Foundations of Amateur Radio

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What happens if you move the feed point in a dipole? Oct 23, 2016

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

One of the recurring topics in on-air discussion is that of antennas and if we were to graph the topics of conversations, antennas would be the clear winner in any line-up. As a beginning Amateur this phenomenon bamboozled me for a very long time.

Why are these people talking about antennas all the time and what's there to know that you can't say in 30 seconds?

From the mouths of babes...

I've mentioned in the past that Amateur Radio is to a very large degree magic. Another way of expressing that is to say that there is an Art to being an Amateur and antennas play a big part.

A friend of mine loaned me his antenna kit called a Buddipole. It's a portable set-up that is akin to Meccano or Lego in that you can build up an antenna from parts and make a large range of antennas from the same basic parts, two coils, a feed point, a balun, two telescopic whips and some extension pieces.

For me this particular antenna has been temperamental and I couldn't get my head around how to make it work. This all changed last weekend when I had a spare 15 minutes, literally, 15 minutes when I went into the shed to have another look. This was spurred on by a note that I'd read that pointed out that the Buddipole is asymmetric, that is, both legs and coils are not the same.

This important tid-bit of information made things click in my mind and all of a sudden I realised that I didn't need to make both sides the same length, or adjust both sides in the same way.

Until that moment I'd always thought of the Buddipole as a dipole on a stand and expected like any traditional dipole it would have both legs at the same length.

What if you could move the feed point along the length of your dipole, what would happen? What if you kept the overall length the same, but by making one end longer and the other end shorter, you in effect were moving the feed point along your dipole?

Wonderful things start to happen, that's what.

What I'm saying is that you don't have to make a dipole have equal length legs and that sometimes this is desirable.

Previously I've mentioned that the height of a dipole, the wire thickness, the ends, the angle and so on all affect the feed point impedance. Turns out, that where you place the feed point also affects this.

If you recall basic antenna theory, you might recall that the middle of a dipole is the lowest impedance and that the end of a dipole is the highest impedance.

Each of these values are on a continuum, that is, they vary as you change things. That means that between the two extremes of impedance there are other in-between values. If you have a balun, you can use this to get a great match for your antenna by tweaking these values.

Another example of this continuum is a loop antenna. If you make it twice as high as wide, the feed point impedance is 50 Ohm, but if you use the same loop and squash it flat, the impedance is 300 Ohm. Varying the shape changes the impedance.

In essence this means that there is an infinite number of antennas that can be made just as a dipole and another infinite number of antennas that can be made as a loop.

So, just two antenna types alone already gives you a lifetime supply of options and that's ignoring the height, soil or wire.

Now you understand why antennas are tricky and why we talk about them so much.

It also explains why the Internet is full of different explanations on antennas, since they are all based around the local conditions under which the author is describing their adventure.

Next time you hear an Amateur going on about their antenna, perhaps there's something to take away.

I know I won't be anywhere as impatient listening to others talking about their contraptions.

Final thought. A vertical is a dipole too. The radials are one half, the vertical the other. You can change the length of either, or both, but you can also feed the antenna in a different location.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

DX, common ground on a common term? Oct 16, 2016

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

Have you ever been on air and in the middle of a wonderful discussion that all of a sudden and often unexpectedly erupts into a heated argument about nothing?

One of those conversations that came to mind was about what the term DX means. I'd been taught that DX means outside the country and if you're calling CQ DX, I was taught that this means that you're looking for a contact in the next country.

So. What's the argument?

Simple really.

In a nutshell, making a contact between Perth and Sydney, nearly 3300 kilometres apart is inside one country, but making a contact across the same distance between say Amsterdam and Lebanon, is about nine countries away. This really means that for every station DX has a different meaning.

So, this DX caper means different things for different people. I've said in the past that I'd laughed when a station made a big deal about contacting Japan, when that's something I do regularly. The opposite effect happened when I contacted Cuba. For me it's a contact on the other side of the planet, for them it's next door.

I asked around for explanations from others about what they thought DX meant:

- Receiving signals & station from remote locations - Long distance, harder to achieve contacts. - Doesn't have to be international, all frequency dependant. - VK[234] to VK6 is DX ;) - Outside of my suburb ! - Anything hard I suppose, or anything "overseas"

The take away should be that DX-ing is an activity that means different things to different people. You could put it down to kilometres, or countries, it really doesn't matter. Just be prepared that your measure may not apply to the other station.

