The project that has been garnering the most attention in recent months has been the Rotator Controller.  Ironically, I personally use this project the least in my shack, but I get emails nearly daily for new features or support requests, with a lot of interest coming from Europe.  Previously I called it the “Yaesu Rotator Controller Emulator”, or something to that effect, but I’ve dropped Yaesu from the description as it’s gone significantly beyond my original intent of just interfacing to my Yaesu rotator.  It now supports the Easycom protocol, several azimuth and elevation sensing methods, including rotator encoders, pulse inputs, digital compasses, and accelerometers.  It’s also now possible to place a remote unit at the tower and a host unit in the shack, in sort of a client-server fashion, to support I2C sensors on towers and automate other stuff like relays.  I’m amazed at how many people out there are wanting to interface old rotators to their computers or build their own homebrew rotators.  Karl, JA4BUA, has this site with pictures of his implementation of the rotator controller, complete with an Eagle circuit design.  I’m impressed with his workmanship, with his creation looking much like a commercial piece of equipment.

Photo courtesy JA4BUA

The CW Keyer project has CMOS Super Keyer timing in beta and native USB keyboard support is in the works.  Currently PS2 keyboards are supported, but these seem to be getting less common these days.  I also have in the works a full LCD menu system.  The MJ/ON6NB DXpedition will be using a DJ0MY Nanokeyer running my keyer software later this month from the island of Jersey.

The Ardiuno Antenna Tuner is still in alpha, however I’ve been using my first prototype in the shack for some time now and it’s working quite well.  It puts the two commercial tuners I own to shame.  Needless to say it’s a much more complicated project than the keyer or rotator controller.  I’m working on a hardware design using an ATMega1284P chip that can be replicated and will hopefully encourage others to build it.

I’ve been intending to write an article on KiCad, an open source electronic design tool, similar to Cadsoft Eagle.  I migrated to KiCad a few months ago, and it’s simply amazing.  It runs on both Windows and Linux, and the user interface isn’t compromised on either, looking nearly identical and rather polished for an open source project.  Many people are using it professionally, though it doesn’t appear to have the same hobbyist following as Eagle, yet.  There are a few downsides to KiCad at this point.  Management of component and footprint libraries is less than intuitive and needs some work.  Development is quite active with updates being released almost daily, which can make for some feature instability.  But on the positive side, component design is much easier than Eagle, it has no limitations like the free versions of Eagle, and it’s definitely capable of producing professional quality designs.  If you’re doing circuit design you really need to check out KiCad.

In closing, I’ll say it’s a great time to be building stuff in amateur radio.  On a daily basis I’m amazed at the ingenuity and creativity radio amateurs have.  We can build great equipment, beyond radios and antennas.  Sure, it’s difficult to find a good air variable capacitor these days, but we have access to sophisticated components, modules, design tools, and computing power well beyond what our predecessors had.  We have the means to exchange ideas, information, and designs more easily than ever.  We are truly lucky.  What have you built lately?

The simplicity of the Ten Tec Eagle is nice and refreshing, but I just couldn’t bear spending over $1,800 for such a simple rig.  It bugged me that the MARS mod wasn’t readily available.  This is one of my idiosyncrasies; any rig that I have must be able to transmit on whatever bands its capable of transmitting on, and I abhor hardware limited by software.  And for over a kilobuck, can’t Ten Tec spring for a second antenna connector?

Volumes have been written about the Elecraft K3, and any review below a 5 out of 5 gets dirty looks from the studio audience.  Yes, it’s a great rig, and initially it looks like a great deal until you start adding on the add-ons you really need to operate this rig.  Right off the bat it’s $2,100 for a 100 watt rig.  If you’re like me you’ll want a CW filter, a tighter phone filter, perhaps one to listen to and operate AM, and the general coverage filter band pass unit, and you’re looking at another $580.  Also, the chassis of the K3 is below what I would consider for a rig in this price class.  It’s not badly designed, but it’s really time Elecraft puts the big boy pants on and makes a die cast chassis.  I know someone will quip that the Yaesu 950 and Kenwood TS-590 receivers aren’t as good as the K3.  You’re absolutely correct.  Is that extra few dB of IMD performance or receiver sensitivity really worth an extra $500 – $1K?

