Foundations of Amateur Radio

Here be Dragons, venturing into uncharted territory ...


Listen Later

Foundations of Amateur Radio

Sometimes when you head into uncharted territory, you gotta laugh at yourself from time to time. Last weekend I participated in a contest, something I enjoy doing as you might recall. To simplify the process of setting up in a vehicle I'd proposed a bold plan to save space and reduce complexity. I was anxious about reducing the amount of technology because I'd come up with a plan to use a paper log to track my contest contacts.

I had visions of operating for the best part of 24 hours and making hundreds of contacts. This was based on the fact that in 2016 I'd done this same contest on my own and made a 138 contacts and scored 18221 points, having moved 17 times.

I'd also done the contest in 2018 and for reasons I don't recall, I made one contact over 8 hours.

That right there should have been a warning sign that I might not quite get the result I'd been fearful of.

Blissfully unaware of the adventure that was unfolding, after driving to the first location, I called CQ for the better part of an hour. Then I called some more. When I was done with that, I called CQ more. 90 minutes in, I made my first contact.

That pretty much set the pattern for the next nine hours. At one point we feared that the radio had packed up, but then I made a 2900 km contact with the other side of the country between me in Perth in VK6 and Catherine VK7GH in Tasmania.

Around five pm we packed up, having moved location six times, making eight contacts and claiming 64 points, having worked three of the six states I heard.

Talk about overblown fears.

Looking back, even documenting 138 contacts on paper doesn't seem nearly as daunting after the fact, but that's for another day. I did learn some other things too.

I was worried about logging the band correctly, since using a computer that's not connected to the radio requires an extra step when you change band. Using paper the issue wasn't the band, it was remembering to record the time.

We didn't have the opportunity to test all the gear before the contest. I was bringing in some extra audio splitters, which didn't work with the set-up we had, testing before hand would have revealed that. We knew that there was a risk associated with not testing before and decided that in the scheme of things it didn't matter and we were right. It didn't.

We hadn't much planned for food and pit-stops, but having a GPS and an internet connection solved all those issues almost invisibly. Of course that wouldn't work in an unpopulated area, but we were well inside the metropolitan area of a big city, well, Perth.

Using a head-set worked great, though it didn't have a monitoring feature, so my voice got louder and louder and Thomas VK6VCR who took on the tasks of navigating and driving became deafer and deafer as the day progressed.

I keep coming back to wanting a portable voice-keyer, a device that you can record your CQ call into and then at the press of a button, play it back so you don't lose your voice whilst calling CQ hour after hour. The challenge seems to be that you need to find a way to incorporate it into the existing audio chain so it doesn't introduce interference.

Winning a contest requires contacts and that can only happen if there are other participants. This time around there didn't seem to be that many on air making noise. I think I heard a grand total of 13 stations. Some of that was due to propagation conditions which were nothing like I've ever heard before, but perhaps if I stick around for another solar cycle, that too will become familiar. Atrocious is one word that comes to mind.

Continuing our learning, the weather, not just space-weather, actual earth weather, snow, rain, hail and in our case sun. Neither of us thought to bring a hat since the forecast was for intermittent rain. We had no rain, instead had the opportunity to bask in the winter sun. Yes, it's winter here in Oz when it's Summer in Europe. As it happens, our winter temperatures are like your summer ones, but I'll leave it to you to confirm that for yourself.

Finally, we have a local phenomenon in VK6. When the sun goes down, the 40m band comes alive with the sounds of Indonesia. Among the radio amateurs are plenty of pirate stations with massive AM transmitters enjoying the conditions, chatting, chanting and what ever else comes to voice. Not conductive to being on-air and making noise, but as far as I can tell, not commonly heard outside of VK6.

That said, the Indonesian radio amateur community must have the patience of saints putting up with the interference that their non-licensed countrymen cause on a daily basis. My hat off to you!

As I've said all along, this radio thing is about getting on air and having fun and I can tell you, we did.

What did you get up to?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Foundations of Amateur RadioBy Onno (VK6FLAB)

  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6

4.6

29 ratings


More shows like Foundations of Amateur Radio

View all
ARRL Audio News by ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio®

ARRL Audio News

122 Listeners

icqpodcast's Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast by ICQ Podcast

icqpodcast's Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast

65 Listeners

99% Invisible by Roman Mars

99% Invisible

26,163 Listeners

GB2RS by Weekly RSGB News Broadcast read by Jeremy G4NJH.

GB2RS

1 Listeners

QSO Today Podcast - Interviews with the leaders in amateur radio by Eric Guth, 4Z1UG

QSO Today Podcast - Interviews with the leaders in amateur radio

142 Listeners

Ham Radio 2.0 by Jason Johnston - KC5HWB

Ham Radio 2.0

94 Listeners

Ham Radio Workbench Podcast by Ham Radio Workbench

Ham Radio Workbench Podcast

196 Listeners

Ham Radio Crash Course Podcast by Josh Nass KI6NAZ

Ham Radio Crash Course Podcast

611 Listeners

Amateur Radio Topics by VK6LW/VK6T by Kevin Smith VK6LW and VK6T

Amateur Radio Topics by VK6LW/VK6T

1 Listeners

VK6ARN Amateur Radio News - NewsWest by VK6ARN

VK6ARN Amateur Radio News - NewsWest

1 Listeners

On the Air by Becky Schoenfeld, W1BXY

On the Air

104 Listeners

The Ham Radio Clubhouse by Ham Radio Clubhouse

The Ham Radio Clubhouse

18 Listeners

The Ham Radio Guy by Marvin Turner - W0MET

The Ham Radio Guy

9 Listeners

The DX Mentor by Bill Salyers

The DX Mentor

19 Listeners

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) by Patrick McKenzie

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)

122 Listeners