Definitely not political.

'YL Maria' (YU3AWA) has decided to tell us all how apolitical amateur radio is by, erm, spouting-off about an awful lot of political stuff. Perhaps it's better I don't add any comment to that...

The OFCOM-RSGB Relationship

I've had an interesting response from OFCOM this week. I need not bore you with an introductory explanation, as it's all laid out in this part of the response:

This is the first time I've seen the Freedom of Information Act's provisions being trumped by the Wireless Telegraphy Act.  OFCOM do seem to have found a way to avoid being subject to FoIA when it relates to a business. 

This is another reason why RSGB's limited company status is not in the interests of the membership, as it is able to resist pretty much any scrutiny it chooses to, bar the annual business returns to Companies House.

It should be noted that there was no indication as to whether OFCOM had, or had not, sought consent from RSGB to disclose the information sought. A request for clarification on this to OFCOM has gone in, and has yet to attract a response. It initially appears reasonable to assume that OFCOM simply sought to prevent disclosure as a matter of internal culture, and didn't seek consent from RSGB.

There is more to come on short-form callsigns. I'll leave that for a post later in the week.

Propagation: always surprising.

It's not unusual to see propagation turn towards favouring the US west coast near sunset. But today, it showed remarkable precision at 14MHz (less than 100km) in which geographical area was on the 'favoured list' for an essentially omnidirectional, sloping delta loop here (output ~35W):

Signal from Ukraine!

Amongst the carnage being inflicted upon the innocents of Ukraine, a signal unexpectedly arrived on 15m this afternoon. 

 

I've had QSOs with Maxim many times over the years, so it was nice to know he's OK for now. We all look forward to better times.

Inevitably, following IARU's warnings that we should refrain from posting details about Ukrainian stations being active, I had this comment over on Twitter, but no reply as yet to the question I posed:

Battery connections

An increasing amount of my amateur radio activities these days is done from the car. It allows freedom of location - giving access to mountains and coasts where very substantial environmental gain is available - and an escape from modern RFI sources.

For anything other than a few Watts, though, a new, separate power supply from the car's battery is required. First of all, make sure you put in appropriate inline fuses near the battery for both lines, and use cable gauged suitably for your highest expected output. Getting through the bulkhead is usually very simple, requiring a pointy pair of scissors or similar to punch a small hole through the rubber gasket where the car's wiring loom passes into the 'cabin'.

Bottom, battery-facing sides. Remarkable amount of dirt/corrosion.

Upper side. Cleaner, but still not very good.

 

I scrapped my old runaround this week, and so was removing the 12V supply lines for the radio to be reused. The amount of corrosion and dirt that had developed at the contact points was quite surprising, and potentially a source of poor contact and performance.

So, in installing the wires with new connectors on my other car, I made sure this time to place plenty of aluminium conductive grease (most readily available as 'ConductaSeal' by Innovantennas, £7.95 at time of writing) on the posts of the battery before installing the connections, and then some more on top and only then placing the nut on top, whereupon I added more grease over this.

Based on my experience with a Yagi that was out in the sea air and hurricane winds for 8 years and which made use of this grease, I fully expect bright, shiny, uncontaminated contacts the next time I remove them!

RSGB condemns Russia, Belarus.

For once in its history, and whilst we are saddened at the effects on our good Russian friends, the RSGB has today done the right thing in acting against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. It is in marked contrast to the frankly ridiculous stance taken by IARU R1.

Who's supporting 'Len'?

Over past days, my article concerning the RSGB's loss of a young, highly-qualified Board Member seems to have upset someone.

At the moment, it's not known who the person repeatedly sending anonymous comments - none of which have anything of substance to say and all of which appear aimed solely at plain harassment, might be.  

All of the 'comments' have, and will continue to, go into 'spam' and not be published - automatically.

By Jaimengo - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44052760

Two of the three pledge support for 'Len'. Given that Len Paget's 'e-mailgate' (see para. 10) affair has been noted here many times, and that the comments made appear in response to posts critical of the RSGB, it's fair to assume that 'Len' refers to 'Len Paget' - who I do not claim is making the posts or has any involvement with or knowledge of them.

