Trangia

When I'm not writing about knives, guns, fishing, stupid politicians (almost a full-time job there), radio and other stuff, I can be found playing with camp stoves. Yes Virginia, collecting and 'fettling' with camp stoves is a thing, and grown men do it. I mean, why not? It mashes up two of the human male's favorite things - fire and food. Add a bottle of beer and you have the trifecta. I've been 'into' camp stoves since I was a Boy Scout, and that interest was fueled  (ha, ha) by books like Colin Fletcher's classic 'The Complete Walker'. I'm interested in anything that puts out a flame - from classic old Coleman two burner suitcase stoves to the modern ultra-light backpacking stoves manufactured by companies like MSR. 

I've written in this blog a few times about various stoves like the old Swedish self pressurizing brass stoves and single burner military stoves. I took a pause on this interest for a time, but a few years back, while camping with my wife, my interest was renewed. She was taking a nap one afternoon and I was puttering around the campground, and the thought struck me, "This would be a great time to play around with some old stoves". And just that quick, I was back into fettling with stoves ('fettling' is a quaint British term for tinkering around with something to fix it or make it better - a wonderful word that perfectly describes playing around with old camp stoves). 

Several months ago I made a huge mistake - I went down a discussion rabbit hole on the Classic Camp Stoves website (a very dangerous site for those who like to fettle) and learned about something I don't think I'd heard about before - cook sets made by a Swedish company called Trangia. I may have heard about them but never paid much attention because the stove part of the Trangia cook set is a simple (but ingenious) unpressurized alcohol burner. With the Triangia system you don't get a pressurized roaring flame, you get a silent, pokey, alcohol flame. I'd dealt with other alcohol stoves in the past - little more than a cup filled with denatured alcohol and a small pot stand. The performance wasn't impressive. But what Trangia did was interesting. They combined an improved and more efficient alcohol burner with a burner support and wind screen that improves the overall performance of the burner, making it a viable way to heat water and cook small meals. Now, Trangia didn't come up with this in 1980, or even 1960. The Trangia 'storm cooker' set was designed in 1951! This isn't a backpacking stove (although I'm sure more than a few were carried on backpacking trips). It's really more of a car camping or picknick cooking setup. 

The basic storm cooker sets consist of a burner stand and windscreen, two nesting pots, a fry pan and a pot grabber. Every set also includes Triangia's signature brass alcohol burner. Some sets also include a small tea kettle. Everything is made out of stamped aluminum, and Trangia offers sets in bare aluminum, a non-stick coating (like Teflon, but not Teflon), hard anodized aluminum or a unique material called duossal, which stands for 'dual stainless steel and aluminum'. This is basically an aluminum and stainless steel pot bonded together under immense pressure, so the cooking surface is stainless steel, but you get the better heat dissipation of aluminum on the outer shell. 

The plain aluminum cookset. Simple & well thought out

These sets can best be described as 'old world' and 'charming'. They harken back to an era when lunches were put into wicker baskets and loaded into the boot of the old Morris for a day of sightseeing along the ancient country roads of Yorkshire, stopping to eat lunch and brew up some tea and soup in the shelter of an old stone farmhouse while watching the sheepdogs move their charges from one field to the next, and wrapping yourself in a wool shawl as the cold mist settles in for the late afternoon. Yeah, OK, I watch too much Masterpiece Theater.

The storm cooker packs down into a compact nested set. It contains the burner base, 
windscreen/pot support, two bowls, a fry pan/lid, pot grabber and alcohol burner. If you
buy the optional kettle, it fits in there too

Trangia has been in business for almost 100 years The storm cooker sets were not their first product, but clearly they are the most successful. The design of the alcohol burner is clever and it makes the best use of the unpressurized fuel. It can easily boil water or heat a small frying pan in a reasonable amount of time. Not as fast as pressurized gas stove, but still fast enough and, like I mentioned, without all the noise and complexity of a pressurized gas stove. 

