Foundations of Amateur Radio

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How can I talk to my friend? Sep 09, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

A recurring question for people who are not yet, or newly licensed is something along the lines of: I have a friend who is 400 kilometres away, can I talk to them on my hand-held 2m radio?

This particular question arrives in different forms, but generally along the lines of attempting to communicate between point A and point B at some or other distance.

The responses, on social media at least, less so on-air, are often very technical, or offer the advice to get a license, or to get a clue, or the question is ignored or dismissed. That's not helpful, or fair. The person asking the question has expressed an interest in our hobby and is looking for help.

As a basic set of answers, if you're both standing on the ground, you'll generally be able to talk about 5km using your hand-held. Stuff between you like buildings and hills will lower that distance. If you both stand on a hill, you can talk further away. As an aside, you can talk to the International Space Station with a 2m, 144 MHz hand-held because there is nothing between you and it when it's overhead, even though it's 350 km away.

If you cannot see between the two, then an intermediate radio, a repeater, can facilitate the connection. It needs to have visibility to both radios at the same time. The higher the middle point, the further the distance. For example an antenna at 350m above the ground has a so-called radio horizon of 77km and I should point out that that's actually 15% further than actual line of sight. As long as both ends are within that radius, you should be pretty much good to go.

You can theoretically string together a whole bunch of repeaters, along a road for example, but more often than not, for distances greater than line of sight you need to invoke radio frequencies that your 2m hand-held won't do. These frequencies are generally referred to as HF and is generally anything between 3 and 30 MHz. Radio transmissions on these frequencies mainly use the ionosphere to make contact possible and you can make contacts from as close as next-door, to as far as the opposite side of the world.

The ionosphere is subject to weather in much the same way as clouds and rain. The variation in the ionosphere is driven by the sun, not by wind and humidity, and it varies throughout the day as the sun rises and sets. Communication varies depending on where the sun is and several other factors well outside this explanation. As the ionosphere changes, usable frequencies change. Something that worked one moment might not the next because the ionosphere changed.

As a licensed radio amateur you have access to many different frequencies and depending on the state of the ionosphere you can change frequency as required to alter your station to suit the conditions. You can think of it as adjusting your sail depending on the wind direction, to get from A to B.

One final point. Antennas are many and varied. They are designed for specific purpose and will react differently depending on how they're designed, built, installed and used, so the variation you're stepping into is enormous.

This hobby is nothing like dialling a phone number and making a connection, it's all about the experience and the learning. If that tickles your fancy, you're already halfway to becoming an amateur. Welcome.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Nothing like the standard of Morse Code ... Sep 02, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

Morse Code is a way of communicating with people across the globe using dits and dahs and the spaces between them to convey a message. It's no longer required to get an Amateur License, but that doesn't mean that it's not useful, in fact, far from it, Morse is still heavily used in this hobby.

I've been attempting to learn Morse code for quite some time.

To do this I was told, time and time again, over and over, ad nauseam, that Morse is an Auditory Language. I was told that the way to success was to listen before sending, to be able to decode before ever touching a key and to learn with tapes.

I also was told that if I learned it slowly, I'd run into trouble later on when I wanted to hear a beacon, which identifies itself with much faster Morse Code.

Morse is an interesting phenomenon. We describe it in words in day-to-day terminology as having dots and dashes, which is how the International Telecommunications Union, the ITU defines it, but I have been assured that I should think of it in terms of dits and dahs, because that more closely mimics the sound of the language, and from my current experience, I have to agree.

This is an audio language and it's defined in terms of how long a dit takes to transmit. A dit is one time unit. A dah is three dits. The space between a dit and a dah within one letter is one dit. The space between two letters is three dits and the space between two words is seven dits.

I'm not expecting you to learn that right here and now, just pointing out that there is a definition of how this is supposed to work.

If you make a dit last longer, everything else lasts longer, so determining how fast you're sending something is not simple to do, unless there's a standard. Of course there's a standard.

The way that the speed in Morse is defined, is by counting how many times a standard word can be sent per minute. The Paris standard uses the word PARIS, because it is precisely 50 dits in terms of timing. There's another word, CODEX, which has 60 dits, so the two Words Per Minute are different depending on which standard you use. And to make things even more interesting, some people measure with 5 dits between words where the ITU specifies 7 dits between words.

So, speed is variable, depending on who's measuring. The ITU doesn't specify which is right, but it gets better.

