What Use Is An F-call?

What use is an F-call? For most of us Amateur Radio is a hobby. It might not be your only one, but if your time allocation is anything like mine, this one seems to grow in its scope and reach every day. During the week I was talking to a friend who had no idea about Amateur Radio, no notion, other than: "Isn't that the Ham Radio thing that did Morse and has been superseded by the Internet?" she asked. That was a pretty loaded question, but I pointed at recent natural disasters where radio amateurs acted as the local back-bone, the glue that makes it possible for information to travel great distance when all other services are gone, no roads, no phones, no nothing. Of course as an Amateur you already know this, but it seems that the general public has no idea what so ever. I pointed out that even the most basic license helped me understand antennas, know when a TV antenna is pointing in the wrong direction and why, know how to make an indoor Wi-Fi connection work better, and best of all, it keep

What use is an F-call? Last week I shared my personal close encounter with a drill. If you missed it, the experience contained a particular act of stupidity on my part. So much so that I still cannot reconstruct in my mind which part of it I ever thought was a good idea. Walking around and sharing my silliness seemed to encourage others to share their own acts of foolhardiness, from holding an avocado in the left hand and prying the pit from the centre with a sharp knife, through using a chisel that managed to damage a large part of someone's thumb, with nails no longer growing properly, through to using a drill in the webbing of a hand, chopping off parts of people's anatomy, getting rings caught, you name it, I've heard so many first hand stories that frankly boggle the mind. Apart from resisting the urge to write down each of these stories, I found myself looking for a common denominator, mostly it turns out to be impatience. With that newly learnt lesson, I picked up my drill with a different eye this

What use is an F-call? Real Hams have an RF burn scar. That's a signature from one of my Amateur friends. To that I can now add from personal experience, "or a drill hole." It all began innocently enough. I'm still looking for that elusive indoor antenna, something that will at least get me on air while I'm at home, something that doesn't spark the ire of my non-amateur neighbours, something that doesn't cost the earth and preferably something that will be portable enough to move around, pack up and bring to a field day when that opportunity arises. So, in my grand plan I came on the notion of using a $5 hula hoop to make a hula hoop loop. Suffice to say that I'm not the first amateur to try this, but I'm determined to have a go. I'm going to wind a hula hoop with helical windings, all the way around, and attach the contraption to my SG237 Antenna Coupler. Something else I learnt, my SGC Smartuner really is an antenna coupler. It becomes part of the antenna, which is why it needs to live close

What use is an F-call? Over the past two years I've talked about amateur radio resources on the Internet, sometimes referring to one or other web-site in passing, encouraging you to find information that is pertinent to your situation. Last week I talked about logging and discussed some of the issues you'll come across. One of the things you'll likely want to do, is to actually put your logs online to make it possible for others to do the same and in doing so, matching up your contact with theirs and thus validating the contact. When you start investigating this, you'll find that there are many different sites that offer this service, from Logbook Of the World, or LoTW which is maintained by the ARRL, through QRZ.com, eqsl.cc and many others. Before I start talking about one specific site today, I thought I'd point out that you'll quickly find out that your chosen online log isn't going to be the same as the station you just contacted 15,000 km away, so in this case, at least at the moment, the more you r

What use is an F-call? One of the many projects I'm dealing with as a result of attempting to achieve contacting 100 different countries using only 5 Watts, also known as a QRP DXCC, is to log my contacts and upload them to a place where others might confirm those contacts. Traditionally, the process of confirming a QSO involves sending a QSL card between stations. Think of it as a post-card that has details about the contact you made. The other station in turn sends their card to you, that way, both of you have a confirmed contact. With the advent of the Internet this has begun to change. There are several websites that provide a QSL service. Each with differing options, costs and facilities. In theory the process is simple. Create a log of all your contacts, upload it to the website of choice and wait for other stations to do the same, thus confirming your contact. Of course in practice there is a bit more to it than those simple words convey. Starting at the log file end, there are many different way

