What use is an F-call?

What use is an F-call? Experimentation is what amateur radio is all about, for some amateurs more than for others. For me, it's an integral part of what makes this hobby exciting for me. It may not be your particular cup of tea, but then, amateur radio is different things for different people. As one amateur put it, there are many walks of life represented in the collective known as amateur radio. Back to experimentation. As you may know, I am part of a team of people who put together the news in Western Australia. Last year during HAMfest we put the news to air live, using a bit of kit from here, some kit from there, and bits from everywhere. This year we're working on making the list a little less broad and making our planning experience a little less hectic. One of the biggest issues we had was our microphone set-up. We had some hand-held microphones that worked pretty well, but from a logistics perspective, we had some issues to deal with. One is that a hand-held microphone sort of makes it hard to use both hands - unless you have a microphone stand and a spot to actually put it on the limited table space we have available. So this year we decided that we'd use a headset microphone. You know, the $20 jobs that you plug into your sound-card and use with your computer. We have several of these headsets, but plugging them into our mixing desk gave us no sound. Turns out that these headsets have microphones that expect a voltage, so some research was needed to make a box that did just that. A bit of planning, a few components, some soldering and drilling and we have those. Now we have working microphones, but now we have a bonus extra sound, we have a 50Hz hum that just wonderfully punctuates any silence we may care to broadcast. More research indicates that this is likely a ground loop and several suggestions are available on how to fix those. We've tried a few and we're working through the options, but hand-held microphones are looking pretty good right now if you get my drift. My point is this. Finding problems and solving them is what this hobby is all about. We do it with antennas, we do it with power and at the moment I'm doing it with ground-loops in my audio output. All this is learning that I can apply in other aspects of my life. I can walk around the street and see that someone has installed their TV antenna backwards, or that the CB antenna on their car is unlikely to work efficiently. All this came from learning and experimentation. You may not like to drill and solder, but that doesn't mean you cannot experiment. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? When was the last time you went online and downloaded a copy of the LCD? Do you even know where to find it? Do you know when it last changed and what changes it contained? If the answer is, "I have a copy from 2005 when they introduced the Foundation license.", you have a problem. The LCD changed in 2005 twice, again in 2008, also in 2010 and again in 2013. In total, between 2005 and 2013 there are 546 changes to the document that sets out the conditions to which your amateur license is subject to. Some of those 546 changes are trivial, renaming the department from ACA to ACMA account for about 5 changes, others are more significant. For example, between the 2010 and 2013 issue of the LCD, there were only 21 changes, little ones like changing the date and bigger ones like removing zone restrictions from around Melbourne, Perth and Sydney and adding two new exclusion zones, one off the coast of Exmouth with a 1000km radius and one in the Timor Sea with a 2000km radius. If you add those two exclusions to a map of Australia, you'll find most of the Northern Territory is excluded, half of Western Australia and a big chunk of the north of Queensland. Excluded from what you ask? If you'd read the LCD, you'd know that this was the formal allocation of the 630m band and that Australia added it to the allowed bands for Amateur use, with a few provisos about where you couldn't use it. Between 2008 and 2010 there were 34 changes, gems include conditions under which you can pass message traffic, the addition of the 2200m band and permitting different access control methods. Some of these affect every Amateur, others only the lucky few with ample spare space to run some large antenna systems. In Aviation there is an assumption that the conditions under which you're flying today are different from what they were yesterday and that tomorrow they'll be different again. There are processes for keeping up to date, notification services, subscriptions and the like. In Amateur Radio, there is an assumption that the conditions under which you're operating don't change much at all. The truth is that your Amateur Radio License Conditions are a living thing. Conditions change regularly and sometimes in more ways than you expect. So, get yourself a copy of the LCD, make sure you read and understand it and look for little snakes in the grass that might significantly impact the operation of your station. Tip for new players. In your favorite word processor, you can open the current version of a document and compare it with the previous version using the Compare Document feature. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? The Amateur Foundation License in Australia has a range of obligations and restrictions that differentiate it from the other Amateur Licenses. The most visible of those is a limit on power of 10 Watts, the bands that are allowed, 80m, 40m, 15m, 10m, 2m and 70cm. Another restriction is related to the use of a computer and your radio. The interpretation is often made along the lines of: "You cannot use a computer connected to your radio." ... and that's simply not the case. The current LCD, as of January 2014, says: "The licensee [..] must not operate an amateur station using automatic mode or computer controlled mode." And it says: "The licensee [..] must not operate an amateur station that is directly connected to a public telecommunications network. It adds in italics a note: "An amateur foundation station may be indirectly connected to a public communications network through a gateway operated by another licensee." This means that you can use your radio to connect to Echolink and IRLP, both Internet based radio technologies. What you cannot do is run an Echolink node on your computer, connect the computer to the radio and have incoming connections activated by somebody over the Internet. You cannot do this, not because it's a public telecommunications network, more on that in a moment, but because the computer is controlling the radio without your input, which you're not permitted to do. Now, the public telecommunications network part. I know that some of you are already spluttering, but, but, but. The amateur station isn't directly connected to a public telecommunications network. It's connected to a computer, which in turn is connected to a network, which in turn is connected to the Internet. This restriction isn't about the Internet, it's about connecting an Amateur Radio to the telephone network, about having someone ring a phone number and