As I said, this is an audio language, so you need to listen to it to learn it. Over the years it's been hammered into me, don't write Morse, don't use dits and dahs, listen, listen, listen.

I did.

At 25 Words per Minute, at what ever standard that was calculated, I can now hear Morse, that is, I can detect the gaps between letters and words and I can hear the rhythm of the code. Great, so I'm done, right?

Not so fast.

While I can hear the individual letters, I still don't actually know what a G sounds like, or what makes the letter X, or an Open Parenthesis, or a Question Mark. Easy, look them up, learn the sound, done.

Morse Code is standard, right? Right? Seriously, Morse Code is standard, right?

No.

Not so much, not even a little bit. If you search the globe for Morse Code Charts so you can look up a Question Mark you'll end up with hundreds of different charts. Everyone agrees the letter A or Alpha is dit-dah, but they cannot even agree that N, November, is dah-dit. Some show the difference between an open and a close parenthesis, others use the same character.

There's charts that put dits-and-dahs inside the letters of the alphabet, but don't specify in which order the parts are heard. The Wireless Institute of Australia doesn't even appear to bother specifying, the FISTS Down Under Morse Preservation Society doesn't show a copy, the ARRL has an abomination on their website that you cannot even link to, the ACMA defines the end of transmission as a cross and then there are the special ones, survival charts and power point slides and using words to describe a symbol, so you can know that a fraction bar is a dah-dit-dit-dah-dit, but you don't actually know what it looks like.

You'll be pleased to learn that the ITU actually publishes a document, ITU-R M.1677-1, last updated in October of 2009, that specifies the International Morse Code. It goes into great detail on what characters are defined, how to start and stop transmissions, how to transmit things like percentages, what to do if you need to send a multiplication symbol, inverted commas, minutes and second signs, fractions and as a bonus it has the phrase that this document and I quote: "should be used to define the Morse code characters and their applications in the radiocommunication services". Nothing quite like a standard that should be adopted, rather than must be adopted.

The ITU also tells us that "the code needs to be updated from time-to-time to meet the needs of the radiocommunication services". The French word "arobase", which in English is pronounced "at" and looks like the letter a with a circle, used today in an email address was added to Morse Code in 2002 by the French General Committee on Terminology, quick off the mark for a symbol that appeared on a typewriter in 1889 and first used in an email address in 1971, but if you look for an Exclamation Mark, an Ampersand, a Dollar Symbol, a Semi-Colon or an Underscore, you won't find anything about it in the ITU standard.

Oh, here's a fun fact. The ITU document says: "No part of this publication may be reproduced, by any means whatsoever, without written permission of ITU." - so apparently I can't actually tell you that a dit-dit-dit-dah-dit-dah means that this is the end of my transmission.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

How to start your own net ... Aug 26, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

In the past I've talked about a weekly net I run, called F-troop. It's intended to be a place where new and returning amateurs find their feet, have a chat, test their gear, meet new friends, ask questions and sometimes get answers. If you want to come and join in, you're welcome to and I'd love to meet you.

This net came about because I was new to the hobby and didn't find anyone running any on-air activity for people like me. I asked around and with some encouragement I decided to start an activity. Just like that.

My point is that you can do the same. You can keep looking for that elusive group of people who share your interest, or you can get on-air and start a conversation. There's no forms to complete, there's no rules about how it has to happen, no expectations about how you run your net, just have at it.

F-troop today looks nothing like it did on day one. On the first day I was on a simplex frequency and nobody could hear me. The next week I moved to a different day and to a local repeater at a different time. After doing that for a little while, we changed day and repeater again, because we kept running into other activities.

I'm mentioning this because what you start today may look nothing like what it turns into tomorrow.

Your idea might fail, or it might succeed beyond your wildest dreams. You may find new friends or find a different activity that sparks your interest. You could inspire another amateur to join the community, or encourage someone to get on air and make some noise.

All around me there are nets, not in name, but in action. There's a group of people who get together during the week at 6am or so for about half an hour to chat on the way to work. There's a group who are learning Morse, another testing FreeDV, another chatting during the morning breakfast, another in the afternoon. There's a net for the emergency communications team, one for the local repeater group and there's a locally hosted net that attracts interest from all corners of the globe. I'm sure that there are others.

I know from personal experience that you'll get callers who might not have much to say, but your presence gives them a reason to turn their radio on and participate, to get out of their house and talk to the world. They might not say much, but your being there might be a comfort.