About the size of a biscuit. The burner includes a flame adjustment cap - simmer ring (left)
and a storage lid (right)

The alcohol burner set in the burner stand. The stand ensures good airflow to the burner

The windscreen set over the burner stand, which improves efficiency by
forming a chimney that blocks wind and funnels heat to the pot or pan 

Flame on! The alcohol burner in full roar (but there's no roar)

If the alcohol burner has a drawback, it's that it's either all the way on, or all the way off. Since it's not a pressurized system there's no valve to regulate output. You light the alcohol in the burner and it just... burns. There's no way to regulate the flame. Trangia does include a gizmo called a 'simmer ring' which doesn't work all that well. I only use it to extinguish the flame. But Trangia introduced something that I think fully reveals the genius of the system design. You can buy an iso-butane burner head that snaps into the hole that the alcohol burner normally sits in. This burner brings more heat, and adjustable heat, to the the storm cooker set. If  you've ever used a camping or backpacking stove you know that wind is the enemy of any stove. That's why companies like MSR and Optimus include flexible aluminum wind screens with each stove. These windscreens work, but they are a pain to set up. They are little more than heavy duty aluminum foil. The Trangia wind screen/pot stand is the best solution for this problem that I've seen. It's the wind screen/pot stand that makes the simple alcohol burner a viable cooking platform, but when used with the iso-butane burner the storm cooker becomes an incredibly versatile cooking system. You can boil water with a full flame, or simmer a stew with a low flame. Again, the pot stand serves as a chimney that effectively funnels the burner heat straight to the cooking surface. Add a camp oven (like the wonderful Omnia system) and you can even make rolls, biscuits, bread, pies and other baked goods. 

The Trangia 'snap-in' iso-butane burner significantly enhances the storm cooker set, making
it a platform for more complex cooking tasks

An additional trick with the iso-butane burner is the ability to use it with larger 1lb propane cylinders. The burner fuel line is long enough and flexible enough to allow it to connect to an upright 1lb cylinder. You'll have to buy a separate adapter to mate the burner connector to the cylinder, but they are inexpensive and available from several sources on Amazon. This means you have access to cheaper bulk fuel for longer cooking & baking sessions.

Running off of a larger fuel source means you can tackle larger cooking tasks like heating large
pots of water for things like pasta

To say that I'm impressed with the versatility of the Trangia system is an understatement. I own a lot of camp stoves and cookware, but no single integrated cookset matches the capabilities of the Trangia storm cooker. Would I carry it on the Appalacian Trail? No. Would I take it to a campground to handle regular meal prep chores in an old-fashioned, leisurely and non-fussy way? You bet!

Stay sharp!

Two Years On

Goodness gracious, it's been two years since my last post here! OK, I've been busy elsewhere, including blogging over at my ham radio site. This blog got less and less attention as my interests drifted away a bit from guns, knives, fishing and politics. That's just how life goes. But I always knew I'd come back here. Life is cyclical, and I'm starting to circle back to those interests that drove this blog from the beginning. So a few updates...

Let's start with politics. My last post, in 2022, had me grousing about Joe Biden and his imbecilic behavior two years into his term. I NEVER thought we'd be where we are today, at the end of June 2024. I write this just a few days after Biden's disastrous debate performance against... Donald Trump!? In 2022 I thought Donald Trump was done as a viable political candidate and political force. Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley and other Republican stars were on the rise, and nobody thought Trump had a chance in hell of securing another nomination. DeSantis in particular looked like an unstoppable force. Today, however, it not only looks like Trump has the Republican nomination sewn up, but he also has a better than even chance of taking the White House back. By focusing all their attention and venom on Trump, they've made him both a martyr and a hero to a solid and motivated core of Republican voters. Trump skillfully leveraged that to sweep aside all Republican opposition at the state level, locked up the party nomination and, from where we stand in early summer 2024, will lock up the Oval Office in November.

As I approach retirement (scheduled for early 2025), my lovely wife and I are spending more time contemplating the closing chapters of our lives. No, I'm not trying to sound morbid, it's just fact - we have more life behind us than ahead. But we intend to make the absolute best of what's left. That includes more time with the kids and grand kids, more camping & fishing, travel, getting the house sold and moving into a new, smaller and age friendlier place. 

Because we are planning to move, I've dialed way back on knife collecting/accumulation. I no longer actively collect, but I do keep my finger on the pulse of knife activity. It's a passion that will be with me until the end of my days. Sadly, if the 2024 Blade Show in Atlanta was any indication, the knife community is in decline. Oh, there's plenty of blades available, but the innovation and artistry of custom knife making has been stomped all over by fantasy and 'battle blade' makers. It seems these days that anyone with a Harbor Freight grinder can (and does) call themselves a knife maker. There was aisle after aisle lot of poorly thought out and poorly executed crap. The elegance of a beautifully conceived and executed blade was in short supply. I may write more on this later.

