All posts by John Goerzen

Some Amateur Radio Statistics

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I’ve had a lot of fun with amateur radio since I got licensed in July! Here are some numbers regarding my HF contacts. Not included in this are probably hundreds of more contacts on VHF or UHF, which are more local bands and not typically logged.

  • Number of contacts: 542
  • Countries contacted: 30
  • US States contacted: 40
  • First country contacted: Argentina
  • First state contacted: Indiana
  • Most common countries: USA, Canada, Mexico, Germany

One of my favorite moments happened recently when I turned on my digital program (fldigi) and happened to tune to 17m. I don’t have antennas there and don’t usually bother, since there’s rarely something I can receive. But I saw two PSK-31 (digital) signals. One of them was a Japenese station calling CQ. I replied, and although we had some noise (perhaps due to my lack of a 17m antenna), made my first contact with Japan! Things like this are part of the fun of amateur radio. Sometimes things that have no business working actually do, and I get a surprise like this.

Rudy Schmidt & Time Capsules

General,

This evening, I arrived at church for mens’ chorus practice. I was surprised to see this sign on the door:

Rudy Schmidt died rather unexpectedly, but peacefully on Wednesday morning at his home….

One of the benefits of living in a small community is that I get to know people of all ages around here. Not just people my own age, or coworkers. A few years ago, I worked on a history project for our church’s centennial.

Back in the 1960s, Rudy was one of the people in charge of building our current church. So he was a person I was interested in visiting with.

Here he is, on the left, during the 1964 groundbreaking ceremony for the new building (the old one is visible in the background).

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I and a few others went to his home one time a few years ago and we had a wonderful evening. Rudy shared all sorts of stories with us — which I am happy to say I recorded. But moreover, Rudy was an avid photographer. There were some rare and brilliant color slides of the church being built in his collection. He let me borrow and scan some of them. Here are my two favorites:

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Back in 1965, there was a ceremony at the setting of the cornerstone of Tabor Church. The people at the time assembled some papers and memorabilia and put them in a time capsule. Rudy Schmidt sealed the capsule and it was placed in the spot for it behind the cornerstone. Here is a photo of that ceremony.

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44 years later, on the occasion of Tabor’s centennial, it was time to open the time capsule. The other building committee people, such as Jake Koehn, had passed away, so Rudy was the one to open it. He gave a few words in front of the large crowd, and mentioned that when he sealed it away, he smelled some smoke when he soldered it shut. Jake Koehn told him, “Don’t worry, nobody will ever see it again anyway” and they had a little laugh about it. Now he was going to open it up and see if anything survived.

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It all did — just a few minor burn marks. We enjoyed looking at all the items. Then the church placed some new items into the capsule. It was closed up again, to be opened in maybe 50 years.

With luck, I’ll still be around to see it opened again. Even if I’m not, maybe Jacob and Oliver will be able to. And so it seems very fitting that the last hands to touch that box for the next 50 years were Rudy Schmidt’s, when he placed it back in its spot on Oct. 12, 2008.

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Pump Organs and Music

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Two years ago, I wrote about Elvera Voth and the power of love. Back then I wrote about her memories of seeing of service workers, who would be away from their home for 7 years at a time. Elvera remembered a gathering of people at the train station to see them off, and how they sang some German hymns at the occasion.

Elvera’s done a lot since, including starting an arts in prison program. And today, she hosted a hymn sing at the pump organ in the Friesen House parlor.

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The Friesen House is nearly 100 years old, and was on my parents’ property before it got moved to the Mennonite Heritage and Agricultural Museum.

We were among maybe 20 people that showed up for the event. We walked in a few minutes early and Elvera was sitting at the organ already, along with a few other early arrivals. Many of the people there were over 70, and the moment we walked in, she said, “Oh good! Another generation!” And, of course, asked about us, where we live, who we are related to, etc.

The announcement in our church bulletin said to bring a copy of Gesangbuch mit Noten if you have one. That was a common hymn book in Mennonite churches in Kansas (songbook with notes — and yes, there was one without notes that had only words.) I pulled out my copy, and just opened it up. I saw my grandma’s beautiful handwriting saying it belonged to “Mr. and Mrs. R. A. Klassen”. This I brought along, but was perhaps the only one. Elvera recognized it and was pleased to hear where it came from.

