Yeah, happenin'! The RSGB, that stalwart of old farts that like things just the way they are, has wrenched itself away from velum and into the realms of social media. Boom!
Well, having started to lower itself to the standards of everybody else, the RSGB is trying to look good on Facebook. I'm not sure it's succeeding, because it's latched onto its new photo library as an endless source of boring and pointless posts.
Now, if you don't like the society's ways, we have means of dealing with you... Image courtesy RSGB, old man.
In other words, the RSGB has embraced modern communications to keep itself firmly entrenched in the past. Isn't that the image of amateur radio normal folk have been trying to rid themselves of for decades? I think it is. So, who better to ignore the calls for change and keep plugging images of stuffy, rich, white middle class men in front of coils and valves (ooh err, missus!) than your very own RSGB?
Anyhow, I was amused - and glad - to see a minor troll has set up shop (no, it isn't me under cover!), making comments to the effect of "spiffing stuff, old chum" to some of the RSGB posts. Apart from that, just about none of the supposed 20,000-odd members of the society have bothered engaging with it at all.
Well, I had a look, and that will do me for the year, I think. Maybe now the RSGB can move on to Twitter, where at least the pain will be limited to 140 characters - something like "Flash News! Old men on committee approve new committee structure. Committee Structure Committee asked to approve." (How many characters was that?)
It's quite common to come across hams making use of solar energy to run their stations. It kind of goes with the territory, really - all off-grid stuff and independence.
Being of much the same mindset, I've been slowly developing a very small-scale solar energy system for the house. It started with lighting only, but the problem isn't so much a lack of energy, but too much of it! Or, at least, a lack of adequate battery storage. Perhaps Elon Musk's latest battery pack may solve this problem.
For now, I decided the best way to make use of all that sunshine falling on the panel whilst the battery was still healthily charged, was to grab a micro grid-tie inverter. This is a plug-and-play device, very widely sold all over the world, cheap, and in fairness, works very well. There is uncertainty as to the strict lawfulness of connecting these things to the domestic circuit, but the protections have been tested, and all seems well.
Yet another Chinese RFI-generator. Where will all this end?
Where the Chinese-made inverter falls down is, once again, RFI. On all bands from 20-10m, it produces slightly modulated RFI raising the noise floor from S0 to S3, varying according to the amount of light falling on the panel.
The authorities seem to have a big problem on their hands. Whilst politicians are worrying endlessly about terrorism and the threats thereof, the UK market is already flooded with cheap and poorly-made electronic equipment that cause RFI at best, and are a safety risk at worst. They even go so far as to fabricate false 'CE' and 'FCC' marks, which I've found and previously reported on with a CCTV system from Argos, of all people! And the response from Trading Standards locally? No response at all.
I suppose the defence for the sellers of these devices - and it is a perfectly reasonable one - is that even fully-approved, rooftop and grid connected solar systems under government schemes, installed by certified electrical contractors, also frequently give rise to serious RFI problems. So, maybe the inverter isn't so bad, after all?
So, if you want to make the most of solar on a small scale, connect your panel to a battery, not the mains, and hope your neighbour doesn't install a much bigger system and connects it to the grid!
There I was, having a nice QSO with a station in Costa Rica when someone was rude to me:
Eh? What did I do? Ah! He misunderstood and put me down as 'Oscar November' instead of 'Foxtrot November'.
Or maybe he was trying to insult me?
Hat tip also to OnPaste, which is a great way to convert screengrabs to images, especially when I try to keep my laptop clear of memory-hungry software.
Yes folks, here's the latest plot from Aberystwyth's MST radar, showing extremely strong returns from PMSE up at mesopause heights.
PMSE have a certain, usually weak correspondence with Es and noctilucent clouds. However, there clearly is some form of relationship in that all these phenomena include charged, metallic nuclei, showing strong seasonality. Unlike NLC, PMSE can occur strongly during the winter months, so tend to be more like Es in that regard.
Unfortunately, because of the narrow area falling under the radar's gaze, it's often impossible to relate the presence of PMSE to good Es conditions.
This blog was set up with the aim of promoting cheap, simple ham radio. That's because people with huge pensions and 38-ton RVs tend to forget, in their dash for the biggest, most expensive and macho equipment, that radio can be done very effectively on very little.
