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Before I start - Don't forget to vote!  I'm still asking for your ideas on Step 5 in my Crowd Sourced Project.  As always - keep your money, just give me your ideas!  With that little ad out of the way, here we go...

​Its a miracle! I started and finished a project in the same week!

​I shouldn't be too rough on myself - quite a few of my ongoing projects are rather large, so progress tends to be slow, doing small amounts of work as time allows. This project however, was one that was a complete workshop tangent.

There it is - a "homebrew" speaker for ham radio use! The day I started this, I didn't even know I was going to do it. It all came about becasue I was working on another radio project (the "secret project" that I allude to from time to time) in the garage, and I wanted to be able to hear my rig over all the noise I was making. I started to look at powered speakers online, when suddenly it dawned on me that I probably had everything I needed to make one, primarily becasue the key components (a speaker and a small amplifier) I had left over from tearing this thing apart in order to work on version 2 (which still isn't done....sigh.)

So realizing that I had those parts, I started to dig in the piles in the garage and presto, within a couple days I had a small powered speaker! If you follow me on twitter you saw these pictures as I did each step, but here they are again with a few more details. Enjoy!

If you have a hardware store near you, that is probably the best place to get MDF and aluminum, but you can order both of these things online.  Shipping rates can get strange with sheets of plywood or 4' lengths of aluminum, but there are places like online metals that will cut things to size for you.

The 3.5mm jack on the small amp turned out to have a "bonus" functionality! It was really meant (I think) to be an alternative input from the ones on the board itself. It is just wired in parallel with the other inputs, so by plugging a mono to stereo adapter (remember that I was only using the left channel). I can use traditional stero headphones to monitor the input source for the amp.

Why is that a bonus? In field-day like situations, the speaker can be plugged into the rig, and the operator can plug headphones into the speaker. The operator can then use the rig's AF gain (volume) control to set a comfortable audio level for the headphones, and then anyone who wants to listen in on the action can adjust the speaker volume until their heart is content, without impacting what the operator hears in their headphones. I think thats a slick, unplanned for feature! You could always get the same effect by plugging both a speaker and headphones into a "Y" cable, but this has a more polished feel to it.

There you have it! A powered 12 volt speaker enclosure for the times that I need more punch than I can get with a more traditional passive one, and I made it entirely from stuff that I already had on hand!  If you're as luck as I am and have a good stash of parts, maybe you can do the same - if not, most of the individual part pictures in the post are Amazon links, so you can get what you need if you want the joy of rolling your own!

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[ed. I updated this post, to reflect the fact that these setting and options will work for both the POTA and WWFF park activation programs]
​Before I get started - have you voted yet? - I'm currently at part 5 of my "Crowdsourced" project, where I have been soliciting for your input into an ongoing project I've been slowly kicking down the road. 

​With that out of the way, on with the show!

There are quite a few ham radio apps out there, but if you are an iOS user, you can probably download this one app and be done.  This is because there is not much you could ever want a ham radio app to do, that isn't included in this one.  Look at the insanely low price along with everything this app does, and you'd have to be a crazy person to not download it.  I'm going to be up front with you and let you know that this app does SO MUCH that this is a loooong post.  

You can skip to the end of this article for a list of all of the amazing things that this app will do, and I won't be offended, because most of this post will focus on the feature that I just "found" in the app that has helped me immensely with one of the things I love doing in ham radio - portable operating for the Parks on the Air and World Wide Flora and Fauna programs.

A topic that comes up regularly for these types of programs is logging while operating portable.  When portable, one of the biggest concerns is power, so while logging on a laptop might be nice, it is often times power prohibitive.  Many people choose to log on paper and then transcribe their contacts into a program when they return home.  If you're like me, free time is at a premium, so an option that lets you get the contacts logged in the proper format as you make them is always preferable.  Since many of us now carry around a portable device that operates for a number of hours on relatively low power, using it for ham radio logging is an obvious choice.