Although, this doesn't mean I'll be putting up with it. Anyone who follows this blog or knows me will know that, if you pick a fight with no good reason, you will get a robust response in return.

So, for (criminal) legal purposes, here's a warning to the person who wishes to defend the RSGB and 'Len' through pointless messages to my 'comments' section that they are indeed pointless, have no substantive content and are received as a course of conduct amounting to harassment, not precluding other possibilities.

Send another, and we'll see what we can do about it. Only a monumental idiot thinks he/she can hide behind anonymous accounts online. Revealing who was behind it would make a truly fabulous future blogpost, recalling that the truth of what is written is a complete defence against any claim of libel. I look forward to revealing that truth.

Ukraine, inevitably.

As the aggression by Russia against Ukraine continues its bloody journey, the issue has started to emerge in amateur radio circles over the past two days.

German people's reaction to Russia's invasion.

The first I saw was of Ukraine banning the use of amateur radio for the time being. It's not clear how long this ban will be in effect for, or whether it will come and go, according to need and circumstances.

Rather perplexingly, despite the ban being made known quite widely, IARU R1 issued the following advice, here passed on via DARC on Facebook:

Now, this is all a bit daft. I wonder what kind of people behind it are; perhaps the 'emcomms' people kind?  If you, as an individual, can hear the callsign/location/frequency, then so can everyone else! What's more, it fails to take into account the use of digital modes, where the software will almost always be set to report received stations, including all those verboten details, to the internet, automatically!  It's entirely futile to expect everyone on the planet to stop their software doing this and, of course, almost nobody will. 

In any event, in a war situation, where innocent people are dying, if someone did find a use for a HF rig, they would be entirely justified in resorting to codes and any other masking system they could think of. Even if this is ordinarily unlawful, nobody stuck in a war-torn country is going to worry about that, and nobody is going to come after them for doing it.

IARU R1 then decided to wade-in further yesterday. Despite the apparent sympathy with Ukrainian ham operators the previous day, it now claimed to be taking a 'neutral' stance on the whole thing, saying that it is an amateur radio organsiation, essentially with no opinion on political matters.

Of course, superficially, one can understand and even predict this position. Neither IARU nor the rest of the world has anything against the Russian people; it's their leaders that are acting in unacceptable ways. Given a voice free of persecution, most Russians would agree that Putin is wrong on Ukraine, and isn't serving the Russian people.  The latter fact goes a long way to explaining why there is an invasion at all, of course.

I think it's important to reflect a little on the position IARU R1 has taken, however. The aggression used by Russia against Ukraine now, and in its previous invasion of the Crimea region of Ukraine is, unequivocally, a war crime.

The UN text of Article 3 of Resolution 3314 defines aggression as “[t]he invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof”.

Clearly, Russia has exercised aggression, and that this aggression has, since WW2, been generally considered a war crime by the international community.  Russia is not a ratified member of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) system, however, and therefore would seem to be entirely free of the risk of prosecution for the act of aggression (invasion) itself. 

But Ukraine's own Criminal Code does, perhaps rather unsurprisingly, make aggression, regardless of nationality, a crime.  It could therefore conceivably, at some future date, bring prosecutions for the invasion and whatever has happened in Ukraine since. And one could well expect it to, of course.

So, whilst IARU wants to remain neutral, the reality is that Russia is an aggressor, and that such aggression is condemned and held to be a crime by the international community.  Ukraine is merely the victim of the aggression, and is now entitled to defend itself, like any other nation under such a condition.

If this reminds you of Nazi Germany, it should. It's one of Europe's biggest human catastrophes in living memory.

 

In other words, Russia is in the clear legal and moral wrong, and Ukraine is in the equally clear right. 

Innocent civilians are dying for no good reason other than Putin's vanity in Ukraine. History will never judge that, somehow, Russia was right to invade, after all.  Russia will always be wrong and unlawful in what it decided to do in Ukraine. 

That's why I think IARU R1 is also wrong in having nothing to say, other than some pathetically-weak statement of 'neutrality' on this human catastrophe (whilst also noting its wish to protect Ukrainian operators).

Slava Ukraini!  I have no difficulty defending right from wrong.