This is an update on some of our activities for the month of July, 2024.
It’s hot as fuck outside, and the engineers are overworked.
CW studies continue.
Experiments with 17-foot telescopic whip antennas continue.
One of us is building a 12v DC refrigerator and a large backup battery box. Writeups with images will follow, assuming these projects ever get finished.
The biggest communications-related story this month is obviously the massive Crowdstrike failure. A faulty update on July 19th caused the largest IT outage in history.
While the popular takeaway from this story is that tech workers should not deploy on Fridays – a take which implies that blame rests solely on one person or a small team – we think the larger lesson here is that modern Capitalist industrial infrastructure is an albatross. It’s large, unwieldy, and contains many single points of failure. Too much rests upon the shoulders of too few people.
And no, ham radio is not the answer to this, but it could be part of a solution. If telephone and Internet systems had blacked out, even on a local level, it would be important to have a backup. Whether that’s a blister pack FRS radio or a full blown HF base station or anything between, that set of skills and equipment could be part of an ad-hoc communications infrastructure with no possibility of this type of cascading failure for everyone who uses it.
It should be noted that while the Crowdstrike outage seems to have impacted “consumer” level communications much less than commercial, industrial and government systems – the issue of corporate consolidation of local mass media has been quite the can of worms for a long time and does have a major impact on local communities.
To be honest, it would be easy to point to this incident and say “See? This is why you need to get into ham radio, or solar power, or canning vegetables…etc.” But the truth is that most of this stuff works for most people, most of the time. So we don’t really want to sound alarmist. But it’s also true that we started to see the cracks in these systems years ago and they’re getting bigger with climate change, the housing crisis, and massive wealth disparity. The bigger these cracks get, the more people are going to fall through (as hundreds of millions already have), and the more we’ll need to rely on ourselves and each other when we fall through these cracks.
The apocalypse is here. It’s just not equally distributed. ~Margaret Killjoy
So what can you do? Short of setting up a separate “air-gapped” Windows computer in case this sort of thing ever happens again, it may be more worth while to learn how to use other systems such as Linux. Maybe set up a flash drive with different operating systems on it ready to install in case of a prolonged outage or outright destruction of your primary operating system, or just in case some other kind of bullshit happens to your computer and you can’t afford Windows. And it should probably go without saying: Back up your shit!
(and have a backup power source as well as lights and fans…and a water filter…and fix your bike…and grow food…and have a potluck…)
This is an update of some of our activities for the month of June, 2024.
Field Day was June 22-23. Some of us helped with organizational duties, made contacts, and helped troubleshoot antenna problems at our various clubs’ Field Day locations.
We have noticed an increase of local Meshtastic activity, although there seems to be a dearth of actual conversations happening. It’s cool that people are excited about expanding the network, and using nodes as beacons is cool, but do y’all maybe wanna…talk to each other?
One of us did a POTA with the 17′ telescopic whip. Despite forgetting to bring the NanoVNA to check the SWR, the fully extended whip with four 16 foot radials was perfect for the 20 meter phone portion. The SWR bridge built into most HF radios does come in handy, as it turns out.
The ARRL’s Logbook of the World is back up, after an apparent cyberattack caused it to shut down for several weeks. LotW is now working through an intense backlog of QSOs. Some have questioned whether the cyberattack may have originated with a disgruntled employee, or whether the long outage may be being used as a prelude to rebuild LotW from the ground up and start charging money for its use. Such questions are fueled by longstanding complaints of a lack of transparency and recent dues increases coinciding with cutbacks to member services.
We question if such a large online system for verifying ham radio contacts – the albatross that is Logbook of the World – should be centralized in the first place. Doubtless we are not the first to think of this, and someone is likely working on a decentralized alternative as we speak.
This is an update of some of our activities from the month of May, 2024.
First, we hope that everyone had a happy May Day filled with whatever pleases you. For us, it was very nice to see that someone ran a special event station for International Workers’ Day during the first week of May.
We also welcomed a new comrade this month. They are a longtime community organizer from the Pacific Northwest who is passionate about radio as a community tool for building connections and emergency response networks. They are currently learning Morse code and scheming about the next antenna build.
At least two of us have acquired – or will soon acquire – a 17 foot stainless steel telescopic whip antenna. This is a very versatile piece of equipment which can be used in many configurations. Fully-extended, such an antenna is resonant down to the 20 meter band, and can be shortened to be resonant up to the 6 meter band. However, there are many supplementary pieces of equipment that can be DIYed from basic hardware store material such as PVC pipe and copper wire. Air core inductors for bottom- or top-loading the antenna, clip-lead wire extensions, and transformers could all be used to extend the useful bandwidth of the antenna down to the lower bands from 30 and 40 meters down to 80, 160, and conceivably even lower if the radio equipment supports it.