What makes Hamlog so great for logging?  It has a "hidden" feature called "Create A Log" that lets you build a log sheet with exactly the fields you need, no more, no less.  For POTA and WWFF this is awesome, because there are a couple of fields in the ADIF format that the (currently being built) POTA database, and logsearch (the WWFF database) uses, that are not included in the "standard" layout of most (any?) iOS based logging apps.  Hamlog lets you create logs with exactly the data you need.  This makes it easy for you, but also for the program administrators when they upload your logs (they'll thank you for it!)  

What ADIF data fields do POTA and WWFF need, and how are they used?  Here they are, with a brief description of each - but don't be intimidated!  I'll explain how hamlog makes this very easy later in this article.

• STATION_CALLSIGN
  • ​This field is used for the call sign that is getting "credit" for the activation.  Usually, we are activating by ourselves, so it is just our own call-sign.  There might be times however, where you are activating with a club or something similar.  In this case the club callsign would be the one you enter here.
• OPERATOR
  • ​This is the filed where the person making the contacts puts their callsign.  When we are operating by ourselves, it is usually just our own callsign a second time.  It may be different then the "station_callsign" however, if you are activating with a club or with someone else.  This is also a place to put the callsign of a guest operator if another ham happens to stumble by, and you put them on the air.
• MY_SIG
  • ​This is one of the fields that databases use, that might not seem to make sense based on the name of the field, until you relaize that SIG is not signal - it's short for "Special Interest Group."  You can think of it like being a field to put the name of the program into (i.e. POTA, WWFF, SOTA, IOTA, etc.)  Every contact in your log should have the same value here.
• MY_SIG_INFO
  • ​Once you understand MY_SIG, it's easy to think of MY-SIG_INFO as being the details - i.e the park number.  Programs maintain a list of their park numbers and designations, so just be certain to use the right park number!  (Luckily, most programs are flexible, so if you activate a location that qualifies under multiple things - i.e. you activate a SOTA peak, that is on an IOTA Island, that is in a park, that is part of both POTA and WWFF, you can usually indicate when submitting logs where you were, making you able to submit the same logs to multiple groups (an example of the above is Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island in the Acadia National Park.)
• CALL
  • ​This is the field where you type the callsign of the person that contacted you.  That's pretty straightforward!
• QSO_DATE
  • ​This is the field that contains the date the contact was made (if you're logging as you go, its just today's date, in UTC)
• TIME_ON
  • ​This is the field that contains the time the contact started, in UTC.
• BAND
  • ​This field contains the band of operation.  Different log uploading tools seem to handle this differently, but for award purposes, pretty much universally, you don't need the exact frequency, just the band.  What we need here is simply the band, followed by the letter "m".  As an example, if I made the contact on 20 meters, I would be entering "20m" in this field.  The "m" is important (learned the hard way with the help of Jeff Dahn!) because this is what lets logging databases. know that you have entered a band and not a specific frequency.  Don't forget the "m"!
• MODE
  • ​This is where you enter the mode of the contact.  Pretty much all of the standard abbreviations (SSB, CW, DIG, RTTY, etc.) are accepted.
• SIG
  • ​Special Interest Group of the person you are contacting. for POTA and WWFF, we use this field to indicate the "program" that the person chasing you is participating in.  Normally it will be blank, but if they also happen to be in a park doing an activation (known as a park-to-park contact) this is where you put the letters "POTA" or "WWFF" to indicate that this chaser is also doing a park activation.
• SIG_INFO
  • ​The final Special Interest Group field.  This field is complimentary to the one above.  If this is a Park-to-Park contact as indicated above, this is where you put the designation of the park that the other person is in. 
• ​NOTES
  • ​No logging databases that I know of actually need anything in this field, but since we often like to type little tidbits about our contacts, it gets included in nearly every logging package as a "catch-all" field.

You may notice that their are some fields not included, that we commonly exchange, like signal reports.  Here's a little secret - very few logging databases care whether or not you use signal reports.  When portable, the name of the game is to do only what you need to do, no more.  So yes, while I may give signal reports as a courtesy while I am activating, I don't actually put them in my log.

