Autumn = amateur radio time

Out here in Kansas, on the eastern edge of the prarie, the leaves are turning and the first frost is upon us. The time is NOW to get the hamshack in order.

(1) My VHF/UHF antenna and Davis weather station NEEDS to get mounted up on the chimney. I have the mounting brackets – thin aluminium straps that circumnavigate the chiminey. However, the roof at the new QTH is basically three stories high and the roof itself is pretty steep. Too steep for me. The solution? I am trying to get a local roofing company to give me an estimate for the job.

(2) The HF antenna. In the course of sorting through all the hamshack flotsam, I’ve started to identify “stuff” I can part with. Already I’ve said goodbye to some old MFJ TNCs, the Kenwood TS-930S, and my old TinyTrak (thank you Craigslist!). There’s more to part with and I’m still in the process of identfying them (… like an ICOM PCR-1000, TenTec RX-320, and a D-STAR DV Dongle for starters). More importantly (and back on topic), I unearthed two in-the-package wire antennas. The first is an 80M OCF dipole from RadioWavz and the second is a G5RV+ from RadioWorks. Now I need to dust off the CSV19 Pneumatic Antenna Launcher and let the tennis balls fly.

(3) Once I have my antenna situation under control, I can take the hamshack innards to the next level.

Questions to ponder:

Do I retain the hardcopy collection of QST magazines I’ve been carting around since 2005ish? Starting for the late 40’s, it is a solid collection up to 2000. It takes up a great deal of space and I have the same issues on CD. I’d like to find the collection a new (local) home, if possible.

My new job has me on the road – it would be great to take some gear on the road with me. What to take? Needs to have a small footprint. Sounds like a job for the KX1. What to use for an antenna?

Hamshack Hula

I have been steadily working at getting the hamshack into some sense of functionality. Back in June, everything was looking good. I’d moved everything from the old house to the new house and adjusted for the more “constrained” space that my shack now occupies. I was just about there… and then my household goods from Korea arrived. Lacking time to adequately put everything in its place, boxes ended up getting dumped in the hamshack.

The basement gameroom has been my primary focus for the last two months. We got the new couch, the arcade cabinet is working, the pinball machine needs a bit of work, and the cocktail arcade cabinet is doing great. Now that the gameroom is just about where I want it, I’ve turned my attention back to the hamshack.

Before I moved my workbench to the new house, I should have taken a photo of how I had the pegboard setup. Being gone for year and not using the bench, I had no idea of what I had hanging where. Today I was able to get the workbench in order after spending a few hours sorting through the boxes that had come from Korea.

I’ve also started parting with equipment I don’t need or will probably not doing anything with. The Kenwood TS-930S is now sold. Hopefully the Heathkit SB-220 will soon be sold. Also the Radio Shack HTX-242 that was in the XYL’s car until I upgraded her to a TM-D710A is sold. It is time to get rid of the FT-1500Ms as well. Being a proud ownder of the Yaesu VX-8GR, I can now part with my trusty Kenwood TH-D7A(G). I am continuing to rumage through the shack pulling out what I really don’t need. So far, Craigslist has been working well. I’ll use eBay as a last resort.

So with my efforts, I can actually reach my operating desk, turn on the computer, sit down.

…. now I need to get an antenna up, something more permanent than a Buddipole.

Building a vertical dipole configuration with the Buddipole Deluxe Kit – Mark J. Culross KD5RXT


From the Jupiter Tequesta Repeater Group is a great guide for putting up a Buddipole as a vertical dipole

Mark has some very useful tips:
– Use 1-gallon plastic jugs filled with water to keep the tripod stable
– Put a coil balun comprised of 13-turns of coax, approximately 9” in diameter right below the VersaTee
– Use the “down” leg of the vertical for tuning the antenna

Thanks Mark!

The Lansing, KS Hamshack


Progress has been slow in getting my shack setup at the new QTH in Lansing, KS. I had success running three differnt feedlines from the shack, through a narrow path between the basement ceiling and the main floor to an access box on the houses exterior wall exiting to the side yard. I purchased 50′ coax cables for each run, thinking that 50′ feet might have been too long. However, 50′ ended up being right on the nose, offering me just the right amount of slack in the hamshack and easily reaching the access panel on the exterior wall.

