Welcome to October, everyone! So nice to have autumn weather return to the Pacific Northwest... rained pigs and chickens yesterday but it's a beautiful sunny morning today. Once again, thanks for all the great feedback on the September issue (and prior issues) of The Logger's Bark, the newsletter & magazine of W7DK, The Radio Club of Tacoma! You can read about the club at www.W7DK.org and if you're ever in Tacoma, WA on a Saturday, the club holds open house almost every Saturday from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM and all are welcome. Full details at the link. This month it's a good solid issue at 124 pages! And NO ADS! In this month's October 2025 issue of The Logger's Bark magazine: 68 years ago this month Sputnik 1 was launched: read how it worked, and see the schematic! A brief history of the "Traditional HF Bands" and how hams got access to them AMAZING "Spark Museum" in Bellingham Washington - tons of pictures and details of early radio Frugal Ham: STOP buying commercial wire antennas! GutterTenna: Can rain gutters be used for an antenna? See results of my full experiment into this All about the QRZ RTQM - Real Time QSO Manager written by QRZ Enginere Steve @KF8KI Sherlock Returns: Act 3 of "Radio Failures in Three Acts" W7DK Radio Club of Tacoma SALMON RUN Contest results! Did YOU play in the the WAQP? The FutureGEO geostationary ham satellite project explained by club President Adam W2NCC Meet our new club member from JAPAN!! Yass JA8AWH What's Old is New Again: Mode Hate - in my October Editor's column "Ask Elmer": Why don't 2m/70cm radios "figure the repeater out for you?" Second Annual Bigfoot Event: Sasquatch Awareness Day - special even from October 15-21 W7OS Museum Station Success: The KPH Enigma Machine Cipher Contest 2025 Electrolytic Capacitors explained: Motor Start, Motor Run, and DC Filter capacitors! All about the Collins 180S-1 Antenna Coupler - the Duck Billed Platypus of ham radio GANGPLANKS! Learn how I solved the "how do I walk behind my radios?" question So how much does it ACTUALLY COST to run a modern radio? Full analysis in this issue Ham Tech 101: The Basics of Coaxial Cable And a whole bunch more - photos, tips, tricks, blurbs, puzzles, all about amateur radio and NEVER any ads! Download the October 2025 issue of The Logger's Bark with the links below: 1. FULL SIZE uncompressed - BEST quality: https://static.qrz.com/w7dk/October2025-QRZ.pdf 2. COMPRESSED for slower connections: https://static.qrz.com/w7dk/October2025-QRZ-compressed.pdf IMPORTANT: Be sure to actually download it to read - if you merely use Preview mode, the external links won't work! Also, to open a link, "Right Click" > "Open in New Tab". The software I use unfortunately doesn't support "targeted links"... unless you right click, you will leave the document. Dave W7UUU Editor/Publisher [image below is static - the links won't work - download with the link above]
I have heard it raining "cats and dogs" but never "pigs and chickens!" Hard to believe it is October already! Another Logger's Bark to read! If the cover is a prelude to what is inside I say we will be reading another great issue! Ronnie NZ4X
Thank you Dave, especially enjoyed the Sputnik info regarding the frequencies being used. I had always assumed it was VHF and was surprised to learn different. BTW, I was 5 years of age when it orbited and observed the distinctive glint reflection of its spherical body first hand in the early evening hours of October 1957. The adults of the family were discussing the implications of this event, I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying but I knew they were uneasy about it. Being a little boy...I was fascinated and it bolstered my curiosity with no fear...I didn't know I was a radio nerd in the making.
Thanks Dave for assembling this magazine every month. Obviously a LOT of work goes into it by yourself. It's photo rich which is wonderful............... "A picture tells a thousand words". I see the December issue will be your last as editor. I can't imagine anyone picking up the reins and continuing to do the fantastic job you have done. Big shoes to fill to say the least. Call me very pessimistic regarding the magazines future but I'm glad to have been able to enjoy the magazine while you were at the helm.
I also saw Sputnik and was ten years old. Upper Wenas near Yakima Wa on a good clear night. Help from the newspaper was the guide. Of my family I spotted it first. Several years before getting a Novice ticket Bob K7MXE
That's back when NOTHING in the night sky moved unless it was a bird, a plane, or superman! Dave W7UUU
Bonjour à tous Bienvenue à Monsieur Yasuyo JA8AWH / NX2A 73's de France Hello everyone Welcome to Mr. Yasuyo JA8AWH / NX2A 73's from France
Thanks for the great read! You all put a ton of work into this publication and it shows—keep it up! That said, I take issue with the article ‘What’s Old is New Again: Mode Hate.’ What’s also old and new again is this: whenever someone raises a concern—sometimes serious—about what others are doing in the hobby, it gets dismissed as ‘hate’ or ‘fear,’ and the person gets branded a ‘hater.’ The examples ubiquitously given of AM vs SSB or CW vs Phone is a textbook false analogy. However, more importantly, the real opinions, concerns and counterpoints brought up by well-meaning, experienced amateurs rarely get addressed in good faith. Here’s a truth worth remembering: just because you enjoy something, and just because you make claims about its supposed value, doesn’t mean (a) it’s good for you, or the hobby, or (b) that your claim is true. I raise these points not to tear down, but to remind us that honest debate makes the hobby stronger. At the end of the day, we all care about the hobby’s future—I’m just offering my perspective. 73!
I really liked, and absolutely agree with, the op-ed by W7UUU. I got my Tech (instead of a Novice) in 1969, used 2m/70cm FM and CW occasionally, but when I got my CW up to 15WPM and passed the 13WPM General CW test, I never used CW again. I wanted to get on SSB on HF. I have used RTTY PSKxx, Olivia, and a variety of other digital modes, but FT-8/4 have been my favorites, as I don't have a lot of time to "play radio" (as my XYL calls it!), so I was able to rack up 124 countries in a relatively short period of time. The combination of a less-than-optimum antenna, coupled with horrible QRM from every stinkin' digital device in my house and the neighbors houses nearby have made the FT modes a great way to do ham radio. Keep preachin' it, brother!
This magazine is outstanding. Absolutely superb. QST ain't got nothing on The Logger's Bark, and that's a fact.
Another great issue from the desk of W7UUU. Not sure for how long these will continue, but simply the best club magazine I’ve ever seen.
The Editor committment term is 2 years so December 2025 will be my final issue. The Bark will continue on but it will be up to the next editor to decide what that will look like. I've very much enjoyed writing and editing The Bark for these nearly-two years. But it will be nice to get all that time back for other things - it's pretty much a full-time job at 40-50 hours a week, 7 days a week even when on vacations and traveling. Dave W7UUU
The same problem which Mike W7XH showed in his article, is the same in Germany. The next generation isnt intrested in the radio thing. Radio is old school and can be easily found as a substitute like a stream in the Internet. Maybe folks got lazy to be "radioactive", because streams are easy. But what will happen when its away? There is a DAB+ stream in the air around me and the younger dont know what this really is. So this kind of freedom is underestimated. And when Dave - W7UUU thinks that people dont know about FT8, here he can be wrong. Personally I dont like it, but I followed several hours what happend on the screen. Here I was just a SWL. And it was boring to me. I enjoyed more things which happen naturally. For many years in the 1990s I followed a Troposcatter cloud on 11M. The stations began in Faro, Portugal went to North Africa and ended up at the Canary Islands. That was my first not confirmed contact with Casablanca. Those situations are more thrilling to me than FT8. I enjoyed the latest edition of the Logger's Bark again. And I think I will be surprised next time, when you put my text about the C64 story in the right position (dont want to write more, cliffhanger for others). Can be colorful and useful.