Through the "Create-a-log" feature, hamlog lets you build templates, so I made a template for WWFF, which will also work for the newer POTA program, that gives me exactly what I need using the fields above.  The template also lets you give custom names to the fields we discussed, so we can call them something that makes more sense, to help us remember what each field is for. After I set up the template the first time (I'll help you with that in just a little bit) doing my logging is now super easy!  Just follow along in the gallery below for the step by step of what this is like in practice.

    If so, I'll even help you out by making it easy to set up your custom template!  Right in the app, on the "Create A Log" main screen, you can click help for detailed directions on how to create and set up your template.  The first step is creating the template, which is done using a CSV file, but I'll make that easy for you - here it is!  Feel free to download it and use it so you don't have to create it from scratch. Both of these are the same internally, but if you're picky about names and organization, choose whichever you like:

To use the template, you first add it to your iPhone using iTunes File Sharing.  To quote the help file in the app:

• Connect your iPhone (or iPad) to your computer
• Open iTunes
• Navigate in iTunes to your devices
• Select the "Apps" tab
• Scroll down to the bottom of the view to find "iTunes File Sharing"
• Select HamLog
• Drag and Drop your template into the file area
• To verify the upload, open the App on your phone, go to Tools, and Create A Log as described above, and you should see the template, just like you saw in my pictures.

I highly recommend this app for anyone doing activations that has an iPhone.  It couldn't be any easier once you are all set up!

I apologize for the length of this post already, but this app has so much awesomeness in it, that it takes a long post just to skim the surface!  I'll finish up with a quick (kind of...) list of everything else that is built into the app:

• ​Audio Recording - Allows you to record audio clips, but at the time of this writing, this feature didn't seem to be working on my phone (I don't use this one anyway...)
• Azimuth Calculation - Automatically gets your grid square info from your location, and allows you to enter any other grid square, to determine the bearing between you and the other station.
• Azimuthal Equidistant Maps - Lets you create slick world maps centered on your location, via AZProj that was authored by WM7D.  You can generate these on the fly, from wherever you happen to be, using the location data from your phone - very handy for portable operations!
• Band Plans - This gives you the international band plans, as created by the various organizations like IARU, DARC, ARRL, etc.
• CW Generator - Generates CW!  Depending on your rig, you might be able to make an interface of some sort to use this as an auto-keyer.  I havn't played around with it much, other than having it sound out my callsign to me via the phone's speaker.
• CW Helper - A basic chart of the CW characters, that will also play the sounds of them when you click on each letter.
• Callsign Lookup - Does what it says :-)
• CloudSync V2 - This is an extra feature that allows cloud backup of your Hamlog data. (requires a subscription)
• Contact Charts - This gives you some analytics about your contacts in your main log, complete with graphs by count, mode, states, countries, etc.  Pretty slick!
• Contest Calendar - Gives you a view of the contest calendar data from WA7BNM
• Create A Log - lets you create custom logs for things like WWFF, SOTA, IOTA, etc.
• DTMF Memories - This lets you save and store DTMF commands.  Do you operate a repeater or regularly use echolink / allstar?  You can save the commands you use most often as Macro's and play them through your mic to send commands.  Pretty slick to have if you find yourself trying to send commands to a repeater from a radio that doesn't have a DTMF keypad!
• DTMF Tone Generator - this is a basic keypad that lets you generate DTMF tones.  this is very useful if you need to send repeater commands but don't have a DTMF keypad on your mic - just hold your phone up to the mic, press your PTT, and type the command!
• DX Cluster - Enter the server and port info for your favorite DX cluster server and viola - you're connected!
• DX Spots - Gives you DX clustuer spots from DX Summit
• DXCC Entities - gives you a lis of the entities including ITU and CQ zones, continent, etc.
• DXpedition Calender - at the time of the writing this feature was not active.
• Delete All Log Entries - I'm scared to click this - I will just assume it does what it says (it does give you an "are you sure" pop up, so don't worry about accidentally bumping it)
• Dupe Finder - Searches your main log for potential duplicate entries.
• EtherPig - This function is not currently active
• Export Log Entries - Lets you export entries from your main log for uploading to your favorite site - LOTW, eQSL, etc.
• Field Day - This gives you a log specifically formatted for the field day exchange.  It also has the option of connecting to a "field day server" that you can set up, so that multiple operators can use their own devices to log, and automatically consolidate the logs in a single location.
• Grid Calculator - lets you find the Grid Square of a manually entered latitude and longitude.
• Grid Square GPS - gives you your FULL grid square, latitude, longitude, and altitude using the GPS built into your device.
• Grid from Map - gives you a clickable map that you can use to find grid square designations.
• Grid to Map - lets you type in a grid square, and then shows you on a map where that grid is located.
• HF Net List -Displays the very comprehensive net list and schedule from N1YZ
• HamQTH lookup - allows you to do lookups in the HamQTH database, if you provide your HamQTH user name and password
• HamStack Lite - Remote station control and monitoring via Sierra Radio (I'm pretty sure this is the  company that the George half of George and Jeremy from Hamradio 360 Workbench Podcast is involved with!)
• IARU Prefixes - A quick way to look up where someone is from when you hear that strange call sign prefix - very hand to know if it is worth pausing in the middle of an activation to try and catch a "rare" one!
• IRLP Node Status - gives the status of IRLP notes, including the RF frequency that the node is associated with, and it's location.
• ITU Phonetic Alphabet - handy for those times when you can't remember if R is supposed to be Romeo or Radio...
• Import ADIF - allows you to import ADIF files into your log.
• LAT/Long to Deg/Min - calculates degrees and minutes for you from a manually entered latitude and longitude
• Length Converter - are you talking to one of those weird Americans that doesn't use the metric system like the rest of the world?  Enter the distance he/she says and convert it to cm/m/km.  (oh, it works the other way around too.  Just had to remind my fellow 'muricans' that we're the odd ducks here, not everyone else.)
• Net notifications - lets you save net info so that your phone will remind you when it's net time!  I personally use my phone's built in alarms for this, but you could do it this way as well.
• Notes from the Author - Read what Nick has to say!
• PSKReporter.info - lets you view the data from pskreporter within the app.
• Part 97 - yes, its simply part 97.  But this is great, because technically we're supposed to have a copy of this in our "station."  You're covered, just in case the FCC shows up at your campsite while you are operating portable! (I know, this would probably never happen, but who knows - maybe you just want to review it before climbing into your sleeping bag at night...)
• PigMac - lets you send customer command macros to your Piglet and connected radio.  Info on the piglet interface which gives you wireless rig control from the app is here
• Pigtail - connections to a hardware device you can connect to your rig to get wireless rig control from the app.
• Pigtail Tracker - combines features of the Pigtail with TNC and a map to show APRS data.
• Podcasts - gives a list of some of the more popular ham radio podcasts - as a note, this list is currently out of date.
• Q Signals - A handy reference when you are trying to remember the difference between QRN, QRM, and QSB OR if the other person says/sends "QSZ" and you're trying to decide if that's actually a thing (hint...it is...but saying it on phone would be goofy...)
• QRP Spots - Handy link to QRPSPOTS.com for those of you that might like chasing QRPers.  (See the tool above if you don't know what QRP means!)
• QRZ xml lookup - looks up callsigns and retrieves the operators information (in text format) from QRZ.com using XML.
• QRZ.com lookup - displays the QRZ web page for the callsign you enter.
• RST Explained - a quick reference chart explaining how RST is supposed to work.  It's a handy refresher in today's wam-bam-thank-you-ham 5-9 world. It's nice to be reminded of what real signal reports are:-)
• Reverse Beacon Network - takes you to the reverse beacon network.  If you're not familiar, this is a slick interface that skims the airwaves listening for CQ calls in CW, and "spots" them automatically.  It's a slick way to see if your signal is getting out, or just to see who is calling CQ via Morse Code at any given time.
• Ring the Phone - This just makes the sound of a ringing phone.  If you're talking to "that guy" you can hit this, and he'll hear a phone ringing in the background, to which you can say "gotta go!  phone's ringing!"
• SOTA Watch - Takes you to the SOTA Watch web site.  Handy if you like chasing summits!
• SWR calculator - Enter forward and reflected power to determine SWR, just in case you failed division in high school...
• Six Addict - takes you to the Six Meter spotting network. If you like VHF dx this is handy.  It's also useful if you're operating portable because it can help you decide if its worth throwing up that 6 meter antenna, or if you should just stick to HF.
• Solar Data - this gives you a text summary of the solar conditions from HamQSL.com
• Temp Converter - Talking to that US ham who say's it's 90 degrees, and you instantly conjure up images of fire and brimstone before realizing that American's use that funny Fahrenheit stuff?  You can use this to convert it to the "real" temperature.  (Just another reminder to my fellow US operators that we're the weird ones here, not the other way around...) Oh, and yes, like the distance tool, this one works the other way around too.  And also shows you temperature in Kelvin - you know, just because.
•  US Band Plan - This gives the band plan commonly used in the US, complete with the "gentlmen's agreements" about which sections of the band are commonly used for which modes, and calling.
• US Third Party Op Agreements - This is a quick reference for which countries we have third party agreements with.  If you plan on ever having guest operators while portable this is a great reference to have, in case a dx station answers your guest operator's CQ - you can do a quick look to see if the guest operator can take the call, or if you need to grab the mic and take over. (I'm always intrigued about why we do and don't have agreements with certain countries...)
• UTC Clock - What you see is what you get here.
• Voice Macros - This would in theory let you use the app like a voice keyer, but at the time of this writing, this feature wasn't working on my phone.
• WWV Prop Report - This gives you a text display of the most recent WWV propogation report and basic solar conditions.
• Wavelength Calc - Entering the frequency gives you wavelengths.  This could be handy for cutting wire in the field, or just to use for any reason you see fit.
• Weather - Gives basic weather forcast data for any entered zip code
• Where Am I - uses the phone's GPS to determine Lat, Lon, state, city, and street address, of your current location. 

