs to ask for an amateur to be patient. I think that overall, it encourages good behaviour in a world where we can bash out an angry reply at the whim of the nearest keyboard.

What do you like about this version and what would you change?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Progressiveness in Amateur Radio Sep 04, 2022

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

The third clause of the original Amateur's Code reads:

The Amateur is Progressive. He keeps his station abreast of science. It is built well and efficiently. His operating practice is clean and regular.

The 2022 ARRL handbook is similar:

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE...with knowledge abreast of science, a well-built and efficient station and operation above reproach.

The ARRL website adds in some pronouns and removes the science from the clause:

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE...He/[She] keeps his/[her] station up to date. It is well-built and efficient. His/[Her] operating practice is above reproach.

I'm not sure what prompted this alteration and frankly, I'm not a fan. Pronouns aside, science is at the heart of what it is that we do and that has been the case since the very first amateur went on air. It's also bewildering to me that knowledge and science has been transformed into keeping your station up to date, which means something else entirely.

The original is about learning and education, in my opinion the ARRL website version is about shopping and frankly it's distasteful in a world where we as amateurs are renowned for experimentation and constructing a solution from parts.

It raises another question.

Who actually made this change and what process exists to actually implement it? Is it the whim of an individual, or is there a committee that was elected to investigate and update the code? If it was an elected body, how does it represent me in Australia and how does it represent any amateur beyond the shores of the United States, or even beyond the membership of the ARRL?

Consider the scope of amateur radio as a global activity. The Amateur's Code has spread far and wide in the past century, well beyond its apparent origins as a page in the third edition of the ARRL handbook in 1927.

In my opinion this code is not an ARRL owned document, it belongs to all amateurs across Earth and it should be treated as such. As I've said before, it's a living document and it has evolved over time, but that doesn't mean it can be changed on a whim. There should be rigorous discussion in a public forum that informs any such change and at present I see no evidence of that at all.

To illustrate its reach further, the IARU has a document called "Ethics and Operating Procedures for the Radio Amateur", with Edition 3 published in 2010. It contains a copy of the code with yet another version of clause three:

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE... He keeps his station up to date. It is well-built and efficient. His operating practice is above reproach.

Clearly change is being implemented somewhere and it might well be that this version informed the current version on the ARRL website, 12 years later. I'll also note that there is a copyright statement in that IARU document that contains a whole lot of, in my opinion, unenforceable verbiage, including the requirement that any copy or portion is required to include a copyright notice, which in the case of the included Amateur's Code is murky at best. I also note that it credits Paul Segal in 1928, something which we've already established is wrong, given that the code appears in print in 1927 and has been credited to him as far back as 1923.

Back to the clause, I think that keeping science as an integral part of the conversation is essential. I'm going to repeat the original clause as published for reference.

The Amateur is Progressive. He keeps his station abreast of science. It is built well and efficiently. His operating practice is clean and regular.

In addition to science, there's a statement about how to build and how to operate. It's a little curious to use the word progressive, but it means to happen or develop gradually or in stages. In other words, you don't need to be perfect on day one, but you do need to strive for the objectives as part of an evolutionary process.

So, progressive, science, well built and well operated. That seems like a recipe for lifelong learning, in my opinion a lofty goal to strive for.

What if we lost the last century pronouns, removed the shopping imperative and kept the tone:

The Radio Amateur is PROGRESSIVE...keeping abreast of science, striving to build and operate their station above reproach.

Would such a clause inspire you to do better, to build and grow as an amateur, to improve and learn?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Loyalty in Amateur Radio Aug 28, 2022

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

The second clause of the original Amateur's Code reads:

The Amateur is Loyal. He owes his amateur radio to the American Radio Relay League, and he offers it his unswerving loyalty.

The 2022 ARRL handbook presents it with the following words:

The Radio Amateur is LOYAL...offers loyalty, encouragement and support to other amateurs, local clubs and the American Radio Relay League, through which Amateur Radio in the United States is represented nationally and internationally.

