This Week at Amateur Radio Station N8VCL 23-29JUL22

 It's been another quiet week on the bands and in the shack here. 8 contacts, USA and Canada, VA7CKD is the long-distance QSO this week at 1415.5 miles.

One of these, KB0BEE, was the first QSO with my Cricket 40 QRP transceiver that I built a few weeks back. That was a blast.

The week started off with some fun on Saturday afternoon, when I intercepted and decoded a secret message. I learned a lot of neat stuff in doing so. Subsequently my friend Mark, K5CYA, pointed me to this video about how the Enigma machine works:

That led me down a rabbit hole to this video about how they cracked it:

Pretty neat stuff. I was impressed. But then...someone had to make one out of a pringles can and ...well... I couldn't decide if that lessened the esteem of the Enigma, or was just really cool and imaginative use of a Pringles can.  I'm impressed with that too!!  lol

Anyway, I got a reply to my decryption saying it was 100% correct and they'd send me a certificate. I'll post a picture when it comes in.

Speaking of "certificates," there is an ooooold tradition among radio operators and listeners of exchanging "QSL Cards." "QSL" is a morse-code shorthand for "I confirm receipt of your transmission," comparable to "roger" or "copy-that" on voice comms. So a QSL card is a report to a transmitting station saying "I'm officially confirming that I heard you or we had a conversation" and it lists the details like date, time, frequency, mode, etc and maybe a personal note. Shortwave listeners sent them to radio stations and the stations would often respond with a nice color card or photograph or something. Hams picked up this tradition and keep it alive today. I received a few on Friday:

 This is one of my favorite things about the hobby. I know that seems funny, that one of the best things about a hobby involving radio communication would be a regular old post card in the mail, but come on, who doesn't love to get mail? And it's always neat to see the designs and photos people choose to use for their cards. I have a photo album where I put the ones I receive. It just adds another dimension to the hobby and increases the amount of exposure to decent folks. ;-)

I'd show you my card, but...I'm not sure if I have you in my log book... Wouldn't want to spoil it. :-D

Been concentrating on my CW. All the contacts this week were CW except one RTTY. I enrolled in an online class that starts in September. My goal is to get up to 25 words per minute or more. Right now I'm at 12-15, but I really want to get better and faster. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes.

Tomorrow, Sunday, is the "Flight of the Bumble Bees," a QRP (low power) operating event where Bees go out to filed-operating stations and operate at 5 watts or less. The objective being to "capture" as many bees as you can. From noon-4:00 I'll be looking for the buzz-buzz-buzzing. 

Thanks for reading! If we had a QSO this week, thank you!
If we didn't, I hope we do soon.
73!

 

 "This week [...]" is a summary of Radio-related activity from Saturday through Friday.

Intercepted and Decoded a Secret Message!

 The Maritime Radio Historical Society sent a message encrypted via Germany's infamous Enigma cryptography machine from coast station KPH in Point Reyes, CA (which happens to be only 36 miles from where I used to live in Vallejo when I was in Navy A and C school).

The message was sent in 5-letter groups via Morse code and afterward using Radioteletype. Stations that received the message were then faced with the challenge of decoding it.

This is what it sounded like to receive the Morse code:

 

SPOILERS AHEAD: If you continue to read, you will see the encoded message and my steps to decode it and the final clear-text message.

Here's a screenshot of my Radioteletype reception:

This is, by the way, exactly as it was sent via Morse code.

"CQ" means "Calling all stations." "DE" means "From." "KPH" is the station callsign on Pt. Reyes. The actual message starts with "HQTRS FR FOCH" and that first line is understood as "To Headquarters from Foch sent at 1914 Zulu time today; 100 characters in the coded message; message keys are BRV and LTV;". The rest are the encoded message in 5-letter groups.

In order to decode the message you had to have the Codebook and the message keys. Here is a page from a German codebook:

Each day has its own line of info needed to decode the messages sent on that day, and the codebook is only good for one month. The columns to the right of the date column are Roller Position, Ring Position, Plug Connections, and ID Groups. Think of the Enigma machine as a typewriter with interchangeable letter cartridges. Roller Position is the roller number to be used. You would take the three rollers for the day and put them in the machine. Ring position is where the rollers would be placed. Ring Position 1 is "A", 2 is "B" etc. The Enigma also had a panel of jumper connections kind of like an "old-timey" switchboard, so for the day's messages, you would plug in the jumpers between the specified letters. ID Groups are codes that confirm you're using the right row of decoding settings. If you look at the message in the screenshot, the first code group starts with VCX. If you look at the line for the date of the 23rd, you see at the end of the ID groups is VCX.

