Category: Media Appearances

Radiosport 2.0 is not taking your baby (but it is giving it a new lease on contesting life)

context: Kyle AA0Z invited me to a roundtable discussion on his youtube channel] this evening, and it stirred up some discord and stoked the ongoing controversy grinding old-school contesters’ gears since his W1DED interview, the K5ZD N6MJ KL9A contester panel followup, his reaction, and the 2024 hamvention contesting forum call-out by K1AR. I wrote this to try to help clear some murky air, and posted to the Ham Radio Crash Course discord #radiosport-contesting channel where the fun was taking place. To a regular reader, this might seem out of place, so sorry about that. I hope you can read through that, and gather some ideas and discourse on the subject of contest modernization i.e. RadioSport2.0.

also long time no see lol

***

ok i got fired up and started typing and wrote a bunch so sorry, but #offmychest…

I wasn’t a big fan of the 1984ing on the stream bc i wanna hear out and debate the hot takes. During the stream I was typing that whole time with @QROdaddy (W4IPC) because he got quieted and I wanted to hear the discord (haha pun). I really don’t like echo chambers, and I really don’t like stuff that doesn’t take holistic perspectives from all points of view, so I think we, the radiosport2.0 community need to take some better care hearing it out. Whether it’s from current youth, young and old, seasoned or noob contesters, non-contesters, or QRZ lol. With that being said, here’s my dissertation on the whole radiosport thing that’s been bouncing in my head since 2011 (https://www.arrl.org/news/youth-hamradio-fun-what-is-radiosport-and-why-do-we-do-it) and opined since 2016 (https://n0ssc.com/posts/320-contest-modernization also rip cqcontest.net but today’s is https://contestonlinescore.com)

I think we want the same thing – we contesters all want to contest, and for there to be people to contest with well into the future. I think the ideas we’re tossing around formulates an inviting, fertile ground for new contesters just coming into ham radio and contesting for the first time. Out of this, I hope we discover and create novel in-roads for normies to get into the next level. Current young contesters may think it’s great right now, because it is, but you are a lucky few who had some kind of magical unmatched personal dedication, brilliant elmering, ham family, or just ADHD hyperfocus (it me) to get hooked for life. And i’m v proud of that. But without pushing for some kind of modern, mainstream aligned ideas, environments, activities, overlays, categories, and just straight up new stuff, radiosport will stagnate as the VAST BULK of contesters pass away, out leaving behind a fraction of today’s young contesters for tomorrow. That’s facts based on statistical projections based on numerous demographic surveys and data, and you can see it plainly in Craig’s K9CT interview. So as content creators, visionaries, and rabblerousers, we’re gonna go in hot and heavy, get complainy, and poke at the hornet’s nest to bring this to the light throughout the ham community to find people interested in making it a thing, only to see if it’s a thing. Might want to work on the delivery, but the point stands.

I also think we are miscommunicating the intent of radiosport2.0 becasuse of all the “reeeeee your killing my contests get off my lawnnnn nothing is wrong why do this nooo reeee” type comments . and I don’t disagree there might be some misinformation, or really just ignorance and misremembering on our (my lol) part. There’s also the weirdness of the K9CT folks, ARRL/CAC people, and log developers keeping their radio sport 2.0 plans close to their chest (compared to us who are baring it all and at least showing somebody is out there thinking “it would be cool if…”in hopes we can garner some grassroots perturbations in the community and do something cool for the sake of the fun of it, and maybe for the sake of the hobby). But imagine things like saving the contest committee 100 hours out of their thousands to check logs by, i dunno, posting every log submission and qsordr capture carte blanche to an academic database and letting the database wizards poke at it to see how close their solutions come to the traditional methods? Or giving those connected to the internet an opt-in option to cryptographically sign their QSOs that get posted to a blockchain ledger as a smart contract for realtime, verifiable adjudication (and figure it’s vulnerabilities to nefarious players? Or let there be a new button in their log’s score reporting menu that says “send to realtime ledger” or “report [entire QSO/band-mode/freq/rotator] data to blahblahblah db/server” for beta testers and early adopters to futz with while also not ruining or even remotely changing their experience as a contester doing a contest – they’ll still be valid (depending on what they’re opting in to send they might need to change to a different category e.g. CQWW Explorer), they’ll still submit a cabrillo, they’ll get a real score in whenever time, meanwhile 99% of people probably won’t notice that button until HRCC hosts a livestream of a radiosport tournament battle royale with your hosts Kyle AA0Z and Sterling N0SSC, backed up by your experts in the field N0AX and N6MJ – all enabled by that button, only just now realizing they too can get in on that action ALL THE WHILE on the air it just sounds like regular contesters contesting; just with more of them doing this goofy livestreamed tournament thing.