The ARRL website goes the extra mile to make this hard work and states that:

The Radio Amateur is LOYAL...He/[She] offers loyalty, encouragement and support to other amateurs, local clubs, the IARU Radio Society in his/[her] country, through which Amateur Radio in his/[her] country is represented nationally and internationally.

Pronouns aside, this has got to be one of the more tortured efforts you might subject an entire group of humans to. Written in an attempt to enumerate each and every specific version of the global amateur radio community, it excludes more than it includes and in doing so completely fails the one thing it aims to achieve, a sense of belonging, being part of something bigger than you.

So what does loyalty look like?

Is providing constructive feedback loyalty? Is giving your time and energy a loyal thing? What about being a member of a club?

The dictionary suggests that loyalty is a strong feeling of support or allegiance. Originally the code suggested that this should be directed at the ARRL, even the handbook continues to suggest that today, but is that relevant for me here in Australia? Should I be a loyal member of the ARRL, or should I be a loyal member of the WIA? What if there is a second body in your country? In Australia there is another organisation attempting to reshape the hobby, RASA, the Radio Amateur Society of Australia, should I be loyal to that? Can I be loyal to both, or neither? What happens if I am not comfortable with either organisation, who should I be loyal to?

National bodies aside, what about clubs? Am I required to be a club member and be loyal to it? What if I'm a member of more than one club? Should I be more loyal to one than the other? Should I be more loyal to the national body or my local club? What if I'm not a member of any club? What should I be loyal to then?

What if loyalty is coupled to an idea instead of a specific body? What might that idea look like? The revised version of the clause already includes concepts such as encouragement and support to other amateurs. What if we just omit any specific bodies and replace it with the idea of the global amateur community in all its many splendored diversity?

While we're looking at this, the word encouragement includes the action of giving someone support, confidence or hope, so we're repeating ourselves by using support and there's plenty of other things we could share around.

Here's a philosophical question to wrap your mind around. If you have a drivers' license, but you don't drive, are you a driver? Similarly, if you have an amateur license, but you don't do anything with it, are you an amateur? Perhaps the nub of this lies in participation.

Taking those thoughts into account, we could rephrase the second clause of the Amateur's Code to:

The Radio Amateur is LOYAL...offering encouragement and participation to the global amateur community.

If this clause was part of the Amateur's Code, would it help you feel like you belonged, would it travel beyond the borders of your country and would you feel part of something bigger?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Consideration in Amateur Radio Aug 21, 2022

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

The first clause of the original Amateur's Code reads:

The Amateur is Gentlemanly. He never knowingly uses the air for his own amusement in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others. He abides by the pledges given by the A.R.R.L. in his behalf to the public and the Government.

The 2022 ARRL handbook version states it like this:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE...never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

Today the ARRL website presents it as:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE...He/[She] never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

It's surprising to see the addition of the He/[She] pronoun when nothing is added by doing so, in fact for some amateurs this actually reduces its relevance, something which I've spoken about before.

We could just simply change the words to remove the pronoun entirely, but does that actually cover all of what we want it to mean? Should this consideration be limited to operating, or should we go beyond that? What about conduct in a club setting, or on social media, email or SMS?

Some of these activities are conducted as a radio amateur and some are not. If we're limiting ourselves to amateur radio, not an unreasonable place to start given that we're talking about a document called "The Amateur's Code", we should really discuss the nature of amateur radio today.

I find myself in a community of amateurs, not a radio in sight, exchanging thoughts, opinions and experience that go beyond the concept of operating. I will note that there are legal definitions in our hobby that describe the notion of operating that do not include QRZ.com, email or Reddit and there is an argument to be made that operating falls strictly within the bounds of a licensed amateur activity.

That said, since "no man is an island", first uttered in 1624 by John Donne, neatly illustrates that although we're licensed amateurs, we do more than key our radios alone and even when we do, there are activities that affect others who are not operating as such.