We had a great time, and it turned out to feel like the kind of afternoon people around here used to have: time with friends and family visiting and maybe singing on occasion.

After some introduction and some stories, we got to the singing… and started with hymn in the 1969 (English) Mennonite Hymnal. That song had German words below as well, which we sang: Grosser Gott, wir loben dich! (Holy God, We Praise Thy Name) Elvera played the organ while we all sang.

And then we turned to #556, O Have You Not Heard. We read through the German lyrics (to help those that don’t speak German):

Ich weiss einen Strom, dessen herrliche Flut
fliesst wunderbar stille durchs Land,
doch strahlet und glänzt er wie feurige Glut,
wem ist dieses Wässer bekannt?

O Seele, ich bitte dich: Komm!
Und such diesen herrlichen Strom!
Sein Wasser fliesst frei und mächtiglich,
o glaub’s, es fliesset für dich!

Elvera translated this herself, a much more powerful translation than we usually get in English. And then we sang, this time a cappella.

Elvera told the story about the train station to this group, and then, of course, we sang O Power of Love, one of the songs sung on that occasion. For that, she asked us to stand up and form a circle around the organ, and again we sang mostly a cappella. Singing that song with Elvera left few dry eyes in the room for sure.

Someone brought up Nun Ist Sie Erschienen, and so of course we sang that. It wasn’t in any hymnal, but I suspect we were the only ones there that didn’t have it completely memorized.

Elvera told us the story of the museum’s pump organ; it had been in her family, and she had paid to have it restored and eventually donated it to the museum. It had been used every evening at twilight for singing and devotions in the family.

She also told us that the singing at the Newton train station — the same one our family uses a few times a year — was what inspired her to a career of choral music.

In the end, we probably spent more time visiting than singing, but that was just fine.

Next the group went over to the Preparatory School, an old schoolhouse also on the museum grounds. There we had a traditional Faspa, an afternoon meal with coffee, Zwieback and jam, cheese, and various cookies. We all visited for awhile longer and then went on our way.

It was a wonderful afternoon, and I hope to have a chance to do that sort of thing again.

Why all the Obama hate?

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I am really struggling with all this anti-Obama rhetoric, coming from both the right and the left. From where I sit, while he hasn’t been perfect, he’s accomplished quite a bit for us since he’s been president. Consider:

  • Obama got through the most comprehensive healthcare program we’ve ever had, which will provide a needed safety net to many, and yet will save the government money.
  • The “bailout” (TARP) happened when Bush was president, and consisted of loans and asset purchases. Current forecasts are that the government will get 90% of that money back.
  • The recovery & reinvestment act — passed by Obama — has exceeded the estimates of 3 million jobs saved or created, as graded by non-partisan groups. Most economists argue it should have been bigger to make a better change in the economy. It’s widely credited with having stopped the bleeding.

I don’t get it. Liberals are claiming he’s not doing enough, but look at what he’s got to work with: Republicans filibustering just about everything in the Senate. I don’t think that’s Obama’s fault.

And the conservatives, as far as I can tell, are just yelling. I can’t figure this out. They want to cut taxes, cut the deficit, and increase defense spending. Good luck with that.

Amateur Radio Excitement

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I’ve been keeping up with my amateur radio activities lately. The big news is that I passed the amateur extra exam at a hamfest in Wichita on Saturday. That’s the highest level of amateur radio licensing available, and only about 17% of hams have it. I passed it with 100% correct, as I did with my other two exams as well. Pretty happy with that.

I’m also getting ready to get a radio installed in my car. My FT-857D, which I’ve been using in the house, is really a mobile. I picked up antennas and cables for that at the Wichita hamfest. My brother, who is great with cars, will probably help me do that. I’m excited about that.

I also think I can get radio going on my bicycle. I need a half-wave vertical antenna to mount on it. Really the only challenge is how to attach that to the bicycle, as there isn’t exactly a thriving antenna mount industry for bicyclists.