So for today's messages, at the start of each message, the machine is configured thus:
Roller Position (Roller #) V II III
Ring Position 11(K) 21(U) 08(H)
Plug Connections EY DT KF MO XP HN WG ZL IV JA
ID Groups lsd nuo vcr vcx

All this info is kind of like the "Private Key" for the message (but not completely analogous). Only the Sender and Receiver know this info. There is also an analogue to "Public Key" of modern encryption, and that is the Message Key mentioned previously. The Message key is randomly picked by the operator sending the message. He randomly picks six letters. It's a convoluted process, but the first three are clear text to decrypt the second three, and this is the final setting to inter into the Enigma machine.

 Here's a graphical representation of an Enigma machine online. The Rollers/Rings are internal, so they are not shown, but clicking near the top lets you set the initial values. The three dials at the top are where you set the message key. The dots at the bottom are the plug connections.

Once the machine is set up with the configuration for the day and the message key, the message is typed and the machine outputs the clear text (or the encrypted) message.

 You'll notice that the encrypted message I typed into the machine does not start with the first code-group, but rather the second. This is because of the ID Group I mentioned above. The three letters of the ID group, VCX, have two more random letters added on to them in order to make it a group of 5, like all the rest, but if you start there, your message will be gibberish because that first group is for confirmation purposes and doesn't contain actual message data.

So why would including it mess up your message? Because every time a key is pressed on the keyboard of the Enigma machine, the encoding scheme advances by 1. For example if the machine was configured so that A=E and you press any letter on the keyboard, A now equals a different letter, and it changes with every stroke. So if you type in the first code group, the real message would be off by 5 steps, resulting in total gobble-de-gook. The letters above the keyboard light to show what the ciphered letter is for that key press. A quick test of repeatedly pressing "A" on the keyboard shows that the progression of the cipher is NOT linear, IE, "A" does not equal E,F,G,H, etc. with each key press. Rather, it varies widely.

So the decrypted message sent today is as follows:
MY RIGHT IS HARD PRESSED X MY CENTER IS YIELDING X IMPOSSIBLE TO MANEUVER X SITUATION EXCELLENT X I AM ATTACKING X

This is a quote from French General Ferdinand Foch (pr "Fosh"), Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War.

You notice I left off the last "WI" after the final "X". These two letters are there to make the final group of letters total 5, like all the rest of the code groups. (X is like a period or "STOP" in a telegram message.)

So that was a lot of fun, and a challenge, to boot! Radio signals fading and atmospheric noise make it a challenge to copy the message. This is why "numbers stations" repeat the same message over and over and over. We only got two shots today to copy it. Then there's the whole "Enigma for Dummies" crash course. I learned something and had a good time doing it. I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

73 de N8VCL

 

This Week at Amateur Radio Station N8VCL 16-22JUL22

6 contacts this week, all in CONUS. But the big news is my Daughter's wedding last Sunday!! As you can imagine, it's been busy around here, especially both days of the weekend. Monday was a recuperation day, and with the solar and geomagnetic activity this week, it just hasn't been a big radio week.

So I worked a couple Straight Key Century Club members. SKCC is a club dedicated to communication via Morse code using mechanical keys, ie typical straight keys or "bugs." Just a lot of folks (26,000+!!) who like CW and sending with mechanical means instead of electronic keyers or computers. It's a  great group that has a lot of members who go out of their way to help newcomers.

I also worked a couple "Parks on the Air." This is a program where hams go to parks and operate portable equipment. They're called "Activators" and the rest of us who try to locate them and make contact are called "Hunters." 

Like a lot of other operating activities, SKCC and POTA offer "awards" for certain accomplishments; Certificates for working certain numbers of stations, etc. It's a hobby. It's for fun. Some folks may lose sight of that, which is too bad. Lots of opinions about what's "real radio" and so on, but if I want to argue and be grumpy about something, I can do that at work. HA! 

I also checked in to a couple of nets and hung out on some round-table chats. Very casual week. 

Thanks for reading! If we QSO'd, thanks! If we didn't, I hope we do soon.
73!

 

 "This week [...]" is a summary of Radio-related activity from Saturday through Friday.

This Week at Amateur Radio Station N8VCL 9-15Jul22

 49 Contacts, 3 Continents (Africa!), Greatest Distance: RK4FF at 5523.1 miles.

Saturday was the Straight Key Century Club "Weekend Sprint." A sprint is an operating event where you make as many contacts as possible within the alotted time. Points are tallied and praise is showered upon the top ops. It's a fun way to spend some time on the air, and if nothing else, it's a good excuse to log some "Q's." I knocked out several over the course of the day.