When we discuss things with each other, face to face, that's not a licensed activity, even if both of us are amateurs. Neither is sending an email to another amateur, or commenting on a social media post. Standing in a club and teaching is also not a licensed amateur activity and cannot be considered under the idea of "operating".

All of what this clause is attempting to say is to be considerate. Don't reduce the pleasure of others by doing things that are unacceptable. It goes to how you are expected to be, to conduct yourself, to behave.

To incorporate this idea that what you do with other amateurs goes beyond operating, I think the word "operate" needs to be changed to the word "behave".

I'd also like to explore the word "gentlemanly" from the original text. Synonyms for this include civilised, courteous, honourable and polite to name a few. It seems to me that words like that would benefit our interactions within our community, not to mention beyond it.

One word that comes to mind is "respectful", something that lies at the heart of how we conduct ourselves towards each other.

So, if we drop the pronouns, update the word operates and add in respect, a revised clause one could be:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE and RESPECTFUL...never knowingly behaving in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

Let me hasten to point out that I'm proposing this as a starting point for discussion. This is an activity that should go beyond one individual, it should also go beyond a single organisation. Amateur Radio is a global activity and it would do well for us to consider all of humanity when drafting a code of conduct which is essentially what the Amateur's Code is attempting to achieve.

So, how would you approach the first clause, what do you like, what do you think is missing, what would it need for you to consider it words to live by?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

A code for amateurs Aug 14, 2022

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

The American Radio Relay League or ARRL is one of the oldest amateur associations on Earth. 1926 saw the birth of "the Radio Amateur's Handbook", the first edition of what we now know as "The ARRL Handbook For Radio Communications" featured chapters on what it means to be an amateur, how to build and operate a station, how propagation works and how to experiment. The very first handbook had 5000 copies printed and thanks to the website WorldRadioHistory.com we have access to a signed copy by the author himself, the Communications Manager of the ARRL, Francis Edward Handy (W1BDI). He starts the 228 page book with the following words:

This Handbook is written as a guide for member-operators of the League. It is also useful as a source of information to the man who wants to take part in amateur radio activity but who has no idea of how to get started. Written first of all for the beginner, such an amount of useful and up-to-date information has been added that the Handbook in its present form is equally valuable as a compendium of information for the experienced brass-pounder and the beginner alike.

The first edition doesn't show a cover price, but the third edition, published a year later shows a charge of $1. The 2022, or 99th edition has nearly six times as many pages, 1280 of them, it costs ten times as much per page and sells for nearly 50 times as much at $49.95. The current handbook features topics such as Radio electronics theory and principles, Circuit design and equipment as well as articles and projects that include 3D printing, portable battery selection, safe antenna and tower work practices and comes in a variety of formats including electronic and box sets.

I'm giving this background to give you a sense of how things have evolved in the past century. For example, one thing that the very first edition didn't have was a page called the Amateur's Code. The oldest copy I've found appears in the 1927 or third edition.

If you're familiar with the words, you're in for a treat. If not, sit back and imagine it's 1927, or 1923, more on that in a moment.

The Amateur's Code

I - The Amateur is Gentlemanly. He never knowingly uses the air for his own amusement in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others. He abides by the pledges given by the A.R.R.L. in his behalf to the public and the Government.

II - The Amateur is Loyal. He owes his amateur radio to the American Radio Relay League, and he offers it his unswerving loyalty.

III - The Amateur is Progressive. He keeps his station abreast of science. It is built well and efficiently. His operating practice is clean and regular.

IV - The Amateur is Friendly. Slow and patient sending when requested, friendly advice and counsel to the beginner, kindly assistance and cooperation for the broadcast listener: these are marks of the amateur spirit.

V - The Amateur is Balanced. Radio is his hobby. He never allows it to interfere with any of the duties he owes to his home, his job, his school or his community.

VI - The Amateur is Patriotic. His knowledge and his station are always ready for the service of his country and his community.

This version is credited to Paul M. Segal 9EEA, Director, Rocky Mountain Division ARRL.

