This is probably boring to a great number of you, but a recent FCC proposed notice of rule making has been getting a lot of play lately. RM-11699 is a proposal to allow encryption of traffic in amateur radio so that we can handle information of a sensitive nature in times of emergency, especially information that is covered in the U.S. under HIPAA. The vast majority of the comments on this proposal have been against it, as are my own. If you’d like to read what I have to say, you can read my own comments, complete with an embarrassing number of typos (I drew them up somewhat hastily) at this link at the FCC website. If you’d like to read some more well thought out (if more formal and legalistic) you can check out these comments by Bruce Perens.

I didn’t get a whole lot more amateur radio done.   I spent some time running JT65, mostly on 20m, but sometimes skipping up higher to 17m and 15m.  I’m still eight states short of my WAS, and was teased by stations in NV, WY and ND, which I managed to start QSOs with, but didn’t actually complete.   Grrr!   I did leave my radio running in monitor mode, and continued to rack up spots from another fifteen countries:  Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Croatia, Denmark, Guatamala, Hungary, Mariana Islands, Norway, Paraguay, Singapore, Surinam,  Switzerland, Tanzania, and Thailand.

I spent some time looking at FreeDV: the digital voice program for HF that uses David Rowe’s  Codec2; low bitrate voice codec.  I didn’t have a lot of luck: I did get it all configured and ready to go, but off and on monitoring of the published calling frequency (14.236) didn’t result in more than a momentary glimpse of a few tentative bleeps.   I tried using K7VE’s QSO finder, and found that indeed, there probably were QSOs going on during the weekend net (1100 Pacific time) that I simply couldn’t hear.  Not too surprising: despite my apparent success running JT65, I suspect my antenna system is actually not that good, and lots is going on below my detection threshold.   I thought that it would be possible to configure up some software to simply wait for audio signals and record them using Audacity, but my IC-735 isn’t especially well calibrated for frequency, and I think I’m probably tuning about 130Hz high, which would prevent a synch lock if I just blindly set the frequency.  I still might try to set that up, and see if I can capture some of this digital audio.   But I think I need to get lucky, and/or make some improvements to my receive antenna before I’ll make any headway.  If anyone else is interested in FreeDV, drop me a note: I’d love to give it a try…

Addendum: I thought maybe a video showing FreeDV might further tempt readers. Here’s one showing it in use. It isn’t especially interesting in terms of weak-signal performance (the SSB audio is clean, with very near full quieting) but it should be noted that the FreeDV signal takes up only about 1100Hz of bandwidth, while the SSB signal is 2.5Khz or so. I don’t think it will replace SSB anytime soon, but in theory doubling the number of QSOs that can take place in a given chunk of spectrum is pretty neat…

I’ve been leaving my radio monitoring JT65 frequencies for the last week, largely on 20m, with occasional diversions to 40m, 30m, and 17m. JT65HF can upload all your spots to pskreporter and from them, you can download an ADIF log file. I thought I’d see what stations I heard over the last week, and the results were surprising enough that I thought I’d share them.

First of all, I heard stations in 48 DXCC entities, which include:

Alaska, Argentina, Asiatic Russia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Czech Republic, Egypt, England, European Russia, Fed. Rep. of Germany, France, French Polynesia, Gabon, Greece, Grenada, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Poland, Puerto Rico, Republic of Korea, Romania, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Wales, West Malaysia

This broke down to hearing signals from 520 unique calls:

