N8GNJ.org

Imagine... A Demonstration of Amateur Radio

I heard an NPR report tonight about the meltdown of the cellular networks in Washington DC as a result of the record crowds present for President-Elect Obama's inauguration... and nearly everyone having (and trying to use) a cellphone.

It was comical listening to the description of the problem, especially knowing that access was barely half the problem - the other problem was the switching bottleneck. Another would be handling all the requests for IP addresses :-)

What would have happened if Amateur Radio had been there, providing a real-world example of Amateur Radio being relevant?

Something a lot of like highly localized Wi-Fi HotSpots (think 20' radius) all being fed by high-bandwidth links which are operating on (uncontested) Amateur Radio spectrum like 1.2 GHz using off-the-shelf Broadband Wireless Internet Access gear tuned to 1.24 - 1.30 GHz (60 MHz of spectrum there). A web splash screen briefly mentioning that it was being provided by Amateur Radio and you would have gotten a helluva lot of Blackberry and iPhone-toting techies to be really curious about Amateur Radio.

It would work gloriously.

But then... Amateur Radio wants to stay mired in the past - tube rigs, CW, contesting, analog voice repeaters occupying all VHF and UHF channels... all that.

Sigh...

73,

Steve N8GNJ

The Voice Radio Study Island

Here's a look at the Study Island that I'll be using for the voice radios.

On the shelf, L-R are the Johnson Messenger 4145 (CB), the Heathkit HW-2036 (2m), and the Kenwood TK-931 (902-928 MHz / 33cm).

On the desk, L-R are a decent speaker I used for listing to broadcast radio, two Radio Shack scanners, and the IC-x8A triplets, stacked from bottom to top as the IC-48A, IC-38A, and IC-28A. On the desk are the ICx8A microphones, power cables, and a hole saw set from Harbor Freight that I'll be using to cut some cable access holes in the Study Island.

The plywood insert will be a basic 3 sided box (with a strip of bracing in the back for stability, and some strips for mounting the speakers and the microphones). Height will be "desk to underneath the shelf" and width will be "side to side" and will just slip in and out for easy modification, so I don't have to try to drill into the fragile chipboard of the study island.

What looks like a second shelf is just a piece of plywood across the top of the two side pieces. I'll eventually make a plywood construct up there too, with room for notebooks, etc.

You just get a glimpse of underneath, but it will get a "plywood box" treatment too, with as big a drawer unit (or two) as I can find, and mounting for the power supply, battery, and power distribution units.

Incidentally, the photo was taken and posted using my hours-old iPhone 3G using the free, but more-than-a-bit-fragile-and-buggy TypePad for iPhone v 1.0.2 app from the iPhone App Store. It took two tries - the TypePad for iPhone completely lost the first attempt - glad I didn't go to the trouble of entering any text on the iPhone (the post was later edited on a desktop to add the text).

Shopping this weekend:

• Plywood
• More toolbox liners @ Harbor Freight for the Data Radio Wire Shelving
• Nightlights modified with LED bulbs - it's a bit dark in there at night with no radios on yet
• 12V lighting @ West Marine (I think) for lighting the desk are of the Voice Radio Study Island
• Cheap stereo of some kind at a thrift store, mostly for an amplifier stage to listen to iPhone content (not sure where that's going to live).

Found a nice pair of compact stereo speakers and three good-quality automotive jumper cables (made back when copper wasn't quite so expensive so they used a lot of it) at an estate sale this morning.

But a big chunk of the wet and a bit chilly weekend will be spent sprucing up my (writing) office - it's been neglected since the Radio Room became a project and I just cannot work in there at the moment - at all, with all the clutter/crap.

PS - Any readers know good places to find "matching" (reasonably) Motorola two-way radio external speakers? eBay is coming up a bit short (but I'll keep looking). If prices are reasonable, I'll consider buying new from a two-way radio dealer.

PSS - Or maybe consider a brand of two-way radio speaker other than Motorola? But I haven't seen (heard) anything I like that's "Amateur Grade", like the tinny little ones. It's just that the Motorola speakers always sound so good for communications!