What use is an F-call? Recently I was in a discussion with a friend and we were talking about how we started things that we do today. I recalled that in my teens, I must have been 12 or 13 at the time, I was a Sea Scout in the St Lodewijks Groep in Leiden, in the Netherlands. Our gear was stowed in a little windmill called the Boterhuismolen, which was opposite a little island where we used to camp. On one of those camps we had a couple of visitors who set-up a huge Army tent with lots of gear in it. I remember talking to some guy in Brasil at the time, and if you've been a Scout, you'd recognise that I'm describing JOTA, or Jamboree On The Air. I had completely forgotten that activity, but clearly it rubbed off, since here I am, a licensed Amateur, making those same contacts myself with my own station. While having a Foundation License prevents me from sharing my station with an unlicensed person, it doesn't stop me from helping with clubs who go out to local Scout and Guide Halls to “show and tell” thi

What use is an F-call? I've been participating in contests for a little while now, both as part of a club, using a club station and equipment and under my own callsign using my own radio. When I did my first contest as VK6FLAB with 5 Watts, it was to see what effect it would have on my experience. That was over a year ago and during that contest I made many contacts and had lots of fun. I must confess that in the back of my mind it niggled a little that many of those contacts were on UHF and VHF, rather than on HF. Recently I did another contest using only 5 Watts, this time all my contacts were on HF only. I was on air for about 7 hours and made 39 contacts with 29 stations around the globe. I didn't quite make it half way around the planet, but 16700km goes a long way. For my contact, it was from Perth to Austin, Texas, about the same distance as between London and Sydney. It didn't sink in until recently that this means that with my radio, using 5 Watts, I could talk to most of the world with a littl

What use is an F-call? I've participated in several contests since I became an Amateur. When I talk about contesting, I often hear the same response, "Contesting is not for me". In talking to some of those people, it's clear to me that often Contesting as an activity is not really understood. I'm not going to talk to you about how much fun it is, and it is, or how much you learn, because you do, or winning, because you can, I'm going to talk about the mechanics of contesting. At it's heart, contesting is nothing more and nothing less than making a contact between two stations and exchanging some information and getting points for the effort. How that precisely works depends entirely on the contest itself. On a typical contest, the exchange is the readability and signal strength, which in most contests is 59, followed by a serial number. So, the information exchanged might be 59001 for your first contact, 59002 for the second and so-on. The other station will supply their information as it relat

What use is an F-call? When I started this caper over two years ago, my very first edition of "What use is an F-call?" discussed the idea that it's not power that determines your ability to make a contact, it's your antenna - that and propagation. Of course there are situations where having a high power station will get you places that a low power station won't. I've often made the observation that having a Foundation License is like being a QRP operator, a station that runs on low power. If you have an Advanced license and decide to operate with 5 Watts and you make contacts, you get accolades from the community, where as a Foundation Licensee, you're doing that by law. It's quite amazing to hear new operators continue to have the perception that they need more power and that's why they should upgrade their license. This view is perpetuated by many amateurs in our community and I don't think it's helpful, nor is it accurate. I'm not adverse to upgrading a license at all, but power should not be

What use is an F-call? With the advance of the Internet into society in the past 20-odd years Amateur Radio has embraced the warm glow of electrons passing across copper, or light pulses across fibre, and radio waves across the ether that embodies our Internet today. One of the tools that a radio amateur might use is a thing called a DX Cluster. It's a place online where you'll find records of contacts that have been made between two stations. The time the contact took place, the date and of course the frequency. If we leave accuracy aside for a moment, since anyone and everyone can post a spot online without any form of serious authentication, we can never the less use this tool for some interesting purposes. The obvious one is to use a DX Cluster to see who's where on what band and see if you can hear them there too. You'll find that there is some limited success and some indications of where a station might be found. If you look regularly at a particular station, you may be able to figure out patterns