The code appears on page 9 of the 1927 edition of the handbook. It uses Roman numerals to identify each point, the title is beautifully rendered with the Old English Typeface and it's shown inside a rectangle on a page on its own.

Over the next 45 years the text stays the same. There are changes like colons to semi-colons, an additional comma and the evolution from Roman numerals to modern numbers, and then written numbers and finally the removal of the numbers entirely. At one point the title is changed from "Amateur's Code" to "Our Code", but that only lasts for one edition. Speaking of editions, the 1936 edition, the thirteenth in the series, is referred throughout as the 1936 edition, superstition is alive and well.

The credit changes over time as well. In 1929 Paul's callsign is changed from 9EEA to W9EEA.

In 1943 we see a once-off credit appear. It states that the code was written in 1923 by Lieut.-Commander Paul. M. Segal, General Counsel of ARRL. It's the only credit that shows a different year from any of the other references which all point at 1928 as the original year, which is what the ARRL uses today. Interestingly, we have a copy of the handbook from 1927 that features the code, so it's entirely possible that 1923 is actually correct and it's not hard to imagine that a poorly printed 3 looks like the remains of the number 8.

To add to this, there's a 1944 FCC report to the President of the United States of America that contains a reference to "Lieutenant Commander Paul. M. Segal, the radio industry attorney". In addition there's an announcement in the New York Times, dated 25 May 1968 with the headline: "Paul M. Segal Is Dead at 68; Expert in Communications Law"

I don't have access to any version of the Second Edition of the handbook which had two print runs in 1927. It's entirely possible that the code appeared there, but I have no evidence either way. I do believe that Paul M. Segal, 9EEA Director of the Rocky Mountain Division of the ARRL is the same person as Lieutenant Commander Paul. M. Segal, General Counsel of ARRL and radio industry attorney who became a silent key in 1968.

Credits, layout and font changes aside, 1973 sees the first time when the words of the Amateur's Code actually change.

Let me illustrate.

The original first clause reads:

In 1973 that's changed to:

One The Amateur is considerate . . .He never knowingly uses the air in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

The first four clauses are modified to greater and lesser degree, clause five and six stay the same.

Today the ARRL website shows the first clause as:

The Radio Amateur is CONSIDERATE...He/[She] never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

And the credit reads: "adapted from the original Amateur's Code, written by Paul M. Segal, W9EEA, in 1928"

It's noteworthy that going back to the original text the very first clause encourages the amateur to be gentlemanly, something which we can relate to in terms of being respectful, polite and civil.

It's also clear that the Amateur's Code is a living document and has been moving with the times. I think that we as a community have the opportunity to participate in another review and I will investigate and share with you some of my thoughts on the matter.

I think that it is important that we have a code of conduct that reflects our values and at present the best starting point we have is the Amateur's Code.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The microphone gain game ... Aug 07, 2022

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

One of the most misunderstood settings on your radio is the microphone gain. You'll often hear people talking about adjusting it up or down depending on what they hear and the results are often displeasing to the ear.

The very first thing to know is that the microphone gain is likely the single most audible setting on your radio, right after the tuning frequency. It's pretty much the first variable between your voice and your transmitter. Set it too low and you'll hear nothing, set it too high and you'll hear gibberish.

I said it's pretty much the first thing, but it's not the very first. That's your voice, unique in all its glory, loud, soft, happy, sad, funny or not, it's the thing that your microphone captures to transmit. Closely coupled to your voice is the distance between your mouth and your mike. The closer you are, the louder, the further, the softer and the more background noise creeps in.

As an aside, speaking of noise, there's background noise at play, but there's also the noise that comes from the audio circuitry itself, which can for example change depending on the temperature of your radio. I'm going to refer to both as noise here, even though they're slightly different.

So, starting with the ideal model where you always speak in the same way, at the same volume, at the same distance from the microphone, with a constant temperature in your radio, at all times, the next thing is the microphone gain, or gain.