 

73,

Steve N8GNJ

 

The Voice Radio To Do List, Rev. 01

Argh! Jerry Pournelle's words come back to haunt me - Save Early, Save Often. I did neither last night and I was putting the finishing touches on this post, I lost all the text. It's definitely a shame on me, as web-based text editing is fraught with peril; I think it's because I'm out of practice in blogging. Oh well, here goes again.

There's a long list of Things To Get Done before the voice radios are on the air. And in such cases, a friend's words ring true:

Plan The Work, and Work The Plan
- Harold "Ed" Sprinkle

1. Things to procure:
   • Plywood for interior frame, knee hole
   • Plywood for lower frame
   • (6) Motorola speakers
   • (6) microphone hangers, 3 are mini for the Icom microphones
   • Hole saw
   • PowerPole distribution power strip - DC Power?
   • Big Honkin' Gel Cell battery
   • LED lighting strip - West Marine?
   • Voltage / Current monitoring system - maybe the "Fuel Gage" type of meter that provides a running percentage and/or time available of power
   • Drop-in charger for Kenwood TH-F6
   • Additional rechargable battery packs for Kenwood TH-F6
   • PVC components for coax feedthrough into radio room
   • 6 (?) runs of LMRxxx, terminated with Type-N... or buy the connectors and/or tools to do it cleanly - no soldering.
   • Omnidirectional CB antenna
   • Repair Ringo Ranger "clone" antenna or buy a new omni 2m antenna
   • 900 MHz omni
   • (If necessary) short runs of more flexible coax to to into the Study Island, with necessary adapters like double female Type N; coax jumpers to match individual radios, like Type N to PL-259.
   • Additional Radio Shack mast sections to complete 3 30' masts
   • Zinc grease for masts (Never Seez?)
   • UV-safe cable ties for masts
2. Build interior frame for Study Island to mount radios, speakers, and microphones.
3. Modify existing radios power wiring to "standard" PowerPole connectors
4. Mount existing radios to interior frame
   • Johnson Messenger 4145
   • Heathkit HW-2036
   • Icom IC-28A
   • Icom IC-38A
   • Icom IC-48A
   • Kenwood TK-931
5. Modify interior frame for Motorola speakers
6. Mount Motorola speakers on interior frame
7. Modify interior frame for microphones
8. Mount microphones to interior frame
9. Mount LED lighting strip
10. Drill holes in back or tabletop of Study Island
11. Build frame for knee hole of Study Island
12. Mount Astron RS-20A power supply on knee hole frame
13. Mount West Mount Radio PWRgate PG40s on knee hole frame
14. Mount Gel Cell battery on knee hole frame
15. Mount PowerPole distributionstrip to knee hole frame
16. Wire up all power supply elements
17. Install coax feedthrough in radio room wall (gonna be a big project!)
18. Complete tower @ 30' (tilt down for tower work
19. Install Comet (?) tri-band omni antenna on tower to feed IC-28A / IC-38A / IC-48A with existing triplexer
20. Build "block / swivel / clamp" assembly for Radio Shack Masts
21. Install Radio Shack 30' masts for CB, 2m, and 900 MHz antennas on side of house; use zinc grease so sections don't stick together
22. Mount Radio Shack 30' masts on steel stakes with shaft; might have to modify masts with a notch so they'll stay centered up on the stakes.
23. Run coax into radio room, excess to be accumulated... ?
24. Make 3 hole notebook logbook
25. Make 3 hole notebook repeater directory
26. Make big net directory / calendar (Google Calendar?)
27. Make 3 hole notebook of the voice radio system
28. Make 3 hole notebook for all the major subsystems
    1. Power
    2. each individual radio
    3. antennas
29. Nice to haves:
    1. Multiple time zone clocks
    2. Design / build riser for top of study island - room for broadcast (?) radio, Johnson Messenger CB
    3. Tilt-up / stand for scanners
    4. One (discone?) antenna feeding two scanners?
    5. Stand, power supply (12V, of course) and speakers (also 12V) for iPod so I can listen to podcasts in the evening.
    6. Need to work up a good grounding system

73,

Steve N8GNJ

Resurrecting The Radio Room, Part 1 - Voice Radios

My "vision" for the new radio room is beginning to come together in my mind.

(Pictures soon - I need to learn to "compact" photos to accompany blog postings.)