And I’m not a “*real*” contester. I don’t put up high scores on 3830 because I cannot do a 24/36/48 hr contest. I go to N0AX/W0ECC/W0EEE, sit down for 2 hours, do my 200-300Q/hr rate, let the pile die, and give up for a while with a beer and a chat with the other’s on the bench, and come back at 4am when the grey line is approaching to listen to the world turn from 160m and 10m because that shit is cool. I don’t even have HF at home, and I don’t have the time to set up remote stations and be a basement dweller for a whole weekend. And I have gone a loooong time since I had my butt in a chair for more than a few hours that wasn’t at my day job. But I’ve worked at least 2 or 3 big contests every year since I was 15 years old, I’ve won plaques and paper as a sad teenage G5RV owner in nowhere Missouri, i’ve played in sweeps every year except one (not under my own callsign typically – usually under N0AX, W0ECC, and W0EEE), I drop in at random field day sites and fire through 100 QSOs in half an hour and disappear, and I had elmers like N0AX, Ed K0KL (SK), K0ZT (SK) K0ZH and the WA0FYA Zerobeaters ARC, W0EEE alumni, and K3LR and the Contest University crew who let me in free for like 3 years straight because I was the only one without gray hair. I really love contesting – it’s my favorite part of ham radio. And now as a 32 year old geezer, I do want something I can do in my tidbits of free time, that is just a bit different than a CWT or WWSAC, that isn’t just a 2 hour stint on a major contest – i want to be competitive and be ranked and scored with a pool of other contesters. I want team deathmatch, CTF, in-game perks/power-ups/items, and matchmaking lobbies. I think there’s an untapped reserve of potential new hams that would also be into that kind of radiosport. I don’t want the existing contests or methodologies to die or change, but as they stand now – as they have forever ago and forever on — are excellent grounds for trying out these new ideas unbeknownst to guys like VP5M with barely enough bandwidth for the cluster [thanks connor], the off-grid pacific islanders, africans, antarctic researchers, nordic polar bears all who make CQWW/WPX & IARUHF so much fun, or folks who just don’t do the internet and log with paper. Coexistance is a requirement, and so is the longevity of our hobby.

Tldr I want to play ham radio when I’m retired (25-30 years from now lol) so I have some ideas.

***

a few edits were made for profanity, clarification, correction to K0ZH’s call.

thanks W4IPC and KG5XR for inspo and AA0Z for sticking his neck out to get these ideas on the cutting room floor

73 🛌

Pacifico Mountain SOTA Expedition with KI6NAZ’s Ham Radio Crash Course

Josh Nass, KI6NAZ, (aka Hoshnasi) runs the Ham Radio Crash Course YouTube channel. His videos cover a wide variety of topics in amateur radio and tend to lean towards experiences related to being prepared for communications emergencies while also just having a lot of fun with radio (if building a lawn-chair dipole is any indication). He also is an avid backpacker and Summits on the Air activator, so one day he thought, why not round up a group of followers to a SOTA expedition. And so he did!

With the help of Jerry Hildeman KG6HQD, they chose Pacifico Mountain (SOTA W6/CT-015) in the Angeles National Forest due to its ease of accessibility, forgiving hike, and a decent primitive campground at the summit. They chose a 4.68mi hiking route that follows a closed forest service road up to the summit, although we hiked up to find that A. there was a much closer parking spot and B. you could actually drive up to the summit! But that’s alright.