I have unpacked the majority of my equipment that came from Korea and from the old house in Leavenworth. The weather station and VHF/UHF antenna is temporarily mounted on our deck. The plan is to mount it on the chimney, but I am going to need some help getting it up there.

I have a Buddipole up in the side yard and connected it up to one of the feedlines. I fired up the K3 and the radio seems to be working well. Next I tried connecting the Microham USB III digital interface, but have run into some trouble in getting it to cooperate with fldigi. This time, once I get everything working, I am going to copy down all the settings as well as the connections to make sure next time I move it, I don’t have such a steep curve to re-figure out what I had already figured out some time ago.

Some minor problems I am encountering (besides the fldigi/Microham USB III): the weather station gets buggy when I am transmitting on VHF and the weather station software freezes up when I transmit on 40M. The later problem is nothing new and I had limited success trouble shooting the problem by adding chokes to the weather station data display power supply and putting the computer that runs the weather station software on an UPS. The VHF transmission problem is new. I have a 2″ PVC pipe that both the VHF antenna and the weather station are mounted on. I have not previously had a problem with any interference from the VHF antenna, but I will try and move the weather station down the PVC pipe a bit and see if that eliminates the interference issue.

Tasks that still await me: cleaning up the workbench, clearing out the excess boxes that are lying around, organize the QSL cards. I need to establish (and stick with) a system for managing QSL cards. I am pretty sure I have enough cards to get my DXCC, but I have to put the cards in order. I also have a stack of cards to send to the outgoing bureau for the YI9MI operation and a handfull for HL2/AD7MI and HL9MI.

Ham radio and my year in Korea

Here is a a re-cap of my amateur radio activities during my past twelve months in Korea:

(1) DX – I enjoyed working a good bit of DX, enjoying most QSOs with stateside contacts as well as Pacific exotics. The greatest limitation I had was my operation location and resulting inability to ideally situate an HF antenna. Living in the barracks (the ultimate in CC&R) restricted any type of permanent antenna installation, further limiting my options. I solely used a Buddipole (which after many additional accessory purchases, became two Buddipoles). Despite the antennas being positioned next to a three story building, I was able to make contacts to North America, South America, Europe, and even Africa. I credit this to improved band conditions over the past months and also the Buddipole… it’s a keeper.


(2) EchoIRLP node – I brought my embedded EchoIRLP node to Korea and interfaced it with a Kenwood VHF/UHF rig. Again, with my poor location and inability, I could not have an antenna installed outdoors. Instead, I kept the Kenwood rig at its minimum wattage setting and used a roll-up J-Pole made from ladder line. With my HT also set on minimum power, I was able to make effective use of the EchoIRLP node. My primary contacts via the node were with the XYL back in Kansas. She has a mobile VHF rig, to include APRS. I could check to see when she was on the road for her morning or afternoon commutes, connect through my EchoIRLP node here in Korea to our EchoIRLP node back in Kansas. With the XYL’s rig set to the frequency of the Kansas node, I could frequently ride along with the XYL and harmonics as they moved about. Additionally, the Echolink capability of the embedded node allowed me to regularly talk to my dad, KD6EUG, while he connected to my node via an app on his cell phone. Another great enjoyment was the ability to monitor the different IRLP reflectors and sometimes participate in ongoing nets. I am sold on the flexability of the embedded EchoIRLP node and will take it with me again when I get deployed for a long duration.


(3) D-STAR – starting with a D-STAR Dongle, I moved to a DV Access Point and got an ICOM D-STAR HT. I enjoyed playing with D-STAR and the ease of having the Access Point as well as the IC-92AD (http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/5092.html) made using D-STAR pretty straight forward. There is no aruging that the audio quality for D-STARS is poor. The complicated nature of setting up a rig at home for the XYL would also make D-STAR a poor choice to replace the EchoIRLP node. However, I enjoyed having the flexibility of having the ability of getting on D-STAR.


