CW 10.004-010 14.002-010 17.085 ish
3885 AM
K8BYP@yandex.com
Search Club Log:
https://secure.clublog.org/logsearch/K8BYP
Welcome to the web page of K8BYP. Stop in and see what Amateur Radio is all about, building things, and then talking on the air!
Philosophy/Politics of Amateur Radio
(Photo, left, what FCC deregulation and ARRL's money grab have done to Amateur Radio-just because the wheels go round and round doesn't make it a train ride!)
Back in the 1970s the world was happy. Then the Citizens Band explosion came and caused massive problems for FCC, so FCC deregulated and gave up, more or less, concern with and control over the CB service.
They also got behind the eight-ball and deregulated, somewhat, the Amateur Radio service, then made the mistake of allowing a CORPORATION called ARRL to get involved and in between.
Involved was already there. The in-between has led to a money and power grab that is not conducive to continuing the history of Amateur Radio in the US.
ARRL at one time fairly recently attempted to insert themselves in a regulatory role along with FCC, fortunately that failed.
Q. How much is $15 x 400,000?
Q. Why does it matter?
Q. How much money would be involved if 20% of that 400,000 bought $1000 digital radios?
Count de Money with the part of the Count being played by the ARRL.
/rant_on
The art is falling apart. We have a plethora of new Licensees who are neither on the air, else at least repeaters across the country would be overloaded, nor buying equipment, as its too overpriced to afford, nor building anything. Tens of THOUSANDS of them. The VEC at Tri Cities WA, last year, commented something about 400,000 new licensees?
♪ ....O where, O where can he be?♪ (what popular tune was that from?)
They aren't on the air!
They have been led into thinking Amateur Radio is easy and cheap.
It IS to just memorize some published test questions AND the answers and getting a license.
That is not Amateur Radio.
Amateur Radio is about BUILDING THINGS, not talking on the air, not just getting a piece of paper.
The grant of operating authority by the US FCC (things might be different in your Nation) is TWO licenses, not one. We see that when we printed the license form, cut it in two with scissors and sign the form. They are:
1. An OPERATORS License. That is legal authority to talk or key or send this digital nonsense (yes, ol' Analog guy says "Analog rules", and there is no such thing as 'digital radio' cause digital is LOGIC, not radio) over the air.
2. A STATION license. There are two ways to go about making a station, buy equipment or BUILD it. In the 1920s thru 1950s there was none to scarcely any Amateur Radio equipment to buy. It was built from scratch or re-purposed from old commercial or military equipment.
The STATION is what Amateur Radio is all about. We can talk on telephones if talking is the goal and FCCs Amateur Regulations basically say that- it if can be communicated some other way, then use that way.
Back in the 1920s when the scientists had just divulged to the world the science behind electricity, electronics and radio, we Amateurs invented this art/practice, we were the first engineers. Engineers take principles of science and put them to practice. Amateurs have a proud tradtion of 'inventing radio' as something useful.
Buying a rig, antennas and premade feedlines and throwing them together with no knowledge of what SWR is, with no knowledge of basic electrical physics to at least try to understand how antennas and feedlines work, IS NOT AMATEUR RADIO.
Ham radio is DOING, not talking. Yes, the goal of the doing is the talking, but it takes both.
Just mashing a mic button and talking was (is) what CB radio was about. Buy a box, antenna and scream into the mic....Or FRS.
There is more than just a historical purpose for ranting thus. The art of Amateur radio is fast disappearing, those of us with real knowledge and skill are vanishing.
No its not 1950, no, vacuum tubes are not so common and no,
its not possible for most Hams, let alone most EE's to design and build, or even copy-build RF equipment using modern solid state SMT components. I can, but I'm not going to spend the next three years of my life doing that and end up in the looney bin as a result from trying to work with fine pitch SMT, Ill buy and restore and old rig first, and talk on this nice, shiny Yaesu 857 which is a box full of state of the art computers. I bought that because I could never, ever build it for $800, the same reason as I buy mobile antennas such as the Hustler ball mount, I cant afford the machine shop time for what that antenna cost. The difference is that I CAN design and build antennas, and radios and not just from the Handbook (and that's better than nothing) because instead of just memorizing questions and answers to get through a test without actually having STUDIED electrical and radio theory, I poured over the books in the 1970s to get a Ham license, beat my head against the wall to pass the 2nd Class Commercial in 1979 (that made the Extra Class ham test look easy!) learned the theories, became extremely good at repairing electrical and electronic equipment, and went into the EE field.
It was more than a hobby, it was an obsession and it still is.
And THAT is the fascination with Amateur Radio ('Ham' is a derogatory term...), turning it into personal achievement and art work, obsessing over making it better.
And the point I'm getting at is to blast the FCC and ARRL for decimating the art of Amateur Radio, the process of Federal de-regulation and 'dumbing down' the testing process, especially abandoning the CW requirements, has done massive damage.
ARRL is a CORPORATION and they seem in it for the MONEY now, especially with their latest boondoggle to front their Attorney to make a Flim Flam Petition before the FCC:
ARRLs Attorneys flim flam Petition before the FCC RM 11759
(others, and my, mostly scathing responses)
(Why are ARRL wasting Members money to pay an Attorney to file this? We didn't need Attorneys to file comments.)
to totally upset the HF bands and give more spectrum, and HF spectrum to Tech licensees, most of which can barely spell r-a-d-i-o, DIGITAL permissions on the Straw Argument that barely-able and not educated individuals will somehow aid in 'development of digital comms.' This Straw Man argument is easy to spot, since:
1. Techs dont KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
so can NOT aid in tech development. That's as delusional on ARRLs part as insisting a newly hired carpenter is qualified to do new building design.