the audio that comes in, be sent out over the air on your radio. It's about ensuring that only appropriately licensed persons access the station to transmit. It's an example of how regulation and invention are often not in sync. Another point. APRS, Automatic Packet Reporting System, is a way to use Amateur Radio to transfer packets of information to people who want it. For example, it can be used to report a GPS location, the state of a battery at a repeater site, the read switch on a security door, what ever you can dream up. As a Foundation Licensee, you cannot use the digital mode to send packets using your radio, but nothing prevents you from using APRS on your phone. This has nothing to do with your Amateur License or with the ACMA. It's a system built and used by Amateurs, but if you're not using your radio, you're good to go. Also, there's nothing stopping you from listening to packet radio. You might even pick up an ArduSat or two and help out school science in the process. Other modes you might look at are PSK31, RTTY, JT65, WSPR. The sky is the limit when you listen. Go forth and have fun. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? I recently talked about making contact with a station on HF. Getting a feel for the other station is very important because it will make you understand when the other person is listening and when they're not. It will let you know to what kind of station they're responding to, and when they do respond, how they respond. I recently made a contact with T33A. I used 5 Watts on a rotatable dipole, 15m. I listened to the station for a good 10 minutes before I made my first call. They gave me lots of information about the contact long before I opened my mouth. It was one of the last days they were operating and it was bedlam on the frequency, lots of stations wanting to make this contact. The station told me that they were listening 10 up, so I configured my radio to deal with that. Then I worked out what the rhythm of the operator was, got a feel for how they replied and when I was ready, I called my callsign. I was floored that they came back with "the VK6 QRP station" on my first call. It took two goes to get my callsign across, but the contact was made there and then. Making such a contact is as much about the ability of the remote station to pick you out, as it is about improving your chances of success. It's about picking your moment, getting it just right, so that when you call, it all happens in the blink of an eye. Picking your moment is also about understanding that some people just don't want to talk to you. Two people who are talking to each other might do that every day and are really not interested in talking to you. Picking the group or the 'net where to call-in is crucial to your success on HF. Look at the 7130 DX net. It runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9:30 UTC. It's aim is to facilitate making DX contacts between amateurs. When you tune to 7.130, get out a piece of paper and write down all the stations you hear, write down what signal strength they are and what the operators name is. The net hosts will call for new stations for the 'net on a regular basis. They'll acknowledge you and continue seeking other stations. Once they have a bunch, they'll ask which stations want to make a call. Hold off for a couple of rounds and listen. Stations will announce their callsign and the host will take a list. Each station is called in turn and invited to make a QSO or two with another station. If it's busy, they might do one QSO per station. Once they're done, the next station gets a chance and so on. It's a fantastic way to meet other DX-stations and make your first overseas call. Making contacts on HF is hard work, fun and amazingly rewarding. Have a go! I'm Onno VK6FLAB

What use is an F-call? Recently I talked about making contacts on HF. Picking the band, the time of day, the right location on the band and looking for a nice loud station are part of the equation, but there are other considerations to be had. If you consider a station transmitting with 1.5 kilowatt on a 5 element Yagi and you're at home with your radio, you tune around and you find this station to be the loudest on the band, you're likely to try to talk to them. Sometimes this even works. However, many times, in fact, most of the time, this is pretty hard to do for a number of reasons. The first reason that this is hard is because their strength is a combination of lots of power and lots of antenna gain. If you transmit back, the only thing going for you is their antenna gain, but their power will likely distort your perception of how well they'll hear you. If you find a station that tells someone else that they're running high power, then make sure that their signal to you is banging the S-meter against the wall, that is 10 or 20 db over 9, before you spend hours trying to get their attention. I should point out that there are plenty of amazing operators who will pick out your tiny signal among the hash and call you back but there are many more who to put it kindly are deaf as a post, who expect HF to sound like a 2m FM repeater and set up their kit to make it so. You're unlikely to ever succeed in making contact with the latter, but you'll be thrilled when you deal with the former. Another aspect making it hard to talk to such a loud station is that everyone else also hears it very loud and will also call in. This will completely drown your signal at their end, so you're unlikely to cut through. There are some amateurs who swear by changing their microphone response to "cut through", or to fiddle with other aspects of their transmission, but I've got to say that this lacks finesse and that's what really is required. Imagine that you're at the other end. Your aim is to make as many contacts as possible with weird and wonderful stations. Living in Australia makes your callsign pretty sought after, so use that to your advantage. When you're on a roll, you don't want to break the rhythm, so, listen for a few overs to see what is going on. Does the station always end their QSO in the same way, or is it different each time? Write down the information that you pick up from the station, where they are, who the operator is, lots of little details will make the contact go smoothly. Make sure that you have their callsign correct, check it again before you call. Also, write down the frequency on which the station is operating. If they spend a little while talking to each station, you can go hunting for another station and come back to check their progress. When you do call, try to speak in the rhythm of the other station. If they're fast, speak fast. If they're slow, speak slow. Figure out when they're likely to key their mike and when they'll release it. Find breaks in the pauses and use those to put your callsign out. Only call once per over, many stations will ignore you if you don't. Make sure that you just say your callsign, not theirs, not while you're getting their attention. There is more on this topic to share, but listen to the other station and get a feel for the person at the other end. I'm Onno VK6FLAB