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I love amateur radio. I love radio. I love RF. I love playing with different pieces of equipment, learning about it, installing it, etc. I may never touch it again. It may not interest me any further than my initial interest. But I still like it. I love HF. I love making contacts around the world. If I didn’t, the curmudgeon in me that you will see below would be enough to drive me away from the hobby. It’s a good thing that I take these asshats with a grain of salt, otherwise, I would sell all my crap and go fishing all the time.
Below, there’s a list of things that irritate me and a touch of satire, a little “tongue-in-cheek” look at amateur radio:
- The more you learn….
Of all of the things that I’ve learned about Amateur Radio in the past 11 years, the most important thing I’ve learned is, you cannot control the actions of others. To expand on that a little, each operator will operate a little differently. Different from other operators and different from you. What you *think* is the RIGHT way to do something, doesn’t necessarily translate to other operator’s methods. Don’t allow yourself to get frustrated over someone else’s actions. They do things THEIR WAY, as long as you’re within the guidelines (laws) for amateur radio use, you can do things YOUR WAY. It is not your place to police the rest of the world or any individual operator. Doing so is futile and can be extremely frustrating. See that big knob on your radio, use it to get away from the person irritating you. While it may be an inconvenience, while it may be frustrating to listen to an operator that you think is doing things wrong, it’s not your problem. Let it go.
- Foot Warmers
Let’s think about this for a second.Speaking about HF (10-160m), if conditions are poor and you need to be “legal limit”, 1500w PEP to hit Japan, there’s a really good chance that the station in Japan will probably need to be at, near or above 1500w PEP to get back to you (some rare cases this may not be the case).
A different consideration: If a station in Europe is calling DX, running 1500w PEP and you make a contact with them and you’re running 1500w PEP and your buddy in another state is running 100w PEP and makes contact with the Euro station as well, did you really need the 1500w? (Maybe, if your antenna system sucks, which happens A LOT in amateur radio).
US Amateur Transmitter Power Limits
At all times, transmitter power must be the minimum necessary to carry out the desired communications. Unless otherwise noted, the maximum power output is 1500 watts PEP. Novice/Technicians are limited to 200 watts PEP on HF bands. Geographical power restrictions apply to the 630 meter, 70 centimeter, 33 centimeter and 23 centimeter bands.
Here’s yet another scenario: You’re rag-chewing on 80m at night with friends within 400 miles. You’re running 1500w PEP and you have invested thousands of dollars into a antenna system. Your buddy is running 100w and is able to be heard and have a conversation with most, if not all of the other stations, he’s running a di-pole at about 10ft off the ground (NVIS). Does he sound as good as you? Probably not. Is he able to carry out a conversation? Yes. Who is doing what’s right? He is. He’s able to have a conversation with the intended parties within the scope of the FCC Rules governing the amateur service. You are exceeding the limit by not reducing power to the necessary amount to carry out a conversation. The same holds true if there’s a QRP station near you that can contact those other stations as well. Did you try to run lower power? Decrease from 100w to 25w, down to 5w? Who then, is doing what’s right? The QRP station.
Power isn’t everything. Power, like many things in life, is compensation for other things. In most cases, power will compensate for a poorly designed antenna system. Power will compensate for poor operator skills.
Learn to do things right and you can spend the money intended for a big, high-dollar amplifier on things that matter, like good antennas, good feedline, that headset you’ve been wanting, another rig, another tuner. Amplifiers have their place, I am not against amplifiers, I am against using amplifiers when they’re not needed. Why do you want stations that cannot contact you back, to be able to hear you? Conditions are key, antenna systems are the next thing that matters. Much further down the list is the power you’re putting out. If you can’t hear a station, you cannot have a QSO with that station.
- FT8 73
If you’re dead set on always getting a “73” at the end of every QSO on FT8 mode, to the point that you’re unwilling to confirm a contact because of that, you’re wrong.73 is keeping in good etiquette, or perhaps, it’s simply a platitude. It is not however, part of the conversation that constitutes a completed QSO. Get over it. Move on. Stop living in the past. Callsigns, Grid, TX Signal Report, RX Signal Report. Done.
