Working weekends, I don’t really get a chance to participate in radio contesting. So, taking a little time after work, I made the following Q’s during the 2012 ARRL 10 Meter Contest. Maybe I worked you? I’ve already submitted a checklog for myself, W4SL and N4PU. Hope you did well- more importantly, hope you had a great time! I’ve also sent QSL’s and uploaded my logs to LoTW. Please do the same! Thanks!
QSO: 28437 PH 2012-12-09 2350 W4TI 59 GA K8GP 59 VA
QSO: 28496 PH 2012-12-09 2344 W4TI 59 GA NR5M 59 TX
QSO: 28494 PH 2012-12-09 2340 W4TI 59 GA W1SJ 59 VT
QSO: 28475 PH 2012-12-09 2339 W4TI 59 GA N2NC 59 NJ
QSO: 28422 PH 2012-12-09 2337 W4TI 59 GA N8II 59 WV
QSO: 28403 PH 2012-12-09 2335 W4TI 59 GA VE3KZ 59 ON
QSO: 28377 PH 2012-12-09 2333 W4TI 59 GA AA2A 59 MA
QSO: 28452 PH 2012-12-09 2323 W4TI 59 GA N0XR 59 IA
QSO: 28404 PH 2012-12-09 2316 W4TI 59 GA W3EP 59 CT
QSO: 28469 PH 2012-12-09 1452 W4TI 59 GA PJ5J 59 108
QSO: 28470 PH 2012-12-09 0315 W4TI 59 GA WO4DX 59 GA
QSO: 28442 PH 2012-12-09 0311 W4TI 59 GA AF1T 59 NH
QSO: 28411 PH 2012-12-09 0254 W4TI 59 GA K0HA 59 NE
QSO: 28481 PH 2012-12-09 0241 W4TI 59 GA AC0W 59 MN
QSO: 28437 PH 2012-12-09 0238 W4TI 59 GA K0MD 59 MN
QSO: 28412 PH 2012-12-09 0232 W4TI 59 GA KE0L 59 MN
QSO: 28409 PH 2012-12-09 0217 W4TI 59 GA KD0S 59 SD
QSO: 28420 PH 2012-12-09 0215 W4TI 59 GA NX0X 59 MN
QSO: 28472 PH 2012-12-09 0207 W4TI 59 GA K1WHS 59 ME
QSO: 28391 PH 2012-12-09 0126 W4TI 59 GA KI0F 59 MN
QSO: 28378 PH 2012-12-09 0121 W4TI 59 GA KB0EO 59 MN
QSO: 28370 PH 2012-12-09 0116 W4TI 59 GA K4AAK 59 GA
QSO: 28400 PH 2012-12-08 2343 W4TI 59 GA K4XS 59 FL
QSO: 28360 PH 2012-12-08 0226 W4TI 59 GA W4GKF 59 GA
QSO: 28480 PH 2012-12-08 0222 W4TI 59 GA KE4CQ 59 GA
QSO: 28445 PH 2012-12-08 0215 W4TI 59 GA WW4LL 59 GA
QSO: 28404 PH 2012-12-08 0211 W4TI 59 GA N0AT 59 MN
QSO: 28422 PH 2012-12-08 0206 W4TI 59 GA WB9TFH 59 WI
QSO: 28430 PH 2012-12-08 0200 W4TI 59 GA K4NV 59 GA
QSO: 28408 PH 2012-12-08 0140 W4TI 59 GA K0TT 59 MN
QSO: 28407 PH 2012-12-08 0118 W4TI 59 GA K1LZ 59 MA
QSO: 28405 PH 2012-12-08 0033 W4TI 59 GA AA1JD 59 MA
END-OF-LOG:
Learning and writing about ethics and ethical topics is hard. I ought to know, since I misspent part of my youth receiving philosophical training. Even with my advanced degree and interest in the subject matter, it is difficult to stay completely informed about every facet of philosophy in general or ethics in particular. I’m not the last word on much anything, so far as I know. However, I am well versed in the basics and have an adequate grasp on things ethical. I’m not far off the mark when I offer commentary that would be accepted by people who “practice” (if that is what it is called!) ethics every day.
So it may come as a surprise when I tell you that I don’t like ethics. Or rather, I don’t like discussing ethics with people who aren’t philosophers, and even then, the discussion usually isn’t much better.
