What use is an F-call?
208 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 9 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingStarting in the wonderful hobby of Amateur or HAM Radio can be daunting. Using low power with little experience is challenging but can be very rewarding. Every week I look at a different aspect of the hobby, how you as a beginner might fit in and get the very best from the 1000 hobbies that Amateur Radio represents. Note that this podcast continues as "Foundations of Amateur Radio".
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Episodes
Welcome
June 13, 2015 17:00 - 45 seconds - 1.4 MBWhat use is an F-call? This podcast started life in 2011 when I was asked to record a story I shared during the production of the weekly amateur radio news in Western Australia. I'd been a licensed radio amateur, or ham, for a few months and found myself surrounded by people who perceived the basic Australian foundation amateur licence wasn't worth anything. What use is an F-call? is my response to that sentiment. It's produced weekly. In 2015 after long deliberation it was renamed to Fou...
L.A.S. - Lead Arse Syndrome
June 06, 2015 17:00 - 3 minutes - 5.85 MBWhat use is an F-call? It seems that there is a disease within the amateur radio community. It's spreading and seems to be contagious. There doesn't seem to be a cure and it seems to be pretty virulent. Symptoms include listlessness, deafness, stubbornness and apathy. Community members have aptly named it as L.A.S. or Lead Arse Syndrome. I receive a regular stream of emails and phone calls from fellow amateurs who share with me their latest idea or plan for an activity in the hobby. It's of...
OQRS
May 30, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4 MBWhat use is an F-call? When you make contacts around the world with other amateurs the traditional way of confirming a contact is with a QSL card. It's a postcard-like affair that has the details of the station, and if all is well, the details of the contact between their station and yours. Traditionally if you want a QSL card, you'd go to your local post office and buy an International Reply-paid Coupon or IRC, but increasingly this has become more and more difficult, to the point where ma...
Retaining two letter callsigns is rubbish.
May 23, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 5.17 MBWhat use is an F-call? Recently I witnessed a discussion about callsigns. As you know, your amateur callsign is akin to your personal on-air identity. It's the thing that distinguishes your station from all the other stations on the globe. My callsign was assigned to me randomly, it was intended as a temporary stepping stone to a higher license, but over time I was distracted by all the things I could do as a Foundation Class amateur and my callsign now feels like "me". The discussion was ...
Stop whining and get with the program...
May 16, 2015 17:00 - 1 minute - 3.56 MBWhat use is an F-call? We are part of an amazing hobby where inventiveness, inquiry and exploration is part and parcel of the thing we do. It's that spirit that got me interested in this hobby and fortunately I have enough friends in the hobby who share that view. Unfortunately, this hobby seems to also attract a group of nay-sayers, people who are always denigrating others, starting from the perspective of saying No, before asking How? Let's call them the whingers. These are the ones who ...
Stop and enjoy the electrons along the way...
May 09, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.72 MBWhat use is an F-call? I'm a child of my time and my perspective is the result of input from fellow amateurs. I'm often in the group of amateurs who would rather buy than build, rather get something done, than do it yourself. The black box brigade if you like. The same is true for the antennas I use. I've been struggling with some verticals on the back of my car for months. I've got it working, mostly, but it was a lot of stuffing around. In the end, I added a black box, in the form of a tu...
How to roll up coax and rope?
May 02, 2015 17:00 - 1 minute - 2.98 MBWhat use is an F-call? When you start in Amateur Radio you'll come across the problem of rolling up coax and rope. If it goes the way it went for me, you'll be doing what you always did, that is, winding up the coax on your arm until someone stops you and tells you that you're doing it wrong. Then you're likely to be told about rolling out the coax into a straight line and when you want to take it home after a field-day, you'll either be rolling it onto a roll, or physically hand-over-hand ...