Ironically, thinking back to one of my earlier on-air experiences. I called CQ-DX and got a reply that said something along the lines of "What kind of DX are you expecting?" to which I replied: "Anything I can get." is put into a different context by the knowledge that DX is not a fixed idea. At the time I thought that I had done something wrong and that my activities were some how incorrect. Checking with the amateurs nearby at the time, it transpired that this wasn't the case.

My insight into the variation of something that looks like a simple concept, DX, puts a different light on the subject.

I'm highlighting this because I think it's important to understand that when you're on air, you're bringing with you the experiences you have and you're communicating with others who may, or may not share those experiences and understandings, even for something as obvious and common as the concept of DX.

It also spurs me on to continue to develop my QSL card. If you've sent me one and I've not sent you one back, it's because I'm still very unhappy with the design I've got and I'm working on something that's more me, more Australia and captures the essence of the idiosyncrasy that is me.

If you're wondering what a QSL card is, think Amateur Radio Postcard. The name derives from something called the Q-Codes, shortcut names used originally in telegraphy, then by Amateurs in Morse, now also heard in all general conversation on air. The code "QSL" means "Can you acknowledge receipt?" when asked as a question, or it means "I am acknowledging receipt." when used as an answer. The card was named after this as a way to confirm contacts between stations. A QSL card generally contains your callsign, their callsign, the time, date, the band or frequency, the mode and signal reports of the contact. Some go overboard with whole novels, include general information about the station, perhaps a picture of your friendly face, or some other image.

Traditionally, interesting locations, like say Amsterdam Island, activated as FT5ZM go all out in making their cards, since the location is desirable and the card should be as well.

One final comment. To work DX, you need to be on-air, so get your station in good working order, turn it on and make noise. Making contacts, local and DX is about being lucky and the only way you can do that is by actually being on-air and making your own luck.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Propagation is everywhere! Oct 09, 2016

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

Recently I talked about making a propagation map in your mind by listening to the various NCDXF beacons across the globe on various HF bands. You're not limited to listening to a beacon to learn what propagation is like.

If I tell you that listening to a band gives you an indication on what's going on, you're likely to respond with: "Duh".

But what if I suggest that instead of listening to a DX station running a pile-up, you instead listen to the stations calling?

Back in January 2014, episode 133, when this series was still called "What use is an F-call?", I explained what "Listening 10-up" means and how you operate in a so-called split mode. As you might recall, working split is about dealing with the phenomenon that a weak DX station working in some desirable location is likely to be overwhelmed by stronger signals, to the point of no longer being heard. It's a good skill to learn and you should try and work both sides, being the station calling a DX, but also being the one getting swamped.

As I said, normally you're the one calling the DX station and you don't particularly care about the other stations swamping the band.

What if you did?

What if you used their signals to figure out where propagation was happening? If you did that, you could perhaps point your antenna in the correct direction, or specifically focus on calling for stations in that area, or listen out for stations in that region in other parts of the band.

The thing is, propagation doesn't care what the signal is. As long as you can decode it in what ever way you prefer, Mark I ear-drum, or some fancy decoder, it doesn't matter. If you can hear the signal, it means it's getting from them to you.

I should note a word of caution here.

It's taken me several years to realise that I could often hear many stations that had no chance of hearing me. I'd crank up the volume on the radio, listen out for anything and try to work what I heard. Sometimes you get a great result, and you shouldn't discount those, but often all I got for my trouble is a sore head from decoding mush.

What I learned, especially as a low power operator - I use 5 Watts - if the other station isn't coming in with a reasonable signal strength, S5 or higher, then there's little point.

There is a concept of reciprocity. The idea is that if you can hear them, you can work them. For some power levels that might actually be true, but for the rest of us, a fine grain of salt should be added to the mix. Before you start in on me telling me I'm wrong, perhaps consider the variations in local environment, antenna differences, not to mention variation in the Ionosphere or alligators, all mouth and no ears running several kilowatts.

The take-away in all this should be that propagation is everywhere. You can use it to hunt for likely contenders and no signal on the band should be ignored as a potential source of propagation information.

