Two Aussies and a Japanese guy walk into a bar…
Or so it seemed when I worked VK2LAW, VK6DW, and JE2GEG right out of the chute this morning. I knew the band was long when I first fired off a few CQ’s on 20 meters and received multiple RBN results from VK and ZL receivers, a good sign for DX to the South Pacific.
None of these were new entities, but I never turn down an opportunity to work any station in those regions. Australia seems so far away and exotic in my mind that I’m compelled to call whenever I hear a VK. Same goes for Japan where there’s actually an award for working all prefectures there and I’d like to one day hang that paper on the wall:
Japan consists of 47 administrative units below their national government. These entities, called prefectures, are roughly analogous to states in the United States. The Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL) sponsors the Worked All Japan Prefectures Award (WAJA) for making contact with at least one Ham Radio operator in each of these prefectures.
I need to do a little bookkeeping to see where I stand in that particular quest. I haven’t checked recently. Yes, there’s an app for that. Whose surprised? Work ‘em all and do the paperwork later has always been my method…
Six Meters
Blessed is the DX that reciprocates via LoTW without renumeration…
I have tried to get into the habit of checking on 6 meters on a daily basis during E-season. There have been nice surprises though VUCC isn’t a passion for me. My total confirmed, unique grids on 6 meters is currently sitting at 90. It was 65 before this season began. My lack of productivity is mostly due to the highly directional propagation I’ve observed. Very often when working on the Magic Band I will contact a half dozen or more stations from the same grid square. Just a few days ago I checked in about my lunch time and there was a buzz of activity. I worked ten stations in very short order, every single one of them in EL29 (Houston, Texas) and one in Mexico. So add ten contacts to the log and get credit for a single new grid, EL06 in Mexico.
Working ten to earn one makes the effort a little longer game and given this season is quickly slipping away, it could be next year before I nail down VUCC on 50 MHz. I was hoping to get there this year, but I’m not complaining. I don’t have a cloud of stacked aluminum over my head. I’m working from the trenches and my expectations are low from the get-go and I’m not going to get above my raising.
Happy Friday
I started the coffee brewing before entering the shack this morning. Opening the laptop and firing up the transceiver, along with flipping on the ceiling fan, were among the first activities of this Friday for me. I checked LoTW to see if there were any updates. I always check it first thing. I guess it’s like keeping an eye on the mailbox waiting for new QSL cards to arrive. There were a few confirmations, one from the TY5AD operation in Benin that I worked a few days ago. Not a new country, but a new band slot on 20 meters. Opening MacLoggerDX to download those confirmations I was alerted that a new version of the software was available for download and now v6.57 of MLDX is installed.
Called CQ a few times on 20 mostly to check propagation. No replies. Not great. SSN:137 SFI:156 A:15 K:2. With the coffee done brewing I settled in with a cup and began listening to the Treasure Coasters SSB net on 7153. Next was tuning around 20 meters where I stopped to listen to W6ABM/VY2 operating phone from Prince Edward Island. He was generating enough buzz that he was directing traffic by call regions. When I tuned across he was calling “fives” so it was a long wait for “nines” by which time he had faded into the noise.
Scanning headlines I saw the Alabama QSO Party takes place this weekend. When the year began I told myself (because no one else listens) that I was going to work more QSO Parties this year. That hasn’t happened and I think I figured out why. Being retired, I hit the shack daily from Monday thru Friday then usually take a break from radio over the weekend. And of course weekends are when all the contests, sprints, and QP’s take place. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure that out…
This evening we will likely walk over to Morrow Meadow for the Farmer’s Market. Pending the weather. And sweat. Hot, sticky, and pop-up thunderstorms are in the forecast for nearly the next week. I’m at a loss as to why so many people look forward to summer time. It’s a puzzler.
Remote Receivers
Fred: I heard you check into the Possum Trot Net on 40 meters this morning. Didn’t know you hung out there. Odd thing, I could copy you fine, you’re practically local. But I couldn’t hear anyone else on the net. Propagation must be pretty poor today? How many folks regularly show up?
Tom: We had about thirty check-ins this morning. But you won’t have much luck copying everyone directly. We’re spread out over about 2000 miles.
Fred: Really? 2000 miles is pretty impressive for 40 meters phone at 9am. What’s this about not being able to hear everyone directly?
Tom: We all use remote receivers. You log onto a Web page that lists a bunch of remote receivers that can be streamed over the internet. We all are connected via a net logger application that let’s us make a list of check-ins so everyone knows whose next. For instance, when it gets turned over to Sylvia in Chattanooga we all switch to a remote receiver in southern Tennessee to listen to her transmission. After her we might switch to Dale in Phoenix and listen via a receiver in Arizona, and so on. The system works really well so long as you have a solid net connection. Band conditions don’t really matter much for us.
Fred: Seems to me it might be easier with that large a crowd that you would all move to GoTo Meeting or something like that. You could even see each other using video that way!
Tom: Whoa! Hold on there Fred, that doesn’t sound like a suggestion fit for a “real ham”. We want to communicate using our radios, not the internet. You start doing that and next thing you know, ham radio is dead and everyone will be talking to each other online using computers. We’re real hams, we use our radios and the ionosphere to communicate!
Fred: Uhhh, yeah…but… Never mind. See you down the net logger…
ARRL Board Notes
Perusing the ARRL Member Bulletin covering results from the Second Board Meeting, (July 18 –19, 2025) turned up a couple items of note:
For instance, I had plum forgot about the new DXCC Trident award that was announced months ago. Best I can tell this one copied the Triple Play WAS award format except with DXCC instead of States. Confirm a 100 DXCC entities worked using CW, Phone, and Digital modes and get the award, which also includes endorsements for increasing numbers of DXCC. The intent is to generate additional CW and SSB activity and this seems like a good idea.
