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the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
​-Captain Barbossa
​                                    (Pirates of the Caribbean)

     The Amateur's Code might not be as exciting as the pirate's code, but it is still a set of very good guidelines!  I'm writing about it, because our code reached out and smacked me the other night.  Let me explain:

     I love ham radio.  With the little free time I have, I get on the air whenever I can.  When I can't get on the air, I read about ham radio, I write about ham radio, I listen to Podcasts about ham radio, etc.  For the last semester, I haven't had much free time however, so I haven't gotten to do much radio, or radio related activities.  I did manage one park activation during a work trip, and some contacts here and there from the mobile.  I also wrote some blog posts and kicked off my crowd-sourced project.

     I'm hoping that in that last paragraph you caught my use of the word "semester."  Yup - that means that on top of everything else I do, I'm also an adult learner!  The company I work for does tuition reimbursement, so I've been slowly working at my Bachelors degree in Information Systems.  I'll be done by this time next year - all I have left is 3 more electives, and my senior research project (guess what topic I'll try to sneak in there...)

     Anyway, traveling for work, having a family, and going to school makes me a pretty busy dude.  This busyness is what led to the aforementioned time period with less radio activity than I would like.  I've been feeling bad about this.  Not bad like I "owed" something to someone, but bad like you feel when it seems like your missing out on something.  

     The section that jumped out to me was the section stating that:
​The Radio Amateur is:
...
​Balanced...radio is an avocation, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.
...

     Stumbling across that section, on the evening that I did, was perfect timing.  It reminded me that when life is busy, enjoy it, and know that radio will be there when times are a little less hectic!

     For me, that time is starting now!  Since I don't have class again till the fall, I'm hoping to get some more of my project work done (I've made some pretty decent progress on the basement shack - I'll share about that soon) and get more time on the air (maybe some WWFF activations at the parks near my house). Most importantly, I'll just have fun doing whatever radio stuff I happen to have time to do!

  With a strong lead, and about 31% of the vote, this is the project that all of you picked for me to build!  For those who may be curious about where the project they voted for landed, here were the final results (rounded):

     Any of the ideas that you don't see listed above didn't get any votes, which either means the person that suggested them didn't re-appear to vote for their own idea OR they just liked someone else's idea better than their own!

For anyone that needs a reminder, here's the basic starting point of the project that we'll embark on together, now that this has been determined:

   The idea here is to use the box to build a small HF station.  One of the suggestions involved using one of the popular kits like the BitX or new uBitX, as the basis for the transceiver.  There were varying versions of this idea, covering different power levels, focused on different modes - i.e. cw only, ssb only, digital modes only (by including a single board computer), or some combination. For voting, we'll lump all these idea's together, and if this idea wins the vote those details will be hashed through in the planning stages.

     That's all for now!  Stay tuned, because I will be writing up some information to start defining the details of the project, and to start collecting input on where we go from here.  Thanks for joining the fun!  

Before I share which project won the vote, I feel the need to do a public service announcement, so that we don't accidentally alienate any of our friends.

     I'm a friendly guy, which is why I love ham radio - just about everyone involved is friendly! This series of blog posts, Crowd-Sourced Project, came out of that idea. Hams love to share ideas, give input and suggestions, help out by Elmering newcomers, and talk about what they're up to in the hobby. This project is a fun way to do all of this via the internet!

     Occasionally though, our underbelly shows. Either we stumble across one of the bad seeds (every hobby has them) or we just catch one of the normally friendly folks on a bad day. Believe it or not, these posts, and the idea of doing a project based on input from the community brought out one of the two (I suspect it was the latter.)

     I really do think that it was a simple misunderstanding, because when I responded to the individual on Facebook, his posts suddenly got deleted (I assume he deleted them himself?) He also left a slightly aggressive comment here on my blog. I chose not to publish his comment because he doesn't need to be chastised for making a mistake. If he happens to read this, here's a message just for him:

So, to bring the rest of you up to speed, this gentlemen incorrectly thought I was asking all of you for money to build my project (although he didn't phrase it nearly as kindly.) I will take some of the blame for maybe not making it clearer, or for making the assumption that everyone knew and understood these concepts:

     These are two related, but very different ideas, that are prevalent in the maker and open-source communities. I can understand being put off if you think someone is asking for money. I can also understand that you might be put off by the term Crowd-Sourced if you confuse it with Crowd-Funded. Since the ham radio community, makers, and open-source folks are all so closely related, I think we have a responsibility as hams to understand some of the terminology of our sister communities, if we want their members to join ours. To help in that effort, let's allow Merriam-Webster to straighten things out for us:

Crowdsourcing: the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers

Notice that none of the things being solicited are tangible - i.e. it is looking for ideas and input, not money or goods.