One final thought. You can also reverse this. Turn on a web based receiver in some desirable part of the world, pick a frequency and then using your radio, call CQ and see if you can hear yourself across the web.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

The birth and legacy of IRLP. Oct 02, 2016

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

Technology is a moving feast. New ideas spring new inventions which in turn change our lives. Amateur Radio is at the forefront of such inventions. Radio Amateurs have been until recently the only soldering iron brigade around. We've been building things for over a hundred years and we continue as a community to think of new ideas and ways to make them happen.

For example, we take technologies like AllStar Link, EchoLink, Wires and so on all in our stride. We think nothing of having our radios connected to each other using techniques other than radio spectrum.

In November 1997, when iPhone still meant Internet Phone, an inquisitive 22 year old amateur called Dave Cameron VE7LTD came up with a way to link a radio to the Internet and the first three Internet Radio Linking Project stations were connected to each other and the now global network of IRLP nodes was born.

Dave built a DTMF decoder which allowed remote control of a computer and the radio that was attached to it, and made it possible to send the audio from the radio to the sound-card of the computer, which in turn sent that audio in digital format across the Internet to a similarly equipped system where the audio was turned back into a radio transmission.

This bridging idea took off and many different systems were developed, many of which are in active use today.

The various systems all use some form of Voice over IP to transmit audio across the Internet, but there are many variations on how the audio gets to the system in the first place.

In IRLP - as I mentioned - the audio can only come in via an Amateur Radio. EchoLink uses a similar system, but in addition to Amateur Radio as a source, you can register your callsign and use several different applications on your computer or mobile phone to link into the network. AllStar takes this idea further, instead of making a point-to-point connection, the AllStar system is based around an open source telephone exchange called Asterisk and it's used to link together the various systems.

Other variations also exist. The idea of using Voice over IP techniques spawned a whole set of radio technologies that use similar methodologies to compress voice and then instead of transmitting it across the Internet, use radio waves to send them from one radio to the next. Technologies such as D-Star, System Fusion, MotoBro and DMR built on this idea. Of course these technologies also use the Internet to share information and connect users across the globe.

There is some contention around these systems. Many Amateurs consider them to be "Not Real Radio", but then I suspect if you look at the birth of SSB, you'll find die-hard CW operators with a similar complaint. The same is true for low power propagation modes like WSPR which aren't real radio because you cannot have a QSO.

Other issues in the technical sphere also exist. The IRLP software is closed source. You can only buy IRLP hardware from one place and it doesn't allow you to connect in any other way than via a radio. EchoLink now charges for conferences being registered in the system. In the past I've already spoken about Fusion, D-Star and MotoBro and their restrictions around interoperability, licensing and closed source nature.

From a practical perspective, there are also concerns about the use of these systems in the case of massive failures during local disasters and the like. If the Internet is down, many of these systems will simply become local radio networks. Coverage could perhaps be extended by creating a local mesh network, but HF radio still very much has its place in our world.

For me this is all about learning and innovation. Ultimately which system you use is up to you.

I live in a software world where Open Source rules for good reason and my vote will always go to Open Source. To be clear, I'm not adverse to making money, we all have to pay the rent, but making innovation and invention secret is not the way to go in our hyper-connected world.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Make your own propagation map! Sep 25, 2016

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

The world is your oyster, but sometimes you need to find a way to test what is going on with your station and determine what is working and what isn't.

Often I turn my radio on to scanning mode and I set it to scan the Northern California DX Foundation beacons. These beacons, perhaps better known as the NCDXF beacons can be heard across five different HF frequencies, on 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m. These beacons repeat in a cycle that lasts three minutes, covering 18 different transmitters located in countries scattered around the globe.

Beacons exist in New York City at the United Nations, in two other locations across the US, in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Russia, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Israel, Finland, Madeira, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela.

Each beacon rotates through each frequency and then waits three minutes to transmit on the same frequency again. Each transmission contains the station callsign, sent in 22 words per minute Morse code, followed by four one-second beeps.

The callsign and the first beep is sent using 100 watts, the next one uses 10 watts, the third beep is sent with 1 watt and the final one uses 100 milliwatts.

What this does is give you a pretty accurate map of what you can hear on what frequency at this time with your station.