So, because I haven't visited this topic for a while, here's what you can achieve with a simple loop of 15mm copper tube made so that it fits readily into a standard car, sits on a wooden stand when in use, and has a £3 air spaced capacitor that, whilst a bit fiddly, you can nevertheless easily tune by ear to a 1:1 SWR - no ATU needed (nor would it be effective!) Note that I don't use a small loop to excite the main loop; althogh that works just as well, my twisty bit of insulated Flexweave wire, which loosely corresponds to a twisted gamma match, and connects to the top on the right, is much more physically robust and hence electrically stable.
The location was the worst I could find at this QTH: just outside the door with the house blocking about half the horizon. Here's what it looks like:
About 1m off the ground, surrounded by lots of stuff!
So, running 5W out of the loop from this rubbish position for an hour or so prior to the grey line, yielded the following results on WSPR. In other words, what you can do with WSPR you can also do with many other digital modes, especially JT65A, OLIVIA, ROS and so on. So there really is no financial or ability hurdle in making one of these and working global DX!
The 70cm helix kit has been going together nicely past few days. Very nicely engineered by the maker, and a great surprise that we don't find these antennas much more widely. Incredibly robust, this one won't be bothered by the wind!
Whilst this kit is the last of 170 ever made, it's pretty easy to make your own. You just need a boom, easily-available aluminium mesh for the reflector, and plumbing microbore (10mm) copper tubing that you wrap closely around some kind of forming mandrel to the correct diameter (229mm.) After that, it's just a case of stretching the tube confidently to get the helix. The only 'hard' part is finding some suitable plastic like Delrin to make supports for the helix, and tap them so bolts secure them through the boom.
And if you're wondering why you'd bother with an antenna like this, rather than the simple straight elements of a Yagi, the answer is twofold: (1) Circular polarisation, which leads to improved terrestrial operation and, more especially, the near-elimination of fading due to satellite tumbling and Faraday rotation, and (2), the extraordinarily wide bandwidth (which also means a huge tolerance to errors in build dimensions.) Add to that the fact that the maximum gain is constant over something like 20MHz at around 70cm, and there is very little not to recommend this antenna. At 144MHz, the antenna does become unfeasibly large for most, but that's another story...
So, this is what the nearly-complete antenna looks like:
This month, there's a great article about sporadic E in the RSGB's periodical, RadCom.
I've tried to use the Reverse Beacon Network from time to time, as I have the alternative, PSK Reporter. But I can't say I've found them very useful, and I have always quickly abandoned them. Sure, a real-time map of where people's signals are going should be great.
But I think there's a problem for authors and researchers who start to rely on the databases generated by these 'skimming' services. For one thing, the number of reporting stations is quite small and the geographic spread heavily biased, largely due to humanity's inability to distribute wealth equally.
So, when you don't see spots in some place and then conclude, as many do, that there was some fundamental physical reason for this happening, you run the considerable risk of being led up the garden path to a very wrong conclusion. Even with WSPR, at the start of the Es season, and even at weekends, there is only one station across the whole eastern US running a 6m station. And people draw conclusions from that?
This came to prominence when I looked at the discussion about noctilucent clouds potentially being involved in JA-Europe propagation. Whilst NLC themeselves may not necessarily be the culprit, several other charged 'clouds' associated with them may well be.
However, the discussion in RadCom involved a central German station receiver, and a poor correlation with visual NLC was highlighted. Unfortunately, whilst central Germany can sometimes see NLC, that location is generally too far south to see them as often as the latitudes, say, of 53-56 degrees north, where they are, from late May to early August, daily or near-daily occurrences. So, conclusions based on what this station was receiving might be very different to what a RBN or PSK reporter receiver might report back if it were located at a higher latitude.
This isn't to criticise the article or the author - it's a very thought-provoking piece of work. But it might inform future analysis, or even promote a greater use of these skimming systems. For my part, I'm sticking with WSPR, which is just much more user-friendly and intuitive, albeit with the same weakness of lacking adequate numbers of stations.
I often wonder, caught up in the excitement of the first 6m seasonal openings, why it is we all get so worked-up about DX that, on any lower band, would be easy using a shopping trolley and counterpoise for an antenna (of course, this has long ago been done!)
Now beaming the USA. Yes, the sun does occasionally shine up here!