There are many reasons for my reticence about discussing ethics: 1) the routine conflation between normative and applied ethics (the difference between what should be the case and how ethical rules actually work in the real world) leads any discussion nowhere quickly, 2) the typical lay perspective that what one believes to be “right” or “good” is opinion (that “murder is always wrong” does not seem to be merely an opinion) or 3) the converse- what one believes to be “right” or “good” is fact, regardless of whether the moral judgment in question is something everyone can agree upon. Lastly, 4) trying to take what is a dense and very long running discussion and distilling it into a short format for discussion with people who aren’t privy to the larger history of ethical thought is a very frustrating exercise. The amount of backfilling required for some interesting discussions is usually more than what people are ordinarily interested in doing, at least at the level at which I am interested in discussing. It’s a large disconnect and so I just wonder about these things to myself and do not trouble the world with what I think, which I happen to know doesn’t bother the world at all.
The ARRL 10 GHz and Up Cumulative Contest is the only fully microwave spectrum (above 1,000 MHz) communications contest sponsored by the ARRL. It chiefly finds participants in the Northeast, Southern California, Florida and the Midwest. This is due to the geography and operator density of these areas. There is also quite a bit of club competition in this contest which is helping to keep the contest alive and exciting.
Tony, KC6QHP, has taken the time and written a really, really good write up about what Southern California operating is like, including operating from a former Nike missile site! Give it a read and get jealous!
The following paper has been selected to appear in the MUD 2012 proceedings book (published by the ARRL) and on our conference CD-ROM:
Building Notes: The W1GHZ 902 Transverter
It is our understanding that you are not available to present at the conference.
Thanks again for your contributions and for helping us to assemble another great Microwave Update program.
73,
Mike Lavelle, K6ML
for MUD 2012 Technical Program Committee”
———–
I consider myself very lucky to have two different papers published in the same year in two different prestigious technical conference proceedings. I hope they are as enjoyable to read as they were to write. I think some people get a little lazy and shop the same paper around different places- not me!
The 902 W1GHZ project has come to a close. I’ve got the notes and pictures waiting for a final writeup and will get to it soon- maybe it will be your Christmas present? The next project to document is the 902 driver amplifier- and what I wonder is, whether I should wait on the chance to have it published in next years conference proceedings or should I get it out to the internet as soon as possible? The reason I ask is because it seems to me that with the nearly instantaneous medium of the internet, it is becoming more difficult to secure papers which have previously been unpublished for inclusion into conference proceedings. So, do we support the conference or our own egos via our websites?
One thing is for sure- we won’t have published proceedings much longer that don’t already include published papers from other conferences or from internet postings. Maybe that’s a shame and maybe it isn’t. In any case, the new normal is going to be less and less paper copies and more digital ones.
How long should clothing last? When should garments be retired from wear? What should our chief concern be when we are purchasing clothing? Price? Style? Should we perform a cost benefit analysis whereby we try to determine what the price per wear is going to be? What it should be?
I think the answers to these normative questions are not universal. Rather, the individual has their own sort of price sensitivity, traditions and aesthetics they take into account about their clothing choices that makes any sort of large-scale search for a catholic answer nearly impossible. That said, I think there are probably some answers that many believe to some degree, but I’m not sure what they are or to the extent some prefer. For instance, I think it is perfectly acceptable to retire a pair of socks when they become worn and develop a single hole in the heel or toe. Conversely, some may find my throwing away of such a sock (and its mate!) to be quite wasteful when it is, to their mind, only mildly damaged and able to be further worn.
I mention these questions to highlight the fact that there are no definite answers. This is a matter of personal choice. Even then, we occasionally change our long held answers when the facts change, such as when we hold on to something we ordinarily wouldn’t due to sentiment or some other significance. I didn’t hold on to my Bills Khakis M2 Poplin shorts because I had some sentiment about them. I held on to them because, so far as I can tell, these are the best fitting and longest lasting shorts I’ve ever owned.
Note the difference in color between the worn out pair and a new, unworn pair!
It behooves me to point out that Bills Khakis corporate headquarters is located here in Georgia. More importantly, their garments are made here in the US, perhaps one of the last companies to do so. You get to look good while feeling good by putting some money in an American working guy or gal’s hand. How can you not like that?