(4) Linux – all my radio operations here were supported by using the Ubuntu distrobution of Linux. After toying with CQRlog, I have settled on fldigi as my primary interface to my HF rig.


(5) APRS – although my APRS operations here were limited to the internet (Korea has virtually no APRS traffic), I used xastir (www.xastir.org) to show where my operating location was and also advertised my EchoIRLP node.


(6) WX station – never happen. I could not find a good location to place the collector, so it is still in the box. More importantly, wgoohat I didn’t get the opportunity to learn was how to interface a weather station to the APRS application xastir.


(7) Stars & Stripes article – I was able to discuss my amateur radio experiences with a reporter from Stars & Stripes.

Pac-Man Fever


I grew up in what is now known as Silcon Valley during in 1970s and 1980s. I expierenced first hand the development of computers and more importantly – electronic gaming.

My timeline bridges the transition between pinball and the video arcade machines. Pinball was cool and ubiquitous. However, very quickly games like PONG and TANK began to vie with pinball for floorspace in the local pizza parlors and burger joints.


My uncle’s favorite burger joint near Stanford University called The Oasis. During the mid-1970s, the place was loud with music and had a floor covered in peanut shells. What is also had was a Sea Wolf arcade machine. Sea Wolf had a periscope you looked through and then fired torpedos vertically up towards ships on the water’s surface. The adults enjoyed the beer and us kids loved Sea Wolf.


The pizza parlor on the corner of Fremont and Mary Ave in Sunnyvale had quite a few different names over the years. What it also had was TANK – two combatants manned their controls and battled each other in the midst of a maze of obstacles. The one cartriage that would come with the Atari 2600 (VCS) was COMBAT and included a similar (if not as impressive) game.


The first computer that I (or actually my dad) had was an Apple ][. We started out loading programs with a tape player (Breakout being my favorite). Then there were additions: one and then two 5 1/4″ floppy drives, memory expansion, an Epson dot matrix printer, and an acoustic cup 300 baud modem. For arcade-like gaming I received first paddles and then a joystick. Gaming on the Apple ][ was thrilling, but could not hold pace with the thrill of the development of improved graphics and sound.

To take advantage of these developments and to help me part with my hard earned quarters, dedicated arcades began to spring up. These augmented the arcade games found at the burger joints, minature golf courses, and pizza parlors… as well as the one or two games found at the local convience store or bowling alley. Near my dad’s house was Merlin’s Castle which had one of my favorite games – Lunar Lander. By my mom’s, another arcade (next to the Brunswick bowling alley at Homestead and Hollenbeck Road) had Scramble… a lesser know game, but one I am still obsessed with. During the summer, we’d go to the Great America amusement park where their video arcades had an awesome selection – to include the vector graphics Stars Wars game with incredidble audio. Another favorite location was Farrell’s, kitty corner from the Fremont and Mary pizza place. Farrell’s had two awesome games that are burned into my memory: Joust and Tron.


Let me not forget about Chucky Cheese Pizza Time Theater. Mr. Bushnell (from Atari) established one of the first Chucky Cheese Theaters across the street from the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose (also by the Century Theater where I first saw Star Wars). Chucky Cheese was the location to host a birthday party. The animatronic puppet show was horrible. The pizza just as bad. But the video arcade games where the latest and greatest. With a pocket full of tokens, an elementry school kid could have the time of his life.


I was first exposed to text-based games at IV Phase – a company where my friend’s mom worked at. Interestingly enough, IV Phase was located where Apple’s headquarters is now, where HWY 280 intersects Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road (aka HWY 9)…. I also remember that before IV Phase, the area was an orchard. The text-based game was Adventure. My friend and I each played a different terminal and could “see” and cooperate with each other in the game.

Apple ][ games became more sophisticated and better emulated (or copied) actual games found in the arcade. The big difference was that instead of paying 25 cents for a play, I could more than likely get an Apple ][ game for free; either from a BBS or one of my friends at school. My favorites were Wizardry, Choplifter, and Loderunner.