Wow.  Can't believe I'm finally done.  Sorry for how crazy long that was!  (I won't be offended if you didn't read the whole thing!)  

The hamlog app does a TON of stuff.  Before you spend a bunch of money on different apps, check this one out, because odds are, it's cheaper, and does whatever the "other" app does plus some!  Pretty much the only things this app doesn't do are give you a repeater directory, or give you an audio modem that you can use for digital modes.  With all of the stuff it does, and especially because of the "Create-A-Log" feature it is perfect for your POTA, WWFF, SOTA, IOTA, etc. operations!

Welcome to 5th installment of posts centered around my crowd-sourced project!  Before I get to far, I just want to remind everyone that this ongoing project is crowd sourced, NOT crowd funded.  Keep your money.  Just share your ideas!  See Part 3 of this series if you need some details about crowd-sourced vs. crowd-funded (hint - they are NOT the same thing!)

If you are just joining us, you can go back to part 1 to come up to speed, or you can just read on for the quick summary.  For everyone else, sorry for the long delay between part 4 and this update - life happens!  

​Basically, what we have going on here, is that I ended up with a pretty neat box, complete with a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery, because it housed a piece of equipment at my work that was getting scrapped.  

As a ham, it was obvious to me that this box needed to turn in to a project.  Rather than just strike out on my own, I solicited input from the internet at large, to get ideas for what to do with the box.  The overwhelming majority said that I should built it out into a small HF station.  With that decision made, it's time to revisit this, and put some additional details around how we should go about that.  This means that it is once again time to put it to a vote!  If you have a couple of minutes, I'd recommend going back and reading the scope in part 1, so that you have it fresh in mind when you vote, but if don't, feel free to just start voting!

Thanks for your input! 

Believe it or not, as I start to write this post, I am sitting in my tent, at Mashamoquet Brook State Park. (It took me 3 days after that to finish it...)

