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

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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.

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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 🛌

Ham Radio Analysis Paralysis

Lately I’ve been pretty quiet on all ham radio fronts because I’ve been stagnant on getting the ball rolling on a lot of stuff. So I’ve been facing a turning point that’s leading me down a road to learn how to write firm/software – C for Embedded things, C++ for everything else, and python for everything everything else. And GNURadio for radio hacking. However, I’m an Electrical Engineer, and I really want to design and test hardware, but as time goes on everything around me is about software. Even my fiancée is a software engineer!

Life also has priority – I’m 25 years old, so between all my friend’s weddings that I have to go to, I have a wedding coming up next year, I’m trying to travel my butt off around the world with my fiancee, and otherwise generally when I come home I like to cook, clean, play with cats, then sit around and watch YouTube or reddit until I fall asleep.

Stuff on my “want to do this but I’m faffing about” list:

  1. YOTA – I want to lead the charge to bring YOTA to IARU Region II (North & South America).
  2. Ham Radio Hackathon – I think ham radio needs it’s own hackathon. There is a huge opportunity in the hobby to bring hackers and hams together to create some really cool stuff, so I want to cooperate with folks from places like Hackaday, Adafruit, etc to start something up. Cloud logging, improving APRS, connecting DSTAR/YSF/DMR/P25 together, just a few ideas for such an event.
  3. Youtube. I have a lot of ideas of videos to make, but that takes a lot of time to record and edit, and I really don’t get that much inspiring feedback, that many views, no revenue whilst spending about $20/month for Adobe Premiere Student…
  4. Phasing Line Podcast – same as Youtube, but with Adobe Audition. Marty is also busy 110% of the time with Baker Island Dxpedition Social media stuff and being the young ham of the year and all. Earlier this year I also help start the Noisy Key Podcast, which didn’t even get off the ground due to availability of a bunch of teenaged hams and me.
  5. Contesting – my favorite activity in ham radio, but haven’t sat down for a full contest since last year’s SSB sweeps. Weekends are usually spent in new cities, at new food places, at cool bars, or cleaning the apartment.
  6. Projects on my mind:
    1. Project Echoloon – haven’t done anything with that besides the Blog Post
    2. FaradayRF – what I think might be a perfect foray into improving my programming skills, but I’m reluctant to start because I don’t want to buy $300 of radio equipment I might not end up using (except I already bought two Gotenna Mesh’s for $150 for the explicit purpose of hacking them…at least I could resell), and I generally have a disdain for programming I can’t seem to get over: I prefer heat and smoke, not compile errors, when things break.
    3. GoTenna Hacking – same as above, except I realize I need to get dirty with GNURadio, which i’ve been installing and learning for about a year now. Not getting very far. I don’t have a real point to it besides seeing if it’s feasable to use GoTenna on amateur bands, or adopt similar meshing protocols for ham radio.
    4. Mesh Networking with SLSRC Engineering squad – basically go on the roofs of tall buildings, install some networking stuff in the St Louis Suburban Radio Club’s repeater racks, and have fun. In the past I hung out more often, but then their work days were colliding with days I was busy doing other stuff, and eventually got out of touch. Doesn’t help that hteir meetings are on Friday evenings, when I’m either in another state…physically or mentally.
    5. Creating a new amateur radio datalink paradigm/protocol/philosophy – I really like when computers talk to each other. But when it comes to APRS, it makes me very angry – it’s slow, it requires a TNC or computer to create audio tones that plugs into an FM voice radio, and uses packet which isn’t very robust, and the documentation leaves a lot to be desired. I want to see FaradayRF (which uses plain 2-FSK at the moment) to revolutionize amateur radio data to get away from 1.) 1200baud APRS and 2.) having to buy a D-STAR radio to use digital 128kbps “fast” data. or 3.)buying a COTS radio module for a specific task.

Or just find a way to make it easier to connect with D-STAR without having to buy an Icom radio since it’s protocol is already written, and it’s not that hard (in my mind at least) to find a cheap a GMSK modem and microcontroller pair, plop it on a PCB, work some software magic, and boom D-STAR data radio modules. However, I can’t not believe that someone has done this already and the fact this is is also reinventing the wheel puts me off (there’s sooo many radio protocols out there!).

Also, yea yea yea APRS is compatible with every voice FM radio on the market and it was a great use of equipment at the time (which was the late 80s) but now we really need to have our hands on small data radios similar to zigbee and LoRA.

These are the things on my mind. Perhaps writing them all down will help me think about it in a different way.

I will be attending HamJam in Atlanta, GA this weekend, so that’ll be fun and hopefully inspiring. It’s very close to where my fiancee’s family lives (near Alpharetta) so it’s double points.

Anyone else got so much on their proverbial plate that it makes them halt all processes? Let me know in the comments, my twitter, email, etc. for your ways to swim through the mud of analysis paralysis in ham radio.

I’m starting a podcast

http://phasinglinepodcast.com

Marty Sullaway KC1CWF (aka Chicken With Fries) and I are starting a ham radio podcast. We’re kinda winging it, so we’ll see how it goes. No schedule, no topic, no ads (yet.) Just Marty and I having a conversation, two guys and a mic style. We just hope to make something different and entertaining to younger people in the hobby. 

A promo ep is available on iTunes and Stitcher, and the RSS feed for your favorite podcasting app is at http://www.phasinglinepodcast.libsyn.com/rss. Just search Phasing Line Podcast and you’ll find it. 👍