[NLRS] northern lights radio society or contest society - response

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer]

I tried a little activity on 2m SSB during the day. The Friday before
Thanksgiving, I drove to St. Louis running my old IC-211 and a CC halo.
Worked WB0BQV for about an hour (144.210) while driving straight away. I
think the old halo isn't much good. Probably never was and after 40
years of being ignored its worse. I think we should have done better. I
know I worked rovers at much greater distances in contests on 2m. After
that I heard one or two bursts on .2, maybe meteors or a short aircraft
reflection. About a week later coming back, it was two or three, though
I called CQ regularly.

The day before I left I was copying Colorado on aurora from the mobile,
so its not horribly bad.

I probably need a good radio and antenna but its something to try more
of. I'll be taking long trips towards St. Louis a lot in the next few
months and will keep on trying. Since its an all day trip, I'll tend to
be leaving of mornings and returning late afternoon. A big problem in
the past has been that a halo mast on my truck wouldn't go in the garage
door. It will in the new garage door that was supposed to be framed in
last month, (maybe January now). A rover array will would fit through
the new garage door (14' high, 16' wide!). In the meantime the truck
sits outside because hauled stuff fills the garage.

We all are pretty much guilty of not making noise and so missing
activities of others. I noticed that while mobiling on 10m back about
1961 that one day I got in the car to drive home from college, and tuned
ten meters. Not a sound, so I called CQ and in a minute there was QRM on
the band. All those receivers sitting there and NOBODY transmitting.
Since then, I've often alleged our receivers are faulty. Unlike the
superregens some of us used on 2m (I'm not old enough for 2-1/2 meters)
that radiated a little and so others could detect we were listening, the
modern receiver has no signature.

In the future (possibly near) some of the spread spectrum data equipment
may be required to avoid frequencies where it finds carriers (and it
needs to avoid those anyway to not loose too much data, especially the
frequency hopping mode spread spectrum radios). It may behove us to
transmit near constant level (narrow FSK ID) beacons to quiet the
computer to keyboard link covering up 2.4 GHZ satellite down links. This
may become necessary on other bands also. And it might be to our benefit
to use that beacon to announce, "I'm listening on 144.200." Clearly it
will require our receiver dynamic range to be good to listen while the
beacon is on and I don't know yet how far from the desired receiving
frequency that the beacon can be and still quiet the data trash. That
will have to be determined. As such a scheme develops, it may prove that
we can all use a common beacon frequency while tuning about the band.
Otherwise beacons some 25 or 50 KHz from the receive frequency will
surely land on some QSO when the band is busy and that way be
unfriendly.

In the mean time, I prefer, calls to be on 144.200 if not in use with a
QSY away because the appliances, and computers for work and hamshack
leave so many birdies its impossible to automatically scan. I'm the
cause of all these and I live out in the country, well isolated. In town
it can only be far worse.

73, Jerry, K0CQ 
-- 
Entire content copyright Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer.
Reproduction by permission only.