This one piece of equipment could be used to build modular portable kits akin to commercial alternatives provided by Chameleon Antennas and Wolf River Coils, but with more versatility, creative potential, and at much lower cost. We look forward to writing about our experiences with this in the future.
The Lilygo T-TWR Plus seems to have potential as a lower cost Bluetooth packet TNC for APRS, as well as having some other potential for experimentation. We’ll relay anything of interest after the unit arrives.
One member’s direct drive 3D printer upgrade should make printing weatherproof parts easier and more reliable. Thoughts and prayers as always for the fickle 3D printing process.
Earlier this month, from May 10 – 13, the Earth was struck by the most powerful solar storm since 1989. This event caused radio blackouts on the HF bands, as well as disruption to the GPS network.
GPS disruptions forced farmers to halt planting for the entire day, as large-scale automated agricultural equipment relies on GPS for navigation.
Aurorae were visible in the Northern Hemisphere as far south as the Yucatán Peninsula, and as far north in the Southern Hemisphere as Queensland, Australia.
In comparison to the legendary Carrington Event superstorm of 1859, the solar storms of May 2024 were only about half as strong as the minimum estimated strength of -800 nT, and about 23% as strong as the maximum estimated strength of -1750 nT. The May 2024 solar storms reached a peak Dst index of −412 nT at 03:00 UTC on 11 May.
Please note that none of us are sun scientists or whatever. Here’s a video from Tamitha Skov, who understands this stuff way better than we do.
In the realm of amateur radio, good programming software is clutch. If you’ve ever spent hours tediously manually entering frequencies, offsets, and repeater codes, you know tools like CHIRP and RepeaterBook are essential. If you haven’t used these tools, check out some YouTube vids for CHIRP!
CHIRP supports a large variety of radios and is multi-platform, free, open-source software. If you can use it, you definitely should. It allows you to pull saved memories from your radio, import / export lists of entries, and pull from RepeaterBook to snag all the repeaters in your area (with slick filters for the band, mode, etc). So for example if we want all the 2 meter and 70cm repeaters using either FM or D-star within 20 miles of Atlanta, GA, we can pull that list and throw it on our mobile radio in seconds instead of spending error-prone hours of adding these manually on my rig.
So… good programming software for radios: clutch! The happy path? Dope. But not everything goes this smoothly; enter the cycle of frustration…
One of our members recently acquired an ICOM IC-7100. It’s a beloved options since it is dubbed an “all-band” transceiver. In addition to the HF bands, it also supports VHF/UHF and it has two SO-239 coax ports on the back so you can have both your HF and VHF/UHF antennas connected to the same radio. This “all-band” option is relatively rare and it makes for a great “shack-in-a-box” as some of the ham nerds refer to them. (We put all-band in quotes cause it supports all of the common amateur radio bands, but not literally all of them)
When our comrade excitedly began setting up their rig, it became rapidly apparent that CHIRP wasn’t going to happen. While support has been added for the 7100, there were some errors, missing fields, no way to work with multiple memory banks, etc. Of course within the open-source world, one should file a bug, give detailed steps of the issue and how to reproduce. We want tools like CHIRP to continue to grow and improve. But our friend was impatiently looking to other more immediate options to get on the air stat.
After some searching, multiple sources were pointing to RT Systems software for the 7100. Some YouTube videos showed a nice interface and pretty comprehensive support for all major settings / memory management. The downsides:
costs money
proprietary software (source code is not open)
not general purpose (separate software for each radio for some reason?)
does not support Linux
The last one was the real show stopper, but that was not gonna deter our automation-hungry anarcho ham. They took a gamble, threw down $25, snagged that disgusting .exe file, and crossed fingers. Running via wine was the first step. Misc errors, would kinda launch, then crash. Apparently the RT Systems devs said running this way is not possible. Next stop was VirtualBox (to run windows in a virtual machine and install on there). This worked! Well, the program installed and opened. The next problem seemed to be the usb connection to the radio was recognized on linux but not the Windows VM. After some fiddling, the key resolution was to:
1) install the Virtualbox extension pack (unsure if this step is actually essential)
2) determine device location of the usb radio connection (this is possible using CHIRP; download data from radio on there and the device file will look something like /dev/ttyUSB0)
3) Edit VM serial device settings. Choose COM1 for port num, port mode: Host device, port/file path: /dev/ttyUSB0 (or whatever you determined from step 2)
Now when you start the windows VM and launch the RT Systems software, make sure to select the appropriate port in the Comm port setup under the “Communication” menu setting. And then we can properly sync to/from radio!