While F-troop is semi-organised, with a website, an advertised time and location, a dedicated host and regular callers, your net doesn't need to be any of those things. It can start as a regular chat that can grow, or it can fade away if there is no interest. Your hobby, your rules.

One thing I can tell you is that hosting a net is very rewarding. I've seen amateurs start with very little to say, very unsure of themselves, grow into their license, expand their horizons, become skilled and find a new community to make their own.

You don't need permission to start a net, you just need to decide to.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Getting Started ... Aug 19, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

Don't get me started, Let's start this thing, Where do I start, Start me up, I could go on, but I have better things to do today, like starting a podcast.

Amateur Radio is a hobby with an enourmous range of activities, interests, skills and experiences. If you're new to this hobby, you might find yourself standing at the edge of a precipous wondering what to do next. Where do I start, who do I ask, what's the first step, what if I fail and a myriad of other doubts and concerns.

Would you be surprised to learn that this same dialog happens to every Amateur, all the time?

Let's say that I'm an experienced member of the community and there is this new mode called FT8 that keeps polluting my PSK31 transmissions. I decide that it's time to see what it's all about.

Or, imagine that you've been invited to come on a hiking trek for the first time with some fellow amateurs to activate a summit.

Or, you hear about a new entity that has just been announced.

Or, you decide that you need a new radio, a new antenna, a new head-set or a new logging package.

Or, like me, you want to try again to learn Morse Code.

For every activity you ever engage in, there's that moment of doubt, of concern, of challenge. In fact I suspect that it's exactly that thrill that makes people go ahead and pursue their hobby.

That means that as a new amateur you're no different from an old amateur. You have the same level of concern and worry that others also have and you too can overcome those by just deciding to.

So, what if you're not yet a new amateur?

The first thing to note is that everybody who is an amateur today was at one point or another not yet a new amateur. For some that step happened yesterday, for others it happened over 80 years ago and for some that step lies in the future.

At this point it would be helpful if I could point out a few resources, some things to look at, to listen to, or to engage with. If you're already on-air, listening, scan around and hear other activities. If you've managed to find the community on-line, you'll likely find other resources nearby, since we amateurs like to cluster, much like any other community. You'll also find on-line radios to hear HF, websites, discussion groups, mailing lists, interest groups, associations and clubs.

If you came across this as a random event, see what brought you here and ask around. If you're stuck, ask a fellow amateur. I can introduce you to one right now. Hi, I'm Onno VK6FLAB and I'm an Amateur Radio Operator, pleased to meet you. Drop me a line and say hello, don't be shy.

Just because you're not licensed is no excuse to get started.

There are stories everywhere of those who start as shortwave listeners, or CB-ers, or come across the hobby in some other random way, like I did.

The fact that you're here, now, means you've already found the community. Welcome. Seriously, Welcome to Amateur Radio.

Now all you need to do is take another step, and then after that, another, and before you know it you're in and among other amateurs.

There are many steps inside this hobby. Which ones you choose to take and at which speed are entirely up to you. This can be as formal or informal as you like.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The mysterious three phase power ... Aug 12, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

There are times when you realise that you've always nodded your head when a particular topic came up and after doing that for long enough, you think you know what's going on.

Turns out that, no, you didn't, but that the topic itself was interesting enough to learn from. In my case, Three Phase Power. I came upon this topic over the past month while I struggled with power interruptions, blinking lights, weirdness throughout my house. Turns out that it's been happening for a lot longer than I've lived here.

After spending some time with the local power company, which I was told was filled with people who didn't care, turns out that they do, but they're busy people. After some back and forth, some logging, some finger pointing and head-scratching, the solution to my woes was to move me from the White Phase to the Blue Phase.

I nodded and smiled and everything was well with the world.

I know that there are three phases, Red, White and Blue. If you have overhead power in your street you'll likely notice four wires strung from pole to pole. One for each phase and one for neutral.

Apparently there's a standard for which is neutral and the order, but there are too many exceptions for me to spell that all out here, so I'll move on.

So, what's with these three phases?

If you spin a magnet between two coils you have a generator. As the magnet spins, the magnetic field increases through each coil, then peaks, then reduces, and as the next magnetic pole comes along, the magnetic field reverses, increases, peaks, reduces, etc.