Gain is an imperfect attempt at corralling your utterings into electrical signals without causing the audio circuit to distort or drown in noise. Distortion comes as a result of overloading of the audio circuit when the gain is too high, causing clipping, which essentially changes the audio waveform into something that no longer resembles your voice. At the low end of the gain range there is no difference between audio and noise which results in your voice being buried inside a hissing noise.

You might wonder why we don't just build transmitters that cannot clip and increase your volume. Well, we do. We use things like AGC, or Automatic Gain Control to attempt to prevent such things from happening, but this isn't perfect.

All this results in the microphone gain being a setting that you need to tune to your voice and adjust as things change. Overall, the best outcome is when you set the gain so the AGC just engages when you talk normally.

This gain setting also applies to computer generated signals, often fed into your radio via an audio or microphone input. If you set the gain too low, noise is the problem, set it too high and the Automatic Gain Control will distort the signal to the point where it no longer works and causes interference for everyone else including the station that you're trying to contact.

On older radios the output power was fixed. This is also true for Software Defined Radios. To reduce output power, you can change the microphone gain down and reduce the power. Change it to halfway and your output power is essentially reduced to half power. This works for a range of settings, but get too low and we're back to noise and audio fighting each other.

The opposite isn't true.

You cannot increase the microphone gain to increase power. The moment you exceed the audio circuit range your signal is distorted. On an SDR this means that you're exceeding the ability of the Analogue to Digital converter to represent your audio. In digital terms, zero means no sound and all on means 100%. If your audio is so loud as to only be 100% on, that's like sending a tone out the transmitter, resembling anything but your voice.

All of what I've talked about is related to SSB signals and to some extent AM. FM is a different animal entirely. For starters, output power on FM is fixed. The next difference is the signal or channel width. Without going into full detail, FM comes in different widths, WFM or Wideband FM, NFM, or Narrowband FM, and between the two, "normal" FM. To make things more fun, not everyone agrees on what each one means at any given time. Also, channel width and channel spacing are not the same thing, but that's for another day.

Gain aside for a moment, consider two matched FM radios using the same channel width. Your voice volume is determined by how much of the channel you use. Louder means wider, softer means narrower. Adjust the gain up, the signal gets wider, but the limit of the channel width remains, get too high and it clips at the channel width and distorts. At the other end, changing the gain down, you'll use less of the channel width and eventually the noise and your voice will be at the same level and you won't be heard.

Let's look at what happens when you use a normal FM signal to transmit to a narrowband FM receiver. Essentially your signal is too wide and the result is that your voice will be clipped unless you speak really softly or if you've set the gain really low, either way comes with more noise.

Similarly, if you transmit a narrowband FM signal to a normal FM receiver, then your voice will be very low, regardless of the microphone gain setting and turning it up will only distort it due to clipping inside your transmitter.

So, for FM, before fiddling with the gain, make sure that you're using the same FM mode as the other station. One thing to remember is when you use a repeater, if the audio is always too loud for everyone, your mode is probably too narrow. Similarly, if the audio is always too soft and you always need to turn up the volume on your radio, your mode is likely too wide. Check your radio specifications to determine what each mode means.

In broadcast audio this whole thing is managed by calibration using standard tones, but as amateurs we tend to rely on other people reporting their feelings on the quality of your voice with the often heard admonishment to adjust the microphone gain.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What's with the repeater offset again? Jul 31, 2022

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

As a new amateur one of the initial perplexing issues you're confronted with is setting up your first radio to talk to the local repeater. The question is so common that it's almost an invisible rite of passage to a new licensee. While I'm a fan of learning, there is plenty of that to go round and setting up your radio to talk to a repeater shouldn't be a hurdle to getting on air and making noise.

Ignoring the whole repeater thing for a moment, let's consider your radio. It doesn't matter if it's a handheld, a base station, a boat anchor or something else. To participate in the whole repeater experience, you need to tune your radio to hear it.