​I have to start by apologizing because even though I asked the ranger that checked me in (Amie) how to pronounce it, I still can't get it right ( but I'm pretty sure that it sounds like "mash-muck-it.") Anyway, if it was still daylight, this would be the view from where I am sitting, but its dark, so what I actually is a whole lot of nothing...

​This was almost a non-acrivation, because this was a work trip that had a slightly unusual schedule. As it turned out, I did get a chance to operate for a while in the afternoon leading up to my last night here. I only made about 20 contacts, but even so, this was one of my most memorable activations! How's that you say? Here's how!

First, 20 contacts isn't a bad showing for the amount of time I had to operate, the time of day it was, and the way conditions were. Thanks 'ol Sol! 20 is plenty for the awards in the US portion of the WWFF program, and I'll be back for 3 more days in August, so I should have no trouble getting to the 44 needed for the international awards and rankings (or getting in a few more CW contacts - I'm still slow, but I try to get a couple each time!)

The second thing that made this trip memorable was the ham-encounters I had! The reason for this trip was some meetings with folks in the Hartford, CT and Boston, MA offices of the company I work for. When I pulled up at the Hartford office I noticed someone noticing my antenna's, which in turn led to me noticing his! It turns out one of the system designers in Hartford is a fellow ham!  We chatted for a little bit about operating styles and what we do in ham radio.  He said that he is mostly a VHF guy, monitoring, and occasionally talking on, the simplex frequencies as he travels to and from work.

As exciting as it is to realize a co-worker is a fellow ham, I had a second encounter that was even more interesting.  In many of the state park campgrounds, when you arrive, you just head to the camp site you reserved, and as the rangers make their rounds, they stop by and check you in.  Mashamoquet Brook State Park is one just like this.  Shortly after getting my tent set up (Which doesn't take me long - check out the video in this post) the evening shift ranger stopped by.  Whenever I talk to rangers as I get checked in at campgrounds, I always find a way to sneak into the conversation that I am a ham radio operator, and that I usually play around with my radio stuff while I'm camping.  This helps give them a heads up so that when they see antenna's and radio equipment, they already know what's going on.   

So, this time around, when I started my spiel and said "I'm a ham radio operator - that's why I have all the antenna's on my car." the ranger responded very quickly "Oh!  I'm KB1WRN." So there was another chance ham-encounter!  Let's all give a collective - Nice to meet you Amie!

After the realization we were both hams, we chatted for a little bit about radio.  I told her about the World Wide Flora and Fauna program, and she told me about some places in the park that would make good spots to set up.  I also invited her to stop by while she was doing her rounds the next evening, once I had my equipment out.

The next afternoon I set my radio up on the picnic table, and started making my contacts.  Amie - KB1WRN - did stop by then and listen in to a couple contacts.  Since she is a technician class licensee, I offered to let her put out a few CQ calls if she wanted, but she did seem a little mic shy.  I didn't want to over-pressure her, so we chatted a few minutes again, and then she continued on her rounds. 

The third and final thing that made this contact very unique was one of the contacts I made into New Jersey.  The worst part is that I forgot to make a note about which contact this was, and since I had a couple contacts into New Jersey I can't recall which of them it was.  Anyway, one of my contacts into New Jersey was with a ham running 1200 watts - from his mobile!  He described his setup to me, and I was quite impressed.  He basically has very short runs of 4/0 cable to an extra set of batteries and his equipment, to be able to handle the 160 amps that he can potentially need.  He also has some impressive filtering to keep the power clean, which is pretty important at those levels!  That was definitely a first for me!

To wrap up, I like to learn something with every activation I do. I think I learned two things from this one:  

• Keep a script on a piece of paper with your radio equipment!  This way if you want to help someone get on the air, you can hand them the outline of what to say and what to do, to help encourage them through any mic-fright they may have.  Many people do something like this for their GOTA stations during field day, and I think it's a great idea for any situation where we might interact with the public during our radio operations.
• I need to record some sound clips on my iPhone so that I can use the "Annalink" interface that my Daughter and I built as a way to let me use my iPhone as a voice keyer.  When conditions aren't great the lengthy calling time between QSO's can really wear out your pipes. 