If that sounds familiar, it's because I've just described a sine-wave. Every revolution of the magnet is a cycle and if you cycle, say 50 times, you get 50 cycles per second, or 50 Hz. For some countries it's not 50 Hz, but 60. Same thing, just faster.

That single set of opposing coils and magnet is a single phase. If you add another set of coils, 120 degrees further along, you get the same phenomenon, completely independently from the first set of coils.

That's the second phase. Rinse and repeat for the third phase.

To get that power to the rest of the suburb, you need to run a single wire for each phase and a common neutral wire, giving you the four wires that you see on a power pole.

Theoretically you could run with more phases, but you need to run more copper into the street, so power companies stopped at three.

You can think of these as three completely independent circuits, but they all share the same neutral, so there are some subtle interactions, like if the neutral becomes disconnected, bad news happens, especially in a place like Western Australia where ground conductivity is very poor.

In a normal home you'll get fed by one of those phases, in my case I changed over from the white phase to the blue phase. This means that each phase has a different set of users in the street. Roughly a third are using each phase.

Looking at the actual voltage and current that comes through at high enough resolution and you'll begin to recognise it as an RF spectrum with harmonics, variations, interference and other artefacts that make power show up as a varying feast, rather than the rock-solid expectation of 240V, 50 Hz you see on the sticker.

Three Phase Power, now you can nod along like I did and know how it actually works.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB.

Water and Electronics a match made in hell ... Aug 05, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

It's been raining around here for a while now. Not in the order of 40 days and 40 nights, but significant. Mind you, I have lived in a place where it rained every day for 57 days, but I digress.

Water, plenty of it and often in all the wrong places.

Being a radio amateur you come across water in many aspects of the hobby, sometimes it comes in handy, like lubricating your throat while you're calling CQ, or as a ground plane for an antenna, other times, not so much, like when it enters the shack and causes the black smoke to escape from your pride and joy.

As I said, I'm no stranger to rain and in my travels I've encountered plenty of it. I managed to travel around Australia for a couple of years and I took with me a two-way satellite dish with sensitive electronics attached. Living in Australia I planned for dry. This place is dry. Often very much so, but as it turns out, dry doesn't mean without humidity, storms, rain or in one case hail.

These experiences told me a little about protecting electronics from the weather.

I should add a disclaimer here, I'm not a certified weatherman, nor am I certified in waterproofing, water ingress, or any other guarantee. So, if you do as I say and it breaks, you get to keep both halves. That said, I have some thoughts on the matter and I wouldn't be me if I didn't share them.

Water is generally everywhere. It gets into everything and it's one of those silent killers. Electronics and water rarely mix, unless you submerge the electronics in mineral spirits, or if you seal your electronics in circuit board lacquer. Even then, there are few guarantees.

The best you can hope for, in my experience, is to plan for failure, hope for success.

Finding where water gets in is often the hardest part of keeping it out. Sealing off your electronics from the world in a waterproof anything will trap heat, which in turn will cause condensation, which will ultimately cause rust and destruction of your priceless electronics.

Giving your stuff time to acclimatise is a very good idea. For example, if you have a radio stored in your garage and you bring it indoors, leave it there for several hours, if not overnight. Unless you live in Alaska with an in-floor heater to prevent your engine block from freezing, your garage is cold, your home is warm, the combination causes condensation. Alternatively, if your garage is hot, and your home air-conditioned, the reverse is true and condensation will still happen.

Water has a habit of finding its way into anything, encouraged by gravity. That means that a length of coax, run into your wall will attract a stream of water along the coax, straight into the connector and into your wall, or between the core and the braid, or into your radio, or some other undesirable place. If you create a low point before the connector, like a drip-loop, a place where water would have to go up before it can do damage, you'll likely solve the issue, but don't discard the effects of wind which can cause water to go uphill.

Connectors are magnets for water. Most connections in use in amateur radio have little or no waterproof rating. There are special waterproof connectors about and you may consider using those, but alternatives like self-amalgamating or rubber tape, which you wind tightly around a connection and in doing so, stretches and glues itself together to keep the water out. These tapes are generally not stable in the ultraviolet of the sun, so you may have to wrap that sealed connector in another layer of tape, plumbing or electrical tape is one solution.

Based on the experience from national coax installations, the way to do this is with three windings of rubber tape, followed by two of plumbing tape. Think of up as towards the weather and down as away from the weather and make the windings like this:

Wind the rubber tape three times around the connector, up, then down, then up again.