Technically, if I told you that you could tune to a local repeater on 146.750 MHz, that would be enough information to get you going, but this depends entirely on a set of standard assumptions that are likely not obvious to you. Let's explore what's going on.

Given that frequency, you can set your radio to 146.750 MHz and in most cases, you'll be able to hear the repeater. To actually participate, you would need to do some more work to get your transmitter to be heard.

As I said, standards are what makes that possible, but like every human endeavour, caution must be applied. As Andrew Tanenbaum said: "The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from." With that in mind, let's proceed. Before you start yelling, I'll add caveats at the end.

Armed with a repeater frequency, you have enough information to get on air, but it assumes that you know a couple of things. So let's delve into those assumptions.

For starters, there is an assumption that you're aware that to operate a repeater you must transmit on a different frequency than what you're listening on. Why that is the case is a whole other discussion which I'll leave for today.

There is the assumption that you know that the two frequencies, one for listening, one for transmitting, are separated from each other by a known distance, a so-called offset.

You're also assumed to know that this offset is fixed but different for each band.

There's more, but let's start here.

For your radio to transmit on a different frequency than you listen, you must tell it to. In many cases tuning your radio to a so-called repeater frequency will already do this for you, but not always.

You might need to specifically program your radio for repeater operation, or turn on the offset mode, or use two memories, or some other thing specific to your radio. Read The Friendly Manual, I know you know how.

The next step is to look at the band you're on. In this case the 2m band. This means that the standard says that the difference between the receive and transmit frequency is 600 kHz. I'm studiously ignoring other bands at this moment because, standards.

At this point you know that your radio should be tuned to 146.750 MHz, it should be in repeater mode and the offset should be 600 kHz. That's when the next question arises, should that be plus 600 or minus 600?

Guess what, another standard. If the receive frequency is less than 147 MHz, the answer is minus 600 kHz. If it's more than 147 MHz, it's plus 600 kHz.

Notice that I didn't specify what happens if it's exactly 147 MHz? That's because nobody knows. Seriously though, the local repeater owner will know, but you can try either and get your answer.

Now for the caveats.

Let's start with the 147 MHz cross-over exception. This isn't global, for example repeaters in California use several different ranges for such a cross-over point.

I also didn't tell you about repeaters on other bands because the offset depends on where you are. In many cases the 70cm repeater offset is 5 MHz, but in Europe it's mostly 7.6 MHz, unless it's 9 MHz. The 10m repeater offsets are often 100 kHz, but sometimes they're 1 MHz, similarly the 6m repeater offset is 1 MHz, except when it's not.

The point being that starting with a receive frequency, there's a great number of assumptions, many of which you'll need to discover for your own location. A great resource which I've mentioned before is the brainchild of Garrett KD6KPC, the repeaterbook.com website and app, maintained by a global group of volunteers, which lists many repeaters and their specific settings, frequencies and locations.

So, armed with this knowledge, I expect that you can now find a local repeater and make use of it. When in doubt, contact the owner and ask for help, they're a friendly bunch. Remember to say thank you!

So, what excuse do you have not to get on air and make noise?

Oh, before I forget, if you don't hear anything, or if transmit isn't doing what you expect, check that you've configured CTCSS, another assumption.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Take a long hard look at our community ... Jul 24, 2022

Show notes

Foundations of Amateur Radio

The art of amateur radio is a globe spanning activity, held together by radio waves and the promise of a community with a shared uncommon interest. The strength of a community depends entirely on the members of that community. Without the efforts of each individual amateur, our worldwide license to experiment is doomed.

You might ask yourself what part you have to play in this?

Consider what would happen if a group of amateurs decided to transmit on an unlicensed frequency, or purposefully interfered with other legal users. It's obvious that the regulatory response to such illegal activities would be swift and left unchecked, it would spark the end of our hobby.

What prevents that from happening is our common purpose, our common interests, our willingness to address such behaviour, or said in another way, our community standards. It's the thing that keeps us talking, sharing, learning, experimenting and having fun along the way.