I was torn between the Yaesu 950 and Kenwood TS-590.  Two things tipped the scales in Kenwood’s favor.  A read several reviews about the Yaesu’s multiple roofing filters being not that useful, however they made it a major part of the user interface on the front panel.  The other mention was Yaesu’s menuing system.  Having three Yaesu products currently I’m quite familiar with Yaesu’s menus, however I can’t say I really like them.

A few reviews of the Kenwood TS-590 indicated better performance on CW than the 950.  Admittedly I wanted to give Kenwood another try after their HF “design drought” of eight years, my fond memories of Kenwood back in the 80s and 90s, and the 850 I have has given me lots of great service for 14 years.  I was a bit nervous about the TS-590 having operated a TS-570 years ago at Field Day and being disappointed in the receiver, however Kenwood literature, which was quite extensive, indicated that the 590 was designed anew from the ground up.

The TS-590 so far hasn’t disappointed me.  I was able to figure out nearly all of the functions in the first 15 minutes without cracking open the manual.  Power, mic gain, and VOX settings are easily accessed with single keystrokes and don’t require menu navigation.  The menu is accessed via a button aptly labeled MENU.  The knobs have a quality feel to them and the front interface is consistent and well laid out.  What don’t I like?  Two items: the number keypad on the left side has the bands (1.8, 3.5, 7, 10, etc.) as the primary marking on the buttons and the number (1, 2, 3, 4…) are secondary, which gets confusing when doing direct frequency entry.  The second item is the CW QSK.  Much like my TS-850, it makes more relay noise than I would like, however it sounds good in the headphones.

The manual is very well laid out, and doesn’t have the Japanglish commonly found in older Kenwood manuals.  The rig achieves a nice balance between simplicity and complexity, not being overly flashy and offering a straightforward and useful display.  The free software controls every aspect of the rig, down to the AF and RF gain and power, and it’s a rather well designed and intuitive application.  New firmware can be uploaded to the rig as it becomes available.  I especially like the filter controls which are on one knob.  In CW mode it acts in shift and width mode, and in phone it changes to lo cut / high cut, which makes a lot of sense.

Overall, I’m pleased with my decision, and hats off to Kenwood for a nice little rig.  Sorry Yaesu, but let me know when you have an FT-817 replacement out and we’ll talk.  :-)

THWAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

“No.”

FCC Chairman Genchowski Makes Announcement to Stunned Audience

At press time ARRL had not released a written statement due to a backlog in the ARRL email server, still processing emails from a month ago.  However, in a conference call this afternoon it was announced that ARRL was petitioning the FCC to withdraw the R&O until it could present its solution for privatizing amateur radio licensing, a solution employing 65,535 bit encryption technology which would be ready sometime in 2019.

QRZ praised the FCC change and announced that for a limited time free Extra class upgrades will be included with an XML subscription or purchase of Ham Radio Deluxe.  QRZ forums were abuzz, with both support for and opposition against the change.  One super moderator stated that QRZ super moderators will have enforcement privileges, with the ability to revoke licenses for bad behavior both online and on the air, later taunting to users to step out of line and “feel his wrath.”

The FCC announcement is the most notable change in US amateur radio licensing since the controversial and still-debated Incentive Licensing program, and will go into effect upon publication of the Report and Order in the Federal Register.

The problem has been going on too long.  The reason it continues to exist is much like why we have email spam after nearly 20 years of the “mainstream” Internet.  There’s no cost associated it, and the bad behavior is rewarded.  The DX Code of Conduct is a great model for people to follow, but unfortunately it’s only the honest and polite people who follow it.  There must be consequences for bad behavior.

First off, DX stations need to stop rewarding these LIDs with contacts.  They need to call them out and let them know they’re not getting a contact during the DXpedition.  Perhaps we could create a specific Q signal that says “you’re blacklisted” to keep it short and sweet and avoid long on the air explanations.  Or they can work the station and not QSL the contact and let the station know through some means they got a non-QSL for their bad behavior.