I’ve been dying to get outside more. Missouri has some beautiful outdoors, but I just needed a jumpstart, and this, plus a bunch of Southwest and Hyatt points earned by Jesten (my wife) and I, plus a friend to travel with – Kyle AAØZ – was the perfect impetus to get off my butt and onto a mountain.

My Gear Load-out

I spent way too much money on gear for this trip, but everybody’s a gear nerd so here’s what I went with:

The Showstopper

The flight was non-eventful, through Dallas-Love and onto Burbank. BUR is a pretty sad airport. Its small and crowded, and the baggage claim is literally outdoors. Our baggage carousel broke while bags from our flight were coming out. Our bags were stuck on conveyors somewhere in the system, so a worker climbed up the chute to manually drag bags out.

“Last bag” was called and our luggage was nowhere to be found. The luggage that contains basically all of our gear.

The Southwest baggage office worker was remorseful. They started looking around for the bags and out of curiosity I used my phone to ping my Tile, a key-chain Bluetooth locator beacon, and it said it was nearby! That’s a good sign. I walked around and someone came out of a door with my bag asking, “is this yours?” I could hear the chirping Tile in the bag.

Kyle was not so lucky. The Southwest worker had bad news – his gear was stuck at Dallas Love, and wouldn’t be here until 13:00 the next day (when the next flight from DAL arrives). We left the airport at 23:00. Our disappointment was immeasurable, and our day was ruined.

On the bright side, he was awarded a $100 SWA voucher, and Avis ran out of “regular cars” and upgraded me a little bit:

They weren’t actually out of regular cars.

The Miracle

I called Southwest that night but they had no good news to give. We were doomed to wait around until 13:00. We turned down.

That morning, we called some more. Still no news. We figured if they would send the bag on a layover rather than a nonstop, it would get to BUR much faster, but the airline couldn’t say if that could happen.

08:09: A call comes in from Southwest: THE BAG IS ON ITS WAY AND WILL BE HERE AT 9AM!!! It turns out they DID send it through a connection on the first flight out from DAL to Phoenix, onto Burbank. I only wish we knew about that sooner but this was great news. We packed up, got breakfast and jetted out the door back to BUR where Kyle retrieved his bag. ONTO PACIFICO!

The Drive

LA traffic in the morning was no issue, and hot damn the V8 Mustang was a hell of a vehicle to drive through the mountains. However, Highway 2 that snakes through the Angeles Forest is a death trap. Bicycles are huffing up the hills and screaming down them. Motorcycles are passing you at every opportunity, passing lane or not. Aggressive tailgaters honk if you’re impeding their path and somehow manage to not cause an accident on every turn, like this one:

The car that caused this was down at the bottom of the turn. No fatalities, but there were some injuries.

The road was closed for this massive near head-on collision and and even a helicopter was called. Thankfully after about 20 minutes they reopened one lane, and we were on our way. The roads were paved all the way to the parking spot, and were they not the poor Mustang would have had a bad day.

The Hike

The hike was a pretty easy trek up a closed service road that was covered in fallen trees and rock falls. The view was absolutely breathtaking in many spots. It was generally very easy, until we decided at the last mile to take the “shortcut” – an absolutely grueling 60% grade hike straight up the west side of the summit. Probably won’t do that again.

The Summit

Mountains are the most beautiful things on earth. They look pretty from all angles, and it makes the world seem so small on top. To the north we could see Palmdale and Lancaster, CA, and to the west we could see the edge of LA and the Pacific Ocean – that was a really unusual sight. Off in the distance, Catalina Island.

We were met by everyone else who reached the summit about 45 minutes before us. They were impressed by our decision to take the vertical way up, but I promise we weren’t doing it for show!

The Activation

This SOTA excursion almost felt like an Elecraft-sponsored field day. There were a half a dozen antennas, five Elecrafts, 8 operators, and zero noise. Almost everyone officially activated the summit (which reminds me, I need to submit my log!)