Randy Pausch used this term - "cognitive dissonance" which is useful to describe the dichotomy of sitting in my radio room, surrounded by computers, radios, and data communications interfaces (TNCs) of the 1980's and 1990's, capable of 9600 baud or thereabouts, with clock speeds of "10's, and 100's of MHz"... and writing this post on a MacBook Pro laptop, using 802.11n Wi-Fi, which is connected to the Internet via 15 Mbps symmetric Verizon FIOS. As I dive deeper into attempting to bring my collection of TNCs and "hacked for data" radios back online and doing something marginally useful with them...

Like one's father who gets smarter by the day as you enter your 40's... I feel more kinship with the Collins and "tube rig fanatics". I could never understand their fascination with bringing those archaic radios back to life... until I realized that's exactly what I'm doing in trying to reactivate my packet radio collection.

I finally "moved back in" to the Radio Room after a major push last Saturday under the threat of friends coming over for dinner that evening. I was working right up until the deadline of having to get a shower and "look fresh" for the company. Looks, and feels great, though - worth every ache and drop of sweat to get the Radio Room back to usable.

There's still a lingering whiff of the insecticide bomb I had to set off in the Radio Room to quell the "Great Bee Uprising" (a cautionary tale for a future post), so I'll have to find some good, neutral odor neutralizer to stick in a corner somewhere.

Study Island for voice radios

• I have this odd piece of furniture acquired from a thrift store that I really like that I call a "study island". It looks like it came out of a school library where you would go to take an important test where you don't want any possibility of cheating. All of the voice radios will be concentrated there.
  • They'll be hung underneath, or sit on top of the main shelf.
  • They'll each get their own Motorola speaker (love the sound of a squelch tail coming out of those things)
  • They'll each get "APRS-standard" Anderson PowerPole 12V power
  • Power distribution from a PowerPole distribution strip
  • Main 12V DC power provided by my venerable Astron 12V power supply
  • Backup power to be provided by a float charging system that I think is integrated into the PowerPole disribution strip (that stuff was bought long ago...)
  • I'll have all the microphones on a unified bracket. I'd like to eventually modify all the microphones to a standard connector and Motorola microphones... but that probably won't happen soon, if ever.

As for the voice radios to be brought online after a long, long rest...

• 10M - to be acquired; I was always impressed with the "President" 10M radios; mostly interested in FM, but AM and SSB would be nice too.
• CB - existing Johnson 40 channel
• 6m - to be acquired
• 2m - Beloved and venerable HW-2036A (hopefully I can find, or create, the special nuts [long lost] needed to heatsink the output transistor studs
• 2m - Beloved, slighly less venerable Icom IC-28A
• 220 - Icom IC-38A
• 440 - Icom IC-48A
• 900 - Kenwood TK-931 (I've been itching to try "Amateur Radio" 902-928 MHz band)
• 1.2 GHz - to be acquired, likely an Icom D-Star
• Marine VHF - to be acquired (just for monitoring, grins)
• Aircraft VHF - to be acquired (just for monitoring, grins)
• GMRS UHF - to be acquired (mostly for monitoring, fun... maybe REACT?)
• FRS - to be acquired (if I can find something interesting)
• NWS receiver - to be acquired (for monitoring severe weather)
• Something interesting to lots of broadcast radio - to be acquired (C. Crane AM?)
• Radio Shack scanner #1 (bought cheap somewhere along the way)
• Radio Shack scanner #2 (bought cheap somewhere along the way)
• Outdoor GPS receiver - to be acquired
• Kenwood handheld
• Motorola FRS handhelds (old, practically antiques now)
• FRS handhelds - to be acquired (cool, sexy, must use ext. microphones and AA batteries)

Other items for the Voice Radio Study Island:

• Logbook
• QSL cards (yeah... who'dve thunk it :-)
• 12V lamp (LEDs - they make them now, available at West Marine)
• iPod stand, power supply, and speakers (some of the best stuff I listen to while I'm putzing in the Radio Room are podcasts, and the old iPod is about to become semi-retired if/when I'm ever able to get a 3G iPhone)
• Comprehensive list of repeater systems here in Western Washington - big, easy to reference, organized in a way that makes sense to me.
• Single page, laminated "cheat sheets" for all the voice radios
• Notebooks for each voice radio with 8 1/2 x 11 manual pages, my notes, etc.
• Notebook for the power system
• Calendar of all the nets and other on-air events that I'm interested in (probably yet another calendar... ooh... maybe for my N8GNJ Gmail Account)
• Power monitoring - voltage, current, maybe even one of those "running power" meters that tell you how much more battery capacity / time is remaining.