Second, DX organizations and organizations like ARRL, CQ,  and perhaps RSGB need to maintain a “three strikes” policy.  If they receive evidence, such as recordings, of bad on the air behavior three times within a given period, the offender has awards stripped and they’re identified on a blacklist that can be accessed by high profile DXpeditions.  The minutia of appeals and reinstatement and the level of public notification can be debated, but I think the basic idea is sound and something that needs to be done.

This all may sound harsh, but in order to change bad behavior there needs to be consequences. All too often in amateur radio we don’t call out bad behavior and it affects the enjoyment of the hobby for the rest of us.  It’s time for the organizations who have the power to enforce consequences, to take action, rather than continue to provide rewards.

I found that Linux re-enumerates USB /dev/ devices if you unplug one.  For example, I had my Arduino Keyer at /dev/ttyUSB0, my TS-850 interface at /dev/ttyUSB1, and my FT-897 interface at /dev/ttyUSB2.  Upon unplugging the Arduino Keyer and TS-850 interface, the FT-897 became /dev/ttyUSB0, and with nary a mention in syslog.  I find this behavior strange.  But I’m really pleased Linux handles USB device insertions and ejections so well.  Back in the day to do stuff like this you’d have to edit some text file, recompile your kernel, and walk uphill in snow both ways.

To run N1MM I installed Virtualbox and within that installed a very bare bones Windows XP installation.  This enables me to run Windows XP as a virtual machine within Linux, without rebooting.  N1MM installed and ran without a hitch in the virtual machine. I was reminded N1MM likes to install in C: root, like it’s 1994 on Windows 3.1.  But I digress.  Attaching host USB devices to virtual machines in Virtualbox is a piece of cake and I had N1MM talking with the 850.  So I’ve got my contesting needs covered.

It occurred to me that it wouldn’t take much to get CQRlog to do basic contest logging.  It already has cw interface keying and function key definitions and macros.  All it really needs is serial number generation with corresponding function key macros, previous QSO report lookup, and perhaps a little more field customization.  This would cover the basics.  One can handle scoring outside the program, but a band map with the DX cluster integrated would be the next feature on the list.  I may just look at the source code and see if I can make sense of it and maybe play around with some customizations.  I sense another project I’m going to get sucked into.

So far I haven’t had to go back to my native Windows installation for anything, other than to steal more disk partition space.  Maybe I cheated a little by installing an instance of Windows XP on Virtualbox, but hey, whatever gets the job done!

(Update: I just found the CQRLog band map window and it is integrated with the DX cluster!)

Linux Mint is a Linux distribution that has become more popular recently. It’s based on the venerable Ubuntu distribution and appears to be taking some market share from Ubuntu. Ubuntu in my opinion went off the tracks with its migration to the Unity desktop.  For the first time recently I hit a brick wall trying to install the latest Ubuntu within a virtual machine.  While Ubuntu was quite polished and arguably had the best usability in the Linux world, I still felt that I was often fighting the operating system to make it work.

Linux Mint seems to have taken care of those issues. Last night I made the plunge and partitioned off some space on my hard disk and installed it so I could dual boot between Windows and Linux. The installation went extremely well and within two hours I was able to browse the web, play videos and hear sound, send email, work on Kicad schematics, compile Arduino code, open Excel and Word docs, do my banking with the same program I used on Windows, and I had amateur radio logging and digital programs installed. The only speed bump was getting my wireless working. I was able to fix that in five minutes after Googling and finding one command line to run. On previous distributions, items like this would take hours to resolve and there would be several of them to deal with. For the first time I feel I have something equivalent to what I had on Windows, and it doesn’t look goofy and didn’t require days of tweaking with arcane command line syntax to make it acceptable. The browser actually renders things like they look on Windows. You install a program and it actually appears in the menu. Quite simply, Linux Mint isn’t a compromise like previous desktop installations.

I’ve often complained about the state of amateur radio open source software. I stand by my previous statements as I think we still don’t have a suite of amateur radio open source software that compares with offerings in Windows, mainly in the areas of logging and contest programs. However, CQRLog has evolved quite a bit and I’ve decided to take a more minimalist approach and see if I can make it work. I still think Ham Radio Deluxe is the gold standard, but lately I’ve become annoyed with its bloat and the commercialization and marketing of it.

