Blackstone Valley Amateur Radio Club - not just another club!

Just when I thought that I would never bother to join another radio club (primarily due to inactivity or non-interest exhibited by members), I've "discovered" a radio club practically in my backyard that stands the stale stereotype on its ears.

The Blackstone Valley Amateur Radio Club (BVARC) was established in 1953, and by all accounts has been going strong ever since.  Headquarted in the Woonsocket, Rhode Island area (about a 25 minute ride from my Massachusetts QTH) the club is a bevy of activity with enthusiastic members both young and old.  A lot of clubs talk about helping members achieve their potential in ham radio - BVARC lives it!  A "Consortium" of free ongoing amateur radio teaching seminars has been ongoing for the past 18 months and shows no sign of slowing down.

I attended my initial meeting of the club the other night, and am looking forward to my next monthly meeting when I qualify for full membership with my attendance.  The club boasts a very well designed website (http://w1ddd.org) and also operates a weekly simplex net (without going through a repeater) on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 pm local on 146.565 MHz.  (And yes - just about everyone was booming in on the net).

Great job guys.  I'm glad I found you!

Crisis in Egypt - and Ham Radio

From a wiki site (http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Egypt/Ham_radio) covering Egypt and ham radio comes some interesting information on how the so-called "old technology" of ham radio - specifically CW, or morse code, is being used to get "the word out" from Egypt.  Following are some verbatim quotes from the wiki site as well as intercepted messages from Egypt:

In line with Telecomix's mission of supporting communications whenever needed, we are currently attempting to provide ham to ham contacts for emergency assistance.  Ham radio activists are receiving signals in morse code from Egypt. When countries block web, we evolve. 

Receive: 40m band 7050-7100, 20m 1400-14050

We always listen on hamradio 7080.8 kHz CW transmit frequency. We may call CQ SU, best time 18h-20h UTC. Please spread. 

  

Received messages

• [2011-01-28 10:50]

"internet [not] working, police cars [burning]"

• [00:30 UTC 7078.70 - 7079.88 kHz]

"test time" 7079.88 kHz 

"net time, [...] dark skies, bloody [moon]" 7079.55 kHz
"didn't catch that, [repeat]" 7079.55 kHz
CW
"su32 will be [well] known" 7079.55 kHz
"all but one" 7080.23 kHz
"dial not working," 7080.23 kHz
"airports [being shut] down" 7080.23 kHz
"2 miles -- no, [1 miles] away" 7080.23 kHz
"have you been [able] to get a hold [of a] american?" 7080.23 kHz
"have you contacted [anyone] yet?" 7080.23 kHz
"americans, the americans" 7080.23 kHz
"everything is happening, everything we thought" 7080.23 kHz
"I got a contect [from] germany" 7080.66 kHz
"alert to germans" 7080.66 kHz (very faint)
"tomrrow [should] be interesting..." 7080.66 kHz
~00:30 UTC 7078.70 - 7079.88 kHz

• [2011-01-29 15:09 UTC]

UNVERIFIED

hellow is anyone there?
americans, the americans
7072.0 khz
7072.00 khz?
104
104." 

Interesting stuff!  This reminds of of the time - in 1979 I think - when I was in QSO with a Nicaraguan ham during their

revolutionary activity, and could hear gunfire in the background of the other ham's transmission.  Let's hope the current revolution

ends with a minimum of bloodshed. 

QSL cards

Part of the fun of amateur radio collecting cards, called QSL cards, from other amateurs that you've talked to on the radio. Some people like to collect stamps form various parts of the world but hams collect QSLs. If you are also a stamp collector you will find that often a card comes from a distant country with an interesting stamp on the envelope.

Another reason for collecting QSL cards is to participate in the many certificate programs available to amateurs. Whether it's getting your DXCC (DX Century Club) for getting cards confirming contacts with 100 or more DX countries, working all states in the U.S., all provinces in Canada, or the many other awards available, you need the cards to support your claim for the award.