So, I decided this morning to turn my manually-rotated 6m 2 ele quad away from the usual targets in central Europe and, occasionally, northern Africa. The beam is now pointing squarely at the east coast of the US, which, as you may recall from an earlier post, has extremely good ground gain. Maybe now there will be some 'proper' 6m DX?
I ran the ARRL HF Terrain Assessment model this lunchtime, entering 50MHz into the equations. I was astounded to find the output 2-ele quad antenna-plus-ground figure comes out at over +15dBi. In other words, that 5 Watts I'm sending into the antenna is effectively bumped-up to around 96 Watts! You can find a calculator for this here. What's more, that peak gain occurs at just a couple of degrees above the horizon.
Once again, I'm always cautious and cannot say whether this figure is correct, only that I know from operating that the conditions towards the US from here are certainly very good. Here's the output graph, with blue being the beam heading towards the US, and the red the much less impressive figure beaming due south, towards north Africa, Spain, France and Portugal.
So, in short, if I don't start seeing multi-hop Es WSPR spots across the Atlantic by tea time, I shall want to know why! Returning to reality, I'll make this summer the transatlantic 6m experiment, and see what, if anything, happens over the long term. I just hope a few more US WSPR stations come on line soon...
15m WSPR was very interesting last evening, as VP8ALJ became the focus of two-way signals between him, the US and Europe, whilst no EU station was hearing the US, or being heard there. In other words, it was a 'V' formation of signal exchanges between VP8ALJ, the EU and the US.
Nothing very exciting to report, but because sunset at Stanley was just 14 minutes earlier than sunset at my QTH, it was interesting to plot the signals both ways, showing a pretty sharpish drop and then loss of both signals.
As I'm always keen to point out on this blog, amateur radio doesn't need to be expensive. The station here is very modest, more especially at 15m, where the antenna I've been using for many years is 'just' a vertically-polarised delta loop made of hard-drawn copper. It's corner-fed with a 4:1 balun at the feed point, which is theoretically non-ideal in terms of the radiation pattern (less rejection at higher angles.) In practice, I've always found there is no real difference between corner and 1/4 wave-up-a-side feeding, provided you are using the antenna on its cut band.
As you can see from the infrared photo below, the delta, on the right and propped-up by a pole off an old chimney, is hardly in the most isolated situation possible, being within about 5m each of a 12m beam and tower, a 2-ele 6m quad, and a 20m vertical!
As soon as I put up this delta one rainy Christmas holiday morning, it became clear my experience of radio had changed dramatically in comparison to the earlier, sloping long wire from which the delta had been made. The DX was now easy, whereas it was more hit and miss with the LW.
The 15m delta is visible at right, apex supported off a pole on an old chimney. Hardly an ideal environment!
Recently, I haven't been on 15m much, but conditions there were quite good this weekend, so I ran some WSPR transmissions towards the end of the day. The time range in question spans 18:52UT to 19:08UT on 17/05/15, so well before sunset at any point in the UK, so the greyline enhancement would not have occurred yet for any of the stations in question.
What happened next was remarkable - even for a station based on an old copper mine ridge, 320 feet up in the air.
The receiving station was K9AN. By any standards, K9AN runs a good quality station from what you can see from Google Streetview, is a pretty clear, rural location where the band is clear of most interference. Anyone who's a regular on WSPR will know K9AN is a reliable, reference station in the US.
Now, my 5W from a delta loop with a base 2m off the ground, and an apex at roughly 6m, was hitting K9AN at +2dB. How were others doing?
Predictably, my friend Ken Franklin, G3JKF, was the second strongest signal to K9AN at the time, coming in at -13dB, also from 5W to a very -carefully researched and maintained magnetic, 3-loop array which is very often equal in performance to full-sized antennas. So, a difference there of 15dB.
When I looked at others, G4KYA was at -21dB (5W), G8VDQ at -23 (5W), GM4SFW at -20 (1W) and G3TXA at -22 (1W). These are enormous differences in signal strength compared to mine, even allowing for the output differences of the 1-Watters. I should also point out my spot was repeatedly as strong, at +1dB, a few minutes earlier. It's a shame I didn't start earlier in the day, actually.