I still love to fish, and for over a decade I was exclusively focused on fly fishing. It's a craft that takes time to learn, and I focused on perfecting my cast and presentation, fly tying, approaching various species in differing environments. It was all fun, but I was always annoyed by the pretentiousness of the fly fishing crowd vs. everyone else on the water. You can walk into a fly fishing shop anywhere in the US and smell the distain for the spinning and bait casting guys that's seeped into the walls. Back in early 2023 my wife and I were camping on the shores of West Point Lake in Georgia. While packing for the trip, and I don't know why, I grabbed an old ultralight spinning outfit and a box full of spinners and jigs and tossed them into the camper. The next morning I found myself knee deep in West Point Lake, just a few feet from our camp ground, tagging small bass and bluegill with almost every toss of an old Mepps spinner. It had been years since I had that much simple fun while fishing. 

The difference between fly fishing and spin fishing is this - fly fishing is like having dinner reservations to a 4-star restaurant, getting dressed in your best tuxedo, driving to dinner in your Mercedes S-Class, eating small, delicate bites of entrees that have three figure prices and foreign names, and moving around the dance floor in choreographed routines designed to telegraph your elegance, style and wealth to all the right people. Spin fishing is like driving to a local dive bar in your 10 year old pickup truck, swilling cheap beer right out of the pitcher, drizzling nacho cheese all over your worn out jeans, and getting into a drunken fight with an Alabama fan. Both can be fun ways to approach fishing.

Today when I go fishing there's a fly rod and a spinning rod in the truck. If the fish seem to be hitting things on the surface, I'll use the fly rod. If they are holding deep I'll use spinning gear. Sort of a tuxedo in a dive bar approach. 😁

One thing's for sure - whether it's fly fishing or spin fishing, you can never have too many toys.

Stay sharp!

For The Love Of...

It takes a lot to wake up Rip van Winkle, but here I am.

Who the hell let this moron out of the Alzheimer's ward? I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or start digging a bomb shelter in the backyard. 

Last  year I thought his gaffes were just comical. Today, he's an international embarrassment, and a danger to the United States and her allies. Democrats were so desperate to remove Trump, and so thin on real electable leadership, that this was the best they could come up with? 

Spare me the comparisons to Trump. Trump isn't in office, and won't ever be again. Democrats own this mess. Lock, stock and barrel. 

If I was King For A Day I'd declare the entire Democrat party a national security threat. 

Stay sharp, cuz' I fear you'll need it.

Not Dead (Yet)

 My goodness, it's been a bit over 3 years since I posted anything here!

Well, I just wanted to reassure my loyal readers (all four of you) that I'm still firmly ensconced on this mortal coil. I've just been busy elsewhere.

Back in 2017 I took one of life's segways and turned to other things, or was turned to other things. I have a new son-in-law and a new grandchild. I lost a few dear relatives and friends, and a few loyal dogs. My day job got a lot more intensive. I found myself re-focusing on ham radio and emergency communications (you can follow those adventures over at PRC-77.com). In short, a myriad of other life events just got in the way. 

Somewhere on this new path I sort of lost interest in knives. Not completely, but mostly. Sounds strange, eh? The guy who was all knives all the time losing interest in knives? Well, for me that's not at all unusual. I think I'm a bit ADHD and I often have difficulty focusing on multiple interests. It could be knives, guns, fly fishing, ham radio, whatever, but I often find it tough to focus on more than one interest at at time, and when I'm focused on something I'm REALLY focused on it, to the exclusion of all else. 

But a few good changes in my life got me thinking about knives again. First, my wife and I bought our first camper, something we'd been discussing for years. Suddenly I'm finding myself back out at campsites and needing to put knives to serious use for routine chores. Next, a recent string of email conversations with an old friend regarding knives - what's best to buy for this use or that, what are my opinions on this steel or that, that sort of thing - got me thinking seriously about blades again.

So dear reader, I'm back. Maybe not as often as I used to be, but I'm back. I think the flavor and focus of this blog will change just a bit and will encompass some camping adventures and lessons learned. 