I've been told many times that I shouldn't expect all amateurs to be friends, but consider for a moment the sheer diversity of our community. For starters we're scattered around the planet. We have different cultural and political sensibilities, we have different religions and expectations. We don't even speak the same language, even if you forget that the Japanese station you just had a QSO with was using phonetics not even close to their native language.

Those differences are mostly attributes of geography, but they don't end there. We have differences in our households and family structures, our work life and finances, our play time and our interests. We also differ in age, skin colour, gender and even our sexuality, orientation and gender identity.

Even among all those differences, we are still radio amateurs together with our personal preferences for Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood or some other brand, our desire to use QRP or kilowatts, our need to use a Morse key, our voice, or a computer. We choose to use a repeater, or not, choose HF or not, like to chat, or not, build antennas, or not.

So it's with all those differences in mind that I'm distressed to report that yet another amateur has been bullied out of our community. An amateur who joyfully participated in this community, who made videos, wrote software, learnt and shared. Like others I know, she was bullied in our community because she was different and it's not the first time I've witnessed this behaviour and it's not the first time I've called out this unacceptable conduct by so-called members of our community. Different, how you ask? Does it really matter, or are you asking to determine if there was a valid reason for making her feel uncomfortable?

To be clear, our community is a welcoming environment, filled with hope and joy, but there is a small rotten element in our midst that we need to rip out root and branch, much like we would if it was deliberate HF interference.

You might think that given that this abuse exists on reddit, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, QRZ, email, telephone, letterbox, in clubs and on-air, that it's a majority experience. That's not the case. The same individuals harass fellow amateurs across multiple platforms as entertainment causing untold harm to their victims.

The Standard You Walk Past Is The Standard You Accept. It's not just up to victims of bullying and harassment in a community to speak out. As members of our community, we amateurs have a responsibility to speak out also. Anyone who doesn't is part of the problem. Our community is so diverse as to never be one single thing. A bully is a bully, no matter which words are used to sugar coat it.

I'd like to invite you to consider any bullying you accepted in silence, either personally, as a witness, directly, or indirectly. This community is strong, it's resilient, it's resourceful, it's you and I and it's our duty to stand tall and speak out, loud and proud, about any victimisation.

Even if you've never considered that this is happening in your community, look around and notice people leaving the hobby unexpectedly and examine why that might be the case.

You might ask what it is that you can do to help. For starters, calling it out at every occurrence is part of communicating to the victim that they're not alone. It tells the community that they are part of the solution. It tells the bully that what they're doing is unacceptable.

I host a weekly net where we talk about amateur radio and discuss issues like this as and when they occur. We've done so in the past and will continue to offer a safe space for members of this community.

I have and continue to offer my email address, cq@vk6flab.com, for anyone who is struggling with this to discuss any bullying that they are dealing with.

I have experienced some of what this amateur has gone through at the hands of this community and I will not stand for it any longer and neither should you. Keeping quiet and changing frequency is not the solution as time after time experience has proven.

Calling out a bully and any bullying behaviour is calling out a vicious minuscule minority with a peanut brain who needs to be read the riot act. They are not welcome in this community. They are few and far between and we really don't need or want them in our midst.

In my opinion, the community must take ownership of this problem and address it directly, rather than sit on the fence and leave a victim wondering why they're on their own. If you are a victim of bullying in this community, I stand with you and if you are a bully, I'll do everything I can to call you out.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Much Ado About ... Jul 17, 2022

Show notes

Foundations of Amateur Radio

There are days that my brain just cannot keep up with all the ideas that I have spinning around and today is one such experience. Before I take you on this wild ride I will mention that I'm only going to focus on the amateur radio specific things going on, but I tend to have a couple of projects on the go at any one time, much like a messy desk piled high with paper, books, gadgets, parts and coffee cups, my mind has this sometimes exhausting tendency to see connections between various projects and often this results in deeper rabbit holes, so with that in mind, I'd like to make an attempt at describing all the amateur things that are going on at this very moment.

