W8EMV - Whiskey Eight Echo Mike Victor

RCA Radiotron tube art

I once had one of these tubes in this box, it got lost - I regret that.

See VinylSavor for a longer story about this box art. Image used with permission.

http://vinylsavor.blogspot.com/2011/08/tube-box-art-part-1-rca.html

Listening to FT8 with OpenWebRX+

My Thanksgiving 2024 radio project has been to set up an FT8 listening operation.

I have OpenWebRX+ running an automated decode of FT8 signals on 40 meters, feeding pskreporter. The hardware is a Youloop antenna, an Airspy HF+ Discovery SDR, and a Pi 400 server.

So far in less than a week I've heard transmissions from 60 countries.

A next challenge is to sort out a receive schedule. 40 meters is great at night but not much use during the day. The OpenWebRX+ scheduler also lets me set a "greyline" (sunrise/sunset) operation. So there's more tweaking to be done, to predict what part of the bands I should be listening to when.

For analysis of the logs, I am leaning on pskreporter's export of data in ADIF format, and then turning to the "ADIF Multitool" command line tool at https://github.com/flwyd/adif-multitool to dump that data back on in CSV files so that I can use csvkit https://github.com/wireservice/csvkit to explore.

One thing missing from all of this is an organized way to turn grid squares into geo data like states or counties. I suspect that some callbook management software has this task tackled already, but I'm not unearthing any command line tools for it.

Two week archives of community radio station shows

I am certain that I am missing dozens of these, but here's a sample of radio stations (primarily community and freeform stations) that are organized primarily around shows and that have an archive of those shows (typically two weeks) online for on-demand listening.

If you can't tune into your favorite show, either because it's out of market or at the wrong time, this is a place to start looking around.

My favorites

• WCBN Ann Arbor: https://floyd.wcbn.org/listen/indexbyn.html
• WWOZ New Orleans: https://www.wwoz.org/about-wwozs-two-week-demand-archive

Others that I have found

• WDIY Lehigh Valley PA: https://www.wdiy.org/two-week-music-show-archive
• WDCB Chicago (Jazz): https://wdcb.org/archive
• WGDR Central Vermont: http://archive.wgdr.org
• WUMB Boston (weekend programming): http://50.241.124.209:8080/cgi-bin/archive/archive1.pl
• KHEN Salida, Colorado: https://archive.khen.org
• KMUN Astoria, Oregon: https://kmun.org/archives/
• KSQD Santa Cruz California: https://ksqd.org/two-week-archive/
• KUPR Placitas New Mexico: https://www.kupr.org/archives.html

Thanks to WCBN's archive of Brian Tomsic's "Train to Skaville" show for the accompanying music for this search.

Ball Smacker Radio Show 247 / 2024-11-08 900p Eastern

eQSL received. Heard on my local OpenWebRX+ receiver at home, and in much better quality at the Pembleton Farms KiwiSDR in Northfield Township Michigan.

Pirate radio just in time for Halloween, 2024-10-19 (2024-10-20 UTC)

Halloween is traditionally a strong time for shortwave radio pirate stations. We're getting some of that a couple weeks early on the 43 meter pirate band.

Tonight's show is Sycko Radio, as identified by HF Underground

https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,135371.0.html

I have them on 6950 kHz USB (upper sideband), and can pick them up OK on my home Youloop antenna and much better on the Pembleton Farms KiwiSDR with its amplified loop Wellbrook/Wellgood antenna.

Two screen captures as proof of work: First, from 0123 UTC a capture from my OpenWebRX+ installation showing a good signal but also relatively high background noise:

Next, from 0128 UTC is from the Pembleton Farm KiwiSDR and shows a skull image that was transmitted over the music. Note the much lower noise level.

At 0138 UTC the music is Michael Jackson's Thriller, or perhaps a remix of it.