But for now, fall is finally here and it's time for another cup of coffee...

Stay sharp!

Slyšíš mě, soudruhu?

That's Czech for, 'can you hear me, comrade?' 

As an Amateur Radio operator I've always had an interest in military radios and communications. In particular I've had a long interest in fully self-contained backpack transceivers that can operate on the Amateur Radio HF (high frequency) spectrum. If you are a radio guy and you spent any time in the military you just see things that catch your eye. For most of my Army career (1979 - 2002) the ubiquitous small unit radio was the AN/PRC-77. We used this iconic Vietnam-era backpack radio for everything; if you had to go run a rifle range, control a convoy, set up a drop zone, chase Iraqis around the desert or run a guard mount you grabbed a couple of 'prick-77's', some spare batteries, and moved out. While these radios had limited performance (their transmission range was just a few miles over ground) they were rugged as hell. The radio case was a thick extruded aluminum box that was sealed at the top and bottom, making the unit completely watertight. The radio was heavy as hell, but it was damned near indestructible.

AN/PRC-77 manpack radio (from Wikipedia)

What attracts me to military radios is, I think, the same thing that attracts me to knives, firearms, stoves, backpacks, compasses, etc. Deep down I'm something of a survivalist/prepper. I like things that are rugged, foolproof and will help me and my family get through the worst of times - either a hurricane (don't laugh - Hurricane Irma just paid us a visit) or a nuclear attack (don't laugh - Kim Jong Un claims he's got a hydrogen bomb that he can strap to a missile). For that time when an EMP pulse turns your iPhone into a smoking lump of plastic and glass I want a radio that will keep chugging along.

From an electronic performance standpoint Amateur Radio systems are good - very good. What they are not, with very few exceptions, is rugged, waterproof, self-contained and easy to use while on the move. Many of the small handheld units are pretty tough little devices, but they operate only on the VHF & UHF frequencies (with an occasional unit dropping down into the 'semi-HF' 6-meter band territory). Radios that operate on the HF bands, say 50 mHz and down, tend to be desktop queens. There are niche manufacturers like Codan that make MILSPEC rugged units that can operate in the Amateur Radio HF bands, but those radios are eye-bleedingly expensive.

So this leads us to military surplus radios. Just as armies around the world dump their excess or obsolete vehicles, clothing, tools, weapons, ships and aircraft onto the surplus market, they also occasionally dump obsolete, excess or damaged radio gear. This feeds a small but dedicated group of radio enthusiasts who grab these radios, get them back into operating condition and use them on the Amateur Radio frequencies. But these surplus radios can be hard to find, for a number of reasons. First, military radios tend to be 'low density' items. This means that compared to things like boots, mess kits and pup tents, radios were not issued in great numbers. Next, because of the high development, manufacturing and sustainment costs for communications gear most armies tend to hang on to their radios longer than other systems, and use them right up until the point where they are obsolete and the supply is exhausted. And last, many of these radios get refurbished and sold to other countries under military assistance programs. As a result there are relatively few good condition surplus radios on the market.

This means that good examples of the AN/PRC-77 can be hard to find. As the US pulled them from service starting in the 1980s they were re-furbished and sold in huge numbers to countries like Israel, Australia and Pakistan.

Still, the itch must be scratched. While I've been looking for a good working 'prick-77' for some time I've also kept my eye open for other suitable manpack military radios. A few months ago I got wind that a surplus dealer in Pennsylvania, Coleman's Surplus, was selling complete surplus Czech military radio kits for an amazingly low price. How low? Well I'll just say this - the radios were being sold untested, but the price was so low that it was worth taking the risk and buying sight unseen.

The radio is the RF-10, a fully transistorized manpack radio designed by Tesla Electronics in Czechoslovakia in the 1970's and produced through the 1990's. It was designed to fill the same role as the AN/PRC-77 was filling in US Army units - a short range squad or platoon radio operating in the FM mode near the 50 mHz frequency segment.

