I'm Dreaming of a DX Station

To the tune of White Christmas, by Bing Crosby

Lyrics by Ken K9KMS

I'm dreaming of a DX station

Just like the one at HRO
Where the waterfall glistens
As my station listens
To hear grid squares from afar, afar

I'm dreaming of a DX station
With every contact card I write
May my mic be ready and tight
And my amplifier not throw smoke tonight

I'm dreaming of a DX station
Just like the one at HRO
Where the waterfall glistens
As my station listens
To hear grid squares from afar, afar

I'm dreaming of a DX station
With every contact card I write
May my mic be ready and tight
And my amplifier not throw smoke tonight

Last Salute to the Samlex SEC 1223

Back in 2008, shortly before I got my Technician license, I bought some of the basic ham equipment in anticipation of getting on the air. One of the first things I got was a Samlex SEC 1223, a 23 amp power supply. Not too big, and not too small, with enough juice to power my Yaesu FT-857D without complaint. 

Twelve years later, the Samlex continues to work well, in conjunction with a RIGrunner 4004U attached to the topside. In fact, this is what keeps the lights on for the homebrew 20 watt repeater and the 25 watt APRS digipeater iGate. For the sake of modernizing and staying better informed, a digital volt and amp meter is ready for installation into the center of the face. Or should I say, "was ready".

So the other day, right after I got the duplexer installed on the homebrew repeater, I turned everything on in preparation for testing. My buddy Stu KD9MNK, was standing by at his place ready to help with the testing and signal reports. We talked back and forth for maybe a minute and suddenly, POP! And just as suddenly, the repeater and APRS went dark as the smell of ozone crept into the air. A quick text to Stu, "I think I blew a fuse!" just to let him know I'm still alive.

With fast thinking, some fine-motor dexterity, and a couple of powerpole positions switched to another RIGrunner, I was back on the air, this time on the Yaesu FP-1030 linear power supply. "Cool!", I told Stu, "That was really loud for an internal fuse!" as we continued on with testing, thinking nothing more of it, except for the ozone in my nose.

A blackened PCB at the fuse clip

Later in the day, I removed the Samlex cover with the RIGrunner attached to it and noticed the 6.3 amp glass tube fuse next to the input power had popped, I mean really popped. A virtual trip to Amazon Prime and two days later, I had a small pack of fuses in my fist. Minutes later, the Samlex was ready to rock, so with the cover back on, I plugged in the power and flipped the switch. 

Reminiscent of a California brown-out, the lights in the living room dimmed for a second. Then the switch light on the Samlex turned off without a sound and the living room lights returned. "Hmm", I thought, "That's weird." I pulled the power cord and re-removed the cover. Being a little annoyed over the whole thing, I just kind of tossed the cover upside down on my desk, having no regard for the RIGrunner on top. As I was about to go after the second burned fuse, for some reason I glanced over at the inside of the cover. "What is that?", I thought, as I noticed a small amount of white residue that, based on the printed pattern, was applied at pretty high-velocity. That's odd, a mark I never noticed before. 

Looking at the location and pattern, I quickly examined the matching area components on the PCB, and there it was, the problem. And what a problem it was! Three capacitors in a row, all with their tops popped open and looking rather burnt, way across the PCB from the blown fuse. Wow! I guess that explains the loud POP! No wonder the fuses blew. While wondering what other parts have been compromised, I thought, "This is a good time for an upgrade". 

After a semi-virtual, COVID-modified, trip to HRO, a new Diamond GZV4000, 40 amp, 100% continuous duty cycle power supply is powering the repeater and the APRS digipeater without even thinking of breathing hard. And the RIGrunner 4004U has no complaints either.

If we could have a moment of silence, please, as I offer one last salute to the Samlex SEC 1223 before it goes to the great recycle bin in the sky... or the recycle bin at the township. Thank you.

Ah, no.  That part is not OK, and neither are the other two.

HughesNet Satellite Internet Tests

I've never been a big fan of satellite ISPs, and the latency tests (last pics) show one of the reasons why. And the rest of this rant are some of the other reasons. 