Exchanging paper QSLs has in some respects been expanded by various computerized methods, but many of us older hams still prefer the tried and true method of exchanging paper QSLs, which can turn into a hobby by itself.  Which reminds me: I received some interesting cards from the W1 call area QSL bureau (an economical way of mailing multiple cards) a while back and I have yet to respond to them.  Shame on me!  Somewhere, I'm sure, some ham in Lower Slobbovia is desperately waiting for a rare DX card from Milford, Massachusetts.  OK, maybe I'm exaggerating just a little...

About my own QSL card design: no, I don't drive an Airbus - but my son does, and I'm pretty proud of him!

Good night Chesty, wherever you are

Some men become legends after their deaths and others become legends while they are alive.  Lewis Burwell Puller, forever known as “Chesty”, was in the latter category.  Enlisting in the Marine Corps in 1918 he would serve until 1955, rising in rank from private to lieutenant general.  Throughout his career he led from the front, never asking his men to go where he would not go.  For his courage he was five times awarded the navy cross,  a silver star,  a distinguished service cross, and a bronze star with a v for valor, along with numerous other decorations.  In World War II and Korea he became a symbol of the courage that Marines amply displayed in  both conflicts.

His fourth navy cross citation details why the Marines under his command would have followed him in an attack on Hades if he had decided to lead them there: 

“For extraordinary heroism as Executive Officer of the Seventh Marines, First Marine Division, serving with the Sixth United States Army, in combat against enemy Japanese forces at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, from 26 December 1943 to 19 January 1944. Assigned temporary command of the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, from 4 to 9 January, Lieutenant Colonel Puller quickly reorganized and advanced his unit, effecting the seizure of the objective without delay. Assuming additional duty in command of the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, from 7 to 8 January, after the commanding officer and executive officer had been wounded, Lieutenant Colonel Puller unhesitatingly exposed himself to rifle, machine-gun and mortar fire from strongly entrenched Japanese positions to move from company to company in his front lines, reorganizing and maintaining a critical position along a fire-swept ridge. His forceful leadership and gallant fighting spirit under the most hazardous conditions were contributing factors in the defeat of the enemy during this campaign and in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

Stories began to cluster about him.  When he was first shown a flame thrower he supposedly asked, “Where do you mount the bayonet?”    Advised that his unit was surrounded he replied:  “All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us…they can’t get away this time.”  On an inspection tour of a Marine unit he became exasperated at the lack of spirit he saw and finally said,”Take me to the Brig. I want to see the real Marines!”  During the Chosin campaign in Korea when the Marines were fighting their way to the coast through several Communist Chinese corps he captured the tactical situation succinctly:  “Retreat! Hell, we’re just attacking in a different direction.”  Little surprise that Marine Drill Instructors at Parris Island will have their boots sing good night to Chesty Puller some four decades after his death.

Puller was an Episcopalian.  However he made no secret that he greatly admired Navy Catholic chaplains who served with the Marines, and had little use, with certain honorable exceptions, for the Navy Protestant chaplains sent to the Corps.  His reasons were simple.  The Catholic chaplains were without fear, always wanted to be with the troops in combat, and the men idolized them for their courage and their willingness, even eagerness, to stand with them during their hour of trial.

On New Guinea one Protestant chaplain complained to Puller that the Catholic chaplains were making converts among the Protestants.  Puller told the chaplain that he should work harder and not come whining to him.  Later, Puller encountered the Protestant chaplain again and Puller read him the riot act.  Instead of being with his men while they were fighting the chaplain had remained behind at the battalion aid station.  “They’ve got a chaplain of their own. Your place was with the fighting men — your own battalion. You remember our little talk about Protestant boys joining the Catholics? Well, conduct like yours is one reason for it. They see those priests doing their duty and see you evading it. I can’t work up much sympathy for you.”

Puller told his officers on another occasion that he had known only a few Protestant chaplains that were worth their ration cards.

He would receive letters from Protestant mothers concerned that their Marine sons had joined the Catholic Church.  He would write back that if the Protestant chaplains had the guts to go where the Catholic chaplains did, where the bullets were flying, maybe their sons wouldn’t be converting.

After he had retired, Puller complained to his Episcopal bishop:  “I can’t understand why our Church sends such poorly prepared men as chaplains when fighting breaks out — they look to me like men who can’t get churches, for the most part. The Catholics pick the very best, young, virile, active and patriotic. The troops look up to them.”