The Board also approved a year-long celebration of the semiquincentennial of the United States. This will include commemorative ARRL US250 Worked All States awards from contacts made during 2026, as well as other on-air activity. Jeez, now I feel really old as I remember well the bi-centennial in 1976…
The Board approved making 2026 the Year of the Club and passed other motions in support of the initiative including:
- Creation of a book featuring high-performance clubs.
- Establishment of working with and recognizing outstanding club websites while helping clubs with ineffective websites.
- Recognizing ARRL Affiliated Clubs that maintain a higher-than-required ARRL membership level for affiliation. Clubs that achieve a 70% or a 90% ARRL membership level within their clubs will receive acknowledgment and special recognition.
Can I root for the success of this initiative while remaining highly skeptical of the basic premise?
My observation has been that local clubs, of every variety, have gone the way of the landline telephone. I don’t think it’s a ham radio or ARRL “problem” I simply don’t believe people in 21st century have the same interest in social clubs as humans had a century ago. Locally, the Lions Club, the Rotary Club, the Optimist Club, etc. all closed shop years ago. When asked “why?” the answer was that younger people simply weren’t interested in the concept of “clubs” anymore and the current members were all in their 80s and tired. Sounds a little too familiar, eh?
But hey, I give the ARRL credit, not for trying (again) to revive local radio clubs, but for doing what members have been begging them to do in this regard. The members are wrong and I don’t think it will work, but the effort means HQ does listen, even when tossing good money after bad. Besides, there’s always the possibility that I’m wrong and this works. Drop me a note when you re-install that rotary dial landline phone in your home and we can discuss it…
Bureau Cards
How to Access Crucial Hurricane Data
Radio geeks reveal how to access crucial hurricane data after US Department of Defense cut it off - Hams for the win: Amateur-built decoder taps SSMIS satellite data amid NOAA cutoff
With the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) set to shut down a key satellite data stream used in US hurricane forecasting, a group of amateur radio enthusiasts has stepped in with a decoder they say could fill the gap. In June, the US Department of Defense (DoD) decided to remove access to data collected by the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) instrument for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).
In the Beginning Was the Command Line
The humidity has been insane. It’s been a hot summer, but that’s not so unusual for Central Indiana. The high temps haven’t been sufficient to warrant much commentary and our rainfall total for the season is actually about an inch below normal. It’s not the heat and it’s not the precipitation. It’s the humidity. Hovering around 90% on nearly a daily basis makes it nasty for doing anything outside, it just drives me deeper into the air-conditioning. But the real problem is how the humidity is making every creeping thing grow and thrive. I can’t kill the weeds quickly enough! They are sprouting from everywhere, even the cracks in the driveway, that have received gallons of Ground Clear this season, just keep sprouting new weeds. What’s more, all the cement and stone around my patio is covered in moss or some kind of slime algae that I have power-washed off several times already. Same goes for the privacy fencing and even the stones around the fire pit. It’s like some alien entity and I’m sick of it. I need Autumn weather to keep me from going nuts here…
Yet another hat tip to Doc Searls for pointing to the essay, In the Beginning Was the Command Line, by Neil Stephenson. I read it ages ago and it was as good this time around as in the previous century. The online text is available here. Doc’s blog post is here.
Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes. What’s the deal with all the churn in the ARRL Field Organization of late? Changes in the ARRL Sacramento Valley Section. Changes in the ARRL Pacific Section. Changes in the ARRL Atlantic Section. Maybe the last one out should turn off the lights?
CQWW-VHF Digital
I spent a few hours in the CQWW-VHF Digital contest this weekend. All on six meters. Fifty-watts into a ground mounted vertical because that’s all I had readily available. I have an M2 three-element antenna for 50MHz, but it remains unopened in the box just like it arrived here three years ago. I even have an unopened rotor and controller for it. Yeah-yeah, I’ll get around to it one of these days…
⁍ “Blogs are newsletters that don’t require subscriptions…”
Nothing great happened for me on the Magic Band with that setup though I did manage 22 contacts spread over 18 grids. Contacts were made out to about 1250 miles. The most distant being New Mexico (DM64). One nice surprise was working Bob, K0NR in Colorado (DM78). It will be interesting to see who all confirms as I’ve nearly reached VUCC on 6 meters and a good turnout should push me over the threshold. I tried to submit my paltry results, but the ADIF to Cabrillo converter on the CQWW site didn’t work. I did post to 3830.
Born again Apple Mac geek thanks to amateur “Ham” radio
Veteran marketing exec Andrew Woodward wrote a blog post about his re-engagement with the geekier side of the Mac platform as a part of his new hobby of amateur radio:
The most surprising and one of the best things about my rediscovery of radio is how it’s converged with computers and the Mac (and to a lesser extent iPad and iPhone). Computers are an integral part of modern amateur radio when it comes to controlling radios, seeing activity, transmitting and receiving voice and data messages, logging, and communicating via amateur radio repeaters on satellites, including the International Space Station. And that’s not even half of it.
The Mac is well supported in amateur radio and there’s a great, active, innovative and clever developer community and fan base. I’ve been introduced to great developers like Marcus Roskosch and SDR Control, Dogpark Software, RUMsoft, RT Systems and Chirp. There are many, many more (see Mac Ham Radio). A popular YouTuber Mike K8MRD is a massive Mac fan boy. The convergence of radio and computing has made me a born again Mac Geek. My iPad and iPhone are mainly used for logging and checking space weather for broadcasting conditions. There are also some familiar names popular in the Mac ham radio circles like Rogue Amoeba and its Loopback software.