Marker for future discussion - my fantasy "universal voice radio interface box" - currently in the wild-ass-imagination stage of design.

Yes, there certainly will be HF in my future, but that's an entire field of study by itself. Never having done HF (it's finally to the point of being interesting with all the amazing digital modes), and there will be plenty of time for that sort of thing in the dreary winter evenings.

Antennas for the voice radios are going to be pretty basic.

The IC-28A, IC-38A, and IC-48A will all be fed by the existing Comet (?) tri-band omni, up 30' on 3 Radio Shack 10' masts, lashed to the deck.

I'm going to move all the antennas for the radios I have in hand to the side of the house and do a better job of mounting them securely. I have to come up with a not-too-aggressive mounting scheme to the 2x4 at the edge of the roof, and I think I have that figured out. Each 30' collection of Radio Shack masts will sit on a steel stake with a horizonta bolt, instead of sitting on the ground, so that water can drain out of it.

Another story best left untold at the moment is why I ended up with another Comet (?) tri-band omni - 2m, 440, and 1.2 GHz. That one will get mounted this summer, but may end up serving the digital radios.

The Heathkit HW-2036A will get its own basic 2m omni. It would be fitting if I can resurrect the old handbuilt (by another ham, regrettably now a SK) Ringo Ranger clone antenna that I used for so long. It was damaged along the way, but I think I might be able to repair it.

The Kenwood 900 MHz antenna will get its own high-gain 900 MHz omni. I picked up a 900 MHz beam along the way, so that might find its way onto the 900 MHz mast.

The scanners may well share a "discone" DC-to-daylight antenna, perhaps also feeding the Weather Radio receiver.

Back to more Radio Room work!

73,

Steve N8GNJ

902-928 MHz Band Voice Radio Modifications

Radios for 900 MHz / 33 Centimeters & Their Modifications - very good, very comprehensive reference of commercial radios that can be modified for Amateur Radio use in the 902-928 MHz band.

Followup with more 900 MHz info from Stan WA1LOU's Surfin' series of articles on www.arrl.org.

Blogging From (Seattle) Communications Academy 2008

I'm blogging from the (Seattle) Communications Academy 2008. the MicroHAMS Digital Conference. It's a two-day conference on Amateur Radio Emergency Communications, now in (at least) it's sixth year. It teaches some of the formalities of "more structured" Amateur Radio Emergency ("Net") Communications.

It's my first time attending Comm Academy because I've always had a major personal or professional conflict in previous years. Judging from the turnout I see here in the main auditorium, there are (easily) 300 or more attendees, and the attendance of emergency communications agencies is impressive, including FEMA.

Clearwire is sponsoring the Wi-Fi access. Laptop usage is relatively light, so it seems to be working pretty well.

I'll blog continuously throughout the day.

Blogging From The Microhams Digital Conference

I'm blogging from the MicroHAMS Digital Conference. It's a one-day conference on digital communications technologies and techniques being used in Amateur Radio, hosted by MicroHAMS - the Microsoft Amateur Radio club. It's being held at a nice conference facility on the Microsoft campus.

It's got a pretty interesting lineup of presentations, all of which will be online, and, I think, a video of the presentation will be online too now online.

Kenwood TH-F6A

As a belated Christmas / Birthday / Father's Day present, my wonderful Wife Tina gifted me with a new Kenwood TH-F6A (handheld Amateur Radio). For some time I've wanted a portable that I could easily take with me to Amateur Radio events, pack up when traveling, and just casually place on my office desk to monitor some of the  repeaters in my immediate area (around Redmond, Washington). I haven't been very active in Amateur Radio since my daughter was born, and now that she's well into her teens and Dad is usually an afterthought, I have some time available that I can devote to Amateur Radio again. I bought the TH-F6A over the counter at Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) in Portland, OR from Ron Holscher W7ATX who was fantastically gracious despite the sales process of this particular radio stretching back at least 18 months since I first visited Ron at HRO.