Another way to think of this is as a propagation map that actually uses your station as the receiver. If you can't hear 'm, you can't work 'm.

If your radio doesn't scan across frequencies very well, there's nothing wrong with listening on one frequency for 3 minutes, switching to the next and so on; 15 minutes later you'll know what propagation is like around your station.

You can find full details about this whole beacon system on ncdxf.org and I should mention that there are many other beacons around that provide signals for you to listen to.

As an aside, this system is precisely what prompted me to start the process of learning Morse Code. I'm still at it and you should not take my slow progress as anything other than me being distracted by the other things that are happening in my life.

If you need something more active and participatory to get a sense of the operation of your station, you should have a listen to the 7130 DX net. It happens every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9:30am UTC on 7.130 MHz +/- QRM.

Next time I'll talk about how that works and what you might gain from having a go.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB.

How to melt coax ... Sep 18, 2016

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

Recently I made a comment about melting your coax and that this was a bad thing. Today I'm going to talk about some of how this comes about and what kinds of parameters we're dealing with.

Let's start with coax itself. The operating temperature of coax is somewhere around 80 to 90 Degrees Celsius, or 176 to 194 Fahrenheit. Soldering is at 230 Celsius, or 446 Fahrenheit, so for starters, soldering coax is a risky adventure.

For argument's sake, let's assume that you managed to solder your coax without damaging it. What else can go wrong?

Let's have a look at high voltage transmission lines. Why do we move power around the place using high voltage lines? The answer is that in a high voltage line, the current is low. Where the current is low, heating is low, so more of the energy gets from the power-station to your shack and less of it is used to heat up the power line between the power station and you.

So, that means that high voltage and low current is less heat loss. The opposite is also true. Low voltage and high current is more heat loss.

Now if you look at a dipole antenna, you'll know that this contraption is moving energy around at some or other frequency. As it's doing that, there are high and low voltage points and high and low current points.

In a half-wave dipole, the high voltage points are at the ends of the antenna, and the high current points are at the feed-point.

Guess where your coax is?

So, you've got your connection to your antenna located at a high current point, in the place where high current has the potential to create problems, things like heating up your coax and potentially melting it.

So, when does this heating happen?

Well, you need high resistance and high current. This typically happens when you've got a bad connector at the feed-point. In practical terms this means that if you're using QRP, 5 Watts, you're unlikely to come across a situation where this becomes an issue, since the currents aren't that high and a bad connection typically means no contacts.

If on the other hand you're using high power, then make sure that the connection to your antenna is strong, solid, and water proof so it doesn't deteriorate to the point of melting and then killing your radio.

It's best to keep an eye on the SWR meter when you're working, since a high SWR might be indicating that the resistance at your antenna changed for the worse.

Final comment. When you've set-up your station, create a note of the SWR at different frequencies and refer back to that regularly. Spotting a problem early might just prevent some expensive maintenance later on.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What is SWR? Sep 11, 2016

Show notes

Foundations of Amateur Radio

Today I'm going to talk about SWR or Standing Wave Ratio. As amateurs we use this term all the time, we expect to see it on a meter or display near our transmitter, we buy specific gadgets to measure it and often we seek to find the lowest possible SWR.

As I've said in the past, the perfect antenna cannot exist, in the same way, a perfect connection, the feed-line, between an antenna and transmitter can also not exist. The perfect match is a 50 Ohm match, but a dummy load is a perfect match and its purpose is specifically not to radiate. So what's all this about then?

Lets start in a swimming pool for a moment. Imagine that this pool is really long and skinny. Say 100m long and 1cm wide.

Stand on one side and make a splash. The ripple of the water radiates from the source of the splash, you, to the other end of the pool. The end wall bounces the ripple back to you, and bounces back and forth until all the ripples have dissipated.

Now, if you kept splashing about, and waves were rippling back and forth while you were splashing, some of the ripples would happen at the same time as a splash and some of the ripples would happen at the time between two splashes. That means that at some times the splash and the reflections would sit on top of each other, making a higher wave and at some times splashes and reflections would be sitting below each other, making the troughs between splashes deeper.