According to their website FAQ's page, the HughesNet geostationary satellite is 22,000 miles away. The stated max speed is 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. Right.

So, if it takes 10 seconds to get 25 Mb of data (2.5 Mbps), but then 60 minutes to get a second 25 Mb of data (69.4 Kbps), the average speed should not be 1.375 Mbps (data/time)+(data/time) / 2 data sets. The average speed should be 0.135 Mbps, or 135 Kbps (total data / total time fetching that data).

Remember this one from a couple weeks ago? Here's a screen shot while updating a Raspberry Pi. Note the speed. This was a 55 minute download of 84.8 MB, with about 40 minutes of this. Notice it's on the 4th attempt to get the data? Yes, 4th attempt.

Below is a HughesNet speed test. The actual time to complete the 2 MB download was 24 seconds, from the time the progress bar started, to finished. HughesNet states the speed is 1.41 Mbps. Hmm. My math says 2 Mb / 24s = 0.083 Mbps, or 83 Kbps. What kind of math do they use? Do they subtract all latency time, buffering time, break time, lunch time, etc?

Funny. Even so, by their standards, the speed on this run is way into the "crappy speed" zone, even for their crappy 12 Mbps, top-o-the-dial bliss zone. Oh, notice the Ping Time. It didn't even register. Welcome to every evening at my house on satellite.

These are some screen shots of the last 30 days using the Google Wifi app. Here again, calculations must be made only when the status is "active", as opposed to "waiting" or "buffering", or having a file restart 8 times because it thought the connection was completely lost (this happens frequently). These numbers? These are way off from reality. Again, even so, this is pathetic.

  

More good news. We live 2.0 miles east of a brand new fiber optic cable, and 1/2 mile north of a high-speed cable, but the ISP won't bring service this way because they don't want to, unless all the neighbors pay $3,500 each to get it installed (even though they equip subdivisions for free, knowing they will soon have customers).

AT&T has really old telephone lines in our area, and not enough nodes for us all to get a telephone line. They also offer DSL service, but unless one of the neighbors gives up their connection, no hard-line phone or DSL is possible. Who even thinks about being happy with DSL any more? Right?

Okay, back to latency. Is almost 4,000 milliseconds too slow? Who'd of thought? It's slow enough. That, combined with the constant buffering means, "no VPN for you". No VPN, no WIRES-X, nothing that needs any sort of constant, or low latency connection. Nope.

Even something as simple as Netflix must be set to the lowest quality video available, and still there's plenty of time to make the popcorn, while you "watch" the movie. Oh, and if it's Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night... Honey, where did you put the deck of cards? Wanna play 500 Rummy? We got time.

ELON MUSK!!!! Where are you?!?! I hope you're reading this! Where's my STARLINK?!?!

Okay, I'm done. Thanks for listening to my stupid rant. So, let's get on the radio! No LATENCY there!

Ha! ...just havin' fun!

https://testmy.net/latency

DMR Round 2

 I listened all day to TAC310 and all I heard were mic clicks and almost no talking. Two new-to-DMR hams started talking, but their radios were so over-driven and had so much packet loss, they were hardly intelligible. Lower the mic gain, fellas. The couple of others I heard were "Testing 1, 2, 3...". I really am trying to give DMR a fair shake, but I need some air-time experience before I can develop any sort of opinion about the mode itself, not just the programming. That's just not happening. 

"Stop listening and start talking!", you say? Yeah, no DMR repeaters near here, so it's all by hotspot. I tried talking the other day, but HughesNet satellite internet has so much latency (seconds, not milliseconds) and speed fluctuation (from 3Mb/s to 4,000 bits/s - really, no joke), that I can't do anything requiring a live, continuous connection, like a VPN or, say... radio transmissions on WIRES-X or hotspots. I'm serious! The other day it took 55 minutes to download a 73 MB file, and that's not uncommon! What's up with that? Sure makes me very thankful for real RF! Star Link! Where are you?!