These shorts were purchased in April 2010 from Sierra Trading Post. I paid $33.00 apiece plus shipping to get them here (NB: This was a great price that was extended to me by the use of a coupon code and special day deal. I imagine the MSRP on these to be significantly more than what I paid, but in any case, I believe they are easily worth double what I paid for them). I purchased two pair with the idea that I would attempt to wear one pair out before even trying on the other pair. Little did I know it would take two years to do so, but that’s what it took. I didn’t keep a record of how many days I actually wore the shorts, nor did I record how many times I washed them. What I do know is that from approximately April to September, the weather is suitable for shorts in Atlanta, and so I would have worn them every day of every week between April and September. This is 180 days. In that time, I would have washed the shorts at least once a week, sometimes twice if heavily soiled. So, let’s say 30 washes for the shorts, though not always following the instructions provided for proper launder care. Double these figures and we now have 360 days and 60 washes before I noticed the failure of the pocket.
I should also point out that I wore these while working a day job in a hardware store, which is an environment which would dish out the very worst to clothing every day, all day.
The wear on the front left pocket of a pair of Bills Khakis M2 shorts.
What determines the durability of clothing is how it is designed, its purpose and what it is made from. Poplin isn’t known as a very durable fabric (instead, it’s known as a breathable one), but I think getting a full calendar year out of these shorts speaks for itself. Try a pair of Bills Khakis. You won’t be disappointed!
I don’t normally read contest reports for two reasons. First, because the report is written by someone who is often in the middle of contest afterglow, the author will use his narrative to tell a story about an event that is much larger than what their particular story will tell. The second reason is that sometimes it is very obvious that the person asked to write the report isn’t a writer at all and as much as they slogged through the writing of it will be the same amount of slogging you’ll have to do to read it. I see the dilemma- without contest reports, the magazines can’t have advertisers and so on. Of course, the internet has taken a lot of the timeliness out of the publications business and so what people really seem to want from their publications is a list of who won what and how. More a blow by blow sort of writing that you would find, I’m guessing here since I don’t read it, in the sports section of the newspaper.
However, I just stumbled upon K1RA’s writeup of the June 2012 VHF contest about his group K8GP, The Grid Pirates. Go see for yourself. I especially enjoyed which can only be described as a holistic approach to a contest report- I got some stories about the people involved, what their goals were and how they ended up. Sure, it’s a longer read, but the quality justifies the length.
What is there to say about Hamvention that has not already been said? I suppose we all have our own stories to tell about our first time in Dayton, Ohio; my first time was not for anything amateur radio related but rather for The Grand American Trapshoot that was eventually the casualty of the TSA under the guise of airport security. As of this writing, the security remains secure and the airport has yet to be taken over by trapshooters. If you notice the garage/storage like buildings and a two story building on the other end of the runway, you have now found the place which held the Grand American- vendors used those buildings, which had been purchased by them in some cases, for their business during the two week event. Without question, this was the place to shop for shotguns and shooting accessories for the clay target sports. A shame it’s gone.
While I had been to the Grand (as it was called), I had never been to Hamvention before this year. It was never a priority. Field Day, which is today, is another great holy event among amateurs. It, too, is also not a priority. I’m not sure what my lack of apparent enthusiasm is indicative of in either case. I just made a contact in the mobile with a station in San Diego on 10M. After completing the contact, I shut the radio off and came inside. It was that simple- a real take it or leave it sort of thing. I actually realized I gave the wrong exchange because I classified myself incorrectly after the fact, but really, who cares?
The people who care about these things are the same people who look forward to Hamvention all year. These same people are attending for the social aspects- they get to meet and greet all their on air and real life friends. There are cliques within cliques within cliques. This is not unlike the Atlanta radio scene. It’s all about the glad handing, the being seen and showing up at the right dinner at the right time and with the right people.
Imagine the meetings in the settings that James Bond would have attended. Now think about the polar opposite. The Hara Arena is slowly disintegrating and the constant complaint about the entire place, other than its general state of disrepair, is the bathrooms. I’m not sure how the bathrooms are supposed to survive longer than the building in which they are placed, but believe me- they are a terror to be avoided if possible.
Light in Amateur Radio’s Holy City Bathrooms
You’d be a fool if you didn’t think that the majority of amateurs are politically conservative. So, it was with some interest that I tried to make note of the many different t-shirts, bumper stickers, overheard conversations, and any other sort of political indicator I could find. If there is one thing that hams are good at doing, its expressing themselves. What they express, however, is another matter entirely.
I believe we know where K8BL stands on the presidency.
Of course, there is a vocal minority who do not feel the same way:
I believe we know where W8EB stands on the presidency.
