Whatever Happened to Ham Radio?

[w2aew]

Since this is the only ham radio thread on this forum, I figured I'd post a link to my latest video regarding the quick checkout of the Softrock Ensemble II SDR receiver kit I just finished assembling.  If you watch in YouTube and look a the notes, you'll see links to other videos related to this (and similar projects), including a nifty way to wind toroid inductors, etc.

Anyway, here's the video showing the initial "road test" of the Softrock Ensemble II SDR Receiver:

 Very cool. I just ordered one on impulse. I suspect I will have tons of trouble locating and installing the software on my new Toshiba Win8.1 laptop? What software are you using and any link for software help if I need it?

Thanks
WA6TKD

You shouldn't have any trouble. You'll need the low level USB driver, the Si570 configuration software and dll, and an SDR program of your choice, such as HDSDR or WinSDR. All info can be found easily on these pages...
http://fivedash.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=6
http://www.wb5rvz.org/ensemble_rx_ii/

[vk3yedotcom]

To keep the thread going, a look at ham gear over 20 years of Dick Smith catalogues 1981 - 2001.

Looking back, the price people paid for single band rigs for quiet bands like 6m and 23cm was incredible.

[XOIIO]

I am sad I missed out on stuff like that, it's fun picturing being up late at night (well, I do that anyways), sweeping for radio signals, maybe picking up an SSTV signal or something, it would have been neat.

[vk6zgo]

To keep the thread going, a look at ham gear over 20 years of Dick Smith catalogues 1981 - 2001.

Looking back, the price people paid for single band rigs for quiet bands like 6m and 23cm was incredible.

But then again,Peter,there were a lot of "Z" calls around who were stuck on VHF.
There was a lot of VHF activity in Perth (on 2m FM mainly),but still a hard core of 6m folks,& a few looking at 70cm & 23cm.

I remember when they "chucked us Z calls a bone" with 10m FM.
Icom sold a few IC575As out of that---bought one at the last HamFest.
Still a great little 6m/10m transceiver!

[vk6zgo]

I am sad I missed out on stuff like that, it's fun picturing being up late at night (well, I do that anyways), sweeping for radio signals, maybe picking up an SSTV signal or something, it would have been neat.

There is still a lot of activity,especially on 20 & 40m.
SSTV is fairly easy to resolve with a PC & some free software off the Internet.

You need a reasonable HF receiver,but luckily,there are some simpler designs which work nearly as well as the most expensive ones..
Peter,(VK3YE) has designed quite a few of these.

[vk3yedotcom]

A 40 year design, but to me it's still amazing that just 4 milliwatts is needed to detect, demodulate and amplify weak signals from thousands of km away.

[vk3yedotcom]

Portable Software Defined Transceiver

http://hackaday.io/project/1538-PortableSDR

"The entire design is Open Source. The electronics are designed and laid out to be easy to understand and tinker with. In addition to source code, schematics, board layout and parts lists, articles and videos describing the theory of the design are being created."

Looks an exciting project

[uridium]

I'm much newer to ham radio than you crufty bunch of long-beards for sure.. but I love it

Wish there was more people discovering the hobby!

 

[German_EE]

"crufty bunch of long-beards"

Looks in the mirror.


Ummmmm, OK 

[VK5RC]

Thought I would put these photos up for a bit of fun.
I am about to have a go at EME, 160W out, 1296MHz, Semi PORTABLE!!! (the only place I can use it is in my driveway; bugger)
Home brew LINEAR 30V 15A PSU. Arduino for OV protection and display
W6PQL power Amp, with MiniKits (VK5EME) sequencer , again Arduino for display (hell I can program those little buggers so why change)
Icom 910 with OCXO.
G4DDK Pre-Amp, 0.27dB NF 37dB gain.
WE4MA super feedhorn, used 7" stainless steel flue pipe, ~20dB return loss, 10dB isolation between ports, so both Tx and Rx relays.
4m f/d 0.38, el cheapo satellite dish.
Moves welded to an engine stand (with extension tubes) to widen base, actuators to move Azimuth ~100 degrees and elevation 0-90 degrees.
Am about to start sun noise testing to fine tune position of feed horn.
My wife, daughters and friends think I am a bit crazy, well maybe……..but no beard yet.

[GreyWoolfe]

"crufty bunch of long-beards"

Looks in the mirror.