Now, there is no question that this QTH benefits from (a) lack of man-made development (b) ground conditions that are, from the point of view of how many other stations are so situated, unique, and (c) a modest elevation that nevertheless puts it above the rest of the landscape, with clear sea views to the Americas.
According to the ARRL HF Terrain Assessment software, the model I've carefully prepared of the landscape towards north America yields a antenna-plus-ground gain figure of +8dBi at an elevation of 17degrees. Between 2 and 5 degrees, it's about +6dBi. Note that, because the software only deals with horizontal antennas, I've been forced to input a dipole at half a wave up.
Clearly, this model does show a very good gain figure for a dipole, reaching values more indicative of a 2 element beam at very low angles of radiation, and a 3 element beam at the still-low elevations around 12-15 degrees.
What it doesn't do is explain the enormous differences in received WSPR signals by K9AN. One might be tempted to look at 'patchy' propagation conditions, where a cloud of ionisation has fortuitously aligned itself between me and K9AN. But, because of the spread of other stations spanning from the south east of England to the north of Scotland, and that those signals were of very comparable strength at K9AN, this explanation seems to fall flat on its face.
How software models a dipole at half a wave above ground, at 21MHz.
Now, how about we model a vertically polarised delta at the real height, with real (or as best as can be estimated) ground conditions input into the mix? Here's what we get:
With real ground conditions: +4.5dBi gain at 14 degrees elevation.
With perfect ground conditions: +7.63dBi gain at 0 degrees elevation
Free space: +2.71 dBi.
Does this really tell us anything? Well, let's assume that, based on what we know about the QTH here, that my signal of +2dB, coming from an undeveloped, clear site with sea horizon views, is close to what K9AN should receive at 5W, at that time of day. This must mean that other stations are, for reasons of their environment, probably above all else, losing a fantastical amount of energy to their surroundings.
This is why, of course, much cleverer radio people than me made a point of buying houses on hillsides wherever possible; the late Les Moxon, G6XN, was one of them, and often cited SSB contacts with VK using milliWatts of power from simple verticals when working from such locations.
As usual, I'd be interested to hear of any considered input into this. My enduring frustration is being unable to properly assess the ground conditions; according to the ARRL, the highest values for ground dielectric - much higher than seawater - have been found at highly-mineralised places - such as copper mines! It seems they got their measurements right, anyway!
UPDATE:
Just to keep things balanced, here's the ARRL HF Terrain Assessment for my QTH, but to the south, where, at about 42km, lie the Llyn Peninsula (southern Snowdonia) mountains, only a couple of thousand feet high. Even so, and even at that distance where they are only about a little finger's width above the horizon, they have a marked effect on low angle signals, taking them into negative territory for a while.
Although this gentleman's talk is a little long, it does neverthless get to some important points, and worth watching from about 23 minutes on.
So, it's not all good news here. Maybe this effect of hills explains why so many "kiloWatters" exist in California, surrounded by vast mountains to the east? I'm too lazy to build a terrain model for that!
Distant hills bring considerable gain penalties at low angles...
About 30 years ago, James Miller, G3RUH, started fabricating helix antennas in kit form for the amateur market.
Somehow, by a stroke of unusually good luck for me, I came across James' web site a couple of weeks ago, which was last updated at the end of 2014.
The helix in its 1980s heyday - together with the copper element of kit 170 - the last one - ready for assembly.
After a few e-mails, I found James still had the kit for a 16-turn antenna. Being over 3m long, there was no way that would work at this hurricane-infested QTH. So, the 9-turn kit arrived yesterday, in 3 packages, leaving me with a fair bit of careful assembly to get on with one rainy day.
So, a big thanks to James for selling me Number 170 - The Last Helix.
Well, there have been very few spots on 6m WSPR last few days, but today is showing more solid Es formations. Later in the day, full openings on SSB were running for lengthy periods; I managed 12 QSOs into central and eastern Europe over just a few minutes at lunchtime today.
The 6m sporadic E season is pretty much upon us, with good hints of short-lived Es clouds over the past few days.
Whilst I watch the WSPR screen carefully, it's often seen that signals sometimes follow strange deviations by Doppler shift. Most times, this is down to reflections from passing aircraft. But not always.