The Community Spirit of Amateur Radio
April 25, 2015 17:00 - 1 minute - 2.86 MBWhat use is an F-call? I've talked in the past about the community spirit that is embodied by Amateur Radio. Yes, I know there are several not very nice people around, some even brag about it, but by enlarge, that's absolutely not the case. I had the opportunity to use an antenna from a friend over a long weekend recently. He's building a tower at his QTH and had a spare Buddipole available that he handed to me while I was having problems getting my mobile verticals to work. It made me thi...
Learn from every outing!
April 18, 2015 17:00 - 1 minute - 3.59 MBWhat use is an F-call? Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a contest that was specifically set-up for QRP. That is, 5 Watts or less. There was an hour for digital modes, including Morse, but I don't yet speak that, so I sat tight for the second hour, for phone. This particular contest was a single band only contest, 80m. When I planned for the contest, I set my watch wrong by an hour, so I almost didn't make it, but fortunately my XYL queried my delayed departure and I was out...
Super Check Partial
April 11, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.93 MBWhat use is an F-call? If you're into contesting, you're likely to have heard of a thing called the Super Check Partial list and if you haven't then you should. It's a simple thing, maintained by Stu, K6TU, it contains a rolling list of the callsigns of all the stations that appeared in a minimum of 6 contest logs as a worked station over the past two years. This means several things. First of all, it means that you need to make contacts. Then each of your contacts needs to submit their l...
Your local repeater is like magic...
April 04, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.77 MBWhat use is an F-call? If you're new to Amateur Radio like I am, it's easy to turn on your radio, set it up to key your local repeater and call CQ. After the first time it's a trivial matter that you might take for granted. The repeater just sits there on frequency, making communication possible between you and the rest of the Amateur Community. In many ways it's like turning on your mobile phone and dialling a number and talking to someone. When people ask me what the difference is betwee...
How do you get gain if you don't change power?
March 28, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 5.19 MBWhat use is an F-call? Recently I talked about a digital mode that had the ability to give you an estimated gain of 13dB over Analogue FM. It's the equivalent of gaining more than 2 S-points or like turning up your transmitter power from 10 Watts to 200 Watts. Of course, the receiver at the other end doesn't all of a sudden see their S-meter go up and neither does the power draw from your transmitter spike. The actual transmitted power is still the same and the actual received power is also...
Planning for operating portable
March 21, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.72 MBWhat use is an F-call? Operating from your shack is a different experience from operating in another station. It's a completely different experience again if you operate your station portable. At first glance, what's the problem, you pack your radio into a bag, travel to the destination and start operating. If you spend a little more time, you'll soon realise that you'll need to take many other variables into consideration. Things like power, coax, structures for your antenna, antennas, ope...
CODEC2 - 13dB gain, what does it mean?
March 14, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.57 MBWhat use is an F-call? Recently I spoke about digital voice communications. I made mention of the CODEC2 project being developed by Dave Rowe, VK5DGR. I also made reference of the kinds of things that digital voice improves, battery life, channel separation and bandwidth. One of the things I didn't mention, mainly because I still had to learn what it meant, is that CODEC2 has an estimated 13dB gain over Analogue FM. To explain what that actually means, you might recall that an S-point is 6...
Share your radio skills with non-amateurs
March 07, 2015 17:00 - 1 minute - 2.73 MBWhat use is an F-call? During the week I had the opportunity to hear several people use a radio in day-to-day communications. In this particular instance it was a water taxi speaking to their base. They were using their own frequency and essentially used it to coordinate their activities across their coverage area. Listening with an Amateur ear, if there is such a thing, I noticed that there was a lot of back-and-forth, missed communications and misunderstandings. We take for granted, once ...
A rotator on 4 wheels...
February 28, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.66 MBWhat use is an F-call? As you might recall, I've been struggling to get an antenna installed on my car. It's been a process that started seven months ago, resulted in the purchase of four single band antennas and finally the purchase of an antenna tuner. I could spend hours discussing the things that were recommended, tried and tested, but I won't. It's a sorry tale that I'll share with you over a beer or six one day. On the first day that everything "worked", and I use the term loosely, si...