Rooting for the team with the best reception

Here's what the league series radio spectrum looks like in 2024:

Mets on WHSQ 880 (ex-WCBS), New York (flagship): very easy to pick up day and night from several KiwiSDR servers in or near New York; my preferred remote is run by W2GNN in Princeton Junction, NJ. With 50000 watts, WHSQ can be heard quite well direct in Ann Arbor on my home OpenWebRX+ / Airspy HF+ / Youloop antenna setup, at least most of the time when the ionosphere cooperates. My Kenwood R-2000 with a long wire antenna doesn't do as well, but when it does have favorable conditions the broadcast is about a second or two ahead of the digital path. Note that Detroit's WFDF ("910 AM Superstation") has a 25000 watt broadcast at night in HD. As WCBS, this was an all-news station. All-news WINS 1010 and WCBS 880 were both owned by Audacy, and WINS has picked up an FM translator and pulled way ahead in the ratings. From the New York Times of August 12, 2024:

In a move akin to the New York Yankees and Mets completing a trade, the parent companies of WFAN and ESPN New York have swung a deal that gives ESPN New York a stronger signal, while ending the nearly six-decade-long run of the all-news format WCBS-AM 880, Audacy and Good Karma Brands announced Monday.

Guardians on WTAM 1100, Cleveland (flagship): I missed the postgame show after the Cleveland victory, though I was picking up the end of the game from the "Pembleton Farms" KiwiSDR in Northfield Township just north of here. This 50000 watt station is easy to pick up on the Airspy HF+ but much harder with the Kenwood's long wire.

Yankees on WFAN 660, New York (flagship): Some adjacent channel interference from the much stronger WSCR 670 Chicago makes this a tougher copy on my R-2000's long wire. If I tweak the overlapping signals a little on the OpenWebRX+ display I get less interference. Again, the W2GNN KiwiSDR is my go-to, but lots of other east coast receivers get a good signal too.

Dodgers on KIKI 990, Hawaii (network): Obviously I'm not going to pull in Hawaii locally, especially not with WDEO 990 with a strong signal. But in Hawaii, the Beverage antenna that NH6XO uses in their KiwiSDR pulls in KIKI ("Fox Sports 990") 5000 watt station with perfect copy.

Bonus: I have a Sony ICF-2010 which had an "Error.3" message, fixed by a fresh set of batteries and some cleaning of the slightly corroded battery contacts. For a full teardown and rebuild instructions for this problem if fresh batteries doesn't help enough see https://skootsone.yolasite.com/sony-icf2010-eng.php .

Hamvention 2024 trip report

A trip report from Hamvention 2024 while it's still fresh in the mind.

The ARROW bus from Ann Arbor was a success thanks to AC8TO who stepped up as cruise director. It was nice not to have to drive. We assembled at 430a in Ann Arbor, and stopped in Toledo on our way to Xenia. The bus was full enough to pay its own way.

This was my first visit to Hamvention but likely not my last. I described it to my family as 1 part technical conference, 4 parts trade show, 5 parts county fair and 10 parts flea market. The flea market covered the entire infield of the track (a horse track? there was a smell of horse). I wouldn't say that the quality of the goods was much different than other ham fests I have been to, but there was a whole lot more of it.

Nothing beats seeing things in person and talking to folks who are knowledgable about the products they represent.

I didn't buy anything, but I did come back clutching literature from Elecraft for their KX2 and KX3. The thought of having an HF radio compact enough to put into a backpack and take on my bicycle to the park is pretty compelling.

Looking forward to going back next year!

Fun things to do with radio that are "not real ham radio"

If you enjoy any of these parts of the hobby in the presence of a purist, you'll get the dismissive reply that these are "not real ham radio".

• Digital voice modes. DMR, D-Star, YSF etc get rejected because they use the Internet to interconnect repeaters.

• Packet radio, because there are computers involved.

• CB radio, MURS, FRS because you don't need a ham license.

• Digital data modes. FT8 is ruining the hobby, real hams use morse code or maybe RTTY.

• APRS, because there's an APRS-IS internet interconnect and you don't need a radio to participate.

• Satellite communications (!) because they involve the use of repeaters. (Repeaters in orbit! But still repeaters.)

• Shortwave listening, because if you're not transmitting it's not really ham radio.

• DX listening through remote receivers like KiwiSDR. (The internet again, and radio only counts if it's your wires and not someone else's.)