Ummmmm, OK 

Not longbeard.  I keep a short goatee, but definitely grey, so I guess I am a greybeard .  Older in age but young in ham radio-I was licensed in 1999.  My radios are somewhat vintage, just like me.  Kenwood TS-940SAT and 850SAT HF rigs.  These are late 80's to early 90's vintage.  They're in better shape than I am.  I love the Kenwood audio, both transmit and receive.

[kb1uif]

Well when the cell towers and Internet fails in a disaster, Ham radio will still make the trip.
I have been active on ham radio for over 30 years when I got my first call G6JVS in the UK, I now also hold the call KB1UIF for the USA. I have never lost interest in ham radio because there is always some new mode and technology around the corner to keep my interest peaked. My latest interest is SDR or software defined radio. For as little as $10 you can get a DVB-T dongle on ebay and with free driver and control software have a radio that will receive from around 24MHz to 1800MHz with no gaps. With some modifications from approx 100Hz. This device can also provide you with a cheap spectrum analyzer.  Check out RTL Dongles and SDR# software, you might be interested.

[RLBennett]

When all else fails, ham radio works. Been an amateur since 1977 as a novice and now an extra. Earned all my tickets when code was required. It is alot easier to "earn" a ticket than it was. The Q &A study guides make it really easy. Lots of new are "appliance" operators, but most get up to snuff on techie skills. Ham radio is still valid.
73
WD4DUI

[Bud]

Well when the cell towers and Internet fails in a disaster, Ham radio will still make the trip.

We've seen that a few years ago when the power grid failed along Canada-US border. All cell towers and broadcast stations were dead within 3 hours after their backup power ran out. The only source of information that remained was a local Ham radio guy sitting in a room on top of TV tower in Toronto with a handheld and a box of AA batteries. He periodically gave updates on VHF/UHF ham bands. I had a mobile ICOM radio installed in my car so I listened and stayed informed.

[vk6zgo]

Well when the cell towers and Internet fails in a disaster, Ham radio will still make the trip.

We've seen that a few years ago when the power grid failed along Canada-US border. All cell towers and broadcast stations were dead within 3 hours after their backup power ran out. The only source of information that remained was a local Ham radio guy sitting in a room on top of TV tower in Toronto with a handheld and a box of AA batteries. He periodically gave updates on VHF/UHF ham bands. I had a mobile ICOM radio installed in my car so I listened and stayed informed.

A Broadcast station should be able to run  for more than a day on its diesel--how come 3 hours?

[Richard Crowley]

A Broadcast station should be able to run  for more than a day on its diesel--how come 3 hours?

Because not every broadcast station is operated by people with emergency operations or even community service as a priority.
Because cell sites are managed by "appliance operators" who don't maintain their backup power equipment as a cost-cutting measure.
Because support technicians are so short-staffed they can barely keep up repairing/replacing broken gear, much less preventive maintenance.

And because "backup power" for cell sites is for temporary failure of a random site. 3 hours lets them send out a truck with a generator trailer and plug it in while they order repair parts.  But that is only for random, single-site failures.  The cell system is NOT designed to operate in a major, widespread failure.

[vk6zgo]

Damn all to do with community service,Richard,if it is a Commercial Station,no transmission means you don't make any money.

With a Govt station,there is a Statutory requirement to stay on the air.

Standby power systems are highly reliable,& don't need a lot of routine maintenance.

[Richard Crowley]

Damn all to do with community service,Richard,if it is a Commercial Station,no transmission means you don't make any money.

With a Govt station,there is a Statutory requirement to stay on the air.

Yes, it used to be that way here in the US.  But the FCC doesn't much care about broadcast operations anymore. They are taking 100s of MHz away from broadcast and auctioning it off to land-mobile (i.e. cell, wireless data, etc.) for billions of dollars.

Standby power systems are highly reliable,& don't need a lot of routine maintenance.

Ha!  I was just having breakfast at a hotel with a guy who works for a company that sells and maintains emergency power equipment. He had an unending string of horror stories of operators who couldn't care less about backup equipment except when a failure brought it to their attention.

[SeanB]

Happened across the road from me. The government building was supposed to have 24 hours of backup power from a massive genset complex. However they forgot to renew the maintenance contract on the units, and along with that did not budget for diesel fuel for them. For about 2 years whenever the power failed there was a loud klaxon that ran for an hour until the battery died to warn of generator failure. After 2 years the battery died, so it ran for 10 seconds. After another 5 years they got new generators........... Any bets as to what will happen after 5 years of no maintenance, and when the huge tank of fuel runs out.