Seal this from the sun with two windings of plumbing tape, down and then back up towards the weather.

For endurance, add a cable-tie to keep the tape in place when the glue eventually fails. This will ensure that water always runs away from the connector.

The way to remember this, for a positive result, there are three ups and two downs.

If you ever get your coax wet, that is, the end, be prepared to cut off a length to protect your gear. Coax rot is real and is essentially the rusting of the braid, the shield or the core and it spells bad news for your gear.

Operating portable is a whole other subject in relation to weather, but the same principles apply. Keep the temperature stable, keep the water out, protect from rain ingress along the coax and you'll likely be able to have a good time and come home without any damage to your gear.

There is a persistent idea that rice can help you dry electronics. While it does have some effect, it's slow and by the time it's removed the water, the damage will already have been done. Air drying is much more effective. Use a fan, keep it running and you'll have a better chance of rescuing a drowned circuit.

As for electricity and water, they don't mix, they can kill and you should know better.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Heated Elements and Circuit Boards Jul 29, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

Recently I had a conversation with a group of amateurs, ranging in experience from newbie to salty, from purchase to build, from buy to scrounge, in other words, the whole range.

One person in the group asked about how to get started with soldering. Their first harmonic had just been granted a license and they wanted to encourage the new amateur to build something, anything. That in turn started a whole conversation about the how, where, why and what of the way of the heated element and its application to a circuit board.

In 2012, almost exactly two years after obtaining my amateur license I purchased an electronics kit. The kit was sold by my local electronics store and was intended to become a High Precision LC Meter. The electronics store packages together many of the schematics that are published in Australia's Silicon Chip Magazine and in this instance, it also came with a lovely case, build instructions and a review from someone who had built the kit, John, VK3FJBX.

The whole thing cost me $90 at the time and as far as I was concerned, that was a bargain. These days I might have considered it a little high, but the end result was an LC Meter that does what I need and works as described.

The process of building the contraption was not complex, in fact, I think the single surprise was the need to purchase a Component Leg Bending Tool, a fancy name for a $2 tapered block of plastic with little indents that you can use to bend the legs of a resistor so they match the holes of the circuit board.

As projects go, this one was a success. I bought it, I built it, I put it together, powered it up and the black smoke stayed inside the components and the meter displayed numbers that matched up with what the label on the component I was testing said.

That in an of itself is a story of success. I can point at several other kits sitting in a box, still as bags of components, never assembled, lost interest, got distracted, too hard, not viable, missing bits, whatever the excuse, gathering dust until magically one day they'll be needed for when the apocalypse is here, or the garage explodes from too much stuff and I'm forced to donate it to the world.

As my life experience increases, my hands are becoming less steady. I now have a magnifying lamp, not enough clamps and less patience for silliness, so, my kit building is at an all-time-low.

Mind you, it's not that I've stopped building or experimenting, instead I'm writing software, investigating new and exciting tools, like a random online circuit simulator I came across during the week. I did want to tell you what it's called, but it's down at the moment and I don't know if it was hugged to death by well meaning amateurs who came to visit.

Search with your tool of choice for "Electronic Circuit Simulator in the Browser" and you'll be spoilt for choice. In addition to several browser based simulators around, there are also offline applications you can download and run, even tools you can spend actual money on. All told, several options for learning how to build a circuit, how various things work together, including showing simulated oscilloscope traces, so you can see what your latest contraption actually does.

The art of building, the skill of soldering, the pursuit of design is hampered by one thing, and one thing only. Your ability to get out and start.

So, what are you waiting for?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The Contesting Coin Toss for the rest of us Jul 22, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

If you've been part of the amateur community for a while and have heard me talk on matters of contesting, you'll know that I'm an avid contester and that for me it's better than sliced bread. Of course, I'm me and you're not.

If contesting isn't of any particular interest to you, the hobby of amateur radio is big enough for at least 999 other attractions. I talk about them regularly.

If you're on the fence, or if you're unsure, or if you are not enamoured with this whole contesting thing, then today I'd like to ask you to consider another aspect of this activity. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you to participate in a contest.

As I said, there are many other activities within the hobby. For example, testing propagation is a recurring theme, as is testing your gear, your radio, your skill and doing all manner of other amateur things. For many of those activities having another person to test with is often a way to get a result and if you find yourself on a lonely Saturday looking for a friend to help, I have a suggestion to make. It relates to contesting, specifically those on air.