If you replaced the water with electricity and the pool with a transmission line, the same is true. If you made an electronic splash, say a transmission from your radio, into the feed-line, the ripple would travel along the feed-line, bounce off the end, come back, bounce off the radio and so on. In the same way, reflections and transmissions can add to each other, and they can also subtract from each other.

This difference between the addition of signals and the subtraction of signals is what we call the SWR.

There are two ways to get to the SWR. If you connect a 50 Ohm feed-line to a 100 Ohm antenna, the SWR is 2:1. This is a theoretical SWR and it tells you is that there will be a ripple coming back from the antenna that is both adding and subtracting from the original transmission.

Alternatively we could use an SWR meter to measure the voltage differences between the high and the low part of a wave and indicate on a dial what the SWR is. This is an actual SWR. The two are indicating the same thing and we can use that to get from a measurement to an understanding of impedance matching between the feed-line and the antenna.

As a point of reference, if there are no ripples bouncing back, then there is no addition or subtraction, and the resulting SWR is 1:1. For completeness, I should point out that the rabbit hole is much deeper than this explanation and I'll revisit this topic in the future.

Now for the final piece of the puzzle.

A piece of coax in Amateur Radio is 50 Ohm. If you have an antenna that is 50 Ohm, that's perfectly fine as an antenna system.

Of course, antennas are not so accommodating. A dipole has a feed-point impedance of about 75 Ohm. A folded dipole has a feed-point impedance of about 300 Ohm. Each different antenna system has a different impedance and thus needs a different transmission line connected to it.

So, if you look at a 50 Ohm coax connected to a 300 Ohm folded dipole, you know that the SWR is going to be 6:1. However if you connected a 300 Ohm ladder-line to the same folded dipole, the SWR would be 1:1.

What this means is that the coax would have waves rippling back and forth and the ladder-line would not. The coax would have a particular loss and each ripple going back and forth would be subjected to that loss, where on the ladder-line, the loss would only apply once, on the outbound leg, since no energy would be bouncing back. As an aside, this loss is experienced as heat and if you're not careful it will melt your coax or worse.

That's not to say that SWR kills everything, but you need to be aware of what's actually going on.

Now I should point out one more thing.

These bouncing waves, the ripples coming back have information embedded on them. If you're transmitting voice, or some digital mode, the ripples that bounced back would be broadcast with a slight delay and the second bounce with another slight delay, and so-on. This phenomenon could actually make your signal into gibberish.

Coax has its place. It's a very flexible way of getting a signal from A to B, it's not affected by crazy nearby signals and it's robust, not to mention cheap. If you actually need to get your signal somewhere, then it will pay to look at how best to use it, when to use ladder-line and how to organise your shack in such a way that the best signal makes it outside to the working end of your radio.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What is station security? Sep 04, 2016

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

One of the tick boxes we're required to deal with is the one titled "Station Security". As licensed amateurs we're required to secure our station from use by unauthorised people.

What form does that take, how do you do it, what makes it secure and how much security is enough?

I spent a bit of time looking around to see if there were any guidelines I could unearth to actually describe in detail what this might actually mean, but my Google Fu is clearly broken, since I was unable to find any such documentation. That's not to say that it doesn't exist, just that it's well hidden among the hits about encryption, broadcasting music and other spurious results.

What form does this requirement take in your shack? Do you tick the box and move on, or have you taken specific actions to comply with this requirement?

For me, I have two shacks. One in my office and one in my car. Taking the car first, the security of my mobile shack is based around the notion that my car is locked when I'm not around. Technically my partner also uses the car and it's not directly under my control at that time, but the flip side of that is that the radio needs to be manually connected to a battery, the head of the radio needs to be connected to the patch lead, the antenna needs to be screwed in and the coax switch needs to match the band you're trying to operate on.

These things are not complicated for an amateur, but for a member of the public they form several barriers to entry before they could actually operate my station.

In my office, where I mostly operate on VHF due to the high noise level on HF, security takes a similar form.

It's in a locked house, that is, if I'm not home, the house is locked. Similarly, when my partner is around they technically can get to the station. The same is true for any guests to our house. Security again is a multi-level activity. The radio needs to be connected to power, the antenna needs to be connected to the correct port, the remote head needs to be connected correctly and if all that is done, you can operate my station.

There are no specific locks on my radio; the same is true for any station I've ever visited. All of the clubs I'm a member of have a room or a box with a lock on it which is one barrier, but once that is breached, the radio behind it is good to go.

