Presentation Replay: It had a long title.....

 

Here is the jump to my replay of the "Top Ten: Democratic Open-Source Software Defined Radio and Amateur Radio Applications That Matter Today" presentation on Saturday. 

https://youtu.be/bEatax_cbKA?t=7520

Other related stuff here https://hvdn.org/hope16.html

Been a while: What is new?

HOPE 16 is just a few days away and I am really excited to be there all day Saturday August 16th

Event details at https://hope.net/index.html

Details on my presentation "in advance" along with some other stuff can be found at https://hvdn.org/hope16

During HOPE 16, I may be making mention of a new and exciting job I am starting later this month.

If attending HOPE 16, please register at https://hope-16.totawatch.de/rules/

Also check out  https://www.nycresistor.com/ 

I will be on 446.075 MHz using DMR mode with TS1, CC1 and TG99 with 446.000 analog FM as backup.

Looking forward to being a bit more active again with projects, content and all sorts of other fun stuff again really soon.

-Steve K2GOG

You need to know what is going on within 902 and 928 MHz!

Will keep this brief as a photo is a 1,000 words and a 3 part video combining for 59 Minutes and 13 Seconds is worth I do not know what, but.....

You need to know what is going on within 902 and 928 MHz! 

On September 30th 2024, I was invited to present on what is known as the 33cm spectrum to the Warren County Amateur Radio Club. This plan was hatched by the club president, Adam Koeble KD2YFY and I over the summer while attending the Sussex County Hamfest. I just needed a topic, but knew it would involve MeshTastic and something else interesting.

Thanks to the NextNav news brought to the attention of the amateur radio world by the ARRL, I think I had my plan. With not only the amateur radio community irritated, the commercial world is not happy with what they are attempting to do. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation has something to see about this possible land grab.

In my video, I explain who are the major users and what they are doing between 902 to 928 MHz.  Amateur radio is not as important here as some may think, as a secondary user for 39 years. But, those who are using unlicensed devices plus those using licensed frequencies with higher power here are pretty irritated should this NextNav plan get approved by the FCC.

My personal opinion is that there is enough spectrum to keep everyone happy, but amateur radio should lose secondary status and be given a few portions as primary users only.  I would offer the following scenario.

• 927.000 to 927.500 MHz (Repeater Output Block)
• 902.000 to 904.000 MHz (Weak Signal Users & Repeater Input Block)
• 910.000 to 912.000 MHz (Amateur Data Experimenters Block)

This reduces from secondary status from 26 MHz of total spectrum down to only to less than 5 MHz of spectrum.  The blocks above were chosen to protect repeater users as well as weak signal activities. It then dedicates a block to be used specific for any other use, such as modified use only for ISM repurposed devices for amateur radio only. These are my summarized comments submitted to the FCC before the deadline period.

A plan like this is more than fair, offers clarity for commercial users and easy to coexist with existing licensed users in almost every area plus provides a great incentive for unlicensed users to consider a path towards amateur radio or just stay as ISM users.

Let the rest of the ecosystem fight over the remaining 21 MHz left. Has the ARRL proposed anything?  I would love to find out! 

Have watch. I broke the video down into three parts and you can play them via a playlist or one by one:

Part 1 - Mostly just focuses on some history of the spectrum and how many devices are sharing the same spectrum across all users, licensed or unlicensed.

Part 2 - Gets into more details of the commercial users and breaks down spectrum used by different types of users, regardless of what they are doing as licensed or unlicensed users plus if they are commercial minded or not.

Part 3 - Focuses 100% on the very basics of MeshTastic, which uses unlicensed devices anywhere across the entire spectrum and by those that are not licensed and thus restricted to what they can do legally compared to the benefits of an amateur radio license holder, but will face other issues too! 

HOPE: Global Digital Repeater Round Up 2022

 

Life has been busy for Steve K2GOG and that is reflected in the lack of recent blog entries on HVDN Notebook.  This post "should" have happened in late May or early June, but that was not possible due to 1,000 other distractions such as our Hudson River Radio Relay on June 11th, ARRL Field Day on June 25/26, a new job, countless family adventures and other stuff..

However, lets get things back on track here since it has now been five years since HVDN began and this is an appropriate way to re-energize with HVDN readers via our twice a year global digital repeater roundup series. Look for more stuff coming soon plus BIG news regarding HVDN if you live in the Hudson Valley of New York.

First off, let me apologize for having to use July 10th 2022 data to provide the 1H22 reporting data.

This extra month plus a few extra days should not really throw anything too far off, since its still clear that the total global digital repeater mode leader in volume is DMR. However, P25 is the true leader if we look at overall CAGR.

As noted in the table above, data is shown from May of 2018 and through July of 2022.  Measurements are taken every end of May and end of October.  Raw data per mode is shown for each period and CAGR was calculated for the May and October periods independently. An average of both periods can be found at the far right of the table.