I also got a confirmed QSO with a station in Africa, so I have now worked all continents except Antarctica.

Sunday saw me rushing home from church to change my clothes and run out into the feels-like-99 to try out the Cricket 40. I got an end-fed wire up in a tree and stretched out the 66 feet to a place where I could sit and play radio...and the sun burped, throwing a wet blanket on all the HF bands for me. Monday wasn't much different. Another flare errupted and sent a radio blackout towards earth. Some days are like that. Interestingly, while most bands went quiet, 10 meters was pretty workable during Monday, at least domestically.

Tuesday I worked W1AW, the club station at the American Radio Relay League HQ in Newington, CT. The ARRL is the NRA of Ham Radio, naggin members for cash, lobbying congress and the FCC, compromising on things we don't thing should be compromised...lol.

The week has seen a lot of solar shenanigans. How does the sun affect radio ops? Click here. Basically, Sun Spots are good for radio. Solar Flares are bad. Flares release magnetic storms which are cool for the Aurora Borealis, but squelch radio. We've had a few "radio blackouts" this week. The bright spots on this picture of the sun show the flares erupting. Looks cool. Sounds terrible on radio. lol.

Built this filter for taking KFAB down a peg on my Delta Loop. They are a 50KW Unrestricted Clear Channel station with their antenna site just 6 miles away. That put a damper on my Delta! I would hear their signal on pretty much every HF band. Not anymore! Here's a video of it working:

And wrapped up the week with a nice long rag-chew on CW with a guy who turned out to be a Navy vet who was an officer on Sturgeon class nuclear subs. He'd served for 27 years and retired to a horse farm in Western North Carolina. We had a fun time reminiscing about various things we had in common.

 

Thanks for reading! If we QSO'd, thanks! If we didn't, I hope we do soon.
73!

 

 "This week [...]" is a summary of Radio-related activity from Saturday through Friday.

This Week at Radio Station N8VCL 2-8Jul22

 

34 Contacts, 3 continents, greatest distance: LU7HH in Argentina at 5575.6 miles.

Seems kinda rinky-dink compared to 85 contacts last week, eh? The majority of last week's contacts were using digital modes. That creates quite an advantage over the CW and voice modes. 

First, digital modes rely on the computer's "hearing" while CW and voice use human hearing. Once the computer breaks the audio down to bits, it can isolate the sounds that contain data and pull them out from all the other noise in the audio pass-band. To explain it another way, I have made digital contacts when I could not hear a signal in the static. My computer could, so it picked out the data and put it on my screen. CW and voice modes have to be audible above the noise.

Second, the most popular digital mode at the moment seems to be FT8. To make FT8 efficient and far-reaching, it uses a very small data field and repeats it several times in a 15-second transmit window. All computers using FT8 are time synchronized and they only transmit on their 15 seconds. Basically, you look at the screen and when you see an interesting callsign, you double click it. The software takes over from there and if the other station heard you, the rest of the contact is completely automated. Essentially, once you've set up the antenna, radio, and computer, there's no skill involved at all. 

That said, it's like getting a notification on your phone when you see your callsign in the box, telling you they heard you and are responding. A little shot of dopamine. haha. It's great fun, no doubt, it's just easy.

So this week I wanted to focus on two things: 1) Make CW and voice QSO's, and 2) Complete the 13-Colonies sweep.

My casual contacts then were all CW and voice, including the longest one this week. Funny enough, I had already worked him on FT8, so now I have him on 20M phone as well. 

My 13-Colonies contacts were where ever I could find them. CW, FT8, PSK31, and sideband/voice. There was even one DMR contact. That was a LOT of fun. I worked most of them on the 3rd of July, but Rhode Island was a tough cookie. I also managed to bag all three bonus stations, GB13COL in Britain, TM13COL in France, and WM3PEN, Independence Hall in Philadelphia Pennsylvania.

 

Other things I had going on this week include building a 40M transceiver which I blogged about here.

 

Thanks for reading! If we QSO'd, thanks! If we didn't, I hope we do soon.
73!

 

"This week [...]" is a summary of Radio-related activity from Saturday through Friday.

Build Your Own Ham Radio

 

It's true that you can spend A LOT of money on just the radio in your station. Nevermind the antenna, speakers, keys, mics, or other accessories, you can spend good-used-car money on just the radio if you're looking at flagship rigs. Even if you're not looking at the top of the line, there's plenty north of $1000. You may be tempted to think that you'll never afford this hobby.