RF-10 on the right. On the left is my Yaesu FT-817 that was
used as a reference transceiver

Here's the rundown on the radio's capabilities, straight from the RF-10 operations manual:

Frequency Band:	44.000 to 53.975 MHz
Channel Spacing:	25 kHz. All 400 channels are directly selectable using the 3 rotary switches
Mode:	Single channel simplex using frequency modulation (FM)
Transmitter Power	Nominal Power: 1 W
Low-transmit Power	0.1 to 30 mW
Range:	1.5 meter whip antenna - 5 km 0.5 meter whip antenna - 1 km Dipole antenna (3.3 meters) - 10 km Directional dipole antenna (30 meters) - 20 km (these are average ranges over moderately wooded terrain)
Operating Temperature:	-35℃ to +60℃ The radio set can be operated at reduced efficiency in the temperature range from -50℃ to +70℃
Power:	The radio set is powered by a 6 volt DC battery
Operating time:	At full charge the battery pack will permit operating for up to 10 hours at a 5:1 listening/transmitting operating ratio

As you can see, at 6 volts and only 1 watt transmit power it is very low power radio, suitable only for local communications. But that's in line with other military radios of its type. The PRC-77 only puts out between 1 - 2 watts on battery power, and it uses a 15 volt battery. It looks like the RF-10 is a very power-efficient design.

There's some information about the RF-10 on the web in both Czech and English. The Czech site 'Military Radio Station RF-10' does a good job of laying out the radio's operational characteristics and covers some troubleshooting options. The site also provides some interesting shots of the radio circuitry. I was surprised to see some early integrated circuits (labeled 'Tesla') on the boards (Google Chrome does a pretty good job at translating the content). The site PRC68.com has a good page on the RF-10, and it's in English.

The RF-10 is simple to operate. The user sets the frequency using the mHz/kHz/Hz mechanical dials on the front of the radio, attaches the handset and any one of several whip or long wire antennas, switches the radio on and talks. Not much to go wrong or mess up.

Front of the RF-10 showing the antenna connection, volume control,
frequency dials and handset connector

The RF-10 was issued as a complete radio set consisting of the transceiver, handset, whip and long wire antennas, battery power supply, carrying bags and straps, and a small spares kit. All of these issue items fit into a large Styrofoam container that slips into a rubberized carrying satchel.

The RF-10 radio 'set' is stored, transported and deployed in this
large Styrofoam container

Take note that this Styrofoam box isn't just the shipping container - it's what the Czechoslovakian soldiers took the radio set to the field in. I'm not sure how much confidence I'd have in a big piece of Styrofoam protecting my radio, but I guess it worked. And it was cheap.

Opening up the container you find a complete radio set:

The set consists of:

• RF-10 transceiver
• One handset
• One battery pack
• Carrying pouches for the radio and battery pack
• Carrying straps
• Two whip antennas, very cleverly wound up in the lid of the Styrofoam box for storage/transport
• One long wire antenna
• One dipole antenna
• One documentation packet that includes an instruction manual (for you old Army types, think of it as the -10 manual), a component list and a host of assorted and official looking certifications with lots of stamps and signatures

Virtually all of the components can fit into the radio's carrying bag, and using the supplied straps the bag can be worn over the shoulder or on the back. This makes for a very portable and versatile radio system. With a proper antenna setup, and by choosing your ground carefully, you should be able to communicate 20 miles or so. Remember, this is an FM radio, so you won't get much of the radio wave atmospheric 'skip' that is common with AM or single sideband signals.

The biggest issue with the RF-10 as I received it is the battery pack. The Czechs developed an interesting battery design that utilized five rechargeable D-cell sized NiCad batteries soldered together. The batteries were rated to provide 6 volts at 5 amp hours. The battery pack sits in an aluminum battery case that connects with the main radio via a waterproof electrical connection.

The battery case seen connected to the bottom of the RF-10 radio.
Note the operating instructions printed on the side of the radio. Not
very tactical, but not a bad idea either!

The problem is, the 1980's era batteries were shot, and leaking, and because of the odd nature of the battery contacts (remember, I said they were all soldered together) the fix isn't as simple as just dropping in some new D-cells.

The battery case with the top off showing the battery cell arrangement. Note the
leaking batteries. Yuk

The batteries have a 1984 date stamp

After some thought, and checking some on-line resources, I decided to modify the battery case to accept a modern 6 volt, 3.3 amp hour AGM battery. These small batteries fit just fine in the battery case and are relatively inexpensive (about $15 on Amazon). The modification ended up looking like this:

I reused the battery connection sockets and leads from the original NiCad battery pack.
It's these sockets that carry voltage to the radio via matching plugs on the inside of the case lid.
When closed up the battery case slides on and locks to the bottom of the RF-10 radio (seen here)

The 6 volt AGM battery snuggled down in the battery case just fine. I used some Styrofam
pieces to keep the battery from sliding around

This modification seems to work just fine. I have not 'stress tested' the setup to see just how much operating time I'll get out of the battery, but based on 5:1 listening/transmitting ratio I'm estimating a couple of hours of operation before I have to recharge the battery.