The bands were crap, as usual, and despite the signals we had on the mountain

I was very surprised to accomplish my activation entirely on 80m – not a typical band for SOTA. Since we were overnighting, it was a good band to try, and I barely squeezed in four QSOs in about 2 hours of calling CQ.

I woke up the next morning and got on 20m just before sunrise. I had a small run before handing it off to Kyle AAØZ.

The Camaraderie (and Whiskey)

Special thanks to everyone who came, and everyone who brought fine whiskeys. Matt AE4MQ flew all the way from Florida to hang out and brought “Pappy” (Pappy Van Winkle), a $120 per shot bourbon that tasted like pure gold. Everyone else brought their own variety, and not only did I learn a lot about backpacking and portable operation, but I also learned a lot about fine liquor and cigars!

Shout out to everyone who went:

A majority of the people who went were also YouTubers, so naturally they made videos of the expedition. On the flight home I made an EPIC trailer (using iMovie on my phone): https://youtu.be/bjVfgk-5ny0

I still cannot stop laughing at the silliness of this trailer.

Also, I curated a YouTube playlist of everyone else’s videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG8UQxewXrtZhzi5g-ZMmZtmpbFWODvbS:

ARRL Board’s Weird Censure of N6AA. Why? (RE: Code of Conduct, as seen on HamRadioNow)

I was a guest on the HamRadioNow “hamcast” EP 371 about the ARRL Code of Conduct issue you may or may not have been aware of. Gary, Rich, Dan, David and I spoke on the facts, the background, the parallels and history of interclub drama, and speculated on the reasoning behind and future of the ARRL about this interesting predicament.

Note: this is politically charged issue, and if you believe ham radio has no place for politics, you can skip this one…or scroll directly to the comments without reading to give us a piece of your mind about how you’re going to quit the ARRL, that’s okay too because it gives clout to my conjecture.

Basically, Dick Norton (N6AA, ARRL Southwestern Division Director) brought up the ARRL Board Code of Conduct (aka. The ARRL Policy on Board Governance and Conduct of Members of the Board of Directors and Vice Directors) in a membership forum at this year’s Visalia DX Convention. This made the members unhappy, with some expressing displeasure, some storming out in anger, but without any pro or con discussion from Dick himself. In other words, he brought the already-public Code of Conduct to light as a matter-of-public-fact, without judgement from himself, following the directives per the code of conduct.

Yet the ARRL censured him for this action. He did nothing wrong per the Code of Conduct as read, but the board seems to really not like it when you try to talk about their inside activities on the outside, resulting in the censure. Nobody seems to grok, as the league’s activities are becoming increasingly obscure in a world were transparency is in dire scarcity.

So that’s weird. And probably not the best thing for a membership-centered group. I don’t agree with it, you probably don’t either, and if you don’t there’s one thing we need to get straight is that…

**THIS IS NOT A REASON TO AVOID OR DROP YOUR ARRL MEMBERSHIP!**

There are too many single-issue quitters when it comes to club drama, from the small-town club all the way to the ARRL, in that the only way they think to express disagreement is to just stop being a member. This not only hurts the club, it hurts your only FCC representative, it hurts the biggest ham radio magazine, it hurts the scholarship foundation, the publication business, the emergency communications support, the teachers and educators , and all the countless other services the ARRL provides.

Better yet this is a reason to get one if you don’t like it, because it is a member-driven club. Without members, there’s nobody to vote, and soon you’ll be represented by a clique of power-hungry old geezers that have nobody’s best interest in mind. Worse yet, the ARRL could splinter, which would be a massive blow to the governmental representation and public image of the hobby.

Don’t let that happen. If you want change, become a member, stay a member, and vote for directors that you believe in. Better yet, run for board. Or campaign for a candidate you like. Go public with your discontent. But always, stay a member.

I guarantee one of you will comment “Welp, another reason you shouldn’t join the ARRL. Revoking my membership immediately!” anyway. Ugh.

***

Now, why is this code of conduct thing a thing? It’s a thing because it’s showing us that the ARRL has something to hide, which is dissonant from our perception of what a not-for-profit corporation should be.