I'm here to tell ya, it ain't so.

A little over a week ago, I ordered a Cricket 40 from my friends at the "4-State QRP Club." It cost me $35 delivered. I received it Tuesday. The Cricket 40 is a kit. All the parts and PC board are included. 

 

It comes with 2 crystals, 7.030 and 7.122 MHz, so you can operate in the advanced and novice portions of the 40 meter band. They also have 20- and 30-meter band versions available for purchase. I chose 40 because of an old saying: "40's always open" meaning you can almost always propagate to someone on 40 meters. Other bands are more volatile in how far your signal will go, but it seems like 40 will always get you the states, and on some fine occasions, you can reach out and touch Europe, Oceania, etc.

 

 

 The documentation for the kit is online at the 4SQRP website. Bill of Materials and Assembly manual are there and the directions, especially for this kit, are straightforward and clear. I had it completed in just a couple hours, it really is THAT simple. The hardest part is identifying some of the smaller pieces, like mica capacitors. They are super tiny. I had to take pictures of them with my cell phone and blow them up a million percent to see the markings.

Can you read that?!?!

 

 So after a couple hours of soldering, I plugged in the 9V battery and to my elation, immediately heard the musical tones of Morse code. What a thrill.

 

 

 All this for the low low price of $35.

Now, let's talk about that a little more. This is a fully functional CW transceiver (it transmits and receives). It even has a built-in straight key. But it has it's limitations. 

1. It's simple and inexpensive. That means fun and affordable. It also means no filtering, no band width adjustments, no noise reduction, etc. It's raw radio like our great grandfathers did it.That presents a challenge to operation. 
2. It's QRPp. What's that? QRP is one of the "Q Signals" used in ham radio. Most strictly speaking it means "reduce your power" or "shall I reduce power" but it's also a designation of operating at 5 watts or less. QRPp, with the second "p" designates 1 watt or less. Again, this presents an operational challenge. It may take longer to get a response when you call CQ. On the other hand, the 7.030MHz crystal parks you on the frequency favored by the QRP community, so this might not be as challenging, but QRP is a method that requires great skill and patience. Anyone can master it tho, and many hams find it great fun. There's nothing like busting a pileup of killowat stations with high-gain beam antennas with low power and a wire antenna. David and Goliath all over again! 

Those are the big ones I can think of, but I think it's worth it. Anything worth doing is worth working for. Learning how to operate a radio like this one will lead to better operating on any radio at any frequency.

Once you've built a kit like this, if you enjoyed it, you can always try other kits. They range from simple to complex, from all through-hole components to some surface mount soldering if you have the skill. I think next up for me is going to be a 5 watt transceiver with a tunable VFO. Something like this QCX+ from QRP Labs. There are also SSB and AM mode kits, so you can build yourself a voice radio too, it's not ALL CW. There are also antenna tuners, filters, and many other things you can build yourself.

I hope that inspires you to give it a try. I think it's a LOT of fun for the money. I can't feed my family at McDonald's for $35 anymore, but I can build an HF Transceiver that I will use for years and years and maybe pass it on to someone else.

Tnx fer reading es 72!  (72 is the QRP'er's version of "73" or "Best Regards.")

This Week at Radio Station N8VCL

 

85 contacts, including Fiji and Indonesia, 15,565 miles away!

New experiences with PSK31 and RTTY, and JS8.

Blogged about my antennas and also Field Day.

This weekend is the "!3 Colonies" special event. Look out for K2[x] stations.

Be safe and have a happy Independence Day. If I worked you, thanks, if not, I hope to see you in the log soon.

Thanks for reading es 73!

"This week [...]" is a summary of Radio-related activity from Saturday through Friday.

ARRL Field Day

 Every summer, many US hams participate in Field Day, a 24 hour period where they go to a location that is not typically a radio station, set up emergency/temporary radios, antennas, and power supplies, and then try to log as many contacts as possible. The purpose of Field Day is to practice operating under emergency conditions. It's like a camping trip with a radio contest thrown in.

In Ohio I often participated in Field Day with my friend Bill at the USS Cod WWII submarine. W8COD is the boat's callsign, and we would set up in the yard out front with car batteries and long wire antennas. At night, if we took a sleep shift, we slept onboard. It was a lot of fun.