The military however doers have procedures and maintenance for the critical load standby power, the base I used to be at had 5 gensets running 1 unit for 24.5 hours before starting the next one and cycling through the set with mains power, so that it could switch over instantly when mains failed. On mains fail 2 would immediately come on line to share the load with the single unit running at overload for 30 seconds till it had a second supply. As these ran ATC and other critical systems like RADAR and a cold boot took around 2 hours you could never have a power failure. Maintenance was done on a monthly basis of filter and oil changes, over 3 days so as to only have 2 out of service at a time. The RADAR had a hot standby as well for immediate use. The fuel tanks were distributed as well, and the whole lot was buried underground in an armoured bunker. Fuel storage was "adequate", and at a pinch you could run it on jet fuel as well.

[Richard Crowley]

In high-value, ultra-critical applications, one of the solutions is a rotary converter which conditions utility power under normal conditions, and provides instant energy from the flywheel in case of an interruption.  Then if the interruption is more than a minute or two, the engine kicks in and keeps the rotary running as long as the fuel tanks last and you can schedule additional fuel deliveries.  We have several of these providing power to the critical circuits (computer centers and essential production equipment).

http://youtu.be/jZjgx4BADf8?t=1m43s

[Rigby]

I've seen banks of vertically mounted "kinetic batteries" before and they're a pretty neat technology.  Super heavy rotors inside a vacuum floating on magnetic bearings.  when powered, they spin up, and wait.  when power goes out, they instantly become generators and use their inertia to provide power for the worst-case 10 secs or so it takes for a generator to come online and match phase with everything, then the generator takes over and the rotors slowly spin up and recharge. 

Neat stuff.  Very expensive for the amount of time you get out of them.

[vk3yedotcom]

For those in the Melbourne area, this weekend is big for ham radio events.

Today is QRP by the Bay.  Come down to Chelsea beach from 3pm and see us trying to work around the world from portable low power stations.  More info at https://www.facebook.com/events/287817648076248/ and other places on the web.

Tomorrow there's a couple of things happening. 

Yarra Valley Hamfest http://www.yvarg.org.au/index.html (cheap stuff at pre-eBay prices!)

EMDRC Microwave day  http://www.emdrc.com.au/event/vk3-2014-microwave-test-and-tune-day/ 

[AG6QR]

A Broadcast station should be able to run  for more than a day on its diesel--how come 3 hours?

I can't say the reason, but I can report similar experiences around here.  The last major power outage we had, the cell towers in my area died after about 20 minutes.  This outage didn't affect any broadcast radio stations that I noticed, but the stations I normally receive were not in the area that lost utility power, so it wasn't a good test for them.

The fact that local cell towers lasted around 20 minutes tells me that they must have some brief battery backup capability, but perhaps the batteries aren't well maintained.  I suspect that maintaining backup power at the cell sites isn't something that brings the cell companies lots of subscribers and revenue, and most customers don't examine a cell network's backup power arrangements when they're shopping for phone service.

My ham radio equipment will last several days on the lead-acid batteries that I keep charged.  And I've got a generator and fuel that can be used to recharge those batteries.

[Bud]

A Broadcast station should be able to run  for more than a day on its diesel--how come 3 hours?

I am telling you, everything was dead. Road traffic was horrible because traffic lights did not work. And it was disturbing that when I drove 2 or 3 hours form work to home through the packed city I did not see a single police cruiser, not a single police officer, not a single fire truck, not a single ambulance vehicle. So here is the ugly reality - in case of a disaster only count on yourself. And by the way, cell phones are pretty much useless anyway even if cell towers still have power because towers become overload with calls. So do not count on your cell phone either. I do remember my land line phone at home worked  ok though.

[G7PSK]

The cell tower up the road from me originally had a back up diesel gen/set but that was removed a few years ago, now when mains power goes down so dose the cell tower. All about cost I expect the diesel gen set would need a visit every month or so, the cell tower itself virtually never as most things are managed remotely and mains failure in the UK is considered to be rare or non existent by the bean counters in their ivory towers, here in the sticks when the wind blows there is always a tree ready and waiting to fall on the lines somewhere, so we get 2 or more cuts a year lasting at least half a day.