What use is an F-call? This week I learnt an interesting lesson. The difference between a propagation forecast and reality. I've been trying to work out what the best time and band would be for me to make some DX contacts using 5 Watts and spent most of the week learning about VOACAP, the Voice Of America Coverage Analysis Program, reading up on HAP charts, or Hourly Area Prediction charts, figuring out if I can install some of this software on my Ubuntu workstation and what is needed to make it all work. I'm still in the middle of that process, but finally decided I had enough knowledge and information to use a tool, and see what I could achieve in the way of a DX contact to Europe on 15m and what the best time might be to achieve that. So, the data I had told me that if I started around 4am UTC, I could likely begin to hear Europe and have some success until around 10am UTC. With that in my mind I gamely set out to do exactly that. I was busy at 4am, so I postponed to around 6am UTC and tried my luck. N

What use is an F-call? I love it when I get feedback about things I talk about. It helps me understand when I know what's going on and when I'm being a doofus. Recently I was talking about building an antenna in preparation for a contest. It was intended for 80m, but turned out to be perfectly resonant on 160m. Not what I had intended. And to add insult to injury, I broke one of the segments of my squid-pole. In the telling of my tale of woe, I received an interesting comment from a fellow amateur who has been around the block a few times. He pointed out that we work with harmonics all the time, 160m, 80m, 40m, 20m, 10m and so on. Wavelength halves, antenna size halves. Proportionally all of it is related. There is no need for me to build an 80m antenna with 80 meters of wire hanging off a 12m squid-pole to test my design, I can make a 2m version with 2m of wire and a 30cm centre pole. Something I could conceivably hold in my hand, rather than fill-up a back-yard, spend ages stringing up, attempting to tr

What use is an F-call? I once asked an amateur what the best wire was to use for an antenna. He advised me that there are really only two kinds of wire. Free wire and Cheap wire, with a preference for the former, rather than the latter. In the run-up to a recent contest I spent a week building an 80m pyramid antenna. It took around 82 meters of wire to build. I started with using a roll of 12 gauge wire, but that was too heavy for my squid pole. I managed to break it about 4m from the top. I should have left it at that, but I was determined, so I went to my local electronics store and purchased a 100m roll of light duty hook up wire. It cost me about $25. I managed to build myself an antenna that was perfectly resonant on 160m - very helpful - not. By this time it had been raining for several days and my antenna building activities were curtailed. Not because I melt in the rain, but because it wasn't fun being in the rain. At the end of the day, this hobby isn't supposed to be a chore, it's supposed to be

What use is an F-call? Over the past two years I've been sharing my experiences and opinions as an F-call about Amateur Radio and the community. I've talked about learning and interacting, about participating and trying new things. Regularly I receive feedback from you about this contribution. First of all I would like to say thank you for taking the time to provide that feedback, it makes it all worthwhile for me. It recently struck me that there is something else going on as well. It often feels as if the person providing the feedback is unsure of their own role in this process. Nothing happens on its own, I'm part of this community, as are you. I'm not the sole arbiter of what is good, or what is bad. I am not all knowing, nor do I proclaim to be. My experiences are not unique, nor are they special. What they are is what they are. You are part of this experience. What you do, what you say, what you try and what you tell are what makes this hobby what it is. I know of dozens of projects, small and lar

What use is an F-call? In the past couple of years I've participated in several contests, and I know you might think that "contesting isn't your thing", but bear with me, I think you might be surprised. As I said, I've participated in several contests. I basically turned up, either with my own radio, or that of a club station, plugged in the aerials, and started entering logging details. There was slightly more to it than that, but overall not really. This week I've been preparing for a contest myself. I have to confess, it's a totally different animal. My preparations are about a third of the way, at least I hope they are, the contest is about a week away and I have learnt so much that I don't even know where to start. I might add, that most of the learning had nothing to do with contesting as such, more with the invisible logistics which until now had mostly taken care of by themselves, that is, someone other than me made it magically happen. So what have I been up to? Well, for starters I wa

