My last post was 2014-03-04? Wow. Time for a few... many... updates.
My wife Tina KD7WSF and I relocated from Woodinville (suburban Seattle) Washngton to beautiful Bellingham, Washington in May 2019. Bellingham is 90 miles North of Seattle and 20 miles South of the Canadian border and Vancouver, BC, in semi-rural Whatcom County. We moved into our new house in May 2020 and we hope this is our last house before we are forced into the old folks home.
I'm semi-retired at this point and have a lot more time and energy to devote to Amateur Radio activities. Especially given the "shelter in place" climate due to COVID-19 being out of control and no realistic chance of mass vaccination until 2021-06 or so, so no meetings, no conferences except via videoconference. So mostly I work and experiment physically by myself and occasionally virtually with a group. I'm not bored - I've stockpiled many, many projects to work on.
The most profound change in my Amateur Radio activity is that I now have a 50 feet by 40 feet shop (well, 75% of one, anyway) to store my Amateur Radio gear, computer gear, electonics gear, books, and magazines. I also have an office within the shop for writing (like this long overdue blog post) that stays warm and comfortable with a heater with an output about the same as a 100 watt incandescent light bulb. My Amateur Radio "shack" is currently two desks in an L shape with wire shelving for the radios. One desk is the data radios and data "modems" and computers:
... and the other desk, to my left as I sit at the "data" desk, is mostly voice radios (with microphones):
The wire shelving I'm using in the shack is now unobtanium. I got mine at a now-defunct store called Storables in the Seattle area. Apparently these shelves - 10" deep, 36" wide, and 1" thick were custom made for Storables. No web link because the current Storables site has no relation to the defunct retail stores. You can get similar wire shelving - the closest is 12" deep. The 10" deep wire shelves are perfectly sized for the mobile radios I have. Each radio will be mounted on its bracket to a small plastic base and then clamped to the wire shelf so they don't move. I love the modularity of this system and so far it's serving me well for accessibility and ease of changes. I think it looks cool also.
Mount Baker Amateur Radio Club Digital Group
Most of my on-air activities at the moment are participating with the "Digital Group" subsidiary of the Mt. Baker Amateur Radio Club. The Digital Group's main activities are a monthly meeting about all things digital (data) in Amateur Radio (now held on Zoom videoconference) and a weekly on-air text chat session on Sunday mornings. The on-air text chat session operates on 145.58 MHz (simplex) using a data mode called FSQ (part of the fldigi suite of data modes). FSQ is a text chat mode (with some limited file sharing and image sharing features), originally intended for use on HF, but it's used on simplex FM here because it's very robust and works reasonably even with a pretty low signal to noise ratio. I'm regularly able to exchange text messages with stations in Blaine, WA (20 miles) and a station further North in BC. I can even exchange text chats with WA7FUS in Brier, WA using the relay function (basically, digipeating) in FSQ. The Sunday morning informal text chat runs from about 09:00 to 10:00 and are a lot of fun and a chance to test out the gear.
Kenwood TM-V71A Radio
The radio I'm using at the moment for FSQ is the venerable, but capable Kenwood TM-V71A. Its relevant features are:
- It's still in production;
- It has a 6-pin MiniDIN (the so-called "data" jack) for easy interfacing to do higher-speed data modes;
- It has a maximum transmit power of 50 watts
- It can do 144-148 MHz and 440-450 MHz;
- It can be remotely controlled via RS-232 port to change frequencies, etc.
Nexus DR-X
The data ("modem") unit I'm using is a Nexus DR-X designed by Budd Churchward WB7FHC (though I have an earlier version called the DigiLink). It's a nice integration of a Raspberry Pi, a capable "sound card" called a Fe-Pi, and a really elegant software distribution managed by Steve Magnuson AG7GN. Budd and Steve are here in Whatcom County and they work together closely to keep the software and hardware in synch. The Nexus DR-X can connect to two radios and run different modes simulaneously - I'm using mine only for FSQ at the moment. The combination of Budd's hardware and Steve's software mean that using the Nexus DR-X is pretty much plug-and-play, and there's plenty of support for building it and using it available here in Whatcom County.