How does the RF-10 perform? To test the radio my friend Bill and I used it on the portion of the 6 meter band (50 - 54 mHz) that US Amateur Radio General and Extra class license holders have access to. Using a modern Yaesu FT-817 transceiver for the other half of the conversation, and testing just short distances across parking lots and city parks, Bill and I discovered that the RF-10 performs very well. The audio quality coming out of the RF-10 is quite good. Not broadcast quality, but certainly what you would expect out of a 1970's - era military radio. There are no other indications of issues and radio seems to be spot on frequency.

So following the prepper mantra of two is one and one is none I decided to order a second RF-10 set from Coleman's. Like the first set, this second could be described as 'new in the box'. The transceiver looked unused and most of the components were still sealed in plastic. Only the battery case looked used - very, very used. But this new radio had some issues. First, the handset was inoperative. I could hear through it, but when transmitting there was no audio coming through to the other radio. The other operator could hear my radio breaking squelch, but no audio. After acquiring a junked handset from a third party I was able to determine the issue was a defective microphone element. A quick swap out of mic elements and the problem was solved. Next, this new transceiver (which has a later production date than my first one) has a very sensitive squelch setting, and the squelch will open up when the radio is around even the slightest RF interference sources. Third, there's a low hum generated by the radio during transmit. Not enough to interfere with communications, but it is annoying. Still, the radio seems to be perfectly serviceable. The battery case got the same modification as the first one, and RF-10 #2 is on the air!

Ready to communicate, Comrade!

Do these radios represent the be-all and end-all in SHTF communications preparedness? No, not by a long shot. These are just interesting examples of Cold War-era tactical communications systems. They are obsolete and I consider them nothing more than a last-ditch communications option. So what are they? They're fun! They are the kinds of radios you take to an Amateur Radio Field Day, a reenactment setup, a Boy Scout event or a local ham radio club meeting and just have fun with. And besides, playing with stuff like this keeps me off the streets at night. 😀

So I guess these toys will keep me busy while I continue my search for nice 'prick-77'.

Stay sharp!

Brian

Through The Rabbit Hole

I read this morning a piece in the ultra leftist Village Voice about how liberal politicians in New York are scrambling to loosen New York's 60 year old laws prohibiting 'gravity knives'. These were laws put in place as far back as the 1950's to ban switchblades, implements of death that scared the hell out of lawmakers that watched 'The Blackboard Jungle' and 'West Side Story' one too many times.

The Village Voice piece, titled Trump's Immigration Crackdown Sharpens Need To Cut Bogus 'Gravity Knife' Law makes for some pretty humorous reading as the story unfolds. It goes something like this:

• Knives are bad
• 'Gravity' knives are particularly bad
• We need to lock up folks who carry gravity knives
• But wait - a lot of immigrants carry gravity knives
• Getting caught with a gravity knife is a bad enough offense to get immigrants deported
• Donald Trump supports deporting immigrants
• Getting caught with a gravity knife gives Donald Trump all the excuse he needs to deport otherwise 'innocent' illegal immigrants
• Ergo Donald Trump is worse than gravity knives
• We must deny Donald Trump this opportunity
• Therefore we must make the previously illegal gravity knives legal

As I've written about in the past, the laws against switchblades (which morphed into the current laws against 'gravity' knives) are ridiculous. I'm all for easing restrictions on all types of knives, and I think using a blade that is perfectly legal in 99% of the rest of the country as an excuse to lock people up is a classic example of the liberal nanny state gone mad.

So I'm all for 'liberalizing' New York's knife laws and I hope this change goes through. Not for the illegal aliens but for the thousands and thousands of otherwise law abiding Americans who find themselves the target of silly, capricious laws put in place by knee-jerk politicians.

And watching the New York politicians twisting their logic and arguments to fit their political agenda is really delicious!

Stay sharp!