So, here goes, hang on!

It all started with two friends, independently and until now, unbeknownst to each other, playing with a mode called Digital Radio Mondiale, or DRM. It's something I've talked about before. One friend is trying to decode it, the other is trying to generate it. I'm sitting on the side cheering on because I think that there will come a time when I understand enough of my PlutoSDR that I can create any form of any mode and not be limited to the SSB bandwidth that current technologies use and be able to receive and generate say a 20 kHz DRM signal.

In order to advance my learning, I started the day wanting to describe a PlutoSDR project. I wanted to spend some enjoyable time playing, making some progress and then telling you about it. I did play, I did have fun, I did make progress, but trying to explain precisely what and how was where I came unstuck.

I began describing the difference between analogue and digital radios and how there's a fundamental difference in how a signal comes to exist in both. That quickly turned into a conversation about I/Q signals, a discussion that I've been putting off for a while because I'm still not happy with my own understanding of it, let alone any attempt to explain it to you in a coherent and hopefully fun way.

The complexity of explanation was brought home to me during the week when NASA Administrator Bill Nelson used an example to explain an image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The phrase he used was this:

"if you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm's length, that is the part of the universe that you're seeing"

That seemed pretty clear to me. I could imagine a grain of sand on my fingertip, extending my arm and grasping the idea that hidden behind it was a small slice of the sky representing how big the image was. For me that explanation was excellent, especially when Bill Nelson went on to say that the things you were seeing were galaxies, each made of a hundred billion stars, each likely with planets in orbit.

Only I discovered that the explanation using a grain of sand wasn't universal. I was surprised to learn that for some it got muddled up with the grains of sand in the universe and the relationship between those and the one on your finger.

To be clear, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with misunderstanding, but it reminded me in a visceral way that how we explain things matters and there are plenty of times when my own efforts fail to achieve their intended purpose, of making things easier to understand.

Given the importance of I/Q signals within the whole conversation on software defined radios, I don't want to do a half baked attempt and fail. I will say this, an I/Q signal is a way of precisely representing a radio signal, but only to stop you thinking about it further.

I was talking about how my mind accumulates things.

The NanoVNA that's sitting on my desk, gifted to me by a friend, is a fantastic example of the similarity between it, software defined radio and say a TinySA which I came across last week. Let me unpack that a little.

A NanoVNA is a piece of testing equipment, as is a TinySA. They test different things. Both have the ability to generate and measure a signal and in that they share the abilities of an amateur radio transceiver that can also generate and receive a signal.

That right there is a very deep rabbit hole, so I'm going to purposefully step away and continue the journey of observation, only pausing to mention that my PlutoSDR has all the same capabilities and in that it's not alone.

The fundamental difference between these three devices is software. There are a few other things, but on the whole, software.

So, I'm carrying around this mush of things that are almost the same, but different, almost understood, but not quite, almost ready to explain, but not yet.

In an attempt at going forwards by moving sideways, I went on to investigate other things, prompted by people who send me emails. For example, code plugs and DMR and frankly I felt unclean reading the various explanations. I'm a firm believer in Open Source and this is like asking an Icom owner to explain the benefits of using Yaesu hardware.

Another question was around bending antennas, as-in, what happens when you drive down the road and your VHF antenna bends, or what happens if your HF dipole is bent to fit in your garden. Superficially I can say that the antenna changes as its bounding box changes shape. That means that the feed point impedance will change, as will the resonant frequency. The radiation pattern will also be affected, but sitting down and discovering just by how much is going to take more time than I have available whilst attempting to string together some coherent words on a topic I love.

So, in an attempt at telling you what's going on in my world of amateur radio, I leave you with this question:

"What was I talking about again?"

Now I remember, this is about just how complex, fluid and interesting amateur radio is for me and in that observation lies why I'm here doing what I do.

"What makes you keep coming back for more?"

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

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