Entering high school in 1983, my interests turned elsewhere. The Apple ][ was actually used for productive activity like writing papers on what passed for an early version of word processing. When I was a sophomore, one of my friends who hosted a BBS was busted for hacking. The FBI took away all his computer equipment. This event, in addition to scarying the crap out of me, also produced additional incentive to stay away from computers. And I did, other than using MACs in college to write papers.

Now, 20 years later, I am enjoying a few different open source gaming platforms that are allowing me to re-live (and re-play) some great memories.

  • The Wiz

    • The GP2X Wiz is an open-source, Linux-based handheld video game console and media player created by GamePark Holdings of South Korea. Its the second in a series of handheld gaming devices, I picked mine up at thinkgeek.com. The Wiz is capable of emulating many computer systems and gaming consoles. Such emulation allows me to play the original games – just the way they I played them back in the day. Some of the emulated computers include: Amiga, Atari 400/800, Commodore 64. The consoles are well represented by emulating Atari VCS, GameBoy, Genesis, Colecovision, Intellivision, Nintendo NES, and Nintendo SuperNES. However, where the Wiz (and other open-source devices) really shines with MAME (or Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). MAME allows the device to emulate just about any video arcade game that ever was. From Asteroids to Zaxxon, the Wiz, through MAME, uses the original code from these arcade machines to provide an identical expierence to what the game was like back in the pizza parlors and game arcades.

  • The Caanoo

    • The Caanoo is the successor to the Wiz. The specifications are similar with the major differences being the Caanoo’s larger display, USB 2.0 capability, and WiFi capability. Another change (which some find contentious) is instead of D-Pad on the left side, there is a small analog joystick. I really enjoy the joystick as it gives a much higher degree of control for diagonal movement that is hard to reproduce with a D-Pad.

    Both the Wiz and the Caanoo are produced by GamePark Holdings (GPH). Where these devices depart from the handheld devises of Nintedo and Sony is that there are very few dedicated, for-purchase games created specifically for the Wiz or Caanoo. The majority of all the emulator software available is designed and coded through open-source channels. An active user base provides plenty of support in working through any issues of using the devices.

  • The Pandora

    • Quite a departure from the two Korean handheld devices is the Pandora. Esentially a subnotebook (a bit smaller than your standard netbook), the Pandora has an inteseting homebrew history. The system by default comes with a Linux OS based on Ångström. The addition of a keyboard opens additional possibilities for the emulation of early computer platform games (… think Zork on the Apple ][). The biggest drawback to the Pandora is that they are just tough to get a hold of. The manufacturer, OpenPandora, has had a myriad of delays in shipping due to several different problems. Those of us who pre-ordered a Pandora have been hanging in for what is going on to almost two years. Those who have received their Pandoras have been quite pleased. Mine was posted via air mail and I’m hoping to receive it this week. My intent is that the Pandora will serve as my main means of entertainment on my flight back to the US in mid-June.

    Let the games begin!

    1984

    Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!

    WWII: american hams come to the aid of the US Army Signal Corps


    Jeff Davis, KE9V, recently posted a link to a YouTube video which is an RCA public service announcement from WWII encouraging military-aged males who are also radio hams to join the Army (or Navy) and use their radio skills in service of their country. It is a great piece of film and well worth watching.

    The accepted wisdom is that the great patriotic groundswell of support to the US entry into WWII also included large numbers of hams, who rushed to fill the ranks of the US military – answering the call to apply their technical and operating skills to support the military’s wartime radio communications requirements. The reality of what happen is a bit different.

    In 1941, the US had approximately 58,000 licensed hams. As the Army looked forward to swelling its ranks in preparation for the upcoming conflict, the Signal Corps surveyed all the licensed hams and discovered that the majority of hams were ineligible for service. The survey results showed that most hams were too old for service, married, or had a physical condition that prevented them from joining.

    The situation in 1941 differed greatly from WWI were the average age of the radio amateur coincided with draft age. In WWI, the vast majority of hams served in the military (with most enlisting in the Navy). During the inter-war years between WWI and WWII, the age of the radio amateur slowly rose – beyond that of the draftee.