2. Digital comms are old news, there's nothing TO develop, and 'dumbing them down' to a 500 cycle BW for use on Amateur bands,
is NOT technology development. It's de-development.
It's clear ARRL is pushing this on behalf of radio manufacturers, not Hams. They could make a lot of sales if a significant number of new Licensees buy radio equipment. They aren't doing so now, and that's THEIR fault for making equipment that is too complex and expensive, and they want to make it worse, and more expensive by increasing digital mode usage?
The projects shown here are NOT just Amateur level work, they involve electrical engineering principles that most Hams don't have.
Theres no reason they can't GET them, is there?
These antennas appear to be traditional Ham antennas, (yes I too have an awful dipole...) but they are not, theres a little 'rocket science'lurking inside each. They perform much better than the average Amateur built antenna. That is a result of not just building the Handbook version of an antenna, but starting with clean paper and delving into the electrical physics of how and why antennas work and doing experimentation spanning eight months. There are some serious flaws in how Hams approach antennae, in particular, such as the poor soul working NPOA lately, who declared he had a NVIS dipole because the feedpoint was only five-feet off the ground.
As Prince said in Purple Rain:"That ain't Lake Minnetonka!"
It's not a NVIS antenna (all dipoles are more or less NVIS, they waste much power up and down, look at the 3D radiation pattern) unless the ground is very conductive, and his location was on nasty, rocky soil, hardly reflecting. Much of the power from his dipole was heating rocks and clay.
Theory FIRST, then go build! Just learning a neat sounding phrase like "I have a Zepp antenna" ( you can't have one without a Zeppelin on which to put it, you have a dipole horrifyingly out of tune and the Zepp was not a dipole) or acronym like "NVIS" does NOT indicate any knowledge.
Knowledge is power and you're NOT going to get much of the latter radiated with a poor antenna like a dipole. Yes, I have one, yes it's as awful as everyone elses dipole with poor gain except that its built better than most, using principles of mechanical engineering, with the proper feedline, 75 ohm.
There is a mind boggling array of info on the Internet about antenna and feedline physics, search it out, study it till your eyes fall out. And that is NOT Hams websites, which just regurgitate old fairy tales about antennas, get documents and lectures from university Physics and EE departments and read that. Ignore the ugly math, much of that is just proofs.
Here are some examples:
http://journals.aps.org/prab/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.17.021302
http://electronicdesign.com/communications/back-basics-impedance-matching-part-1
http://www.standard-wire.com/coax_cable_theory_and_application.html
/tangent
Notice these are authoritative sources, not Ham websites. Most Ham websites are in error, like this one:
http://www.qsl.net/kk4kf/hw7-mods.html
The HW-7 VFO doesnt need a regulator, that TX did not chirp in the past when the radio was new, try replacing old capacitors and reparing it.
and:
http://k0jqz.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
"R 14 in the keying circuit is the wrong value."
No it isn't, and it's not a keying circuit, it's 'break- in' and that's a receive function.
Notice the condemnation of Heathkits engineers, stated without proof, without CIRCUIT ANALYSIS of even a simple DC circuit. The resistor is NOT the wrong value, it was not in 1976 when I built and used an HW-7, it's not now, 40 years later after total restoration. These are uneducated newcomers, well meaning Amateurs, playing a popular Internet game called Brave New World (see the movie on Youtube)- they are out to discover what's wrong with something they know nothing about and to show their genius and superiority by correcting others mistakes and by doing so, un edited and without review, on the instant gratification system called the Internet where the immediate feedback of seeing this stuff published is an ego booster.
This mod is GUARANTEED to exceed the voltage ratings of that transistor. These old transistors had very low voltage ratings. I looked them up and did the DC circuit analysis on that stage. The real problem is the leaky electrolytic cap in the circuit causing excess collector current, and/or a leaky, or subsequently damaged and leaky transistor. Change the old failed parts instead of causing another problem and giving false information to others. Concensus with another Ham who is also uneducated does not make right.
/endtangent
I searched out and studied such physics papers on antennae and feedlines before embarking on these antenna projects, after realizing 40 years after I started delving into this art, two things:
1. I realized I didnt know much about antennas either!
2. Had EE experience and knowledge to apply what was in the papers.
There's no longer a need to belong to ARRL (money grubbing corporate types) or to rely on the Antenna handbook, theres REAL info for free on the Internet. Go get it!
There are other historical and present aims of the true practice of our Art:
1. Message handling, especially emergency comms. This is an especial problem on 2M where faux 'nets' are held weekly, with no traffic handling, thus, they are not really nets, but round-tables. A check in doeth not a net make.
2. Learning and thus maintaining the body of electrical, electronic and radio knowledge we have been given. Some day, if numbers of Amateurs buying commercial equipment dwindle too far, the manufacturers will stop making it. Parts for the popular 1980s and '90s equipment are no longer available, but in most cases, not rocket science to replace. But, these new computerized rigs are impossible to service now, let alone 15 years down the road. I can design my Yaesu 857, I cannot service it. When all that is gone, will Amateurs still have knowlege to build their own radio equipment? Not at the present rate of education, that's BEEN lost.
/rant_off
My Other Site- Honda Goldwing wiring
Last Updated: 07/30/2016