A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
February 21, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 5 MBWhat use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is about communication as much as anything else. The whole idea is to get a message from one place to another. This hobby attracts people from all walks of life, people who are physicists, truck drivers, pastry chefs, accountants and dentists and everything else under the sun. One thing is common among us is, we're all Hams. It's not unusual to see people from completely different walks of life bond over a beer and a soldering iron. With the recipe set...
Self policing license conditions
February 14, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.54 MBWhat use is an F-call? Over the years that I've been an amateur I've spent many hours discussing the ins- and outs of being an amateur. I've talked about what you're allowed to do, where the LCD falls short, what things you can build, what activities you can participate in and where to find and learn more about this wonderful hobby called Amateur Radio. I've received emails from many different people, amateurs and non-amateurs alike, each sharing with me their take on what excites them, wha...
More on lightning and bonding.
February 07, 2015 17:00 - 3 minutes - 6.76 MBWhat use is an F-call? Last week I spent a little time talking about lightning. I discussed how lightning can affect many different things, not just by being a direct hit, but by having a nearby hit, that is, something that is in some way electrically connected to you or your station. We all know that the ground has some level of conductivity, just like air does - the lightning that you see during a thunderstorm is the visualisation of the conductivity of air. In the earth, you don't reall...
Lightning, not just the radio...
January 31, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 5.08 MBWhat use is an F-call? During the week we were subjected to some unusual lightning activity. There was lots to go around and it raises the issue on what to do when lightning is nearby. The obvious comments about disconnecting your radio from your antenna is pretty common knowledge, but there are other things that might happen that you hadn't thought about. Lightning is an electrostatic discharge, and strangely enough, RF is closely related, in that your antenna system converts electric ener...
Digital Voice in Amateur Radio is broken...
January 24, 2015 17:00 - 3 minutes - 6.68 MBWhat use is an F-call? Digital Voice in Amateur Radio is broken. It's a big call for a mere F-call to make, so let me back that up with some facts. There are three basic digital voice products you can buy as an amateur today, D-Star made by ICOM, System Fusion made by Yaesu and MOTOTRBO or TRBO by Motorola. There is also Project 25, or P25. Each of these systems are based around technologies and patents owned by a company called Digital Voice Systems Inc. or DVSI. In essence, each of thes...
WIA Awards System
January 17, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.93 MBWhat use is an F-call? As you've heard me talk about making contacts with other countries on many occasions, I thought I'd spend a little time describing what I do when I've actually made the contact. At the moment I'm logging my contact on CQRLOG, it's a Linux based programme that manages each contact, tracks to show if I've uploaded it to Logbook of the World, eQSL and Clublog. I chose those three services based on their functionality and their availability. I won't go into each of them,...
How do nets work?
January 10, 2015 17:00 - 3 minutes - 5.97 MBWhat use is an F-call? In the normal day-to-day interaction between amateurs on air we use the procedure to say the other station's call-sign, followed by our own. If there's two people on-air, this is a simple way to have a discussion. But what if there are more? If it's informal, we tend to talk in a circle, that is, we keep handing the microphone to the next person in the line. For this to work, you need to remember who comes after you, so you can hand it over to them. If you want to jo...
The LCD is a living document.
January 03, 2015 17:00 - 2 minutes - 5.32 MBWhat use is an F-call? When was the last time you went online and downloaded a copy of the LCD? Do you even know where to find it? Do you know when it last changed and what changes it contained? If the answer is, "I have a copy from 2005 when they introduced the Foundation license.", you have a problem. The LCD changed in 2005 twice, again in 2008, also in 2010 and again in 2013. In total, between 2005 and 2013 there are 546 changes to the document that sets out the conditions to which you...
Which way is the Grey Line?