Since moving to Nebraska, I have not joined any clubs or been to any Field Day operations. I have thought about it every June as Field Day weekend approached, but never got off my butt. This year, that was gonna change. I emailed a bunch of clubs in the area asking where they'd be setting up. I wanted to visit a few sites and meet different clubs. Well, I was on-call that weekend, so I didn't get to make my whirlwind tour, but I did get to visit the local club. They were set up at a public park in Murray, a short drive from home. I got to spend a couple hours meeting some of the club members, make introductions, and chit chat for a while. 

Here are a couple pictures:

 Talk about a "Ham Shack!"  On the left of the pavilion you can see the vertical antenna.

In prior years, one of the members would climb to the top andaffix a rope to the hand-rail up there. Then various wire antennas could be hung from that rope. I would like to have seen the performance of those antennas!

 

 

 

Gary operating KB0SMX, Plattsmouth Amateur Radio Club.

Roger brought a Yeasu FT-817 5 watt QRP radio.

Some of the club members stayed overnight. I had to leave to tend to work, but it was nice to get out and meet some radio guys.

Thanks for reading es 73!

The Antennas

 I think I have everything outside situated the way it's gonna be for a while, a year at least, unless there's a sudden windfall of money and I can buy a tower, this is it for now. 

I've talked about the antennas a little bit in previous posts. Here is more detail with pictures!

Here is a patio-level look at the delta loop:

I highlighted the loop so you could see it. Otherwise, in the picture, it doesn't show up much. In real life, you can see it, but it's not obtrusive. It traverses the yard diagonally at between 7 and 10-or-so feet above ground. I don't know how to measure that peak, but I think its more than 50 and maybe close to 60 feet up. I also don't know exactly how much wire is involved here. I just went for "as big as you can make it." It's over 250 feet. Getting it up to that high point involved a handful of nuts an a bolt for weight, tied to fishing line, and lobbed up there by a 16 year old. After several tries and misses and the headaches that come with throwing the weight into the woods behind the fence, we got a good throw. We got the weight to fall down to ground level, then we cut the fishing line off the spool  and tied the end of a rope to the fishing line. Pulling on the weight then lifted the rope over the branch. When the rope was all the way up and back down, I cut it off the spool and tied the ends together making a loop. Then I attached the wire to the rope and pulled it over the branch. Once it was back down to ground level, we went to the far corner, installed an anchor point to a tree using rope and a bungie cord for flex, and fed the wire through a ceramic insulator. I then walked it across the yard to the house, where I constructed the feedpoint with a balun and the wire ends.

This antenna is a great performer, but...there's always a "but"... there is a 50KW unlimited clear channel AM station antenna 6 miles from here. The loop just gets blasted by it during the day. At night they switch to a N/S directional pattern and I'm kind of in the null for that, so nights are much better. I'm trying to design/build a filter to attenuate that signal so I can use the loop whenever I want. I'll probably blog about it. :-)

Here is a picture from the shack window for the best view of the W3EDP end-fed wire.

The W3EDP antenna is a tune-able all-band antenna, meaning if you have a tuner, you can use this anywhere. If you don't have a tuner...well...don't. lol. The horizontal wire is 84 feet long. Note in the picture, where you see it rise to a point and then it looks like it just dangles down. The point is an insulator I slung over that branch to hold the wire up. The part that drops down actually slopes off into the woods at a much less drastic angle than appears from this perspective. The counterpoise is a 17 foot wire that just hangs straight down. The creator of this antenna, W3EDP, found 17 feet was generally good, but on 20 meters, 6 feet was better. I haven't tried shortening it for 20 meters. It seems to do OK with the longer piece.

The W3EDP feedpoint is outside my 2nd story window. The loop feedpoint is almost patio level. Research suggest the feedpoint on a loop be elevated from the bottom corner, but that elevation is specific to the band you want to work, and since my antennas are multi-band, I wasn't too specific about where it goes.

The left side shows a 2M/70cM feedline. I mounted my mobile V/UHF antenna to a bar clamp and clamped it to my eaves. Works gud!

Here's the W3EDP from the other end of the yard. Near the top of the pic you can see the insulator, and near the window frame you can see the feedpoint.

These are "compromise" antennas, not resonant on a particular ham band, but they appear to be efficient radiators. I have made contacts in Argentina, Russia, Japan, Indonesia, and elsewhere with these humble wires and a 20 watt radio. I'm pleased.

In the future I would like to install a 40-50 foot tower on the south (uphill) side of the house and put a multiband vertical on top for 80/40/20 meters. That's money tho, so...it's not a short term goal or anything. More like keeping my eyes open for accidentally falling into circumstances that allow it. ha!

Thanks for reading, ed 73!