So, in conclusion, proprietary windows-only software sucks. It is unfortunately quite common in the ham radio programming software ecosystem. As anarchists we vociferously advocate for free, multi-platform, open-source software, but sometimes compromises are inevitable when you’re impatient and just want to get repeaters on your goddamn radio. We hope this helps anyone facing similar frustrations!
This is an update on some of our activities for the month of April, 2024. Hopefully everyone had a nice May Day! 🏴
Two comrades had a QSO on 20m SSB one evening. Distance approximately 600 miles.
RST
Antenna
Power
Station A
5-5
EFHW inverted-vee
20w
Station B
5-8
Random wire sloper
100w
Two more comrades had a QSO on 40m SSB one evening. Distance approximately 1500 miles.
RST
Antenna
Power
Station A
2-2
EFHW inverted-vee
100w
Station B
5-5
shortened EFHW
100w
One comrade made their first HF contact on 10 meter SSB phone, at a distance of over 2,000 miles at 100 watts.
One of us upgraded from Technician to General class license. They and a few others are studying for the Extra exam.
It’s definitely antenna season! One person has built a shortened end-fed halfwave and another is working on a 20 meter dipole.
A few air-core variable capacitors have been obtained for cheap from a hamfest. These are useful for building manual LC antenna tuners, crystal radio receivers, and probably a lot of other stuff.
We now have a PeerTube channel! There’s nothing interesting on there quite yet, but plans are percolating. In case you’re not familiar, PeerTube is a decentralized and federated video hosting platform. Think of it as the Fediverse alternative to YouTube.
A power supply upgrade has allowed one of us to finally make use of a cheap (~$75) 100 watt HF linear amplifier. While it does not appear possible to use digital modes with the amp, it has made SSB phone contacts significantly easier than in the past when limited to 20 watts. These PA-100 amps can be found on eBay from several different sellers. Some 50 watt kits can also be found for less money. Voice contact was made with Slovenia on 20 meters using this amp. Distance approximately 5,000 miles.
This is an update of some of our activities in the month of March, 2024.
Two new comrades have joined us this month! One from Appalachia, and another from the DC Metro area.
One was actually heard hunting POTA on 20 meters, after which we decided to connect over IP. Turns out he’s a long standing IWW member.
The other is a new ham with an interest in queer liberation and providing emergency communication support to the queer community.
We made use of webSDRs to remotely troubleshoot line-of-sight antenna setups.
One of us began construction of a portable 2 element Yagi antenna for the 10 meter band.
We experimented with multiple digital voice modes over both RF and IP, including DMR, YSF, Echolink, and M17.
Our comrades in the Midwest have constructed one fully functioning solar-powered Meshtastic node, and several portable nodes have been obtained by comrades there. Training and practice will commence when weather and schedules allow.
License exam study books have been scanned into digital formats for distribution throughout our networks.
This is an update of some of our activities in the month of February, 2024.
Did an introductory video-conference presentation about ham radio to a group of comrades in the Northeast.
Two of us worked together remotely to get set up using CAT control and JS8call on one of our stations. CAT control works. However, the contact failed due to suspected coax problems. It was too cold outside to check. It was also suspected that one of the rigs suffered internal damage due to high SWR, but the problem appears to have been solved by a factory reset.
A second attempt was made a couple weeks later, this time using a Linux command line tool called minimodem which is a general purpose audio FSK modem capable of sending at very low bit rates, which, in theory should allow for a message to cut through very high noise levels. Experiments with very low audio (not RF) between two computers in the same building yielded promising results. We set our radios to VOX control and let it rip. No joy. One of the antennas was simply not radiating. The endfed random wire antenna that is proving to be problematic will likely be replaced with a soe form of multiband resonant dipole when the ice melts. Minimodem may get its own post in the future. There’s something to be said for such a simple and flexible command line utility, as opposed to more complex GUI applications such as FLDigi and JS8Call.
Solar powered Meshtastic modules have been ordered and should arrive soon. One Meshtastic device was given to a comrade who lives just beyond line of sight. Arrangements will be made to install the device on a mast, and attempt experimental contact when both parties have time. They are hopeful, as the mesh network is expanding in their localities and contact should be possible through at least two hops.