It turns out that there are radio amateurs on air almost all the time. Imagine that. Better still, when there's a contest on, there are even more radio amateurs around, all clamouring about, trying to make contacts, trolling up and down the bands, making an effort to hear new stations, calling CQ, generating signals from all over the place.

Here's the thing. There is no rule that says that you have to be participating in the contest, or even log contacts for the contest, but there is no harm in you using the airwaves for your own enjoyment.

Turns out that if you get on air during a contest, you can use that for example to do testing of all manner of things. If you've run out of things to test, you can use it to learn things, like how to use the RIT or "Receiver Incremental Tuning", something Yaesu calls the Clarifier, or the IF offset, or the noise-blanker, or the noise-filter, or the A/B VFO, or what ever it is that floats your boat.

There are people all around you, getting on-air, making noise and you can join in with the fun. You can learn about the directivity of your station, observe how propagation changes, how the different bands react depending on the time of day, the solar cycle, or magnetic flux. If you have the opportunity, you can monitor the grey-line and observe its effects on what you can hear.

You can look at a DX Cluster and see what you can hear, compared to what stations other amateurs are reporting. You can measure signal strengths, the impact of the AGC, test you battery life, your mobility, the layout of your shack and if you feel the urge, you can even log a rare station and add it to your log.

No rule anywhere says that you have to participate in a contest, but why let a good opportunity go to waste?

If you're an avid contester, you might think that I'm advocating that we fill the air with time wasters, people who shouldn't be there, people who are not worth your attention. I'm here to tell you that just because you're in a contest, doesn't mean that the rest of the world is and just because you want to make an exchange, not everyone else does.

If I find myself having a conversation mid-contest with someone with a story to tell, I can participate in the discussion, or I can change the dial and call CQ contest somewhere else.

The bands are a shared resource, for those who contest and for those who don't. The interesting thing in all this to me is that there seems to be a perception that you can only fall on one side of the coin. You're either a contester, or you're not and never the twain shall meet. That just makes no sense to me. There's an opportunity to sit on either side of the divide and harness both at the same time.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Programming Repeaters ... Revisited. Jul 15, 2018

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

It seems that when you categorically state something, like I did recently, you get emails and feedback, almost immediately, pointing out the folly of your assertion.

Within the context of setting up your radio, an hour before you go away, I intended to convey: "One thing I can categorically state is that programming your radio manually just before your holiday is really something that you should try and avoid."

That's not what I actually said. I missed out on the "just before your holiday" in that sentence. The upshot was that I received lots of feedback, some tips and different suggestions on how to do this and do it well.

As I hinted at, you should know how to program your hand held. It's almost an essential life-skill. I generally take a copy of my manual with me, either on actual paper, you know, dead-tree variety, or as electrons as a PDF on my phone or other screen-based gadget.

That doesn't mean I like programming my radio. In fact I will be so bold as to assert that I hate manually programming any of my radios. The process is tedious, non-obvious, with a process seemingly written for ENIAC in 1946 when you toggled bits on a panel to program a computer. Yes, that's a slight exaggeration, but not by much.

Anyway, given that this is such a chore, I tend to avoid it like the plague and only in case of an emergency, do I break out the user manual and poke through 17 pages of arcane button pushing-fu, to get the job done, without hopefully clearing a memory I had programmed before.

One of the emails I received, in fact the first one, was from Andrew KF7CCC. He very kindly pointed out the error of my ways, and I agree with him. One of the points that Andrew and others have made is that a defining characteristic of being a radio amateur is that we're frequency agile. That's not something that most other radio users are familiar with. They have a list of channels to pick from and switch between them. In amateur radio we have access to a VFO, a Variable Frequency Oscillator which allows us to change frequency at will.

Of course we should all be able to change frequency as the need arises. Sitting on two different channels, pre-programmed into our radios is like being users, rather than inventors of radio, shock, horror.

Andrew also mentions a book he's written. In one of the opening paragraphs he says: "This book shouldn't exist." and goes on to explain why the "Handheld Radio Field Guide" is a book that should be made obsolete by sanity entering into the process of programming a radio. I agree with the sentiment. We really have this insane configuration where each brand does it differently, and often within a brand, each model is different. Andrew makes a series of suggestions in his book and I think it's a great starting point for discussion.

As I started with, I received lots of feedback.