- Brian

 

Ham Radio - A Decade On

About a month or so ago I started getting back in to Amateur (Ham) Radio. This renewed interest in the hobby was triggered by an innocent question from a long time friend and fellow Ham, who asked if I'd been on the air lately. After I told him that no, it's been a long while since I've been on the air I asked myself "just why haven't you been on the air?"

I've been a licensed Amateur Radio operator since 1995. I got my Technician-class ticket (KC5YNP) while stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. There were a few repeaters in the Killeen/Copperas Cove area that I enjoyed chatting on. One was a closed repeater run by a used car salesman. For $10/year you'd get use of the repeater and phone patch capability. At a time when cell phones were just coming on the market the ability to make a free phone call from a handheld radio was actually a neat and useful function. I bought a Radio Shack HTX-202 handheld transceiver and would take it to the field and let my Soldiers make phone patch calls back home during long field exercises. At our house on base I stuck a cheap 2 meter ground plane antenna up in the air on a piece of PVC pipe lashed to a fence and using a signal amplifier I was reliably hitting repeaters in Austin, over 60 miles away.

One ominous afternoon in 1997 my wife and I stood in our back yard and watched a nasty looking cloud formation move south past our house. To this day that is the ugliest storm system I've ever seen. We gathered up the kids and dogs and got them inside and I fired up my radio and just listened. The storm system passed us by, but 30 miles to the south it put an F5 tornado on the ground that wiped the town of Jarrell off the map. It was literally gone - if you were not underground when the storm hit you were dead. As I listened, the Amateur Radio repeaters within earshot were lighting up with reports from weather observers and storm chasers describing the ugliness and intensity of the storm and the fact that there was a huge tornado on the ground that was sweeping away everything in its path. It was fascinating - morbidly fascinating - to listen in as the realization of what had happened unfolded live over the radio. I was hooked.

About a year later the Army moved me and my family to Germany and all the radio gear went into storage. In 2000 we found ourselves back in the US, living just south of Atlanta. On one lazy spring afternoon I pulled out my trusty old HTX-202, found the settings for a local repeater in an old copy of the ARRL Repeater Directory and threw out my callsign. I was amazed when the acknowledgements came flooding back over the radio. In Texas it was common to sit on a repeater frequency for an hour or more and not hear any activity. Here in Georgia there were what seemed to be a half dozen or more folks on the local repeaters at all hours of the day and night. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had plopped myself and my family right smack in the middle of one of the most active Amateur Radio scenes in the southeastern US!

In short order I went out and earned my General-class ticket, giving me access to the high frequency radio bands that provide the real fun in Amateur Radio, built up an impressive 'shack' full of HF/VHF/UHF gear that allowed me to talk (literally) around the world and got deeply involved in the local Amateur Radio scene, ending up as the president of the local radio club. I even petitioned the FCC to reassign me my late father-in-law's callsign (W8BYH).

Then life got in the way. I changed jobs, put kids in college, found myself taking on other responsibilities in other areas and I found myself burned out on Amateur Radio. Slowly, bit-by-bit, I dismantled my gear and put it in storage. The antennas came down during home renovations but never went back up. The final blow came when I sold my old Ford Ranger pickup and had to pull all the radio gear out of it. The gear never made the transition into my new F-150. I had gone silent.

Now almost a full decade later my interest is coming back. I've spent the last month or so just poking around the Amateur Radio scene to gauge what's changed. I think what's surprised me most is what hasn't changed. The old repeaters are still working on the same old frequencies with the same tones and offsets. Most of the same equipment manufacturers are still making the same old radios with the same old features. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is still the single most influential voice in Amateur Radio, eHam.net still seems the place to go to follow all the Amateur Radio discussions, you still go to QRZ.com to look up callsigns and MFJ still means 'mighty fine junk' (just kidding!). In many ways it's like all I did was take a 20 minute nap.

But in reality things have changed, some for the better, some for the worse:

• Amateur Radio as a hobby/service still seems to be on the decline. In the age of the cheap smartphone, where any kid with a data plan can instantaneously call or text their friends around the world, this isn't a bit surprising. After all, you actually have to work and study to get an Amateur Radio license, and who wants to do that when you can't even get the latest updates on the Kardashians over that noisy, hard to use radio. (Does this mean Amateur Radio is irrelevant? NO - it just means we are dealing with changes in culture and expectations and perhaps need to do a better job of 'selling' Amateur Radio and what it offers.)