None of us have been affected by the AT&T outage. Although, it does serve as a stark reminder that whether due to disaster, malice, or sheer incompetence, governments and private corporations cannot always be trusted to maintain critical infrastructure.
One of us built an LCR meter from a kit. An LCR meter measures inductance, capacitance, and resistance of electronic components. It also tests transistors and crystal oscillators, as well containing a few other functions. This should help to adjust hand-wound inductors, and also to help identify mystery junk drawer components.
A few of us participated in Winter Field Day from our various locales. One of us made 47 contacts in one hour, the furthest being over 6,000 miles away Brazil.
Experiments with LoRa Meshtastic and Reticulum continue.
This is somewhat less of an activist-oriented post, because shit would honestly have to be pretty fucking dire in the world for CW (we’ll get into why we call it that in a bit) to actually be practically useful. Not that such situations are impossible, and of course it’s worth thinking about and imagining, but we just don’t find them terribly likely. For a lot of people, Morse Code scratches an itch on a part of our brains that loves learning languages and sending secret codes. Anyhow, Morse code is cool and fun.
Hams call it CW, which stands for Continuous Wave. That’s because rather than modulating in response to the oscillations of a human voice or multiple tones of a digital signal, it uses one continuous tone generated by an oscillator. The oscillator is either On or Off. The circuit is either open or closed. The differences in the amounts of time the radio transmits is what creates the language.
And yes, it is a language. A relatively unique one, too because it’s neither a written language, nor a spoken one. It is sent by the hand, but also it is meant to be heard and experienced in time, not seen as dots and dashes on a piece of paper.
Each combination of fist, key, and radio system has a “voice” which is as distinct as a human voice, and can be picked out among a pileup of other voices.
It is not exactly binary, even though it is regarded as the first digital mode. If anything, it’s Ternary. The “dits” and “dahs” are not equivalent to zeros and ones, because the gaps in between the tones are just as important as the tones themselves. For example “dah dit dah dit … dah dah dit dah” is “CQ” which is basically a way of saying “is anyone out there?” But if you change the timing to say “dah dit … dah dit … dah dah … dit dah” it says “NNMA” which probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone.
Computers aren’t very good at decoding CW. CW decoders do exist and are quite common, but they require a certain set of conditions in order to work properly. They expect tones in a certain range, a clear strong signal without any interference, and a very regular cadence. When CW is sent by a real human (especially with a straight key) on the real airwaves, using low power, a computer is of very little help. The human ear is much better at decoding this than a computer.
As far as radio communication goes, CW is the most efficient mode there is, by many standards.
Bandwidth: CW uses the smallest amount of bandwidth. Usually only about 500 Hz. Compare that to the typical 2400 Hz bandwidth of an SSB phone transmission.
Signal to noise: some “low signal” digital signals such as FT8 can be decoded by computer when it’s so deep into the noise that it can’t even be heard by the human ear. However, a skilled CW operator can decode CW that sounds exactly like static. That’s not easy to do with the human voice, and computers are not good at decoding messy CW.
Efficiency: You can probably squeeze more miles per watt out of CW than any other mode. Moreso, the equipment can be extremely small and lightweight.
0.3 watt CW transceiver inside an Altoids tin, made by Adam K6ARK https://reflector.sota.org.uk/t/worlds-smallest-sota-station/20825/45 watt QCX Mini CW Transceiver from QRP-Labs http://shop.qrp-labs.com/qcxmini
A word about keys
There are several different types of CW keys, but most people either use a “straight key” or an “iambic paddle”. The straight key is the one most people are visually familiar with.
J-38 straight key
The straight key produces “dits” and “dahs” by pressing down the key for shorter or longer periods of time.
Back when Morse Code was still a primary mode of long-distance communication, telegraphers – especially postal workers – primarily used straight keys. Prolonged use of straight keys caused a repetitive stress injury known as “glass arm”. To prevent this from happening, keys were made which relied on a side-to-side motion such as semi-automatic keys called “bugs” and then iambic paddles.
Most modern radios have circuitry inside them which allow you to set the sending speed, so the duration of the “dits” and “dahs”. This enables the use of iambic paddles.
Search for “stainless steel iambic paddle” and you’ll find these all over the place for about $50. They’re pretty good.
Iambic paddles are pretty good. One of the paddles is “dit” and the other is “dah”. You can press them at the same time send “dit dah” or “dah dit” depending upon which paddle was pressed first. Very convenient. They allow you to send well formed characters very easily.