Crowdfunding: the practice of soliciting financial contributions from a large number of people especially from the online community

This is what I am NOT doing, that our friend, through a misunderstanding of terms, got a little excited about.

So there you have it folks! Let's keep putting our heads together with the confidence this project will be crowd-sourced, but only N3VEM-funded. (Remembering that per the scope, I have final veto power if prices of supplies get out of hand....)

Stay tuned! - my next post will announce what I am going to be building, based on the input I received from all of you!

     For anyone new to our crowd-sourced project, feel free to check out the first post in this series here. For those of you that prefer the quick version, here's the scoop:
     Through my work I ended up with a neat little box, that just begged to be reused for some neat ham-radio related purpose.  Rather than just dive into something, I decided to make this a fun group project, where anyone who reads my blog can contribute ideas, and I would supply the labor and do the actual building.

​     After collecting ideas for our group project, here they are!  Some of the idea's were very similar, so in some cases I lumped ideas from different individuals together.  Also, because I don't want to influence the vote, I'm going to attempt to write the descriptions of each ideas clear enough for everyone to understand the idea, but vague enough to leave things open-ended for additional feedback and ideas once we pick a project.  Here we go!

     This is one of the idea's that is mostly self explanatory.  Some of the suggestions were basic, and some were more complex, including the possibility for a small computer for digital/packet type activities.

     The basic premise of this idea is to build a device that can receive and record the entire AM radio broadcast band at once.  The purpose would be to deploy the box in the path of an Eclipse.  By playing back the recording and evaluating what AM broadcast stations are heard (since the locations of these stations are known), we can extract some data to evaluate the Eclipse's effects on propagation.

     This is another self explanatory idea. - Similar to idea #1, but single banded.

     This idea is probably self-explanatory, but for newer hams or non-hams, here's some basic info:
​     A popular activity in ham radio is using radio direction finding techniques to find hidden transmitters, as part of a contest or event.  This idea is to use the box I have to build a transmitter in, so that it could be hidden for Foxhunting.

     The idea here is to use the box to build a small HF station.  One of the suggestions involved using one of the popular kits like the BitX or new uBitX, as the basis for the transceiver.  There were varying versions of this idea, covering different power levels, focused on different modes - i.e. cw only, ssb only, digital modes only (by including a single board computer), or some combination. For voting, we'll lump all these idea's together, and if this idea wins the vote those details will be hashed through in the planning stages.

     Winlink is a system for sending e-mail via radio.  There is more information about it available at www.winlink.org. This suggestion is to build all the components necessary for a functioning VHF/UHF Winlink station into this box.

     These ideas are centered around having some basic tools / meters / small radio / small computer built into the case that can be used for testing, repairing, setting up, and maybe even tracking (via APRS) radio equipment.

     This one is centered around building a small computer and SDR into the box for a portable receiver.

     Make a rugged portable Wifi hotspot that could be used in Emcom situations so that individuals in a response area could communicate with each other via wifi data connections on their own, or "throw-away" cell phones.

     I don't know a lot about PSKMail, but there is some basic information available here.  This looks like another option for mail over radio.

     The suggestion was to build a repeater controller, that could potentially link to other repeaters with DTMF tones.

     Build a small kit for satellite operations.

    So there's the ideas!  Vote for your favorite below.  Including your callsign is optional, but I plan on acknowledging everyone who contributes by including their callsigns' in (or on) the project, for anyone who chooses to share theirs!

​Voting is now Closed!
​Stay tuned - the winning project will be announced soon!

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     I think nearly every ham has, at some point, compared calling CQ to fishing.  After a recent experiment, I'm going to extend that analogy and make the claim that sometimes calling is like fishing without any bait on the hook.  So where was I calling that felt like fishing with no bait?

     Yup - that's where.  Many of you probably aren't surprised by this.  146.52 and 446.000 both see varying levels of use around different areas of the country.  I personally have made some contacts during my travels after making calls on 146.52, but it was always very hit-or-miss.  I've never made a contact on 446.  Because of this, I wanted to do a small experiment to see what kind of luck I would have if I did some dedicated fishing. 