• Ten-Tec is gone. I was (and still am) a huge Ten-Tec radio fan, even taking the time one weekend to attend their annual open house/hamfest in Sevierville, Tennessee. Their Jupiter radio was the centerpiece of my high-frequency station or 'shack'. The word on the internet is that the owners wanted to retire and had trouble finding a buyer, and the buyer they did find has been dragging his feet in getting the Amateur Radio side of the Ten-Tec line back into production. So much for a well thought out succession plan. My quandary now is, do I trade in my orphaned (but still capable) Ten-Tec gear for something more modern or do I hang on to it in the hopes it increases in value enough to contribute significantly to my 401K?

• Just as surprising, while Ten-Tec has faded away there still seems to be a fairly strong Amateur Radio manufacturing base in the US. Amateur Radio is a very niche market and there's not a lot of market room for manufacturers, but companies like Elecraft seem to be doing quite well.

• It's quiet and lonely out there. As I said earlier in this post, when I moved to the Atlanta area the local repeater scene was very active, with lots of local Amateurs hanging out and chatting virtually 24 hours/day. Today those same repeaters are all but dead quiet. I've had my multi-band VHF/UHF radio monitoring almost constantly for the past two days and all I hear are the automated repeater IDs. It appears that, like me, so many others have left the hobby or, sadly, have passed away.

• True digital modes on VHF/UHF. When I left the hobby there was a lot of discussion starting up about the introduction of true digital communication modes in the VHF/UHF bands (as opposed to digital data carried on analog signals, like APRS or Packet). The portions of the VHF/UHF spectrum allocated to Amateur Radio were becoming increasingly crowded and in many regions it was becoming difficult to find repeater frequencies and tones that didn't interfere with other repeaters. Everyone knew digital was coming - it's just more efficient. The question 10 years ago was, which digital standard? It seems that the D-STAR standard developed by the Japanese Amateur Radio League has won the day. It's an open standard (meaning anyone can adopt it) and seems robust and well supported. There's a D-STAR repeater just down the road from me and it looks like I'll have to give it a try.

• Speaking of the Japanese, the big four Amateur Radio manufacturers - Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu and Alinco - seem to be going strong. In my opinion these four manufacturers are singularly responsible for keeping Amateur Radio alive around the world. They offer extremely well designed, world-class equipment that is very affordable. I suspect these manufacturers don't make a lot of money in Amateur Radio manufacturing (all of them are big-time commercial telecommunications systems manufacturers), and may actually lose money on this side of the business. But since many of them got their start making radio gear for American and European ham radio operators in the 1950's & 60's and I think they stay in the market as a way to honor their roots.

• Like just about everywhere else in the manufacturing world, the Chinese have stuck their noses under the Amateur Radio tent and are now making what seem to be very capable transceivers at rock bottom prices. This has to really be hurting the Japanese manufacturers. 

• Shortwave. In addition to Amateur Radio, I was a fairly active shortwave listener. Shortwave monitoring and Amateur Radio have always been very tightly intertwined. I'd spend hours tuning in broadcasts from Radio Havana, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Netherlands, the Voice of America, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and more (my Ten-Tec Jupiter was also an outstanding general coverage shortwave receiver). I'm saddend to find that the Internet has all but wiped out many of these excellent shortwave services. I understand that shortwave broadcasting costs money and that delivering programming via the internet is much cheaper. But compared to shortwave broadcasting, the digital architecture that delivers that programming to the end user via the Internet is much more expensive and fragile. And regardless of what Google likes to claim, Internet service is NOT ubiquitous and won't be for a long, long time (if it ever does happen). On top of that, when a major disaster like an earthquake or hurricane strikes a 'developed region' the Internet is one of the first things to go dark. That's why aid organizations still hand out thousands of inexpensive self-powered radios every year. Radio - particularly AM and shortwave - just works, and keeps working in the worst of situations.

My new 'shack' in its very luxurious surroundings

So now that I'm re-entering the hobby where do I go from here? I'm still trying to figure that out, but for now I've got a bunch of gear to sort through, radios to test, wire antennas to untangle and battery packs to recharge. Hopefully I'll see you on the radio sometime soon!.

Stay sharp & 73!

Brian

W8BYH