As originally posted to https://mastodon.radio/@w8emv/112396500981498241

Thanks to contributors: Chris P., N7KOM, VE2UWY, Imogen, KR1ST, croyle, WD9EWK, VE3QBZ, N6UTC, Ian, AC7KY, W1RCP. Special thanks to K8BYP.

CHIRP, for programming your radio

CHIRP is a versatile tool for programming your amateur radio. It supports dozens of radio models and has a straightforward and largely vendor-independent way to get a new radio up and running.

https://chirpmyradio.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home

A few years back there was a workshop at the All Hands Active maker space in Ann Arbor which was all about taking your new radio, programming in some local frequencies with CHIRP, and then going out into the field (namely downtown Ann Arbor parking structure rooftops) to try it out. I'd love to run a workshop like that again.

https://vielmetti.typepad.com/w8emv/2014/07/operating-notes-using-a-parking-structure-to-great-advantage.html

Operating notes: Quansheng HT + egzumer v0.22 firmware + Nagoya NA-771 antenna on the Seneca County Total Eclipse Net

I went with members of the University of Michigan Amateur Radio Club and the ARROW club to Findlay, Ohio for the total eclipse. The eclipse itself was fantastic - the sudden darkness, the eerie lack of shadows, the bright horizon, and the fabulous corona around the disk of the moon. Well worth it.

While I was there I got a chance to check in to the "Seneca County Total Eclipse Net" which ran on the Seneca County, Ohio (Bascom, Ohio) 145.15- repeater. I know this repeater because when band conditions on two meters are just right, there will be interference between it and the N8DUY 145.15- repeater that shares a frequency but has a different PL tone.

The radio I brought with me was a Quansheng UV-K5, an HT which I got in February 2024 for less than $30. I loaded it with the ezgumer firmware from https://github.com/egzumer/uv-k5-firmware-custom and had very good results operating on frequencies that I didn't have preprogrammed into the radio.

The Quansheng will take Baofeng accessories, so I swapped out the stock antenna with the Nagoya NA-771 that I got a few years back. That helped quite a bit as the stock antenna is not very good.

The ezgumer firmware includes a spectrum montior which pulls in about 2 MHz of bandwidth at a time. As a built-in scanner of sorts it allowed me to find out where the traffic was and to tune into it pretty much right away. For regular channels it has an S meter which is sensitive enough to let you fine tune position.

Front panel programming for the Quansheng is much easier than on any Baofeng I have used. With this firmware loaded the front panel buttons can be long-pressed to do the function that's labeled on the button. There is a big button for a menu to get you to per-channel options that worked as well as I needed it to be.

My best transmit results were to use the rooftop of the car as an extra ground plane, that brought the receive signal up from S2 to S4 and let me check in to Bascom from Findlay (about 20 miles of flat terrain).

All in all a trip well worth it.

Software-defined baseball season, 2024 edition

Previously: 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018

Ball games are shorter now, with the combination of the pitch clock and the free runner in extra innings combining to make games closed to 2 hours than 3 hours. This means that late night baseball from the west coast might be done by midnight instead of 1:00 a.m. as it was.

My current setup for quickly tuning to far-away games relies heavily on work I did in previous years. Key to the effort is the international network of KiwiSDR receivers, which can be typically used to tune the AM broadcast band for up to 4 different simultaneous listeners. Some Kiwis will return 8 signals decoded at once.

The decision process looks like this:

• Who is playing now?
• What is that team's flagship station on AM?
• Which KiwiSDR receiver has good receiption of the flagship?
• If that reception is bad, are there any affiliates in good KiwiSDR locations?

My technology stack so to speak is Tailscale's "golink", https://tailscale.com/blog/golink which gives you named bookmarks. On my personal tailnet I visit the site http://go/tigers which redirects to http://go/wtka which then resolves to a specific KiwiSDR ("Pembleton Farms" north of here) at a speicified frequency (1050 AM). From trial and error and an annual opening day sweep I've pretty much dialed in my favorites.

For a map of KiwiSDR sites see http://rx.linkfanel.net

Alas this year I'm not going to be listening to as many Los Angeles Dodgers games, as my favorite listening posts to Dodgers affiliate KIKI 990 in Hawaii are offline.

"I'm rooting for the team that has the best announcers with good reception." This year I find myself tuning in Cubs games.