What use is an F-call? I've been an amateur since December 2010 and since then I've been active in many different groups and communities. I've participated in several Hamfests, BBQ's, car-boot sales, camp-outs, contests, read articles and used websites. One thing is clear to me. There is a small group of individuals doing all the work and a huge group of people complaining. It's like they never heard the axiom, "Many hands make light work." I debated if I should even bring this up, but I think that in the interest of the future of Amateur Radio, it's important to realise that the average age of our community is increasing, getting closer and closer to the point where they're unable or unwilling to do the work that others almost blindly take for granted. I know I'm in the minority of people doing the work and before you wonder if this is a case of me asking for recognition, it's not. I've had more than my fair share thank you. It's about the notion that things just magically happen. Let me giv

What use is an F-call? Every week between midnight and 1am UTC we host a 'net for new and returning hams. It's called F-troop and can be accessed in VK6 via VK6RAP, 146.7 MHz and via IRLP node 9558 or Echolink conference VK3JED. Conversations are about all things Amateur, upgrading licenses for those inclined, Morse Code, antennas, choosing HF rigs, logging software and any question in between. We recently celebrated 100 nets. The more we talk, the more we realise that Amateur Radio is a vast hobby that includes technologies far and wide. From propagation, dealing with the ionosphere, ground waves, Kepler elements when talking to satellites or the International Space Station, the Internet Radio Linking Project, electronics, audio, antennas, social activities, talking on-air, microphone techniques, physics, chemistry, competitions, software, hardware, you name it, and you'll find a link back to Amateur Radio. The most powerful part of this wide span of interests is that it all relates back to a single purpo

What use is an F-call? Every day you learn something new. I realise that's an obvious comment, but I am regularly surprised at the range of experience and education that Amateur Radio brings to my life. In the weekly F-troop a topic of conversation raised by Graham VK6FSGH was station grounding. It's a topic that gets a range of coverage on the Internet. Often grounding is ignored, or only just hinted at by documentation. Antenna designs online regularly offer instruction on how long a piece of wire should be and how high it should be in the air, but not often a discussion on what the ground should look like. Graham pointed us at a document written and published by Motorola, titled "Standards and Guidelines for Communication Sites". It's a 518 page tome on the topic of setting up a communication site. I'm still reading, but so far it covers all you want to know about anything. Chapter 4 was what caught our initial attention, it's 100 pages on the topic of external grounding. That's not the only

What use is an F-call? Amateur Radio has been around for over a century, in that time it has evolved considerably. From humble beginnings with the field being discovered and covered by inventors, to today where we enjoy the fruits of over 100 years of development. That's not to say that we don't have inventors among us today, just that they build on the shoulders of giants with information and knowledge passed down through the generations. Today we celebrate the existence of new Amateurs on a regular basis. We welcome new F-calls to our bands daily and we see a massive influx of new puppy dogs with wagging tails, keen as mustard and hungry to learn. Only we don't do anything with that. We have a few stalwarts, brave souls who spend their time encouraging new Amateurs; we see them teach, guide and mentor, train and develop, help and grow the skills and do the things that you'd expect from a hobby. Unfortunately there are some among us who take a different, darker view. They bemoan "the coming of the

What use is an F-call? Today I was unable to run my weekly net from my QTH, so I planned to run my station portable. Last night I put my battery pack in the boot of my car, put the mag-mount on the roof, screwed in the antenna and folded it over so I wouldn't damage it when I drove out of the garage in the morning. I also put my radio, a Yaesu 857d on the passenger seat, ran the power cord from the boot to the front-seat, plugged the antenna lead in and added my log book. This morning I drove out of the garage, stuck my antenna up, plugged in the power and made a test transmission, only to see the SWR go through the roof. I wasn't sure what was going on, so I checked the antenna connector, all solid, checked the mag-mount on the roof, unscrewed the antenna and then screwed it back in again. Another test transmission, another high SWR and no repeater beep acknowledging my existence. I checked on the local aviation beacon but couldn't hear it. I went back into the garage, pulled out another mag-mount, plugg