    For those hams that were qualified for wartime service during WWII, entering the Signal Corps and using the radio skills presented another challenge. The military relied on the potential recruit to self-identify their technical skills. And even if the recruit actively attempted to get placed in the Signal Corps, they often ended up in other positions that failed to make the full use of their radio skills. Like any large bureaucracy, the system was flawed and slow to adapt. Of the 58,000 hams, 12,000 found their way into uniform – a little over 20%.

    I have nothing but the highest respect for those who have served their country and I am certain there were hams who tried serve and found they were ineligible. When I originally researched this segment of amateur radio history, I was very surprised to find out only 20% of hams served in WWII. It is interesting how the passage of time warps how we perceive the past. It would be nice to think that the WWII ham community served a critical role in bolstering our wartime communications, but the reality is different. On the positive side, many non-hams who served in WWII dealing with radio communications gravitated towards ham radio after the war and helped swell the ranks of licensed amateurs.

    Does the US Military issue Amateur Radio Licenses?

    Yes, they do! At least over here in South Korea.

    Before arriving to Korea last year, I began researching the licensing procedures. I have known fellow soldiers who have served over here in Korea and were able to get an HL callsign and get on the air. By reviewing an old Army regulation that was specific to Korea, I saw that there was a process where a soldier could submit a memorandum requesting to be issued an HL9 prefixed callsign. The soldier is required to already possess an FCC amateur license. However, a problem emerged. No one knew who to submit the request to. There are a number of American hams over here, most who work in some aspect for the US military. These individuals generally do not qualify for an HL9 callsign and therefore the general knowledge of how to go about applying for these HL9 licenses was lost. The process to apply for a standard South Korean amateur radio license is straight forward and is what I did. I was subsequently issued the callsign HL2/AD7MI, with the “2” in HL2 signifying the geographical area where I am stationed. The callsign got me on the air, but I soon learned the difficulties in using such an unwieldy callsign (“Hotel Lima Two Stroke Alpha Delta Seven Mike India” is a mouthful).

    The good news – an Air Force ham, who is stationed down at the US military headquarters in Seoul, kept plugging away at the HL9 issue and was successful in not only getting issued an HL9 callsign but also was able to define the process for the rest of us. Finally having an organization identified to submit my request to, I was issued my new callsign: HL9MI. I am looking forward to getting on the air and breaking it in.

    As far as I know, Korea is the only place where the US military issues callsigns. Back after WWII, it was a common practice but it was discontinued in Japan and Germany once their amateur radio programs stood back up with their civilian governments. Amateur radio licenses for US military in Germany is issued through the US military (at least that is how it worked in 2002), but that program is run by the German government. Even in Iraq, licenses were initially issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority before the responsibility was transferred to the Iraqi civilian government. The Afghan government is responsible for the issuing of callsigns for NATO military serving in Afghanistan. It is interesting that here in Korea, 60 years after the civilian government of South Korea stood up, there is still an active provision for the US military to issue amateur radio callsigns.

    The Fourth Tower of Inverness

    The Fourth Tower of Inverness is a radio series that made its debut back in the fall of 1972. The series follows the adventures of Jack Flanders as he unravels the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of his uncle, the great explorer, Lord Henry Jowls and the strange incidents that keep occurring around the Inverness estate.

    I first heard the radio drama back around 1981 when I was in the 7th grade. One way or another I stumbled across public radio and quickly discovered that on Sunday nights, they aired radio dramas. The ones that most stand out in my memory are the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Lord Peter Wimsey, a BBC production of The Lord of the Rings, and the Fourth Tower of Inverness. There were two radio stations that featured radio dramas that I could pick up on my FM stereo: KQED from San Francisco and KCSM in San Mateo. The broadcasts would start around 7pm and go until 11pm (well past my bedtime, but I would listen with my headphones to avoid getting caught).

    The radio shows really pushed my imagination – something I wasn’t used to. Although I have always been an avid reader, the TV was an always present source of entertainment as I grew up. When I listened to these radio shows it opened up an entirely new dimension.

    I recently rediscovered ZBS Foundation, who produces a number of modern radio dramas, to include the Forth Tower of Inverness. It has been a pleasure to dive back in. The Forth Tower of Inverness stands the test of time – ZBS’s other offering are also worthy. Check ’em out.