If you've ever made an SSB QSO on 6m, or followed WSPR traces during the peak of the season, you will know that Es propagation can come and go in seconds, but also last for a few hours. Oftentimes, the signal comes and goes in gentle wave-like patterns. Overall, the Es paths are quite complex, even if the underlying mechanism is relatively simple.
Polar mesospheric summer echoes at 46.5MHz - loose links with NLC and Es.
Now, the ionisation that leads to Es is at a height of 90-120km. This isn't visible, other than by radio reflections. Noctilucent clouds, on the other hand - which also occur in the summer months (but do not appear at all in winter, unlike Es) - are readily visible from mid-high latitudes (~40-65 N and S.) Like Es, NLC also drift east to west in the summer. NLC occur somewhat lower in the atmosphere, at about 80-90km.
We also see reflections at 46.5MHz from polar mesospheric summer echoes - PMSE - at the same height as NLC. PMSE is caused by ionisaton, and NLC form around charged, metallic meteor debris. Clearly, all these phenomena are linked to a greater or lesser degree.
Noctilucent cloud over the Irish Sea, 2009.
Whilst NLC are not always linked to Es occurrence, there is a loose correspondence. The point of this post is to highlight the likely similarity in the form of Es clouds with the visible NLC. From there, we can start to appreciate how these strange changes in propagation conditions occur, and what kinds of structures cause them. No doubt Es clouds are modulated pretty much in the same way as NLC - dominated by the breaking of gravity waves propagating up from the lower atmosphere.
The best thing to do is watch a video of NLC, and think about how propagation characteristics in Es might be understood in terms of the kinds of structure and reflection chracteristics evident in NLC. Here's a good example, showing plenty of evidence of breaking atmospheric waves later in the sequence. Remember that almost all the apparent change in cloud brightness and extent is due to changes in the sun-cloud-observer angle.
A long while ago, I wrote about a QSO with an US-based station that reported my signal - using a one element (which of course also has a virtual second element in the ground) vpol delta loop and 80W SSB - as being the same as a guy in south Wales using a 3-ele SteppIR and 400W. This was within seconds of both stations making contact with that guy in the US.
Inevitably, a few people didn't believe me. But the signal reports were carefully made, not thrown out to make people feel better.
Tonight, a couple of years later, and with my station now using a 3-ele monobander for 12m (6m above local ground, but on a low ridge of 320 feet amsl), I was again able to simultaneously compare my signal with that of the same station in south Wales, still running a 3-ele SteppIR and 400W. The receiving station was W4WT, using a 5 element Yagi his end (and 1kW out.)
The result?
The 3-ele SteppIR and 400W gave a signal of 59.
My 3-ele LFA Yagi (Innovantennas) running 60W gave 59+20dB.
W4WT, with 5 elements and 1kW, was running 59+35dB to me.
I can already feel a few folks laugh. But that's because they aren't taking the environment into account. The ARRL HF Terrain Assessment model yields, for my location, +14dBi gain when both the antenna and ground gain are taken into account in the direction of the US. That turns 60W into more than a kW in effective output.
Whilst I can't comment on the accuracy of the ARRL software, it certainly seems to be in the right ballpark when you consider the experience of the delta loop matching the SteppIR and big power, and the 3-ele LFA on just 60W beating the hell out of it!
No, I'm not at all into bashing other operators, or making stupid claims. But it is very gratifying to see yet again that, just like a good property, a good radio place is all down to location, location, location, and no amount of aggressive, disbelieving argument is going to change that!
Despite the remarkable popularity of WSPR for beaconing, there's scant activity on 6m, even in Europe.
This is more of a problem for this band than most, because Es frequently allows only very narrow and limited paths between a few stations. So, if there aren't any stations in the right area, we'll never know there was an Es cloud floating up there.
Listening - and sending - patiently on 6m WSPR...
Today is a good example. Although atmospheric RADAR is showing modest, transient ionisation where we might expect some reflections on 6m from time to time, France and Spain currently has only one station between them active on WSPR on that band. Nobody in Italy (one pops up sometimes), and the rest of Europe represented only by Germany, which has a fair number, the UK and the Netherlands.
Strangely, CN8LI, an early and remarkably strong WSPR station in 2014, hasn't been seen even switching on this year.
I'm one of those people that can either get big things done in no time, or small things done not at all.
Setting up a proper station on VHF and UHF is one of the latter cases, where I've been messing about with handhelds and wire-and-stick antennas for years.