Till next time, Happy Hamming!

     First, let me apologize in advance for any grammar or typo issues in this post - I started writing it on my phone, and then switched back and forth between my phone and PC while I wrote.  As a father of young kids I have to write in short bursts when there are quiet moments.

     Second, I am going to apologize for writing this post, but I couldn't help myself - I've really only written one other "behavior" post in the past (this one) and sometimes these topics upset people.  As the type of person who tries to be a "peacemaker" however, I am writing this in the hopes of reaching out and reminding people that as ham radio operators, we should have more that brings us together then we do that drives us apart.  We should also strive to be thoughtful and elegant in our behavior at all times, so that we don't scare others away.

With that out of the way, let me describe what happened that gave me the "sads" while listening to my club's 10 meter net one night. Actually, before I get there, let me describe the net, how it came to be, and some of the people that participate.

The club that I belong to is one that exists primarily to support the repeater that is in our town. For that reason, most of the club activities revolve around "repeater related" things. I joined the club a couple years ago because I use the repeater quite often and wanted to contribute. Because of my work travels, I don't get participate in a ton of club stuff, but I try to whenever possible. In the time that I have been a member (and maybe longer), they have organized some HF activities - primarily doing a small setup on Field Day, Winter Field Day, a small portable setup in one of the local parks a couple times a year, and since last fall, a 10-meter net.

     Even though the "club" as an organization hasn't tackled an HF net before (that I'm aware of, due to my short time with the club) I think it is awesome that they are branching out a little more into HF activities.  It helps to broaden horizons, and doing a 10 meter net gives new local hams a place to get a taste of HF on their technician licenses, since outside of local contacts, there isn't much activity on 10 meters at this point in the sunspot cycle.

Here's the deal though - they did make 1 decision that some might see as a mistake when they started organizing the 10 meter net (which I admit I didn't even realize at first.) I'm not going to tell you what that decision was till closer to the end, however, because that decision isn't really the focus of this post - the reactions of a couple hams (and I'm using the term loosely here) is really the focus.

So let's start by talking about the people that are involved from my club. First, there is me! If you are a regular reader of my blog you probably have a pretty good idea of what I'm about, and the types of things I do. Because I travel quite often, most of my operating is portable, and I'm generally on 20/40/80 ssb and digital, with just a touch of cw now that I've been learning it. I don't go to 10 very often. When I do go to 10, it is usually to participate in the 10 meter net. It is also often done from my portable set-up, tossed up in the few minutes right before the net starts. This means sometimes things aren't quite optimum, occasionally I'll have RF in my signal for whatever reason, or I am barely heard because my antenna is only 4 feet off the ground, etc. Even though someone doesn't know these details, or anything else about me, they would be completely justified in calling me one of "a bunch of LIDs" based solely on hearing me 1 time, say "nothing for the net tonight, back to net control N3VEM" with a less than perfect signal, right?

How about the others? Our Net Control is an operator who does mostly CW. He also works on RF systems as part of his career - and he's good at it! His company sends him all over the world to figure out the tough ones. To help out the club, even though he prefers CW, he runs the net in SSB, using an old Ten-Tec rig that had been a non-working flea market find, which he fixed himself. I think it's a cool rig, and awesome that he fixed it himself - I don't know the model off hand, but it is a tube based, 100% analog radio. That means he isn't always spot-on frequency, but he's the net control, so everyone zero-beats to him, as he kicks off the net. That's how its supposed to work, right? It even gives some of the new guys a chance to use some of the "other" buttons on their radio's, like the RIT control. Or is he a "LID" running a "BullS#!t net" because he's "...not even on frequency - he's like 5hz off?"

What about the folks checking into the net? Well, some of them are brand new, and are just learning. Are they "LIDS" for learning the ropes of operating on HF, in the technician portion of the bands, which is there specifically to give new operators a taste of HF voice?