Round 2.5: This evening, Lon and Tom, both 2-land stations, were on TAC310 just t-t-t-t-t-t-talking away! Boy, it was g-g-g-grea-t-t-t-t-t-t-t to hear hams on DMR like I hear on America-a-a-aLink. Finally, there is hope. Maybe I can see some li-i-i-i-i-i-i-ght in this dark tunnel...   ...rescued me from the thought of b-b-b-b-b-b-eing single-mode'd-d-d-d-d-d-d. Diversity, I say. Div-v-v-v-v-versity of digital modes l-l-l-l-l-leads to new front-t-t-t-tiers in the world of amateur radio. And that, m-m-m-m-m-my friends is....

...just havin' fun!

DMR Trials and Tribulations

First off I have to say, if I had started in amateur radio with DMR, I might be typing a blog right now for some other interesting hobby. From that, you can probably guess the last several days have been, oh, less than fun, more than troublesome, and filled with frustration over DMR.

It all started when I was downstairs looking through some boxes for coax ends. Buried in the bottom of a box, I found my virgin, never-QSO'ed, plastic bagged and ready to sell, new Tytera MD-390 DMR handheld radio. The castaway. And yet again, a reminder that gut feelings can be very meaningful and should not be ignored.

Forgetting the past, and ever-hopeful for a better today, I pulled the radio and it's paraphernalia from the box and brought it all upstairs to my desk. In hindsight, this was the first of several follies that day.

Carelessly ignoring the admonishments offered by my better conscience, I opened the plastic bags. Immediately, it seemed the radio was cooler looking, brighter, more awesome than the last time I remembered. It felt so good in my hands. Was I mistaken before? I thought I came to hate this radio. But now it seems so good, so right, so tech-savvy cool. 

Yes, with all the enthusiasm that purportedly follows the DMR mode, I recklessly dove headlong into re-researching codeplugs and DMR repeaters in Wisconsin. 

Self-Talk

Day 1

Maybe I just didn't give DMR a fair shake the first time.

Oops, I forgot I deleted the Tytera CPS software from my Windows 10 laptop because it caused problems and crashes. Ah, but I'm sure there's been updates... 

Google search.  Hey, there's a firmware update for my radio. I should probably do the update so I have the very latest technology for this awesome radio. 

Download firmware update. Downloading... still downloading... the CPS software. 

Man, HughesNet is slow! Fifty five minutes to download a 73 megabyte file! ... Finally! 

Install. Okay. Hmm. 

Reinstall. Click, click, press and hold, power on. Update. Finished, I think (in Chinese). Cool(?). 

Power on. What?! White screen?! $#@%!

Google search: white screen md-390. No. No. Ah, okay. 

YouTube. Ten minutes later, the radio is in pieces.  Hmm. On the inside, this radio doesn't look exactly like the one in the video. Ah, bad advice. 

Re-assemble. 

Google search.  No... No... No... Yes. Download and revert to the old firmware.  Success, if you can call it that.

Three hours later. I'm right back where I started, but now I'm hangry. Time for a late lunch. 

What a crappy day so far. You know, I think I've had enough DMR for today. I'm sure when I pick it up again tomorrow, everything will work out just fine. I mean, people on the internet are so excited about DMR, like it's the biggest thing in amateur radio since, since Al Gore invented the internet. Right?

There it is, sitting on my desk, staring at me, begging me to build codeplugs and get on the air! 

Alright already! There's still time left in the day. 

Google search: wisconsin dmr codeplugs.  No, wait. I can only use the TG's that are on the repeaters. 

Google search: wisconsin dmr repeaters.  Hmm. Okay, that's not very many repeaters, and why are most of them around southern interstate roads? And why aren't the TG's listed? Oh well. I'll just pick one...

Google search: chicagoland dmr.  Okay. Here's a big list of the TG's and repeaters under ChicagoLand CC. 

What, no downloads for the popular MD-380/390? 

Oh well. I'll just build my own codeplugs from this giant spreadsheet they provide. 

What, only in PDF format? Where's the CSV file? 

Okay, I'm just going to make codeplugs for the closest four repeaters. 