I also noted a couple of men wearing suspenders which had been embroidered with their callsign. These are the same sorts of people who enjoy wearing personalized t-shirts about an event way past its prime. The, “I survived” type of t-shirt is a real cash cow for the provider. Think about it: you purchase the t-shirts, have them silkscreened with the appropriate logo and then sell them to the public at the event- you are going to capture some amount of business because there are always going to be people who want a, “I survived Field Day” sort of t-shirt as a token of their having attended. Remember- hams certainly express themselves!
Nice Legs!Nice Backpack!
I also kept an eye out for different W4 1×2 calls. I was there, along with W4PA, W4NL, W4OI, W4QO and W4AX. Hopefully there were others there, but I did not see them.
There is also some sizable segment traveling in these circles that believes in alternative medicine. It is difficult to know how many anti-vaccination people, if any, were at Hamvention, but there had to be some present.
Pseudo Science at Hamvention.
Really, whatever this was (I think it was an electrical stimulator of some sort) is the solution you have for sale that could fix all of these issues both jointly and severally? So where is everyone waiting to get this magic treatment? Not in the waiting area? Ultimately, I feel badly for these people because they are at the very bottom of the sales hierarchy. Trying to make a living selling something most people aren’t buying is nothing but misery.
I’m not sure why alternative medicine is big amongst this sort of crowd- you’d think with such a science and engineering background necessary for the hobby, many hams would immediately dismiss the pseudoscience that is alternative medicine. But it isn’t so.
Digging in a dry well.
I suspect that the same people who believe in these sorts of magical cures (such as glucosamine) are very similar to the MENSA crowd. The common thread is that both groups always feel like a victim- there is a certain, “I am the only one affected and the only one able to fix such.” In either case, both believe they are always right as a function of their intelligence or insight into a problem- they are smarter than the doctor or whomever and can plainly see what others can’t. It is the “If people would only listen to me,” sort of syndrome. I can’t imagine a worse lot to throw in your chances with; I also imagine that if you put that you were a member of MENSA on your resume that it would be immediately thrown into the trash and rightfully so. Why did MENSA decide to show up here instead of Georgia Tech? The people maning the table were very polite and nice to speak with, but really, what’s the point? Maybe they know their market well and are trying to scoop up more of the egocentric types that would attend this event. Even so, this effort makes as much sense as digging in a dry well.
I did find some cool items for purchase. I renewed my membership with the ARRL for 3 more years, which earned me a 2012 handbook. In the boneyard, I found a 1977 handbook, the year of my birth. I purchased it and have been intrigued at the differences between the two texts! I also noticed quite a bit of of test equipment for sale in the boneyard.
I also purchased my next project from the guys at Far Circuits: a W1VT 222MHz. Transverter.
Far Circuits
There were also a lot of “picklocks” guys at Hamvention: at least three different tables for them and their wares. Not sure these guys are relevant- but perhaps they are more relevant than the bird house seller, the pet hair remover seller or the cosmetics seller.
There were other goings on. It’s a big place, Dayton, and worth visiting at least once. Like the guys in the hamabouts will tell you- motor on!
The June VHF Contest is the second major ARRL VHF contest of the year, the first being in January. The contest this year is the second weekend of the month, June 9th-11th. You can find a copy of the rules with all the specifics, here.
You will find most activity centered on 6M and 2M with the remainder of activity on 70CM and 1.25M. In certain areas, you will find people with equipment for the higher bands, 902MHz-10GHz, but I doubt there will be that much, or kind of, activity locally. You may want to try your hand with the various WSJT modes! But don’t forget our old friends SSB and CW.
I think it is important to continually keep pressing forward, even when you don’t have much time or energy to do so. Sometimes, a hobby ceases priority for whatever reason- this causes the most adherent to call some wayward practitioner who succumbs to the rest of life as a sort of backslider, someone who doesn’t take things seriously. As if that was the only story that is true or worth telling.
When I wrote my paper for the SVHFS conference, I was hopeful that I would have feedback from those in attendance. So far, none is forthcoming. This is either because the paper was well written and satisfied a particular topic or because the paper itself was below the interest level of the average conference goer. This makes me wonder why I should expand on the paper for MUD, coming up later this year. Will I get feedback on that paper? Is it of interest to write introductory material for conferences which are clearly oriented towards those who are more advanced?
I can’t answer these questions, but I think they are worth examining if we are to successfully encourage more amateurs to become interested in microwave communication techniques. Ultimately the question to be answered is: to whom are we writing these documents and how can we better engage them?
I’m nearly done with the 902/3 W1GHZ project, even as it has taken over a year to complete. I merely need to plumb everything together, make sure the sequencer is working and that the antenna is tuned. First contact coming this summer!