December 27, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.58 MBWhat use is an F-call? I recently spent some time talking about the Grey Line, about the way it moves around and how it will help you make contacts along its path. If you recall, the direction of the Grey Line changes throughout the year. As the tilt of the earth affects the direction of the sun on your head, it also affects the shadow line that's drawn across the planet as sun-set and sun-rise occur at your QTH. Of course, you already know this. We experience this change as our seasons. ...
Remember to stop fiddling every now and then...
December 20, 2014 17:00 - 1 minute - 2.42 MBWhat use is an F-call? I've now been an amateur since December 2010. In the time that I've been part of this hobby I've come to understand that a large part of the experience is to tinker. We tinker with radios, batteries, antennas, coax, connectors, mobile set-ups and software. We fiddle with circuits, with antenna designs, with locations, with anything and everything. Of course the fiddling is all about improvement, or sometimes, it's just about getting on-air. The more you fiddle, the m...
QRM and morons
December 13, 2014 17:00 - 1 minute - 3.14 MBWhat use is an F-call? Man-made interference is a wonderful thing. It allows you to appreciate that there are both people and morons on air. Some people become morons, either by accident, or on purpose, but every now and then you have special people who share our airwaves. In case you're wondering, a moron is someone with the intellectual age between 8 and 12. In the past we as amateurs have chosen to ignore them. In general that works pretty well. The moron doesn't know that they're having...
The Gray Line changes through the year!
December 06, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.12 MBWhat use is an F-call? In the past I've mentioned the Grey Line. If you recall, this is a twice daily phenomenon. During dawn and dusk, and often slightly before and after, there is an enhanced level of DX propagation. That is, if you're listening while it's happening, you'll notice far-off stations you didn't hear before, clear as day, then five or ten minutes later they're gone. Today I'm not going into the actual process that makes this happen, absorption, D and F layers and the like. Th...
We need mentors!
November 29, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.76 MBWhat use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is a personal thing. It's an expression of communication, of exploration, of invention, learning, electronics, physics and personal achievement. The community we are members of is a living organism. We pick up random people from the global community, spark their interest and gain another member. For new entrants to our community there is much to see and do. Often the choices are overwhelming and common mistakes are made. While every person has their own ...
Programming repeaters.
November 22, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.02 MBWhat use is an F-call? You purchased a shiny new radio and it's all you imagined and it works great and you're over the moon with your purchase and you're raring to go, but you find yourself constantly typing in the frequencies, or twiddling the VFO to change repeaters. As a last ditch attempt, you've got out the manual and you're busily typing in each repeater, one at a time, and then when you've finally done it, you hit the wrong button and you have start again. Only 22 repeaters more to ...
What is your level of preparedness?
November 15, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.02 MBWhat use is an F-call? Recently I was part of a discussion about emergency preparedness. The idea being that as radio amateurs we're ideally suited to being communication hubs and conduits to pass messages along. Of course as part of that we need to have skills and equipment to make those things possible. I've often said that doing contests are a great way to improve your radio skills. It's an adverse environment in which sending and receiving messages is related to your score and as a bonu...
Raspberry Pi SDR
November 08, 2014 17:00 - 1 minute - 2.9 MBWhat use is an F-call? I've just built myself v1.0 of a Raspberry Pi SDR. It still has some way to go until I can show it off - needs a touch screen, a power supply that runs on 12V, some user interface elements, but the functionality is there. If you're unfamiliar with the nature of a Raspberry Pi, it's a single board computer, the size of a credit card, has Ethernet, USB, HDMI, audio, video and a MicroSD card slot. My version comes with 512Mb of memory. It's 17mm high. This is a tiny full...
Share your experiences...
November 01, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.11 MBWhat use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is a social activity. It's about communication and community. Ironically, as much as we are about talking to one and other, we still do some activities all on our own. If you're hunting for a rare station, trolling up and down the bands, looking for that elusive callsign or country, or sitting in a pile-up, calling and calling and calling some more, hearing your callsign and confirming a contact, that kind of activity is very solitary. It doesn't have to...
Learning from listening...