FT8, by design, is meant to be a super quick form of communicating and passing the bare minimum of information in order to confirm contacts, it’s not rag chewing. It’s not a round-table. It’s not a net.
- The Sharing of a Jewel
Just found this Little Jewel on the interswebs. While I don’t believe it’s 100% accurate, (there are many times that phonetics for callsigns are extremely important on phone ops), it dang sure touches my heart 🙂http://www.qsl.net/dl4tt/w5vsr.html
Now, you must be ready with this one at a moment’s notice: “HI.” Never, ever, laugh if you find something funny. Say “HI” or even better “HI-HI.” It doesn’t really take the place of laughter, but it tells the other operators that you know how to laugh on CW.
Of course, you may be familiar with this blog entry of mine that reflects the same attitude toward “HI-HI” as the above quote from W5VSR’s post.
I think “QRZ the Frequency/Channel” is now a thing of the past (probably broke that bad habit by people like W5VSR writing articles [blog posts? like mine? well, damn!] about such behavior).
As for “over”, that is within the scope of the “plain English” form of radio comms, which is widely used in professional radio comms, military, etc. While in amateur radio it may not be necessary to use such for a group discussion (where everyone is familiar with everyone else in the group), for making short conversation contacts or DX, it’s very useful. The operators are not familiar with each, therefore, the tonal inflection of voices may not be familiar with one another, among other things.
Just about anything carried over from CB land stings the amateur radio operator, I mean, well, we did pass a test, right? [tic] By the way, what is your handle? /sarcasm.
As for marking oneself /portable, /maritime mobile, /mobile, /a (european) etc. I am of course a proponent of such. This allows someone to log each of these separately, and might I add, very easily, without making comments/notes, of which, it also makes referencing these contacts very easily, especially in the digital age of logging. There’s a lot of people working portable these days, mountain-topping, peaks on the air, national parks on the air, mobile, QRP (another valid use of the Q codes) and when they give the stroke-whatever, usually obtain priority in pileups. While this may offend the sensibilities of those I also add in the comments for a contact a couple of important things, one in particular is if the distant operator is running as a /JEJ. This is a very important aspect of the conversation, one that I don’t want to forget.
I should not have to phonetically give my callsign out to everyone I am communicating with, I agree with this 100%. The problem is, not 100% of my contacts have the shit cleaned out of their ears to be able to understand what is being said to them. Even with giving it phonetically, in a one-letter-per-second recitation of my callsign, piss poor operators cannot understand what is being said. Do they even have a pencil and paper in front of them? Say each of the following so that it takes you one second per letter, sounded out phonetically: W H I S K Y – pause – V I C T O R – pause – Z E R O – pause – C H A R L I E – pause Q U E B E C, if you can’t understand that, perhaps you should learn CW. But, of course, there’s many people that I’ve encountered, either personally or while watching others operate, that cannot comprehend a phonetically given callsign. I’ve tried variations of the process, I’ve given out the call in several different ways, with standard phonetics and a mixed bag of other phonetics. I’ve tried straight-up alpha/numeric callsigns, and people simply cannot hear it, yet, they’ll return with the Holy Grail 5/9 Report!
Consider this: The best thing about using Q codes? It eliminates people using the 10-code.
QSL? WV0CQ will be QRT. 73! 44! HI HI!
- …now back in my day.
Here’s a perfect example of an old-hand attempting to weigh judgement on a younger-hand for doing things differently, and therefore, ignoring this “new” way of doing things, simply because “we did it this way back in the day.” This type of mentality KILLS participation. It’s a good thing that I am used to assholes like this, and I have the intestinal fortitude to tell them to go get bent.I was operating from my /A lternate QTH this past weekend, Dec 30 – Jan 1 2017. I was band jumping, trying to make several contacts when I found 17m to be open. K7MX was calling CQ on 18.146 when I tried to get back with him. Once I had put out my callsign, wv0cq/a, he began questioning why I was using it, explaining to me what stroke-whatever meant (to him), how they did it back in his day. I explained my situation with having two totally different “homes” with permanently affixed antenna systems and shacks and that it is common in Europe to use the /a as a designation for an alternative QTH. He didn’t like this. He told me that “back in the day, they would use /8 or portable…”, neither of which is accurate. Neither of which really tells the tale of where you are.