2E0ZRQ, 4A1TD, 6B3YOE, 6Y5IC, 7L2MDI, 7N4HQN, 8J9VLP, 9M2TPT, AA0DW, AA7OK, AB1NJ, AB1PF, AB6OR, AB7JK, AC0MW, AC7SG, AC8XI, AD0AR, AE3T, AE5OL, AE5ZD, AE7CD, AE7U, AF5AT, AF5FH, AF5KY, AF6JO, AG0A, AG8M, AH6OY, AH6RR, AI6RE, AK4AT, AK4BB, AL7ID, BD2CO, BD2MC, BD3RQ, BD7BW, BI7MCK, BU2CB, BX2ADE, BX2ADJ, CO2BG, CO8RS, CX4NF, DD3KF, DF9JL, DG0RG, DG1LHM, DG3OAF, DJ1FQ, DK3EG, DL3NOC, DL4FBW, DL8ZBA, EA1BYC, EA1JM, EA3HJ, EA4DKJ, EA7CHS, EA7GDC, EA7IU, EB3FDI, EI1DG, F1ABL, F1FZH, F4BAL, F4BKT, F4CLN, F4EEX, F4GOH, F5JMH, F5RHE, F6HHO, FK8HG, FO5QJ, G1OXB, G3KLV, G3VIR, G4HXC, G7JWR, GW0TKX, HL2KV, HL3IB, HL5QO, IK2TDM, IK4UOA, IK5FKF, IN3NHZ, IZ0IWD, IZ0MIO, IZ3XEF, J35X, JA0EKI, JA0FOX, JA0HNN, JA1AZR, JA1BZJ, JA1DEQ, JA1FIK, JA1FMN, JA1FVS, JA1GFB, JA1NUX, JA1VDJ, JA1WDZ, JA1WGR, JA1XBX, JA2JNT, JA2VZ, JA2ZS, JA3BQB, JA3CG, JA3EGE, JA3FQO, JA3SJG, JA4CXX, JA5AZO, JA5DVK, JA5TX, JA6ATL, JA6CRP, JA6EIM, JA7FYU, JA7IGN, JA7MJ, JA8CQM, JA8FTB, JA8IZP, JA8NIS, JE1HRC, JE1TRF, JE2PMC, JE6JFL, JF1CSE, JF1JTQ, JF1KUR, JF1PTX, JF2IWL, JG1GFU, JG1ITH, JG1USO, JG1XUZ, JH1ICJ, JH1KYA, JH1MKT, JH1QKG, JH1WCL, JH3GCN, JH3IEG, JH3IMR, JH3OWW, JH3XYP, JH7GNC, JJ5IZX, JJ7RMS, JK1XUI, JL1DLQ, JL1OVC, JM1ESG, JO1PYV, JO3IEE, JO3TAP, JP1GVC, JQ2HVN, JR1AUK, JR1BVP, JR3UIC, JS2KHM, K0GDI, K0KC, K0PT, K0RAR, K0TAZ, K0TPP, K0WIU, K1BJF, K1JT, K2AFY, K2B, K2CDP, K2KYH, K2NCC, K3GEV, K3HR, K3NAW, K3YP, K4AFR, K4BOI, K4ED, K4MJ, K4OP, K4QJC, K4RVJ, K5DE, K5WPN, K5WW, K6EU, K6HOM, K6LE, K6RWM, K6SID, K7HRT, K7JBQ, K7KKY, K7ZL, K8FER, K8JMB, K8WHA, K9AAN, K9GVM, K9IBM, K9OHI, KA1GMN, KA1WPM, KA3LOC, KA9CCH, KA9SWE, KB0MDQ, KB1RVT, KB1TJC, KB2BAF, KB3IYQ, KB5EZ, KB6DAY, KB7JWD, KB7N, KB7RUQ, KB8DID, KB9GSY, KB9PRF, KC0VPL, KC0ZDV, KC2FZN, KC2RDC, KC2SJ, KC2WTG, KC8GCR, KC9ON, KC9REX, KC9UNL, KC9WNZ, KD0AGX, KD0PMW, KD0QYN, KD2CFH, KD2JC, KD4K, KD4NUL, KD5R, KD5ZAT, KD6HQ, KD6PJE, KD7H, KD7PCE, KD8HSV, KD8OVN, KD8RDH, KE4TG, KE9JF, KF2H, KF2T, KF4RWA, KF5GST, KF5REP, KF5SLN, KF6LYF, KF7EMI, KF7JGF, KF7LF, KF7PG, KF7PKL, KF7QPK, KF7RTU, KF7ZZ, KG2MD, KG5RJ, KG6EYC, KG7HQ, KH6FT, KI0J, KI4MI, KI5PM, KI6CJE, KI6DY, KI6VJY, KI7PY, KI7RM, KJ2U, KJ6CC, KJ6PCC, KJ6RKZ, KJ6WIA, KK4DSD, KK4DTT, KK8G, KL7GRF, KL7QW, KN8J, KR4RO, KS4S, KY7S, KZ8K, LU2DO, LU6PCK, LU8DIO, LU8EX, MM0LGS, N0XZ, N1CPU, N