The below table shows the included 2016 data if you were wondering how long we have been tracking things if you are a new reader and missed the past nine other articles. 

Report:  What has happened in digital voice since October 2021?

Well this is rather interesting to say the least. In our October 2021 edition, I predicted some growth projections as found in "SPECIAL EDITION: 10,000+ Digital Repeaters - October 2021 Global Digital Repeater Roundup" and I was not "too" wrong.  

Estimates I predicted last October for May of 2022 included:

• Yaesu Fusion Global Repeaters = 3135 forecast (Actual 3218)

• Icom D-Star Global Repeaters = 2429 forecast (Actual 2471)

• DMR Global Repeaters = 4009 forecast (Actual 2003)

• P25 Global Repeaters = 569 forecast (Actual 630)

• NXDN Global Repeaters = 160 forecast (Actual 167)

Lets first talk about Yaesu Fusion's latest developments.  My guess is that the latest crop of radios which have come to market over the last 8-9 months may have pushed some clubs or repeater trustees to put up some additional repeaters to support the people who paid money for digital technology. 

A few radios like the mobile FTM-300DR and FTM-200DR plus FT-5DR handheld added to an existing pool of equipment available with C4FM capability.  The strategy of "Make more Fusion radios" is probably working well for Yaesu as a single vendor ecosystem.  Go Yaesu! You blew past my forecast!

Yaesu FTM-200DR pictured which retails for around $380 USD
and is competitive against other digital mode offerings for competition modes

Oh, sad sad Icom.  Will you figure things out when it comes to D-Star? To your credit, I was surprised just a little as I had expected that you would lose repeaters according to repeaterbook.com but you did actually gain a few. 

Now I am not sure if all 2471 around the world are actually active and if repeaterbook.com removes incorrect data as frequently as they should.  I do know that when traveling not every D-Star repeater is on the air though....so your secret is safe with me for now.

Maybe people who now have the super fun Icom IC-705 and IC-9700 have put pressure on magical repeater gnomes to conjure up a few more repeaters to use those expensive radios on or the new handheld ID-52 which finally is shipping. Maybe this is true, but CAGR still does not lie.  

Hovering around 1% CAGR is not fun to see, but perhaps if some cost effective equipment that supports D-Star ever comes to market, that should change things like we see with Fusion and DMR.

Be honest, did you buy a $1700+ Icom IC-9700 radio to talk on your local repeater?
If yes, I would love to hear about that

Ok, now for the record, I currently own more D-Star capable radios than I do for DMR. However, DMR is the mode I use the most still when I have time to play radio.  

The Alinco DJ-MD5XTG continues to be my favorite "ham" grade DMR radio and I sort of wish something more expensive and with features like the D-Star Kenwood TH-D74 or Yaesu FT-5DR would come to market. The RFinder B1 is a really cool radio which supports DMR but I am not interested in a smartphone based device for $1000 USD.  

With continued impressive repeater growth numbers for DMR, most people probably are using Anytone or Alinco equipment plus who ever is still supporting TYT and Radioddity based equipment.  The key thing here is that lower cost gear gave DMR a boost and repeater ninjas knew what to invest in.

For DMR, there is even a rather good  Under $30 basic radio called the COTRE CO01D which only can program 16 channels, but otherwise is great to use with a hotspot on limited talk groups. It is doubtful we will ever see a competing D-Star option at this price since the JARL license for D-Star is 2-3x the cost of just one of these radios. 

Alinco offers the MD520 which offers dual band 2m/70cm plus 220 MHz and VHF air receive. Anytone has a comparable D578UVIII for sale at around the same price. Both compete with the Fusion radios for close to the same price.

I was really close to my P25 prediction and was only off by 1. That is actually pretty nice.. Growth of P25 is fueled by surplus commercial equipment. NXDN is pretty much the same story and actual versus predicted growth from October 2021 to today  Not much really to talk about for equipment since options for new gear are from commercial companies only and surplus options are too varied to discuss.

The growth of P25 is interesting to continue to see though. As more municipalities change radio systems around, it should be interesting to see how P25 and NXDN evolve within amateur radio.

M17:  Will it happen ever?

Being nice here, but I own 3 total M17 T-shirts, a bunch of stickers and a semi-functional TYT MD-380 converted to be used via hotspot for this open source FDMA based mode.   I have yet to find people local to me to try simplex M17 to M17 but have done that at a hamfest.  

Every day that goes by  possibly gets us closer to off the shelf turn key equipment for M17 and I am hopeful that this mode explodes once it has some reliable equipment to support it. The back end infrastructure to connect repeaters to is already in place and a few "test" repeaters are sort of available to a few people. 

To help keep M17 top of mind,  presentations can be found all over the place and the upcoming HOPE conference will feature at least two of them talking about this open source mode. 