If you go to QRZ and lookup “wv0cq/a”, you will see an accurate address and QSL card for my alternate QTH. Portable8, /8 or anything else would not be accurate [all the time] because I could be portable anywhere. My /a is a fixed location. It is not portable. It should not be considered proper to use [just] my callsign without a modifier because that callsign is licensed for my home (permanent residence) QTH, not my alternate QTH.
Lemme tell ya something, before you go off judging other hams and making an ass of yourself, perhaps you might want to consider treating people with a little more respect. I don’t much give a rat’s ass how many decades you’ve been in this hobby, if you’re doing something wrong, no matter how many times you do it wrong, it won’t be correct.
Here’s some links for the lids in the amateur community, who usually turn out to be “old hands” with 30+ years of “experience”, that, in their minds, cannot do any wrong, that are too lazy to actually stay in touch with what’s happening in the amateur radio community and the changes that are going on (without their acceptance none-the-less).
If you’ve made it this far in the blog entry, you may be interested in The Story of /A. - The Hot Air Formula of Rag Chewing on HF
This formula is for HF Only (160m – 10m). It doesn’t apply outside of those bands.
The term “air” may be defined as 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide with slight variances to account for any water vapor (+/- 0.5%) dependent upon altitude. The movement of “air” is defined by various terms, for our exercise, we will utilize Cubic Feet per Minute or “CFM”.
“Hot air”, therefore, would be defined as the normal accumulation of expelled gases, at or above 98.6° F. The increase of temperature is also another variable, depending upon the attitude of [O]perator. The expelling thereof would be measured in Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM).
- The CFM of hot air expelled from [O] is inversely proportional to the frequency in use, ie:
Operator will increase the output of heated N O Ar CO₂ (+/- H₂O) as the frequency decreases.
As the frequency is increased, a decrease in air flow will be observed.
The average amount of air inhaled and exhaled per minute is approximately 0.21 CFM, during duress, this can quadruple. Therefore, we’ll consider this “nominal” and apply the term Control Operator’s Value of Expelled gases (COVE for short) to represent this nominal observation of “100”.
For example, if the COVE on 20m is 100, therefore:
COVE on 40m equals,
100/7.200 = 13.888 (Cc)
COVE on 40m = COVE on 20m + Cc = 113.888
———————————COVE on 80m equals,
113.888/3.868 = 29.443 (Cc)
COVE on 80m = COVE on 40m + Cc = 143.331
———————————COVE on 160m equals,
143.331/1.9 = 75.437 (Cc)
COVE on 160m = Operator on 80m + Cc = 218.768
- The CFM of hot air expelled from [O] is inversely proportional to the frequency in use, ie:
- Forked Tongue
Woe on the man that speaks with forked tongue! That’s the only reason I can see for the enormous uprising of bad log entries, and Lord knows, I’ve had a bunch of them lately.I don’t write down a callsign (and leave it intact) if I am unsure of the callsign. About the only time I cannot guarantee what I heard is when I am listening to someone with a seriously heavy foreign accent. Heck, I do side-work for a local tech company simply because I am able to have a full conversation with the Indian tech folks that provide support for some of his gear. I have no issue working with them over the phone, so I continued to get work from this guy because I would interface with his tech support folks and help solve issues. I have a little quirk about me, I am pretty accurate at determining the region from where a person originates based on their accent. I can usually narrow it down to a State, but many times, I can get it down to an area within the State. Martha’s Vineyard area for instance. Same with Baltimore, North Cacalacky, Alabama, most parts of Texas. The midwest is a bit tougher, so many areas have similar accents. Minnesota is easy. And so on.
Over the course of my very limited ham career, I have thus logged into QRZ a huge number of amateur radio callsigns that have denied validation through QRZ because I wasn’t in their log books. There’s several reasons this could happen:
- I logged the callsign incorrectly. Considering how much of a stickler I am for verifying the proper information before writing it down and making sure by hanging around someone else’s pile up to make sure, I seriously doubt that the sheer number of denials could be attributed to me having cotton in my ears.