I’m still keeping my Windows partition, mainly to run one particular contest program and store my documents (which I access from Linux), but I may eventually run Virtual Box on Linux and have a small Windows installation virtualized to run the contest program rather than booting back into Linux.

Will this be the time I finally run my shack on Linux?  I hope.

There were basically two pirate “worlds”, local broadcast and shortwave.  Shortwave stations would operate just above the 40m amateur band.  In later years the pirate band moved to below 40m.  Other frequencies on other international shortwave bands were used, but the neighborhood around 40m seemed to have the most action.  Local broadcast would be done mainly on FM radio.  I actually can’t recall a report of an AM broadcast pirate, but I assume there were a few out there.  But considering the effort and equipment one had to put into an AM broadcast band operation, those people with the skills and inclination to go to that effort probably did shortwave pirating.

I had dreams of becoming a real DJ and perhaps owning my own commercial FM station one day, but luckily I realized that the broadcast industry had a rather low pay to frustration ratio and steered clear of it professionally.  In college I finally got the gumption to attempt to become a radio pirate.  I didn’t have two nickels to rub together at the time, so any purchase was a big decision.  I sent away for a mail order FM radio kit.  It was mono, not stereo, but it boasted a phase-locked loop (PLL) and a clean 1 watt output.  Paradoxically, being a licensed radio amateur I wanted a very clean and professional pirate FM signal.  I assembled the kit, however, much to my dismay after weeks of trying to get the PLL to lock up, I gave up and tossed the unit in the closet.

Two years later I was working professionally in the RF world, working on TV transmitters around the globe.  I learned a lot in this new world.  Being a field engineer in the middle of nowhere like South America or the Middle East with a minimal assortment of parts and people staring over your shoulder expecting you to fix their only transmitter in the village makes you learn quickly and think on your feet.  This is something they don’t teach in college or outline in an ARRL Handbook.  It was a rough job that no one wanted but I came into the company bright eyed and bushy-tailed and commanded more pay than some of the travel-adverse bench techs with years of experience under their belts.

One day I got bit by the pirate bug again and snuck a spectrum analyzer out of work to my bachelor pad.  I got the bright idea of bypassing the PLL and just driving the voltage controlled oscillator with a multi-turn pot, also borrowed from work.  The unit would drift but after a few hours warmup it didn’t require much adjustment to stay on frequency.  Later I found an old low band VHF TV amplifier rated for 25 watts at work.  It was a design that apparently was a bit unstable, but we had several of them lying around at work, destined for the dumpster.  I took one home and tweaked it up and found I could get 40 watts cleanly out of the unit.  Now I was in business.

I assembled a station, acquiring an audio mixing board and other components.  I built a ground plane antenna and got four 5′ Radio Shack masts to elevate it.  My third floor apartment was in a great location, in the middle of a nine mile long heavily populated valley in northeastern PA.

A college friend would come over Friday night and stay over for a pirate broadcast weekend.  We would do a few two hour shows and identify as WMRX, “the station jamming the nation.”  Though a bit kooky now, it sounded pretty cool back then.  We spun mostly records and a few CDs, and we augmented our programming with supermixes or song medleys recorded from a commercial station in Philadelphia.  We even did a ten minute fake news report with some comedy thrown in.  For a phone line we announced the phone number of the pay telephone across the street.  One of us would stand at the phone while the other announced the number on the air.   We never did have anyone call in.

One show ended early when my co-host got intoxicated and fell over.  Another show had to be cut short when a guest DJ announced my name over the air.  After each broadcast we disassembled everything, including the antenna and mast and hid it, naively assuming this would minimize our chances of getting caught.  Eventually work and life got too busy and complicated and the pirate operation stopped.  Every few years I fired up the transmitter, put a CD on, and just drove around to hear the signal and admire the coverage.  Although it wasn’t stereo and it didn’t fill every nook and cranny in the valley with RF, it was my signal, my station, built with my own hands, and to me it sounded wonderful.

Today FM pirate broadcasting lives on, as regular reports of FCC enforcement would attest with fines in the neighborhood of $10K to $20K.  It’s hard to tell if shortwave pirating is still alive.  It’s certainly not at the level it was in the 80s.  I get the feeling anyone with a desire to get a message out rather than just spin records or taunt the FCC has moved to Internet broadcasting or perhaps uses a blog to get their message out, though it lacks the mystique and excitement that pirate radio once had.

