Short Takes! Comments on Short Takes from "Trials and Errors"

We had an Elmer (who is now SK) come and talk to the local club, about DXing. He told a story that I don't think I'll ever forget. He said that he once had a QSO with a guy in Indiana, from his QTH in Utah. After the QSO, he just happened to check his equipment, and found out that he had his feedline connected to a dummy load! He then followed up that story by saying to just get SOMETHING in the air. 'Anything will work. Anything will work.'

 

Hey Ralph! Love that story, and I have one of my own as well. I told it in some earlier incarnation of Trials and Errors. I was fussing with my CW brush up skills after getting back on the air. Practice, practice, practice . . . but, as I did not have an oscillator, I just listened to it on TX mode on my IC-7300, but turned the power output completely off. The linear showed no output from the transceiver was "exciting" it, so it seemed 100% safe. After sending all kinds of alphabet runs and nonsense sentences and so on, I practiced sending my call sign and a CQ as fast as I could. I was about to shut it down when someone on the air came back and "answered" my CQ? !! I was so embarrassed, as I really had been just screwing around. Turns out that transceivers always have SOMETHING hitting their finals, even if it ends up in just milliwatts output. I replied to the guy and had a nice QSO. Dave

 

So I usually ID even when using a dummy load.

 

LIDs of the year will go nameless, they know who they are. I know many of their call signs, but I'll use nicknames instead (trying to take the high road):

There's the guy I call the "whistling idiot" who keys up during NET meetings, contests, and POTA activations and whistles as loud as he can. I can always tell its the same guy due to the pitch of his whistle. He isn't fooling anyone.

There's the "award winning author" who badmouths other HAM operators who don't have a college degree and military service. This guy loves to review books on air and uses the HAM bands as his own call-in talk show.

There's the "17 meter band police" who likes to relentlessly jam POTA operators and even chase them around the band until they are forced to QSY elsewhere.

There's the "uninvited commentator" who jumps into QSO's, makes brief derogatory comments, and never bothers to ID.

Then there are the many "hungry hungry hippos" who relentlessly cause pile ups on 40 SSB during POTA activations. These guys are so hungry to hunt a new park that they don't care who they walk on and end up walking on the activator in the process.

 

Love that certificate.
We need to take a long look at the history and start cracking down on the abusers.

there are some who are pirate, some who purposely disrupt, and many who will use the callsigns from an sk just for the purpose of contentious troll behaviour.
I would not be surprised that a few even get licensed just so they can jam airways.
My grandmother told me.
No matter what the intelligence level They have they can still have a mouse brain ( small and narrow minded)

We can trace licensed operators because our info can be looked up
But unless the list it in their bio., how do we know if they are authorities or agents?

 

I have not seen anything in amateur radio antenna practice which is contrary to known physics. OUR problem, as hams, is that fewer of us, over time, seem knowledgeable about how antennas work, despite the unprecdented accessibility of information, in the internet, books, computer programs, and online 'gurus' . Furthermore, those, like myself, who try to be helpful, get attacked more than thanked, which is a huge turn off. IOW we seem to accept ignorance, even when we have friendly guides to remove it.

That's a problem.

The hate speech is not just a bunch of bozos who chew their own rag; Much of it, now, is directed at individuals, so unless you were hearing the abused calling CQ, or in QSO, --you--would not hear it. I do, especially in SSB. IOW it is TARGETED and not inveighed against a PERSON, but the individual's background.

That's another problem.

IOW we fully agree, but I thought these points may add to your excellent post.

73
Chip W1YW

 

I agree seeing something work that shouldnt!
My first experience with that was in the navy.
Went to visit a friends family ( old cajun fellow)
He had a cb and his antenna was a couple of old lawn chairs hung up in a tree sort of like a dipole.
And the darn thing worked very well.

 

He may not have realized it, but as Chip says above, there's physics behind making those lawn chairs work like that. It's fun to try and figure it out beforehand and play around with the concept to boost the performance. Antennas are huge fun, in my opinion. Before I had my current ticket, I felt that it was the radio that was so cool and interesting. But to me, at this stage, the ICOM that sits on my shelf is just a tool. It produces power. The trick of the game is to then use your brain and figure out a way to get that power out of your shack, into the air, and across to the other side of the world. To me, the transceiver is like a hammer. Dave, W7DGJ

 

Lawn chairs act as radiating, volumetric loads. But, in my opinion, such displays are best left to CB...