This whole topic is an example of how we legislate for a particular thing, in this case preventing use by an unauthorised person, but don't actually specify what that means.

So, what type of security does your station have? What's enough security and what isn't? Is my station legal or not? What makes it so? What about your station?

It's easy to read the rules and tick the box, but sometimes the tickbox is a deep rabbit hole.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Unpredictable radio waves ... Aug 28, 2016

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Foundations of Amateur Radio

Radio Waves travel in straight lines. They go from point to point and that's it. Except that Radio Waves also reflect off certain surfaces, like light does.

So, Radio Waves travel in straight lines and they also reflect and that's it. Except that Radio Waves also change direction when they pass through some change of medium.

So, then, Radio Waves travel in straight lines and they also reflect and refract and that's it. Except that Radio Waves also bend when they encounter an obstacle or a slit.

So, ok that's it. Radio Waves travel in straight lines and they also reflect and refract and diffract and that's the end of it. Except that they turn slightly due to gravity when they pass by a large mass.

So, this phenomenon that we use in our hobby every time we key up a transmitter or listen to an off-air signal is doing much that is invisible. It bends and wobbles, bounces and shifts, reflects and refracts and somehow we still manage to make our signal get from here to there.

The reason I'm raising this at all is that all new entrants to the hobby often scratch their head when they start transmitting. Antennas and propagation aside, the humble hand-held portable radio, the walkie talkie, or handitalky, or whatever you call it, does some weird stuff.

Some people use it like a mobile phone, other talk into it like they're summoning the oracle, others wave it about and hover around metal doorways or hold it close to their body and walk about while they're talking.

I host a weekly radio net, you should check it out some day, Saturday Morning, 0:00 to 1:00 UTC, it's called F-troop and we get lots of different skill levels and experiences sharing stories and answering questions.

Many times we have amateurs who are using a hand-held and getting unexpected results.

This variable, fluid nature of radio waves is why this happens. Each tiny variation causes some effect and some outcome. Resulting in a wildly fluctuating signal that varies between loud and clear and inaudible and all steps in between. And that's not even talking about flat batteries or trying to talk through a hill to a local repeater.

My point is that radio waves are unpredictable. If you are using your radio in an unpredictable way while using an unpredictable medium like radio, then all bets are off.

Next time you key up your hand-held, spare a thought for what's happening between your antenna and mine.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB.

Learning from your mistakes ... Aug 21, 2016

Show notes

Foundations of Amateur Radio

To do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome is the definition of insanity; so how do you avoid making the same mistakes on-air in Amateur Radio?

During the week I was wading through some old photos and videos on my phone to make some space and I stumbled on some old videos taken by others and sent to me whilst I was on-air. It was a lovely look back at some previous activity, but they also made me cringe. Here's one example, the very first time, back in 2011, I did a local contest, using the club callsign VK6AHR:

One One. My number to you is uh, one zero four, uh V K Six Alpha Hotel Romeo to V K Six Alpha Romeo, my number to you is one zero four.

It's only that I know I was using the club callsign that I know who I am and who the other station is, in this case the other station was VK6AR. My exchange was 104, but clear as mud and twice as thick.

These days I'd say something much less convoluted, something like:

VK6AR, 59104 from VK6AHR

Here's another attempt from me in my early days, calling DX using my own callsign:

"CQ DX, CQ Delta Xray, this is Victor Kilo Six Fox Lima Alpha Bravo calling CQ DX"

CQ Delta Xray, what was I thinking? Actually, I was emulating another amateur. So what you say, while there are new amateurs in your shack, matters. Also, I noticed that I started the bad habit of saying Fox instead of Foxtrot. Fortunately one of my listeners wrote in to nip that in the bud early on.

My point in sharing these evolutions of my on-air style is that you might experience me as a practiced amateur, but just like you, I had to learn by making mistakes and being told I was making mistakes. Fortunately there was some video evidence to help in my innocent education stages.

So, from your perspective, next time you get on air, try and record some of your activity and have a listen back. I've done this with new amateurs and old-hands and it's absolutely staggering how much you learn from having a listen to yourself.

So, when you get on air to make some noise, record it for education purposes and listen back.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

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