Stories of Amateur Radio

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It was back in July that I got my amateur radio license, and I haven’t written much about it since. It’s about time I do.

I’ve been really enjoying it. I am now wishing I hadn’t put off getting into it for so many years. It’s a lot of fun and promises to be a lot of fun for a long time.

Why?

I am frequently asked, “What can you do with amateur radio?” Yes, you can talk to people all around the world, but of course you can do that with the Internet. Talking to people all around the world can be done with no infrastructure in between, so that’s a pretty neat feature, but not compelling to everyone.

I have realized that the question is poorly-framed. I had asked that question myself for a long time and only recently realized that I was asking the wrong question.

I think the better question would be, “What makes amateur radio fun and a good way to spend your time?”

One thing I’ve discovered is that the amateur radio community has an amazing sense of community. Hams, almost universally, seem to love helping out each other, whatever the task may be: setting up antennas, learning how to operate a radio, even fixing a flat tire. I’ve seen this directly, and heard about it from others, time and time again. There’s an excellent article out there by Nate Bargmann called Why I consider Amateur Radio an asset in my life that makes for good reading.

There is a lot of fun in amateur radio. It was quite exciting the first time I talked to someone out of state, realizing that the piece of wire in my trees, and 100W of transmitter power, were all it took to get a message 700 miles away. And even more exciting when I talked to a person in Kazakhstan the same way. No satellites, no phone lines, no undersea cables — just my antenna, his, and radio waves.

Then there’s the fun in talking to somewhat random people. It’s not completely random, as I’m only talking to people that have passed a test — there are about a million of us in the USA. (And for the long-distance HF communication, a more rigorous exam is required, so the number is probably less than that.) But when I call “CQ” — an invitation for anyone listening to reply — I never know who will reply. I’ve talked to a retired Canadian museum curator, a Mississippi farmer, a resident of Long Island, Russians participating in a contest, two Hawaiians participating in a different contest, and the list goes on. Some of these have been brief contacts lasting only seconds, while others have been conversations that stretch on towards an hour.

I liken amateur radio to buying my first iPod. I had never owned a portable MP3 player. I had always figured, “why bother? How often am I away from a computer or a CD player?” But once I got one, I realized how nice it was. It was convenient to just store my entire library on there and not have to try to sync it across multiple devices. It was convenient to not have to carry CDs with me in the car, and to listen to music at places I hadn’t tried to before. The same sort of thing applied to getting a Kindle, and to amateur radio. I didn’t realize how much fun it would be until I tried.

Some Memorable Moments

Towards the end of showing you some things that have been exciting, here are a few memorable moments from my ham radio experience so far.

Saturday night was one. I was tuning around listening to anybody to talk to. I heard some people calling CQ in heavy accents. I eventually realized that the All-Asia contest was going on, and figured out how to participate. I made my first voice-mode contact with people on a different continent — and it was with Kazakhstan! Within a few minutes, I also talked with three stations in Russia. I had not expected that.

I’ve made contact with several stations in the Indianapolis area, where I used to live. It was particularly fun to talk to W9IMS, located at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which operates around race times only. Again I discovered that station simply by tuning around on the band.

I took a 5W handheld radio with me to New York City during my trip there for Debconf. It was a lot of fun to talk to random New Yorkers while visiting, and they were all very interested in my impression of the city, what I’ve done so far, and what they thought I ought to do. Some offered specific tips (such as which train from Manhattan to Brooklyn offers a good view while elevated).

A local ham, W0BH, gave me some basic training on how to operate during amateur radio contests. During these contests, hams try to make contact with as many other hams in as many places as they can. I didn’t think this sounded like a lot of fun. Until I tried it. It was indeed a lot of fun, and interesting being occasionally that rare Kansas station that a bunch of people are trying to talk to at once.

One evening, we lost power. I tried calling the electric company, but there was no answer over there for some reason. We’re out in the country, and there are no neighbors visible that can inform us whether it’s a big problem that the power company probably knows about, or whether it’s localized to us.