A similar antenna is on its way...
Part of my failure to move ahead has been the remarkable success obtained with the cheap-and-cheerful handhelds from China, especially on satellite working - restricted solely to SO-50.
So, having ventured to use repeaters on the Isle of Man at 70cm, I've now set upon developing the V/UHF side of things for good.
Of course, it's quite an expensive business to get a multimode V/UHF rig. I'm looking at the FT 857D, which comes in at about £650. A twin-axis rotator is the same. Antennas add about £250 to the mix, and low-loss coax is certainly not an insignificant factor.
Now, don't get disheartened; you don't need any of the expensive stuff to work satellites. I've done it for years with no m ore than 5W from a 5-ele homebrew quad (uplink) and 7-ele quad (downlink), the 2m antenna perched on a simple pole that was turned by hand, and the 70cm one held in the other hand.
But, as I am interested in digital modes, multimode is needed here.
I was quite lucky to come across a web site by a J.R, Miller, who had one helical antenna for 70cm left for sale. It seems it was some kind of project at one time, perhaps faded away rather by now.
Being over 3m long, there was no question that an antenna that large was overkill in gain for sat working. It would also likely suffer in the heavy winds up here, even at fairly close to ground level. Mr. Miller offered to sell me, in effect, a cut-in-half version, only 1.6m long.
So, having bagged myself a nice antenna for 70cm, it's time to assign funds sensibly to the next stage - which appears to be the acquisition of a Yaesu G5500 rotator. Sadly, I am not very good at electronics such that I could make my own motor!
Well, I had heard about it. The letter 'K', that is.
What I hadn't realised was the war going on in the background...
'K', you see, is the new Regional Secondary Locator (RSL) for Cornwall ('Kernow', in the local language), a region in the SW of the UK that, a bit like Wales and Scotland, has had its own language, culture and identity. Again like Wales and Scotland, all these features have, from time to time, attracted the condemnation of England-based politicians.
'K' causes panic in English circles.
In June 2014, the Poldhu Radio Society, through the RSGB, made a submission to OFCOM that, as Cornwall had been granted National Minority Status in the UK, it ought to have a separate regional locator - "K." If this sequence of events is correct, then the RSGB could hardly claim to have been ignorant of it.
The PARC's account of events can be read here [removed since this article was first published].
In what must be a record five days, this application for the use of 'K' was rejected by OFCOM, on the supposed grounds that confusion could ensue if other counties started asking for recognition. This altogether missed the point about National Minority Status, which isn't something awarded to any of the "other counties" it claims to be worried about. Indeed, according to the PARC, the government has issued a statement that it has no intention to award such status to other counties.
The RSGB do not seem to have said much about this, and there is nothing published online to suggest they were in any way disappointed. Nor indeed that they were glad of the rejection. They did say they would support "temporary" use, for special events and the like.
According to a report, since removed, in a local (web presented) newspaper, dated October 16 2014, it seems OFCOM had by then, in response to a new submission by PARC, made an announcement (since removed), that seems to have taken the RSGB - but few others - by total surprise: it announced that the 'K' regional secondary locator was to be approved for Cornwall.
Two weeks later, in a release dated 31st October 2014, the RSGB issued releases saying they were "confused", and wanted a "significant number" (it does not tell us how many) of representations taken into account, and OFCOM's "unexpected" decision "reviewed."
At this point, the RSGB seem to have changed tack, because at no point were they unaware that the application had been made - yet now they say they are surprised by the unexpectedness of a decision. Clearly, with an application pending, they could never have been genuinely surprised. One is therefore led to believe that what they found unexpected was the granting of the 'K' RSL - and that as a result, they seem not to have supported it.
The latest available RSGB minutes I can find - which contain scant information for the plebs like me who pay these people's lucrative allowances and (for some) very generous wages - seems to show the RSGB is getting rather hot and bothered by the whole "K" affair. It has started using words like "escalation" and terms like "deep concern", whilst OFCOM are consulting lawyers.
Quite exactly what is going on between Cornwall, the RSGB and OFCOM is not very clear, to say the least. However, "disagreement" seems to be a word that covers it. It seems very odd to me that there possibly could be "deep concern" over a simple regional locator - for a region that has, with no doubt - an unique identity traceable back over many centuries.