Guess who else is in our club - former and current professional drivers. A couple of these retired drivers are Extra Class operators (and yes, before we get our knickers in a knot, some of them know CW) but because they spent 30 years of their career listening to CB's as they drove, they do occasionally use the "wrong" terms, and say things like "skip rolling in." (Although, since E-Skip is the proper term, why do we get so fired up when someone shortens that to Skip?) We all let the lexicon of the field we work in sneak into our every-day language, so if a career driver wants to use the terminology from his workplace from time to time, I think we owe it to him to just let it go. Is it fair to call an entire group of people "a bunch of CBers" just because you heard one person use the word "skip?" Is it fair to use "CBer" as a derogatory term?

     So, if you're keeping track, I mentioned some insulting phrases.  To sum up, here they are:

• "bunch of LIDS"
• "BullS#!t net"
• "the net control's not even on frequency - he's like 5hz off."
• ​​"a bunch of CBers"

The most upsetting thing about these phrases - they were all said over the air, interfering with the net, by someone who didn't identify themselves, who apparently felt justified in his behavior because of the 1 decision that he apparently disagrees with, which my club made when they started the net in the fall. What was that decision? Picking the "wrong" frequency.

As they were kicking of the net in the fall, 10 meters was dead. Not dead like there weren't many people on, dead like you were checking your antenna connections to make sure you were actually hooked up to something. Seemed like a perfect time to plan a scheduled event so some of the new guys could get on the air and make HF contacts, at least locally. I'm not sure exactly who was involved in deciding what frequency to choose, but it doesn't really matter - they decided to pick something in the technician portion of the 10 meter band so that everyone could participate - pretty thoughtful I think. It was going very well too, until a couple weeks ago when there started to be some small E-Skip openings. This week was the first I had listened in a while, and I had the pleasure of hearing and experiencing what I described above.

So what was the horrible frequency choice error that was made? The decision was made to choose something near the middle of the technician portion of 10 meters, so they picked 28.400. Ahhhh - some of you see the controversy now - 28.400 is an unofficial calling frequency on 10 meters. Depending who you ask though, it's either a backup calling frequency, the primary calling frequency, or there is no calling frequency at all. Per the actual rules we have to follow, there isn't such a thing as "calling frequencies". To quote a famous Pirate Captain (Barbosa - Pirates of the Caribbean) calling frequencies "...aren't really rules...They're more like guidelines."

I know for myself, I generally avoid calling frequencies, except for calling, but I didn't think about it before now because I'm not normally on 10 meters.  Also, because I get to participate so seldom (I think I've checked in 4 times since last fall) , I didn't really spend any additional time thinking about it.  Finally, since calling frequencies aren't rules, you almost have to go looking for them to find out what they are, and even when you do, there's some ambiguity about exactly what the frequencies are, and what the "normal" procedure is.

Notice however, that I said "normal" procedure and not "correct" procedure. Since calling frequencies are only a gentlemens agreement, there is no right or wrong way to use them (other than the power/frequency/mode restrictions from the FCC) - there's just the ways many people do use them, and the many ways people don't.

So I now pose this question - yes, in the eyes of some, a less then desirable frequency choice may have been made, but who are the LIDS in this situation - the people I described above that were following the FCC rules, or the person who appeared out of nowhere on a frequency that had been silent for 30 minutes prior to the net, just to interfere with the net and name-call its participants (without IDing) because he thought the frequency "belonged" to some other purpose?

To wrap up, I did recommend to the clubs activity director and the net controller that the net be moved to another frequency for the future, and they are considering that, along with a couple other options. No matter what they decide, I wanted to send a message to the club as a whole, and any other club or individual that may find themselves in a similar situation. Keep at it! We do things like this to improve, and "mistakes" will be made by us mere mortals, that the "perfect hams" will love to harass us for. Don't worry though, because nothing illegal was done. We just happened to accidentally stir up an angry badger who had been enjoying listening to a silent frequency, and apparently wanted to continue listening to a silent frequency, but couldn't reach his VFO (even though he seemed very capable of reaching his PTT switch...)