1GJ, N1MGO, N2ADV, N2LQ, N2MGT, N3BNA, N3KV, N3MVX, N3XX, N4ABN, N4CE, N4CWS, N4LXB, N4ST, N4TQ, N4UHZ, N4ZQ, N4ZSA, N5IC, N5PT, N5RGV, N5YHM, N6BX, N6GFK, N6NG, N6OL, N7NSO, N8HS, N8KSG, N9DUG, N9GUE, N9OJC, ND4Q, NI0B, NJ1H, NN1B, NN6XX, NO2T, NQ3TDV, NS2B, NS6E, NS7RS, NT4F, NU6O, NW5P, NZ8V, OE1DXA, OE3DXA, OK1FIM, OK1UFC, OK2BGB, ON3LA, ON4QX, ON8BZ, PA1BR, PC5E, PD1JH, PE1AUV, PJ2MI, PP5ZAP, PY2RN, PY2VM, RA0JBL, RA0UF, RD3DM, RK6A, RN0CF, SM0MEM, SP7IIT, SQ3LLJ, SV0LR, TI3VLM, TR8CA, UA0CKP, UA0LOQ, UA3DTK, UA6ARR, US5CCO, US5UFF, UU9JQ, VA3DYD, VA3ECJ, VA3LLZ, VA3MJR, VA6JB, VA7AQD, VE3RYI, VE4KZ, VE4TV, VE4XC, VE6BY, VE6VS, VE7HBS, VE7NH, VE9JMG, VK2ELF, VK2MUS, VK2ND, VK2QQ, VK3DHI, VK3FM, VK3MQ, VK3TCT, VK4AFU, VK4BDJ, VK4CMV, VK4KEE, VK4NGW, VK4SSB/2, VK4WDM, VK4WTN, VK5DG, VK5EI, VK5KGP, VK5NG, VK6DU, VK7SM, VK7TR, VK7XX, VK8NSB, W0GTS, W0TUP, W1CAM, W1HFB, W1YIF, W2PFA, W3ACO, W3BI, W3SFG, W4ED, W4EG, W4JSI, W4PGK, W4UAT, W4WWJ, W4XK, W5ISP, W5JLF, W5KY, W5OXM, W5TTE, W5VU, W6EAW, W6IR, W6KY, W6OA, W6TZI, W7CRK, W7DGZ, W7LYS, W7PI, W7VP, W8FDV, W8XLR, W9MJ, W9MO, WA0AM, WA0JCE, WA0RKQ, WA2JSG, WA2LTH, WA4CQG, WA4DMV, WA4MIT, WA5TVO, WA7AG, WA7JS, WA7SCH, WA8EFK, WB0BLV, WB2GJD, WB3LHD, WB4CIW, WB4OSS, WB6OWZ, WB6URD, WB9DAN, WB9OWN, WC0D, WC7V, WD4OIN, WE1RDO, WF1G, WH6EBS, WN0Y, WN6K, WO4R, WP4JCF, WR1Z, WS0L, WU7B, WX7MB, XE1H, YB0LWA, YB8EXL, YB8VM, YC8DFR, YL2NX, YO9APK, YV5FJ, YV6BFE, YY5LAY, ZL1COP, ZL2CVW, ZL3ACU, ZL3TRR, ZL4AD, ZL4SA, ZS6WN

The most distant call I’ve heard was ZS6WN, which is a distance of very nearly 17000 kilometers. The best DX QSO I’ve had in that time was VK7TR in Tasmania, which was a distance of about 12680 kilometers.

In ham radio, we have used the term “alligator” to refer to anyone who has a large signal, but is deaf to people who respond (the idea being that alligators have small ears, but big mouths). I seem to have the opposite problem: I can hear many signals that I cannot work regularly. Most US stations seem to be reachable by me with around 10 watts of power (modulo the vagaries of conditions) but I can’t seem to hit many of the DX stations I can hear with 25 watts. It would appear that I have the opposite problem: the size of my ears are outpacing my voice. What does that make me, a floppy eared bunny?