Diamond X-3200A Antenna
My current antenna is my venerable (30 years old or so) Diamond X-3200A 144/220/440 MHz antenna up about 20 feet.
Venerable enough that it's discontinued. The 100 feet of coax is equally venerable, but appears functional enough though I'm undoubtedly giving up a lot of my transmit power before it reaches the antenna. Before it was braced to the shop, it was supported solely with that pile of cement blocks at the base. It worked fine... until the Whatcom Winds pushed it over twice, falling hard onto the asphalt. It was entirely my fault - I had a poor understanding of just how powerful the "Whatcom Winds" are at this new house. It's back up and functioning now because it was literally splinted back together by my Tina KD7WSF, who is also a Registered Nurse and knows how to splint broken things back together. For now, it works. In the spring, I'll sweep it with an antenna analyzer to see if the fall damaged it significantly.
Icom IC-38A 220-225 MHz radio
I also finally got my even more venerable Icom IC-38A 220-225 MHz radio back on the air along with the TM-V71A (venerable enough that yes, it does do 220-225 MHz, even though 220-222 MHz was reallocated out of the US Amateur Radio spectrum allocations at least a decade ago). My first good VHF radio when I was a new ham was the Icom IC-28A (144-148 MHz) which I also still have, and I really love these radios. Over the years, I purchased, new and used, the entire family of Icom IC-x8A/H radios: IC-28A (144-148 MHz 25 watts), IC-28H (144-148 MHz 45 watts), IC-38A (220-225 MHz), IC-48A (440-450 MHz), and lastly the very rare IC-1200A (1240-1300 MHz). For those of you with these radios and having lost (or never had, if bought used like I did) a mating unique power cable, I found them at RFguys.com. There's no hint of this on their website, but it turns out that they're located in nearby Vancouver, BC... which as I write this is still inaccessible to us plaguemongers from the US. I'll eventually do blog posts on each radio.
Sharing the antenna with multiple radios
I use a lash-up of a 144/220/440 MHz triplexer and a 144/440 MHz duplexer to get the two radios working with the Diamond X-3200A antenna. Mostly I keep the IC-38A on the N7JN 224.48 MHz repeater that's on Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands. That repeater is run by the San Juan County Amateur Radio Society, where I'm a member. There's a nice group on that repeater so it's a nice "companion" while I'm working on Amateur Radio or electronics projects.
12V Battery Backed Power
One thing I'm proud of with my current, minimal "shack" is that it's all running off 12V and backed up by a battery with automatic failover. That includes USB ports for various devices, and some minimal lighting. I accidentally did a test a week or so ago of operating off battery power when I bumped the power switch on the power supply that nomially powers the equipment and keeps the battery charged. The entire system ran off battery power for nearly 24 hours before an odd noise started sounding every time the radio transmitted - it was the low voltage alarm on the power distribution unit. This link is to an off-the-shelf system that combines all of the units that I put together myself in my system.
HamWAN not quite
In the Spring of 2019, we were renting a nice house in nearby Ferndale, WA and I had a very nice line of sight shot (at 5.7 GHz) to the most local node of the Puget Sound Data Ring (HamWAN) on Lookout Mountain to the South of me. (I had a small role in getting that node installed.) Unfortunately, details on the Lookout Mountain node aren't shown on their web page, though it is shown on the (semi dynamic) map. I had plans to do a basic HamWAN installation with a speaker tripod to mount the dish, but I quickly discoverd that Whatcom County gets some amazing windstorms that gust to 40, 50, even 60 miles per hour, and they can happen fast. We had small, light things literally fly off our front deck on the rental house. So that caused a reset on my idea to "casually" install a dish for accessing HamWAN.