Small wonder that Puller sent his own kids to Catholic parochial school.  Good night Chesty, wherever you are.

W1WH's New Years Resolutions

Some of my New Year's resolutions for 2011: getting skinny and speedy...


1. I'm going to get serious about losing some weight.  Going to start up with WeightWatchers (again) and am reading - and plan to put into practice - The Abs Diet  by David Zinczenko.  (Not sure if I was ever actually issued abs, but Zincenko assures me I was.) 


2. Finally, finally, after over 30 years of hamming, I'm going to get serious about building my morse code receiving speed.  Going to get down to basics using the Koch method in concert with the G4FON Morse Trainer.  (For those interested, there are two primary schools of thought regarding the learning of Morse code.  The Farnsworth method involves sending individual characters at a fairly high rate of speed, while using slower intervals between characters.  The Koch method takes a different approach - it starts off with just two characters at predetermined speeds and gradually introduces an additional character after the user successfully copies 90% of the preceding set.  Which one works best?  That's an open debate and seems to depend upon the individual.  I learned Morse code over 30 years ago, but am trying the Koch method (at least initially) to increase my speed...may switch to Farnsworh as I progress.  By the way, if you're just beginning to learn the code, be sure to never, never, associate characters with visual dots and dashes - you must associate characters with their sounds, "dits" and "dahs".)

MacGyver and ham radio: 2011

Ham radio has changed since the early days. In those days, the pioneers of wireless were inventing something that didn’t exist in any previous form. They were at a technological disadvantage compared to hams today, but they had a freedom that doesn’t exist today. They could innovate without someone saying, “that’s not real radio” because no one had any preconceived notions about what real radio was.

Imagine for a moment that instead of devising an HF radio relay network, Maxim had invented a personal computer and a software program called the CW Skimmer. No one would have said, “hey that’s not fair, that’s cheating, that makes radio contacts too easy, you can’t use that”. If he had invented the Internet and the personal computer and had found some clever way to merge ham radio with the Internet no one would have protested that making contacts with stations on the other side of the globe was “too easy”.

That would have been true because instant, global communication wasn’t available. Anything was better than nothing and few would have complained about easier communication methods and after all, that was precisely what these trailblazers were trying to achieve.

Now fast-forward to modern times. Personal communications are ubiquitous.  For our generation, radio has truly become just a hobby. And since global communication is now cheap, easy, and reliable, we have to make a game of it for it to be interesting. We create our own challenges and try to overcome them. DXCC is the quest to confirm 100 entities via radio. These contacts can be absolutely banal with only the barest minimum of data exchanged to make it a legal contact — and we predetermined what legal means in this context.

A recently licensed ham captured the essence of the thing in four short sentences. He wrote that “the ham radio operator is like MacGyver. Bad guys put him in a tough situation, then he uses clever methods to get himself out of those tough spots. Except in ham radio, it is the radio operator who puts himself in these tough spots and then devises clever means to get himself out.”

Think about it – somewhere right now there is a guy carrying a three watt, battery-powered, CW transceiver to the park where he will launch a 33 foot hunk of wire over a tree limb and proceed to make six or eight contacts. He will shortly pack all that gear up and go home where he will update his blog with what a wonderful afternoon he just enjoyed. He put himself in a tough spot, what with the low power, the menial antenna and the contacts that were nothing more than “TKS 579 BCNU 73”. Yet his ability to prove to himself that he could do such a thing brings him joy.

And you know what? If that ever becomes too mundane for him, he will lower the power, use a smaller antenna, try a different band, work from a more remote and radio unfriendly location, bounce his RF off the surface of the moon – whatever it takes to put himself back in that tough spot just so he can claw his way out. After all, he is MacGyver and he is the master of the tough spots.

If you're a ham, it’s highly likely that you already understand this concept. The methods of personal communication that are available to everyone are wonderful and I won’t go anywhere without my BlackBerry. But there’s nothing “MacGyver” about it at all.

For that, you need ham radio.

(Excerpted from Smoke Curls by Jeff Davis, KE9V).