     A recent work trip took me to Columbus Ohio.  From my home, with stops for meals and bathroom breaks, this ends up being about an 8 hour drive.

     Knowing that I had this drive to make, I quickly came up with a plan.  Spend the entire drive monitoring both 146.52 and 446.000, AND calling every 10 minutes, to see how many answers I get.  I debated whether or not I wanted to make my plans known ahead of time on social media.  I ultimately decided that I wanted any responses I got to be "organic" and not because someone was specifically watching for me, so I just kept my lips sealed tight - until now!

     Bright and early on April 4th I pulled out of my driveway.  My first stop was close to my home where I filled up on gas, and turned on APRS (I was sharing my location and the frequencies I was monitoring every 5 minutes using the PocketPacket app).  I also asked Siri to set an alarm to go off every 10 minutes, and shared a post to Instagram showing my (rather large) coffee mug.  It was 3:30am after all.....

     With these house-keeping items taken care of, I turned on the two radios that would be serving me for the day.  To monitor 446.000 I used my older Kenwood TK-840 commercial rig, which runs about 20 watts into an antenna mounted on the trunk (NMO mount - with an actual hole drilled!).  For 146.52 I used my Yeasu 857d, running 50 watts into the vertical that is mounted top dead center on my car (also an NMO mount, with an actual hole!)

     I put out my first call on both frequencies (one right after the other) as soon as I turned the radios on.  It went something like this:

This is N3VEM. November Three Victor Echo Mike listening on (insert frequency).  N3VEM mobile and listening.

      Any responses to my first call?  Nope!  It was 3:30 am after all - so I wasn't really expecting to drum up any business just yet.  I started driving, and repeated my call every 10 minutes.  After a couple hours of this, I still hadn't gotten any answers.  Twice - once at around 4:30 am and again at around 6:40 am, I thought I heard "something" break squelch on 446 after my call, but that could have just as easily been random interference.

     At 7:00 am I started to perk up a little bit.  I was getting into the "morning drive" time of day, and figured that I might have a better chance of getting an answer to one of my calls, so I kept at it.

     So, enough beating around the bush...how many answers do you think I got during my drive?  If you're keeping track, with traffic, and a couple stops here and there, I actually took over 8 hours to make the drive.  I also made some "extra" calls when I saw cars that looked "hammy" - at one point, I even ended up behind a car that had as many antenna's on it as mine does (4, unless you count the factory radio, then its 5.)  All in all, I called over 100 times between the two frequencies.  Total Answers....... 

     You read that correctly.  I spent over 8 hours, calling every 10 minutes, on two different frequencies, for a total of over 100 calls, and didn't get a single answer.  So what does that say about the state of ham radio?  Here's where a lot of naysayers would proclaim the ultimate doom of ham radio.  For me, here's what I think it says about the state of ham radio:  Absolutely Nothing!

     It's easy for us to get down on ourselves when we don't get answers to calls, but if we stop to consider it, there are so many factors that go into "getting an answer" that we should never make these wild speculations.  If it was a scientific experiment we would just say there are too many variables.  There could be lots of other reasons I didn't get an answer:

• At least half of my drive was at a time when most people are still asleep!
• Large portions of my drive were in very rural area's.  It was more like fishing without bait - in puddles.
• There's always that whole propagation thing - it's hit or miss depending on the day, time, weather, etc.

     So when it seems like "the bands area dead" - don't go all doom and gloom!  Keeping calling, keep having fun, and learn from what you're doing, no matter what the outcome actually is!

     As a final parting thought, yesterday I was traveling for work, and put out a single call, when I was passing a major city in the Northeast.  I got an answer, and had a nice chat - it just goes to show that if you want to catch fish, at least go where the fish are!

     When life gets busy, my tendency is to use my small amounts of free time to do stuff, instead of writing about the stuff.  I have some time in the next couple weeks to write updates again, so I'll be updating you on my recent "doings" soon:

• I've collected about a dozen ideas for my "crowd-sourced project" that I'll have everyone vote on soon!
• I've made some progress on the shack project in my basement - if you follow me on Instagram you've seen a couple pictures!
• I've made progress on my "secret project" that everyone will get to see when it is complete!
• I've done 2 WWFF activations that I'll update everyone one - Buck Creek State Park and Morristown National Historical Park.

Bye for now!