As the RSGB is not very keen on detailed minutes of meetings, I've made an application under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to OFCOM, asking for all information held by them that amounts, in practice, to copies of all correspondence between the RSGB and OFCOM.
In 20 working days' time - but hopefully less - we'll have much more to go on.
In the meantime, I'm very much hoping this type of rubbish hasn't been typical of the "significant number" of concerns the RSGB claims has been raised with it. I personally think the comments about the 'K' locator being all about "vanity" by a "minority" is utterly misguided and very regrettable.
And quite why anyone intelligent enough to hold and use a ham radio licence would be caused "considerable confusion" by the new RSL is, well, beyond me, for sure.
On hunting down some more background to this matter, there is a RSGB 'guidance' to members on how they might respond to the OFCOM consultation on several matters related to the licence last year. The society took a particularly strident stance against RSL changes, which can be found amongst all this stuff. Being quite so strident, and often appearing to throw mud at OFCOM, was probably not a very good idea.
My expectation is that, if someone were to key-up with the callsign, they would be operating pile-ups for weeks on end. Good luck to them, for it harms nobody and raises the profile of Cornwall considerably.
UPDATE:
I like to think the RSGB should be properly accountable to its members. Usually, this differs markedly from the impression I get from the society of what it thinks accountability looks like. I didn't like the lack of detail on this issue, because the society is meant to be representing its members - and not a vocal, resistant subset of it who seem to object to the 'K' allocation.
I asked why the RSGB was expressing "deep concern" and asking OFCOM about "escalation"(the context of which was obscured by the lack of detail in the minutes.) Here is what Graham Coomber has to say just yesterday. Needless to say, I remain unimpressed about the claims of "numerous" and "a number" of members protesting about this, whilst somehow not knowing how many that was. More than 1? Less than 10? It's pretty likely it was a very low number, I'd say. How about any that supported it?
Without being able to check the history of what OFCOM have done with RSL licence issues in the past, it may well be true that OFCOM haven't helped matters by not having a clear and consistent view of how licences are issued in relation to the various UK regions.
We'll see how this response compares to the material from the RSGB that OFCOM must release very shortly. This morning (06/05.2015) OFCOM sent me an acknowledgment of receipt for the FoIA request - after I had prompted them to - only to find it was addressed to a mysterious "Ms. Tilt." At least it wasn't "Mr. Annoyingbastard!" OFCOM "recalled" the erroneous piece of e-paper within two minutes.
"Thank you for your note.
To summarise the position, a number of our Members (and I do not have a note of how many)raised with us the fact that Ofcom was intending to issue a permanent RSL to be used, in a yet to be determined way, within Cornwall without consultation, at a time when the status of RSLs were the subject of the Ofcom licence consultation. As you know, that consultation attracted a significant response from the amateur radio community, and the Board is pleased that Ofcom have listened to the opinions they received and acted upon them. It is not normal for decisions related to matters out for consultation to be made during the period of consultationand this is one of the key issues that we have asked Ofcom to comment on.
The Board's concern is, and always has been, the absence of due process in how Ofcom arrived at its decision, and we have simply asked Ofcom to rectify that situation.
A fascinating aspect of amateur radio that rarely gets media coverage (as though we get any anyway!) is the sheer range of interesting people one comes into contact with.
Over the past few months, I've had long QSOs with the following:
An Australian farmer
A leading US Immigration lawyer
Countless airline pilots (both in the air and on the ground!)
A recently retired robotic heart surgery specialist
A telecommunications company owner
A commercial fisherman
A shipping tanker captain (operational on amateur satellites!)
A tug captain
Several amateur astronomers
A large number of private pilots, all on the ground.
A forklift driver (/forklift mobile!)
A train driver (/train mobile)
A man taking his dog for a walk in Central Park, handheld via KQ2H repeater.
Numerous Vietnam war veterans
A former submariner
An operator at the Swedish Naval Communications Centre
A meteorologist in the Arctic
A couple of scientists in Antarctica, both at base and /P
A hot air balloon, aeronautical mobile station in Russia
There are probably many others I've forgotten. Still, the take-home message is: we should promote this aspect of amateur radio, because nowhere else in life do you get the opportunity to share the world with so many interesting people from such a range of backgrounds
