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

First QSO on 220 MHz!

The ARROW club https://w8rp.org has a new 220 MHz repeater online in Ann Arbor, linked to the club's 2 meter repeater. After some extensive testing and configuration by Jay WB8TKL, it debuted at the ARROW AMPteam outing on Monday, December 16, 2024. Nine hardy souls checked in from the club's field outing to Hunt Park on the 220 side of the linked repeater system.

At that time I had a 220 MHz radio (my tri-band BTECH UV-5X3) tuned through a VFO to the 224.38 MHz output of the repeater, and I was able to listen to the net just fine. But that radio didn't have the right 220 antenna on it and it's a bit of a fuss to program this Baofeng style radio from the front panel, so at that point I just was listening.

It turns out that a little bit of shopping in the attic found the box where the 220 antenna lives, and a little bit of research got the radio programmed correctly, and another box yielded a CHIRP cable to dial in the frequencies into a saved channel correctly.

Better yet, I made my first crossband QSO on 220 this afternoon! I talked to Kevin KF8CTY, a new ham who was testing out a new 2 meter rig in his truck.

220 gear is not anywhere near as common as 2m or 70cm equipment, but the low-end gear is not expensive. Radioddity sells a UV-5RX3 tri-band transceiver (less than $30 in 2024) with two antennas, one for 2m/70cm and one for 220. The BTECH UV-5X3 is a very similar radio but features USB-C charging (less than $70).

For a base station, some suggestions from club members: Alinco DR-CS25t (220 MHz monoband, 50 watts, about $250); Radioddity QB25 (2m/70cm/220 Mhz, 25 watts, about $120).

Comet makes an antenna, the Comet CX-333, about 10 feet tall (about $185). For your HT, the tri-band Nagoya NA-320A (about $20) should cover your needs.

I suppose the next challenge here is to get some simplex frequencies tested out! (You'll want to schedule those connections.) 223.50 MHz is the national simplex calling frequency on 1.25 meters.

W8RP Ann Arbor is two linked systems, one on 146.96- (2 meters) and one on 224.38- (1.25 meters). The repeater is located at Wolverine Tower near I-94 and State Street and has good coverage throughout Wasthenaw County. I don't honestly know what the propagation footprint is for the 220 side, that will have to yield to further experimentation.

(updated 2024-12-27 with more equipment options).

2025 ARROW PIO

Happy to report that I will be on the ARROW W8RP board for 2025 as Public Information Officer - board elections were tonight. Thanks to Ralph AA8RK who did the job in 2024.

ARROW is a big club (100+ dues-paying members) and there's quite a diverse set of interests represented throughout the hobby, I hope to help out.

https://w8rp.org

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