One suggestion was that radios should have an on-board GPS and should automatically know, based on location, which repeaters are nearby. That in turn will create a debate about where the list of repeaters comes from. Such a system appears to exist. At least one manufacturer, Icom does such a thing, but opinions appear to differ on its effectiveness.

Another was that you should program the repeater networks into your radio, so when you head away from your home, you have access to the widest range of options.

All this talk of repeaters started a lament by some that repeaters are dead and that they are not being used. Others said the opposite and welcomed new calls regularly.

I am an IT geek. I wonder if we could create a ping of sorts where a radio transmits a broadcast request for nearby repeaters and that each in turn sends a response, collected by the radio and neatly added to the list of local repeaters. If it sounds familiar, that's because in computing we do this all the time with all manner of different gadgets like printers on our local network. In fact, your radio could just listen for repeater idents and store them. Given that a repeater identifies itself regularly, that's a way we could create a repeater map locally.

What ever your poison, as-in, choice of radio, figuring out what to use it for is part of the adventure. You should know your radio inside and out. Read your user manual once in a while, I know I do, every couple of months or so, and each time I learn something new.

"One thing I can categorically state is that programming your radio manually just before your holiday is really something that you should try and avoid."

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Which repeaters should I put into my hand held radio? Jul 08, 2018

Show notes

Foundations of Amateur Radio

A regular question from people who go on holiday is: "Which repeaters should I put into my hand held radio?"

If there was infinite amount of memory and time, the answer would be simple - All of them. If it were that simple, I wouldn't be talking about it and you wouldn't be asking the question, so given that it's not that simple, what options do you have for dealing with this question, generally an hour before you pack up your suitcase to leave on that trip to another location.

For me, my first effort was to try to find a list of repeaters for the new location. Failing that, I ventured onto the national association and downloaded their list, which I might add, was woefully out of date, but I wasn't to know that when I found it. I then fired up a copy of the cross-platform CHIRP programming software, pushed all the repeater frequencies into my radio and called it a day.

I did have the benefit of a radio that was able to group memories into separate so-called banks, which allowed me to be able to select a particular bank for each state, my own state, VK6 was, and I might add, still is, in bank 6. VK5 is in bank 5 and so-on. The advantage of this arrangement is that I can select a bank, set my radio to scan in just that bank and I can hear all the activity that's happening within range of my hand held. Pretty useful when you're on holidays in a new location.

If your country doesn't quite break-down into neat little groups like that, or if you cannot break your hand held radio memory into banks, you might have to come up with a different strategy.

You could for example, create your own equivalent banks, 100 to 199 is bank 1, 200 to 299 is bank 2, etc. Or if you have 50 states to worry about, you might allocate 101, 201, 301, 401 etc. to state number one and so on. Of course that will start an argument about which state is number one, but I'm sure you can work that out for yourself.

Another suggestion is to query the local license database, in Australia the ACMA database, and get a list of currently licensed repeaters. If that's not your style, you could download a mobile phone app, something like Repeaterbook. You can even link your mobile to your radio and have the app set up the frequencies for your location.

One suggestion I came across the other day is to do none of this and to just program in all the possible repeater pairs. There's not that many possibilities and setting your radio to scan will unearth any activity on what ever standard pair is being used at the time. This won't get you completely out of the woods, since some repeaters require a CTCSS tone of some description, but several hand held radios have the ability to decode the tone. You could get fancy with pre-programmed tones in different memories, but I'll leave that as an exercise for you to imagine.

In the end, finding amateurs in a new location is a lot like finding amateurs in your home town. They're around, you just need to find them. Visiting a local club works at home and it works just as well while you're on holiday, sometimes even more-so, since you'll be a visitor and many clubs like to be on their best behaviour for new comers.

One thing I can categorically state is that programming your radio manually is really something that you should try and avoid. Not because it's not possible and not because it's not a skill you should have, but because it's error prone and there's nothing quite as frustrating as programming in the wrong frequency without having the ability to fix it when you're in the field.

One tip. CHIRP allows you to create as many different frequency files as you like. There's nothing wrong with making one fit for purpose for this outing and having a different file for your home location, or for a specific contest or DX activity.

A final bonus tip. CHIRP generally uses the microphone and headphone sockets for most hand held radios. Setting the volume correctly is a must. If you set the volume too low, CHIRP won't work, since there won't be anything to decode.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

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