- People don’t log or mistake my callsign. This could be a valid and widespread issue. I know lots of people that don’t log properly. I’ve seen it first hand. Most of the people I associate with are no where near the stickler for details on a log entry that I am. I am to the point of being rather anally retentive when it comes to logging, especially compared to the hams I associate with off the air.
- There are people out there that are using someone’s callsign. I think this may be more prevalent than what I previously considered. It could very well be a wide spread issue.
- If a operator is using a valid callsign and working the bands on a particular day, an unscrupulous person could work another band at the same time, utilizing the same callsign and be rather safe knowing that the owner of the callsign would not know.
- An unscrupulous person could use a dormant callsign, or a callsign of a person that only operates on 2m/70cm normally. But this would probably not be the case because the average 2m/70cm guy doesn’t normally check on his QRZ account. Because I get a lot of denials via QRZ, those folks doing the denials are probably active on HF.
This may in fact be the reasoning behind the desire for so many hams to stick by “snail mail” confirmations of contacts. Could this actually be as wide-spread to cause such a number of denials in QRZ confirmations? It appears to be so. What is the reasoning behind this? All of these contacts that I have made, none of which stick out to me as being non-compliant with applicable rules when operating on the air. I mean, I haven’t had as much as a single conversation on 7.207 and only one on 14.313 (and yes, I had a reasonable QSO with that Canadian nut). Which means, those that I have had conversations with, seemed to be reasonable people, operating within the law and using valid callsigns. Now, there’s been select few callsigns that did not properly appear on QRZ. I’ve noticed that from time to time. Rather infrequent, but it happened. But these were limited to a select few, not the sheer number of denials that I have received.
Also of note, these denials were not strictly with my current callsign. They were also from my previous callsign and that of my club calls, as I am the steward for that callsign on QRZ. So, when I request confirmation, I do so over all of the callsigns in my trust. When a denial happens, it will notify me as to which callsign I was seeking confirmation upon.
Why then, I must ask, do these “reasonable” people, seemingly to operate properly (other than not have a license or using someone else’s call) seek to do such? Lack of ability to pass the tests? Not wanting to get on “the list”? I have no idea, but it’s a tad irritating to find out that this beloved hobby is yet another hobby (I am also a computer gamer) chock full of smacktards and cheaters that game the system.
It’s just like everything else in life, and I do mean everything, our population is full of those without any scruples.
- Precious Snowflakes
And speaking of feelings and 5/9 reports; I’ve had operators become irritated because I did not give them a report of 5/9. Seriously. What’s your QTH he asked? Well! My beam is pointed right at you. And? You’re still not a 5/9, but the other guy is. He’s further away than you? Oh My God! His rig sounds better? I will run right out and spend another $10k on a better amp. Idiots. Again, Precious Snowflakes. - All the 5/9’s!
5/9, 73 Q-R-Zed! 5/9, 73, Q-R-Zed! 5/9, 73, Q-R-Zed! No, probably not 5/9, what is your callsign? You’ve been talking for 10+ minutes and never mentioned your callsign. Remember how a QSO is supposed to be conducted? Do I care if my signal report is less than 5/9? Absolutely! It tells me what the band conditions are like between you and I. Do all operators want to be 5/9? Of course! But if they’re not, it’s not a slap in the face. If you’re a DX entity (or for that matter, anyone that’s “popular” and has a pileup), give your damn callsign. Give the signal report correctly. If someone sounds 5/5, let them know! Are you afraid of hurting some Precious Snowflake feelings? - James Earl Jones
Henceforth known as /JEJ (Stroke James Earl Jones) – You’re working SSB, don’t try to sound like an AM broadcast station. Your voice isn’t that of James Earl Jones in real life, stop injecting so much bass into the EQ to try and emulate him. Most of these guys that spend thousands of dollars trying to get their rig to sound like a news reporter on WNBC need to get a life. And if you’re so irritated because OL8WTF has a little scratchiness to his voice that you need to try and sit with him and tune his rig with him until it satisfies your obsessive compulsive behavior, you need to seek counseling.