So after wondering what to do for a minute, I thought I’d get on the radio and ask. (We own a backup generator for these situations.) Almost right away I heard from a person driving in his pickup. He told me he saw a widespread outage, and heard on his police scanner about other towns that were down for the same reason. I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

Debconf10

Debian

Debconf10 ended a week ago, and I’m only now finding some time to write about it. Funny how it works that way sometimes.

Anyhow, the summary of Debconf has to be: this is one amazing conference. Despite being involved with Debian for years, this was my first Debconf. I often go to one conference a year that my employer sends me to. In the past, it’s often been OSCon, which was very good, but Debconf was much better than that even. For those of you considering Debconf11 next year, perhaps this post will help you make your decision.

First of all, as might be expected from a technical conference, Debconf was of course informative. I particularly appreciated the enterprise track, which was very relevant to me. Unlike many other conferences, Debconf has some rooms specifically set aside for BoFs. With a day or two warning, you can get your event in one of those rooms on the official schedule. That exact thing happened with a virtualization BoF — I thought the topic was interesting, given the recent shifts in various virtualization options. So I emailed the conference mailing list, and we got an event on the schedule a short while later — and had a fairly large group turn out to discuss it.

The “hallway track” — conversations struck up with others in hallways or hacklabs — also was better at Debconf than other conferences. Partly that may be because, although there were fewer people at Debconf, they very much tended to be technical people whose interests aligned with my own. Partly it’s probably also because the keysigning party, which went throughout the conference, encouraged meeting random people. That was a great success, by the way.

So Debconf succeeded at informing, which is perhaps why many people go to these things. But it also inspired, especially Eben Moglen’s lecture. Who would have thought I’d come away from a conference enthused about the very real potential we have to alter the dynamics of some of the largest companies in the world today by using Free Software to it’s greatest potential?

And, of course, I had fun at Debconf. Meeting new people — or, more commonly, finally meeting in person people I’d known for years — was great. I got a real sense of the tremendously positive aspect of Debian’s community, which I must admit I have sometimes overlooked during certain mailing list discussions. This was a community of people, not just a bunch of folks attending a random conference for a week, and that point underlined a lot of things that happened.

Of course, it wasn’t 100% perfect, and it won’t ever be. But still, my thanks to everyone that organized, volunteered, and attended Debconf. I’m now wishing I’d been to more of them, and hope to attend next year’s.

Really Dark Blue

Family,

As we were walking home tonight, Jacob started singing, over and over:

Really dark blue,
really dark blue,
really dark blue…

The tune changed a bit, but the words didn’t. Terah and I wondered what was really dark blue, until finally we heard:

Really dark blue,
really dark blue,
really dark blue sky.

Really dark blue…

Then a little while later, we heard:

Really dark blue,
really dark blue,
really dark blue with morning stars.

It was such a cute moment that it’s hard to convey it in words.

I even got an audio recording of it on my phone, which I’ll perhaps post someday.

Update 21:05: For Jacob’s usual bedtime song tonight, I offered to sing the “really dark blue” song for him. When I sang “really dark blue with morning stars,” he said, “no, that’s not it. It’s MOONLIT stars.” So I guess my 3-year-old just corrected my blog post.

I see a career in copy editing in his future…

Once, We Were Makers

Family,

I saw an article on Wired today: The Lost Tribes of RadioShack. It is well worth the read even if you’re not into electronics. A key quote:

[H]is shop is a lone outpost; in a single generation, the American who built, repaired, and tinkered with technology has evolved into an entirely new species: the American who prefers to slip that technology out of his pocket and show off its killer apps. Once, we were makers. Now most of us are users.

I remember as a kid eagerly awaiting each year’s new RadioShack catalog. I’d read them pretty much cover to cover for fun. And who wouldn’t? The catalogs had fun things like radios, telephone gadgets, calculators, tape recorders, electronic “lab kits”, books, components, LEDs… I loved the catalogs and loved the store.

My parents bought me a electronic kit (if memory serves 20 years later, it’s the “deluxe 160-project electronic kit” from page 156 of the 1988 catalog, though it may have been purchased a different year). I had endless fun with that thing. It had resistors, diode, capacitors, oscillator, speaker, LED, relay, etc — plenty to make a bunch of kid-friendly projects.