There are good reasons to prohibit Boards and Committees from talking publicly about inside work, but that’s relegated to the private-sector, corporate world, where proprietary information is a protected trade secret. But what trade secrets does the ARRL have? They are a non-profit amateur radio club.

I feel as if they’re hiding infighting and debate from the public eye to save face and seem like a cohesive, synergistic board of directors (even though we’re seeing they’re having a case of the weeble-wobbles) but also perhaps it’s in their best interest (i.e. the members best interest) to keeping the latest and greatest operating events (like NASA on the Air), QST rebrandings, newest publications, which specific part of amateur radio they’re focusing on for that year, etc. from reaching the public before release…which I think is silly (because who are they competing with, CQ magazine?!?), but is that valid? Or maybe they want to keep secret the political underpinnings of the Membership/ARRL/FCC relationship? I feel like something’s missing here, but since we’ve got nobody from the ARRL providing any insight, and the organization as a whole touting censuring the very mention of the Code, and promoting secrecy throughout it, we’re left to speculation like this, and that’s just plain gross.

You can read more about this at Dan KB6NU’s blog, and in  ARRL: Circling the Wagons?, an editorial by Rich Moseson, W2VU in the next edition of CQ magazine (which is shown in the HRN show).

Where are they expecting this sketchballs censure of N6AA to go? Did they think it would cause such a fuss? Are they trying to oust N6AA from the board? Why is there a gag order in the first place?!

In the show we talked about one possible reason, being that the ARRL Board doesn’t approve of N6AA providing insight into the board’s activities, so when he runs again in the future, the censure will go against his record, causing him to be ineligible due to arbitrary “ethics concerns,” which has happened in the past, as discussed on the show. We believe this might be a sign of an unhealthy, cliquey board at the ARRL, and that should most definitely change.

How do we change it?

LETS QUIT THE ARRL, THAT’LL TEACH EM’!

No. Don’t be that guy, because that guy is a part of the problem. Membership is down, so naturally non-elections and silly politics will continue to form with explosive force due to the passionate but decisive, and sometimes powerful and influential nature of the membership core – the few passionate souls left behind after the rest of the membership quit the ARRL. It’s like a pH neutral chemical solution, slowly evaporating to reveal a corrosive concentration of acidic goo, only dissolved by more solvent – more members. I think it’s number one critical need is more members, but unfortunately the ARRL seems to be forgetting…or ignoring that.

Hopefully these events, and the actions we’re taking to bring it to light are starting to make a change for the better.

But what can you do? You, a non-ARRL member, can get a membership. And as an ARRL member, you can now vote.

These five directors all voted for the censure, and also happen be up for re-election in 2018:

  • Kermit Carlson W9XA (Central Division, member of the now-infamous Ethics & Elections Committee and maker of the censure motion)
  • Mike Lisenco N2YBB (Hudson Division, member of the Executive Committee and the one who seconded the censure motion)
  • Tom Frenaye K1KI (New England Division and member of  the Ethics and Elections Committee)
  • Jim Pace K7CEX (Northwestern Division and member of the Ethics & Elections Committee)
  • Jim Boehner N2ZZ (Roanoke Division).

 All of the foregoing voted in favor of adopting the Code and all of them voted to censure Dick.  Ultimately, the decision as to whether to retain or replace these five will be up to you, in your respective division.

We’ll be back before the ballots are sent out to revisit this topic, and hopefully this exposure will be the catalyst for a new brew of directors.

You can watch/hear the show at these links:

If you have iOS, I recommend downloading Overcast and using that to listen to Gary’s shows at 2x speed…it might take a while to get used to the speed, but it makes 2 hours go by a whole lot faster. Other apps have speed increasing features but Overcast is by far the best sounding.

If that was an ad, I’d tell you. I just really like Overcast.

So yea. Go vote for better directors. Stay a member to support the ARRL’s contributions to the hobby. Don’t be a quitter.

And if you’re a director, president, CEO, or other ARRL higher up, please talk to us, the membership, openly and publicly. Maybe lets see something in next QST’s Letter to the Members to give us a clue about WTF is going on in Newington.