October 25, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.45 MBWhat use is an F-call? As an F-call, working DX, you'll spend many hours looking for that elusive contact, or you'll turn on your radio, tune around, hear a station, call back and bag a new country. It's all there for the taking, one contact at a time. As you operate on HF, you'll notice a whole range of operating skills, from amazing to atrocious and everything in between. You'll hear stations who keep calling two letters of their callsign, or those who run a pile-up for 40 contacts withou...
The QSL card is not dead!
October 18, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.71 MBWhat use is an F-call? On previous occasions I've discussed the QSL system in Amateur Radio. It's a mechanism that uses what's known as out-of-band communications to confirm contacts. For over a hundred years that has been mostly in the form of QSL cards. Since the introduction of the Internet, websites and pervasive computing, some of the confirmations have been moved from card to electron. I've had about 29 countries confirmed electronically and two via card. Until about 10 minutes ago I ...
Small Changes can have a Big Effect
October 11, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.13 MBWhat use is an F-call? Yesterday I learned an interesting lesson. It wasn't a simple lesson to learn, but I'm guessing it's going to take me some years to come to grips with what I experienced. Said plainly, "Small Changes can have a Big Effect" That's pretty straight forward as a lesson, but when you actually experience it head on, it tends to make more impact. As you've heard in the past, I operate my radio mostly from my car. I recently purchased some antennas that I want to mount on m...
Tuning mobile antennas...
October 04, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.78 MBWhat use is an F-call? I've recently purchased four verticals, one for each of the HF bands I'm allowed to use. I installed them and started playing, only to be confronted with some interesting results. The 80m and 40m verticals have a very high Q, that is to say, they resonate on a particular frequency and you can make contacts at those frequencies with about 22 kHz variation. This is as expected. My antenna analyser picture looks just like the one on the box. This is great. In theory all ...
Everyday Terms, think about them sometimes
September 27, 2014 17:00 - 3 minutes - 5.52 MBWhat use is an F-call? In our hobby we come across terms and names that we use and commonly understand, that is, we think we understand them. I mean, what's a velocity factor and what is a dielectric? Simple right? The velocity factor is something to do with coax and the dielectric is something to do with capacitors. Next. Hold on. Let's have a little closer look at this. The velocity factor is the wave propagation speed, or the velocity of propagation, relative to the speed of light. Th...
Everything Changes All The Time ... pay attention
September 20, 2014 17:00 - 1 minute - 3.66 MBWhat use is an F-call? When you operate your station on a regular basis you might find yourself lulled into the belief that all is well with the world and that your station will continue to operate as expected. It worked yesterday, so why wouldn't it work today - nothing changed. Having now operated my station for several years and having been granted the opportunity to operate stations built and maintained by others I can categorically state that nothing stays the same, ever. In fact, it'...
QRP is everywhere
September 13, 2014 17:00 - 1 minute - 3.59 MBWhat use is an F-call? Having a Foundation License, the basic amateur licence in a three tiered system that is in use in Australia, means that you have access to low power only. 10 Watts PEP is the limit today, though that might change as reviews get underway. I've said in the past that if you operate an advanced call as a QRP station, that is, SSB 5 Watts or less, and you make a contact, you're showered with accolade. This illustrates that there is a disconnect between an F-call who legall...
It's not about sitting in a shack talking on the radio...
September 06, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.1 MBWhat use is an F-call? As I've said many times before, Amateur Radio blows me away. Every week I see new and imaginative things that this community achieves through trial and error, from contacts across new bands, coordination of new activities such as fox-hunts and SOTA activations. We are a fool hardy lot, climbing up hills to "activate" them, or doing the same thing for light-houses, or museums. There's a surfing contest where you collect callsigns to spell the locations of surfing beach...
There are more than just Amateurs Listening...