The good news is that shortly after I got the HamWAN gear, we found our new house and spent most of Spring and Summer 2020 moving into it. I just didn't have time to do a proper installation of my HamWAN equipment at the new house before the winter weather set in, and especially the "Whatcom Winds" began. Given that the winds did violence to a mere 20' pole and and a simple vertical antenna, they would play havoc with a dish that's not installed very well. So, HamWAN access is yet another Spring project.
AREDN - very cool
My other major activity for Amateur Radio at the moment is to get up to speed on AREDN - Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network. This is an interesting project that arose out of several earlier projects, including "High Speed Multimedia" (HSMM) to repurpose "Wi-Fi" and "Wireless Internet Service Provider" equipment for Amateur Radio use. There is a small chunk of spectrum at the bottom of the 2.4 GHz band used for Wi-Fi that's available for Amateur Radio use, but not Wi-Fi use, and the AREDN firmware makes use of that spectrum.
The Aha! moment for me about AREDN was the realization that having units like the AR150 ready to go means that Amateur Radio Operators could finally be able to network their computers together when they're in close proximity (like an emergency) without resorting to using the Internet or a central Wi-Fi AP. Plugging in an AR150 means that any computer - Raspberry Pi, Linux, Mac, or Windows could all work together. Theoretically a computer's Wi-Fi can be configured into "ad-hoc" mode and network directly together, but I've never seen this done other than in homogenous computers running a particular app. If you didn't have that type of computer, or that app, you couldn't network. What I've observed in emergency communications is that when you show up with your own laptop, a place like an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) just will not let you connect your own computer for fear of malware from a computer they don't control. I don't blame them. AREDN on a small inexpensive device like an AR150 fixes all of that. Other points about AREDN:
- It's mesh networking that works, as in if your AREDN node is within range of another AREDN node, they automagically connect and you are networked. The only other data system that works dynmaically, automagically like this in Amateur Radio was Software 2000's Net/ROM (and the derivative TheNET) back at the dawn of packet radio in Amateur Radio.
- You can implement AREDN on units as small as the GL.iNet GL-AR150-ext for around $25 on Amazon. This little device is surprisingly capable and the AREDN software wizards have made good use of it, including implementation of a VPN tunnel client, and even a VPN tunnel server. This is important because...
- Realistically, 2.4 GHz, especially at very low power indoor Wi-Fi power levels, it's very difficult to achieve any long distance links. It can be done (Wireless ISPs have been doing so for decades), but it's not easy to do it casually. But by implemeting VPN tunnels, you can create a "playground" that's semi-secure - at least there's a "mesh of some trust" for those participating in a particular mesh / VPN tunnel.
For my use, I'm going to use it within my big shop to connect all the various Amateur Radio devices together. That includes laptops, Windows PCs, many Raspberry Pi devices that will be connected to (many, hopefully) radios, and a few computers in my office so I can just spin around and play radio when I need a break from my professional writing. I want to do web servers, mail servers, and perhaps even a "Shack Cam", and many other services on AREDN. At the moment, I'm participating in a AREDN VPN tunnel back to some of my buddies in the Seattle area. There is AREDN activity here in Whatcom County, but I haven't quite been able to get online with that activity. Update: As of 2021-01-01 @18:00 I'm now online with the ARDEN activity here in Whatcom County. Lots to learn!
I have ambitious plans for Amateur Radio in 2021. More about those in another post soon.
Thanks - de N8GNJ
(Update 1 - after previewing this post before hitting Publish, ouch, the formatting is horrible, but I'll let that pass for now in the interest of getting this posted. "I'll fix it in post". Also, this blog's format is horribly out of date, and the side panel info isn't accurate any more. That too will get fixed. But at least, it's something. Eh Bill?)
(Update 2 - 2021-01-01 The format is mostly fixed - lots of old, irrelevant cruft is now removed. Typepad does not offer a reasonable way to integrate photos so instead of "flow around" formatting, I stuck them inline. I also edited the text above and cleaned it up.