Okay, I'm just going to make codeplugs for the best sixteen TG's for the four closest repeaters. 

Okay, I'm going to pick this up in the morning.

Day 2

Ah, fresh coffee in the morning, and there's that awesome DMR radio just waiting to get on the air! 

Man, what's up with the CPS programming software? I can't read Chinese. Oh, that's better. Now go to import... 

Where's the "import" button? No import button. You've got to be kidding me. 

Wait, there's import... Import .txt file? But what text format? 

Export useless file I saved from last year to see it in the .txt format. You have to be kidding me! 

Two hours later. There, I finally have a Contacts list to import. What crappy software. 

How do you sort it alphabetically? Great, no way to sort Contacts, or anything! 

Finishing up the codeplugs. Oh wait, that's just one repeater... Ugh!

There must be a better way to do this! The internet said everyone and his brother has the TYT MD-380. The MD-390 is just an upgraded MD-380, so that's good, right? 

Google search: rt systems md-380/390.  What, no software?! 

Google search: chirp md-380/390.  Oh, of course, nothing. I guess I'm stuck with this Tytera CPS software that crashes more often than the test dummies at NHTSA!

End of day two, and I think I'm done. 

I now have four (4) ChicagoLand repeaters, each programmed alike with the same sixteen (16) TG's. Let's see, that would be sixty four (64) codeplugs to get sixteen (16) TG's on four (4) of the many (lots of them) ChicagoLand repeaters. 

Somehow I feel sort of disappointed after considering the cost/benefit analyses here. 

Finally, it's time to make this awesome radio fly the airwaves! 

Click, click, twist. Power on.  I'm on the big X300 antenna on my 55 foot tower with 5 power-packed watts of pure DMR! 

Click the PTT and... ... ... burp!  What, no Milwaukee tower connection? I'll try Allenton. 

Click... ... ... burp!  This is a bummer, for sure.

Okay, how about simplex? Yeah, that will work! Oh wait, do I need codeplugs for simplex?

Day 3

I'm heading to HRO with Stu for stuff. 

Hey, I'll bring the DMR and see if I can connect to Milwaukee when I'm down there. Cool! 

Power on, beep, on Milwaukee 'Wisconsin TG". Push PTT... dit, dit, dit. Hey, I'm on! Way cool! 

Listening... nothing. "This is K9KMS, first time on DMR, on the Wisconsin TG, Milwaukee repeater."

Nothing. Hmm. "This is K9KMS, first time on DMR, on the Wisconsin TG, Milwaukee repeater." 

Nothing. Now it somehow doesn't feel right to say, "first time on DMR" again. 

Still nothing heard. I know, I'll try TAC310... 

Still nothing heard. Okay, I'll go back to the Wisconsin TG.

Hey Stu, maybe I don't have this programmed right. It seems right. I mean, it beeps like the tower recognizes me, right? A fast dit, dit, dit? I'm on, right?  

What's that, Stu?... DMR means Digital Mobile Radio. It's like... Oh, never mind. 

Lets try Wisconsin TG again. "This is K9KMS, first time on DMR (not really any more), on the Wisconsin TG, Milwaukee repeater." 

Waiting, waiting... then, "Blah, blah, blah". Cool!

"Station ending in blah, blah, blah, this is K9KMS, my first time on DMR and I'm checking to see if I programmed my radio correctly. How is my audio?"

Answer: "Well I'm talking to you, aren't I". Okay, I can see this is going to go really well. 

Blah, blah, blah... blah, blah... (for five minutes...). Does this repeater not time-out or something? 

"Okay, well I'm destinated, so I have to go. Thanks for the QSO. K9KMS, 73". "Blah, blah, blah, bye." 

Well, that was interesting, eh? Somewhat disappointing, but interesting, eh Stu? 

What's that, Stu? ... It's like C4FM but different, you know, with time slots, two of them, and these color codes, and talk groups, which are sort of like rooms, and you have to build lots of these things called codeplugs, one for each... Oh, never mind. 

Where do you want to go for lunch? ... How about the Jewish deli? Sounds good. 

Powering down...