August 30, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.8 MBWhat use is an F-call? In the past I've mentioned that we're not alone on the bands. We as a community, Hams, or Radio Amateurs have radio spectrum we can use, specific ranges of frequencies that are available to our exclusive or shared use. Radio being radio means that we're also able to be heard by other radio users. Those users come from all walks of life. Not only do we have diversity within our own little community, the listeners beyond our license add a whole new range of variety. We...
Newness should not be a barrier to participation
August 23, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.74 MBWhat use is an F-call? When I started recording this weekly segment, there were lots of things I didn't know. I was apprehensive about how my contribution to Amateur Radio might be received, about what I should talk about, how long it should last, what tone I should set, how technical I should be and all manner of other considerations. When I started in Amateur Radio itself, not long before I started this segment, I had similar concerns and considerations, things I was worried about and ski...
Learn from your mistakes and share them...
August 16, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 3.99 MBWhat use is an F-call? Recently I received an email from an Amateur who has had their license for over 30 years and been in the electronics field for more than 40. He shared with me an experience that goes to the heart of why it pays to share, even if this particular experience left his mates with sore bellies from laughing so hard. Without going into too much technical background, the devil is in the detail. Our amateur, was working on a project which required a particular part. He was a l...
How much do you gain from more power?
August 09, 2014 17:00 - 3 minutes - 6.27 MBWhat use is an F-call? When you get an amateur radio license, you learn that different license classes have different power limits. The basic power limit in Australia, the foundation license, or f-call, has 10 Watts as the limit. The standard license has 100 Watts and the advanced license has a maximum legal limit of 400 Watts. It's natural to think that more power gives you more reach, but realistically, what does that look like, what is the difference between 10 Watts and 100 Watts? Can y...
How to do a contest?
August 02, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 4.25 MBWhat use is an F-call? If you've just gained your license and you're still not sure what to do with it, I can strongly recommend that you have a go at the Remembrance Day contest. It's an annual event where amateurs spend 24 hours commemorating the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific. The contest happens every year on the weekend closest to the 15th of August and runs from Saturday at 03:00 UTC until Sunday, 03:00 UTC. The aim is to make as many contacts as possible between amateurs in ...
dB and dBm
July 26, 2014 17:00 - 4 minutes - 8.58 MBWhat use is an F-call? In a previous discussion I talked about decibels. The take home from that was that a decibel represents a ratio between two things. The gain of an antenna over the gain of a standard reference antenna, or the power loss between the start of a coax cable and it's end. I also mentioned that there are several other things with dB in them. Today I'd like to introduce the dBm, or Decibel milliwatt. It's a unit used to compare and contrast different levels of output. Unlik...
Looking at mobile antennas for HF.
July 19, 2014 17:00 - 2 minutes - 5.32 MBWhat use is an F-call? As you might know or recall, I don't have HF at my QTH. So far my DX activities have been using other people's equipment and using my 12m squid-pole when I'm either camping or set-up at some waterside location. This seriously curtails my activities and I'm keen to do something about it. Over the past few weeks I've been looking at different options, it's a process that everyone goes through, and sometimes you come out of it having gained some experience. I'm not shy i...
Clubs and F-calls?
July 12, 2014 17:00 - 1 minute - 3.54 MBWhat use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is a hobby that gains and loses members as does any other hobby. One aspect of the hobby differs, that of licensing. To join Amateur Radio, you need to be licensed, that is to say, if you want to transmit, rather than receive. In the vast majority of cases, the place where people join is as an F-call. They do their course, do their exam and after paying the requisite fees, they gain their license. After that they're pretty much left on their own. Amate...
No more bullies
July 05, 2014 17:00 - 3 minutes - 6.49 MBWhat use is an F-call? If you're new to Amateur Radio, you may be surprised to learn that we have bullies among us, but if you've been around for a while, you'll have heard it, or perhaps even experienced it first hand. Yesterday I received two communications from two separate amateurs on different sides of the country. Both had been the victim of bullies. One was from an F-call and the other, an Advanced-call. Both of them described some of their experiences, how they felt belittled, hurt,...