The dis/advantage of straight keys is that they almost force you to send slower. You also have to be very conscious of how long your dits and dahs are. On the air you can often tell when you’re talking to someone using a straight key because they can lean on the “dah” for what seems like an eternity once you get into the groove. The sounds may not be consistent relative to each other. A consistent and legible operator is said to have a “good fist”. The irregularity of the straight key may or may not be desired.
How to learn the Code:
The most important things to do are listening to and sending CW.
There are three main methods of teaching CW which are generally accepted: Koch, Farnsworth, and Instant Character Recognition (ICR). They’re all slightly different and tedious to explain, but we thought we’d point that out as they are terms you might come across.
Many tools exist to help people learn Morse code. Below is a non-exhaustive list of some options that are out there.
Morse Mania is an app for Android and iPhone. It’s good at teaching letters using the Koch method, but they want you to pay for numbers and punctuation. Rather than paying for software, you may want to move on to Morse Trainer (Android) which is open source and also uses the Koch method, but in a slightly different way. There are many different mobile applications
Learn from people: The Long Island CW Club and CW Academy are two groups that meet online and teach CW in different ways. Participation in both of these groups pretty much requires that you have both a Key and either a dedicated oscillator or a radio with a practice mode.
Long Island CW Club has regular Zoom meetings where people practice sending back and forth. There is no curriculum. You just show up to whichever meetings are convenient for you. There is a membership fee for LICW.
CW Academy is free, but it’s more structured. Students sign up for an 8 week long course consisting of two one-hour Zoom meetings per week.
How NOT to learn the Code:
Most skilled operators will advise that you NOT try to learn it visually. CW is an audible language, not a written one. Do NOT rely on a sheet of paper with the alphabet as a list of dots and dashes. The reason is basically that when you memorize the symbols in a visual way, you will always try and decode using a visual reference to each corresponding symbol, which is much slower than hearing the sound of each symbol.
Conclusion
So, while CW may not be particularly useful in the day-to-day, consider some of the information above. CW rigs are small and light. They don’t require computers or other equipment. The transmissions are very narrow-banded. CW signals can get out in very poor band conditions, when almost no other signal can. It’s a great emergency mode, and just another great skill to have.
Hurricane Sandy’s blackout and the streets of lower Manhattan –Dan Nguyen
It didn’t take long after the attacks on the power substations in Moore county, North Carolina for the old Civil Defense guys in the ham radio community to start ranting about the “Shit Hitting The Fan” in their email lists. Talking about how State emergency response groups are woefully unprepared or – more to their point – disconnected from the ham radio community.
While we disagree with the statist approach to their solutions, they’re not wrong about the problems. If power, Internet, and cellphone systems all go out, that leaves people vulnerable. Elderly people, people with disabilities, people living with food insecurity, etc. You know, the working class.
Prior to 9/11, the number one threat to national security in the eyes of United States government was not from Islamic Extremists, nor “Illegal Aliens”, nor “The Chinese”, but from American white supremacists. The anti-Black racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and hatred of poor people that existed before 9/11 never went away. Instead, it was redirected towards a War on terror, a War on Drugs, and a War on “Illegal Immigration”. The hatred was focused on external perceived threats to cishet white male Christian hegemony. So now, there are power substations being attacked, likely by white supremacists.
In the case of Moore county, North Carolina there’s a possibility that the ideological target was the local LGBTQ+ community due to a drag show that was happening at exactly the same time. The physical target, however, was anyone who uses electricity. While the motivation for the attack in Moore County is yet to be confirmed, the plausibility of terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure targeted at marginalized communities in both the present and future is very real. Regardless, the effect is the same.
Due to the known fact that many police and their ilk are either fascists or simply sick bastards in their own right, it should be understood that state-based solutions to communications outages are neither tenable, nor necessarily desirable for many people.
With that said, it may be obvious to us that having a ham radio base station at the local police department monitoring for emergency traffic may not be so desirable. What may not be obvious is that police departments tend notto want people calling them over the radio either.
So what is to be done? The short, very general answer – and probably the most important – is to build dual power in the form of networks of solidarity and mutual aid. But here are a few ideas.
What already exists? NCPACKET, APRS, solar panels, batteries, flashlights, candles, heaters. What should we build? As always, build community, bases of knowledge, networks of mutual aid and solidarity. What does that look like? Queering ham radio and building Community mesh networks.
Pick up some FRS, MURS, GMRS or CB radios for your friends and neighbors. Come up with a comms plan and practice.