The Hamshop.cz Open Keyer is a cute little keyer kit that is Arduino based and runs my open source keyer software.  It features a menu button, three memory buttons, a speed control, a PS2 keyboard connector, and a USB port.  The unit can be powered either through the USB connector or an internal 3 AAA battery pack.  A 1/8″ (3.5 mm) stereo jack is provided to connect your paddle and two phono connectors are for keying your transmitter key and PTT lines.

The brains inside the box is an Atmel ATMega chip running the Arduino bootloader, along with a USB chip.  Essentially it’s an Arduino and the normal Arduino development IDE can talk to it and program it.  As mentioned before it’s intended to run my open source keyer code, but it can be used with any Arduino code including your own keyer implementation. If you don’t need a PTT line for your transmitter, you can easily modify the source code to use the PTT port and a second transmitter keying port.

Most of the circuit is surface mount technology (SMT).  I hadn’t soldered SMT components for several years.  Last year I got my first set of reading glasses, and I found myself cursing the little parts, which in my more youthful years I’d have no problem working with.  This is no fault of Hamshop, just me whining about my age.  Luckily Hamshop pre-installs the ATMega and USB chips, so the most difficult components are taken care of for you.  The enclosure is a very simple but effective extruded aluminum two-piece clamshell or channel with two end pieces for the front and back.  Vinyl decals are provided for the front and back, and an instruction decal is provided for the top.  (Although my callsign is on the front of the unit, note that I did not design the hardware or kit.)

The unit performs well, though I accidentally left it on battery power for a few days and totally drained the batteries.  This prompted me to add a sleep mode feature to my code which is in beta testing and should solve this problem.  One minor issue with the Open Keyer kit is the front speed knob.  On my unit it does not fit well, with not enough of the potentiometer shaft exposed for the knob to grab on to. Ondra, OK1CDJ, at Hamshop tells me that they’re adjusting the alignment of the potentiometer in the next revision to address this problem.

I won’t review the actual keyer software as the documentation for this is here, and naturally I’m a bit biased about it, but it does about anything a CW aficionado would want to do.  All in all the Hamshop Open Keyer is a nice little kit that can be assembled in an evening or two, and is reasonably priced.

(Full disclosure / disclaimer: I do not have a financial interest in Hamshop, and I can’t provide support for this keyer hardware.  Support for the open source code is available on the Radio Artisan discussion group.)

On the amateur radio front, this past weekend I participated in the Stew Perry Challenge, a 160m all CW contest.  I debated whether to go QRP or 100 watts and decided to go with 100 watts.  Although I can’t brag about the amazing performance that QRP and a rather modest inverted L would have given, I certainly had as much if not more fun than last year’s event.  I netted over 180 contacts in my casual operating effort, even bagging about six west coast stations.  I think the Stew Perry Challenge is a cool little contest, perhaps underrated.  Its uncommon exchange for an HF contest, grid squares, and its unique scoring that takes into account distance and worked station transmitter power makes for an interesting contest.  I wrote in my notes for 2013 that I have make a serious effort and do all 14 hours in the test next year.

I can’t say I have any hardcore amateur radio News Years resolutions, other than “do what I like and like what I do”.  I started following this mantra three years ago and it has served me well. I tend to avoid getting into rituals but one I do want to start after authoring one last year is getting at least one amateur radio article published each year in a mainstream magazine (i.e. QST or CQ). I also tend to avoid competition, but I want to “up my game” in the PA QSO Party and also make more than a casual effort in one of the big contests.

In the Radio Artisan lab there are two main projects in progress. I have a working prototype of the Arduino based balanced antenna tuner. It’s been a technically challenging project, but very interesting. I still need to improve the SWR sensor performance and develop some shortcuts in the tuning algorithm to lessen the tune time. The other project is learning KiCad, an open source EDA program for developing schematics and PC boards. In the next week or two I will publish a post on my experiences. It’s not perfect but it’s definitely a viable replacement for the venerable and popular Eagle program.

Here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2013. Work, eat, sleep, and play radio.