Just looking at the catalog makes me excited even today. On the next page from the kit I had is a $5 crystal radio kit which needs no power source — “Solderless. With earphone, instructions, theory.” On page 28 there was a revolving red light, and some microcassette recorders on p. 36 (I had one of those for awhile).

I had enthusiasm for building and figuring out things for a long time. My dad let me take apart an old lawn mower for fun once — I’m sure he knew ahead of time it would never be back together. One of his friends from work built homemade contraptions out of things like an old vacuum cleaner (attach a cardboard tube to the exhaust and you get a great tennis ball shooter). And there was always all sorts of fun junk to discover up in the barn.

I eventually shifted to a different sort of “making things”: programming. It has kept me busy for quite a number of years.

But the Wired article has a point. RadioShack is struggling. Many people have no interest in making or fixing things anymore. The best-selling smartphone in the world comes sealed in a metal case where not even the battery can be replaced, the software is dictated by a company in California, and good luck trying to program for it without signing your life away first. A far cry from the first computer I used, a TRS-80 Color Computer II, bought, yes, at RadioShack. Turn it on, and in a few seconds you get a BASIC prompt. Can’t really use it without programming. Being able to read its manual was an early motivation for me to work at learning to read.

It is sad that so many devices can’t be worked on anymore, and that so many people don’t care. It is difficult for me to give Jacob (and later, Oliver) the sort of experience I had as a child. Companies would love to sell us $50 DVD sets, $300 “educational” game systems, $40 educational games, and any number of $30 plastic toys (some of which we have and the boys enjoy).

I’d rather give him a $10 bag of resistors, capacitors, wire, battery holders, LEDs, and a book, and see what he can come up with (when he’s a bit older, of course). And, in fact, he and I built his first computer together. We installed the ultimate in operating systems for tinkering: Linux.

This all brings me back to RadioShack. I’ve been working on ham radio lately, with an eye to that being a project for Jacob (age 3.5), Oliver (just turned 1), and me to enjoy in the future. I needed some cable, and had been told by many people to visit the RadioShack in Derby, KS. It’s like the one mentioned in the Wired article: huge, selling everything from washing machines to bulk cable, except this one specializes in amateur radio.

I asked Jacob if he would like to come with me to a radio store. “Dad, I would LOVE that!” He brought his little semi-broken walkie-talkies with him to use during the hour drive there. At one point, he was concerned that a radio store is like a library and he might have to leave them on a shelf. I assured him he could keep them.

We got to the RadioShack and he loved it. He couldn’t even really contain his excitement. He ran back and forth along the bright green stripe running down the middle of the carpet. He excitedly watched them measure out 60ft of RG-8 coax for me. He pushed buttons on the demo clothes dryer, looked at all the antennas, and just had a great time.

And he’s been interested in my radio, too. When I was talking to somebody on it the other day, he said, “I think he is at the radio store. He is having fun there.” Right now, everybody I talk to on the radio is at the radio store to him. Jacob loves the fact that the backlight on my FT-857D can change colors, and often comes into the office just so I can put it into setup mode and let him spin the big wheel to change the colors. He enjoys opening boxes of components, and came out to help (and run around) while I suspended a dipole from some trees last Friday.

I had told Jacob when we got to the store that “This radio store is called RadioShack.” He obviously took that to heart, because now if he hears me talking about “a radio store”, he will say, “Dad, actually it is radio SHACK.”

So I say thank you to the Derby RadioShack for keeping the magic of making things with your dad alive for another generation.

KD0MJT

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Wow — tonight was thrilling. It’s hard to explain why, but it’s pretty exciting to have a radio setup that is all wrong in so many ways work well enough for me to sit in my kitchen in Kansas and talk to someone in Indianapolis using only two-way HF radios.

I recently passed my technician and general amateur radio exams. I’ve been talking to some very nice people locally on the 2m band, which permits local (say, 100-200mi radius) communication. It’s been fun, but Kansas is sparsely populated enough that sometimes there just isn’t any activity. At all.