Feel free to check out open source RF experimentation at 10:00 AM Saturday July 23rd co-presented by Steve K2GOG and Joe NE2Z plus a much more legit one about M17 scheduled along with so many great ones found at https://scheduler.hope.net/new-hope/schedule/# 

HOPE 2022 is going to be epic and hope you can make it in person or virtually

The Magical Military Tent Pole

Introduction

You've seen them for sale online, at some Hamfests, mentions of their for building antennas, I am talking about military tents poles repurposed and sold as military antenna masts. 

They come in heavy duty fiberglass, smooth-walled and ribbed aluminum. Camouflage netting supports being repurposed and sold as insulator top pieces for a vertical or base. They end up being re-usable building blocks for antenna experimentation.

I started using the heavy duty fiberglass poles a decade ago as end supports for dipoles on top of the Hotel Pennsylvania for HOPE Conferences that would occur every two years there. We would build 12 feet of fiberglass mast for each end and strap the masts to whatever structure that was anchored to the building as possible. 

Each conference they would be up there in the summer heat and winds for three days. The ends would be reinforced with duct tape. In eight years of use we hadn't had any structural failure with them but did started hearing some creaking in their last use.

Low Dipole atop Hotel Penn in NYC. Far mast just behind left corner of building

12 feet strapped to the side of an existing structure might have been secure enough, but what about when it comes to how high can you stack military masts safely in open space using guy rings and ropes?

Use case

Carrying the N2B load during HR3:2021

Is this a mast to serve as end point for a wire antenna, a mast for a beam or vertical, some combination? This adds up to how much load we are balancing at the top. 

Will this installation be a semi-permanent setup at home or will this be part of a portable operation kit? For the latter weight, easy setup/teardown are considerations whether one or more people are involved. 

Let's start with portable operations. and the most precarious setup.

Fiberglass Mast as Center Support for Wire Antennas (Dipole/V/OCF)

Base

Let start with ensuring you are setting up on level ground and what are you using for your base. The Paddle base is what is commonly used for flat surfaces as well as portable locations where you need to leave the least foot print on nature.

Top is Paddle Base
Bottom is Swivel Base(photos goverticalusa.com)

The mast kits used to include Paddle Bases but have since started to include the more expensive swivel stakes. These are good where ground is soft enough to pound them down into the earth.

When it comes to re-purposing or making your own portable base, I have used a plastic Christmas tree stand. 

An item you could re-purpose for a base in a semi-permanent installation is a concrete block used for posts as sold by local home improvement stores. 

They are too heavy for frequent portable operations but

a consideration for infrequent long operations setups like Field Day

at easily accessible locations.

Guy Ropes

11.5 x 8 x 11.5 inch
Concrete Block

For a total mast height of 24 feet, run guy ropes at 12 feet and then again at 20 feet for a mast that is 24 to 28 feet tall given a top load that will support the center of a wire antenna and 2/70cm mobile antenna.

While advise against going higher than 28 feet with fiberglass poles, for a similarly loaded mast that is 32 feet high, run guy ropes at 12 feet and then again at 24 feet. 

To add some life to the fiberglass poles I've wrapped duct tape around the ends since when these poles fail it is often at those points.

Tripod base using six
 fiberglass poles

If you want to run only one set of guy ropes for heights above 20 feet and have six extra fiberglass poles may you want to build a tripod base using a tripod adapter from companies like GoVerticalUSA or fabricating your own if you have the tools and materials. With a tripod added you can run your guy ropes at 24 feet for mast heights up to 32 feet.

Aluminum Pole Use

For this use since there is little weight difference between the fiberglass and aluminum poles, I use fiberglass poles for the legs of the tripod and all but the top two sections of the vertical mast.  

With the top two sections fiberglass this reduces signal pattern impact to the wire antennas. while having a stronger support.

Aluminum Poles as a Portable Vertical

With tent poles being four feet in length, you and up lugging at least six poles for 24 feet to as much as eight for 32 feet. If you go with a tripod base you end up adding six poles to each configuration. Does not make for light carry for portable operation, just acceptable load for long operation setups.

So I got thinking about making an antenna out of the aluminum poles and cut a short section of fiberglass as a base. 

Portable Vertical - Blue taps first aluminum pole, green is counterpoise laying on ground

The diagram above is that idea as a 13 foot vertical. 'B" is a fiberglass section cut down to one and three aluminum poles stacked on top of it. A non-metallic guy ring with ropes is attached between sections '2' and '3' to keep the structure stable. A short wire is connected from the balun to bare aluminum using a metal hose clamp and a twenty foot wire is attached to the other end of the balun laid on the ground as a counterpoise.

While I have made a few FT8 contacts with it on 20 meters using a Yaesu FT-817 with a Z-11 tuner. 

I need to do some more experimentation to see how far I can improve it to be a viable alternative to the performance of windsock verticals. 

Will follow this article up at some point with results.

73,

- Joe, NE2Z