;-)

 

Hey Chip. I'm not so certain that we accept ignorance, as we are a regulated service with a certain level of expertise required to practice. Could we, or should we, tighten up the level of knowledge in order to play radio? That's a whole 'nother conversation. (Might be bad timing to do that, with so many operators poised to go away over the next 10-15 years.) But I sure agree with you that when assisted, so many people come back with a feisty response (that's ignorant in itself) and don't accept the advice, but throw it back in the face of the contributor. Some experts speak from "on high" and it's hard to accept that knowledge and thank them. Others, like yourself Chip, just point out the issues as almost a university professor would, and I think we are blessed as a hobby to have such individuals out there with resources to tap. Keep contributing please. Dave, W7DGJ

 

My opinion is not popular...so assume that disclaimer.

Ham radio is a service which awards transmitting privileges across broad swaths of spectrum, in order to provide a skilled pool of operators, and those who extend the radio art: reasons included in the mission points of US Part 97. We use 'hobby' style activities o implement this. That's coool. No one should be dissed for using 'hobby' style motivations.

But we are not a hobby. No hobby has a mission statement as above.

CB has long since been a 'hobby'--essentially because the USG has abandoned enforcement for almost 60 years, and in fact one that is now growing, again, like a phoenix from the ashes. One result of that is many new hams start with CB and become hams. Which is GREAT! But the problem is acculturization: ham is not CB. It is elevated both in privileges and in expected knowledge base and its implementation. The difference --here is an extreme analogy--is akin to playing video games versus writing code to MAKE video games. IOW every Part 97 licensee has SOME responsibility to move forward with a knowledge base to be a skilled operator, or advance the art. Or both. Or other, such as 'radio ambassador'.. Many opt for skilled op--again, a terrific choice.

But the technical end seems to have become, well, in bad taste-- viewed as arrogant, elitist, and even old fashioned! You have no idea how that makes many of us feel who started out as young squirts (and yes, I started out as a CBer with knight kit walkie talkies) and saw ham radio as a PATH to advancement . Not just as a 'skilled operator', but true advancement of one's self. No barriers by age, gender, degrees, religion, racial background and so on. Talk about equality! It was a party line where everyone was welcome and all were encouraged to get 'nerdy'. And yes, it was, and is, F-U-N !

What this is all leading to is there are HUGE opportunities within ham radio both in networking, friendship, knowledge base, and much more that many (mostly newer) hams are just passing off as
'boomer' anachronisms, kind of like 'dry toast' versus 'avacado toast'. And they MISS OUT.

I don't know how to fix that, but I do believe the ARRL doesn't have a magic formula to help, and maybe others do. You certainly can't ignore the fact that there are more hams now than ever before in the US....

I will stop here as others are bound to express their own ( worthwhile) opinions (and even disagree!)

73
Chip W1YW

 

I have a formula that I use to determine the frequency of pieces of a lawn chair - which I use the bent portions to build a very good Moxon antenna for 6 meters.
Yes, the longer Lounge Chair is probably long enough to be used on 10 / 11 meters - 8 feet x 2 = 16.5 + feet - perfect for a half wave dipole antenna. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... That is why the Solorcon A99 is good not only on 10 but 15 and 17 meters - with a good antenna tuner - because it is not resonant on 10 meters.

 

Chip, I agree with each point you make in your post above, but with one point I am not as firm as you are. I try, as a writer, to avoid the word "hobby" because it does bring on responses like yours -- some a bit unkind. I generally refer to our work as the Amateur Radio Services. In my comment above, I slipped and used the word "hobby." But, is that all that wrong? Hey, reading is one of my hobbies. Through reading, I become more proficient at amateur radio. Or gardening. Or fixing my home, plumbing, electrical and more. I love to read. It leads to "true advancement of one's self." But, it's not necessary to my daily survival. It doesn't feed me. It doesn't pay the bills or take care of my family -- only my "day job" does that. I would never call my day job a hobby. But anything that relaxes me, improves my knowledge as this one does, and brings me joy has to be listed as something other than work. My efforts in this work we do also improve the radio art, or at least I hope the sum total of my radio life does that in some way. But these "other things" in our life, like this one, have to be called something. For most of us, we call those things in our life "hobbies." I think that still resonates with US Part 97.

I totally agree that more and more often our individual areas of expertise, developed through our work with the radio art, are "seen as boomer anachronisms." That's a shame. It's something that clubs on the local level could fix, but out of ten radio clubs perhaps only 2-3 succeed in bringing everyone together in this way. The ARRL is stumbling on some areas and succeeding on others. Dave, W7DGJ

 

Maybe..'hobby with a mission' ?

 

Good Column title...

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