Earlier this week, my Yaesu FT-857D and two antennas arrived. I tried it first on VHF, and had a nice chat with Kent (KB0RWI) a few miles away. But tonight was the big experiment.

I bought a 20m dipole antenna. This is basically a 30-foot-long wire, connected to a balun and a coax feed line in the middle. You’re supposed to put it at least 30 feet off the ground, and away from trees, houses, etc. You’re supposed to have a nice RF ground for your transmitter, power supply, antenna tuner, and all that stuff. You’re not supposed to just run the coax under that (until today, annoying) small hole in the seal under the kitchen storm door. You’re supposed to have to have the correct connectors on your coax, instead of soldering an RG-8 PL-259 onto some RG-8X because you’re new at this and didn’t realize that you need to buy an adapter.

And, I’m really pretty sure that you’re not supposed to have an aggressive outdoor cat — complete with a full set of claws and teeth — attack the coax RG-8X cable as it’s being pulled through the grass.

Fail to do any of these things, and the thing might not work well, or might not work at all, or for people that use old equipment, might burn out your radio or something.

So anyway I got out the ladder today, and I got the antenna maybe 10-15 feet in the air. I have three trees in a row with the perfect separation to hang each end and the center balun from. So while Jacob went around playing with water and trying out the ladder on occasion (with my help), I used some string to hang the antenna. In the trees, not far from them. Near the house. Not 30ft off the ground.

I strung the feed line into the house, set up all my equipment on our kitchen table, flipped the switch. And — nothing. Just the occasional familiar whine while tuning. I tried the 20m band, then the 40m, then even 15, 12, and 10. No activity anywhere. So what was wrong?

I improvised some grounding — extracted the ground conductor from an old strip of AC house wiring, shoved it into the ground, and grounded the tuner and transmitter. No difference.

I unplugged the coax, and tested it with my multimeter. It tested out OK.

I plugged it back in and wiggled the connector. Turns out the connector isn’t in great shape, but it had been working.

I tried transmitting. The tuner made a whole bunch of alarming-sounding clicking noises (sounded like a symphony of relays), indicated SWR over 3, and the ammeter on my power supply went a bit nuts. Later I realized that I just wasn’t giving the tuner enough time to tune up; with a few more seconds, it tuned up just fine on every frequency. (So yes, it was supposed to do that.)

And, it turns out, that all I needed to do was wait a little while longer to hear some signals. Pretty soon I was finding stuff all over the 40m band. I heard a discussion from Chicago, another from Oklahoma City, some apparent broadcasters from Africa.

I decided I would try and transmit. I was hearing one side of a discussion very clearly and decided I would wait for an opportunity to try to contact that person. I heard his callsign, K9RM. I looked it up, and realized he was near Indianapolis, where I had lived for awhile.

Eventually he invited a station trying to get in to participate. And:

“KD0MJT” (I announced my callsign, as a request to join the conversation)

He said he only made out the 0, but eventually we were talking quite well. It was a brief conversation, but interesting; the person he was talking to was in Portland, and couldn’t hear me (and I could barely hear him, but not loud enough to make out).

That with no phone lines, no Internet provider needed, etc. And with a rig that is far from being at peak efficiency. I had no idea what to expect tonight — and was surprised that just tossing an antenna up in a tree let me talk to someone in Indiana. That’s 650 miles away. I wonder what I’ll be able to do once I get things done the right way.

This hobby is going to be fun. Many thanks to Mike_W for equipment suggestions, Kent and Dan from Newton ARC for encouragement and coming out to the house to test things, Kent for being my first ham radio contact ever (on 2m while I was using an old 1981 radio), Chuck (K9RM) for taking a few minutes to be my first HF contact, and my dad for helping plan out exterior wall penetration methods that will eliminate this coax under the kitchen door and lack of grounding business.

Jacob, by the way, still loves his radios and is starting to take an interest in mine. It wouldn’t shock me at all of he’s one of these kids that gets his technician license in the 2nd grade or something. I think he and I can do this together for a long time.

Update 11/1/2010: My callsign has changed to KR0L.