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I was part of the live chat room audience on Ham Radio 2.0 recently and the question “Isn't the term Elmer outdated?” came up. Well as with any group we amateur radio operators have our own subset of words , jargon if you like.

We would like to welcome Ron VK2DQ as a contributing author here at Black Sparrow Media.

Ron is a well known technical writer and founder / manager of the Radio & Electronics School an online educational  website. His passion is to see more people introduced to the hobby at a young age as he says "Its a benefit to them even if they don't continue to pursue the pastime" Ron says, "I really enjoy working with people in the course, I enjoy their excitement as they learn". Ron adds "there are exciting prospects for young persons

entering amateur radio to use the hobby as a launch pad to a career in the Electronics Industry". Outside of Amateur Radio he's a real science fiction fan, movies and books. His favorite author is the late Isaac Asimov - particularly in science fact books. When he has time he writes computer software and teaches Radio, Electronics, Math and Physics.

We are very pleased to have Ron on board. You can find the OCF Dipole article Here and don't forget to visit Radio & Electronics School at www.radioelectronicschool.net

I was listening to a conversation on the local 2 meter repeater the other day. I heard an old timer telling another HAM that he needed a beam antenna and an amplifier if he really wanted to chase DX. The flow of the conversation lead me to believe that the old timer was letting the other HAM know that if he didn't have a beam and an amplifier he might as well not even try.

Now I have been licensed for about 20 years and have never owned an HF amplifier. I have had a couple of commercially manufactured antennas for HF but they were verticals and they were crap. I run wire antennas here at the shack now and have had great success with them.

Don't get me wrong. I am not an avid Dxer. But over the years I have accumulated a pretty impressive collection of QSL cards. I feel that Dxing is kind of like deer hunting. You have the guys that go and get the most powerful rifle they can find and the best scope they can find so they can sit in a tree ¼ of a mile away and murder Bambi. On the other hand you have the guys that go into the woods with a knife and a bow. I feel the bow hunter must have more skill.

It is the same way with DX. The operator that is working with 100 watts and a wire has to be far more skilled than the guy with the Yagi antenna that is running legal limit. Knowing to make the call to bus the pile up. Knowing when to dial the vfo a couple of kilohertz off to one side and all the other techniques that will allow a 100 watt station to jump in, make the contact, and get out while the big guns are sitting there scratching their heads.

The only time I can remember ever thinking that I needed and amplifier was during hurricane Katrina. That was only because conditions were so bad.

Today some folks are starting to call Dxing and contesting “Radio Sport”. OK, The way most folks go about it is more like fishing with dynamite. I don't call that a sport.

Of course this is just my opinion.

Richard KB5JBV

I was watching the tweets go by on Twitter the other day and somebody ask the question “ What good is a packet BBS anyway”. That makes me a little sad. When I was freshly licensed Packet was the king of digital modes on VHF and above. It was also one of the top three on HF. To understand Packet and where it fits in today we need to look back.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's the world wide Packet radio BBS network provided message transfers and file transfers around the globe much like the Internet does today. Using PBBS's on VHF you could post a message locally and if you knew the address of the person on the other end (ex. kb5jbv@N5LDD.NTX.TX.NOAM) that message could be sent across the county or around the world. This was accomplished by using a text editor on the local PBBS to write the message. Then the message was forwarded over the air to an HF Gateway station. Then sent over the air to the nearest gateway to the destination. Then forwarded by VHF or UHF to the PBBS it was addressed to for pickup up by the person it was intended for.

Now you are probably saying this sounds familiar. Well the old land line BBS's used a similar setup for forwarding messages and files. Today the Internet serves this purpose for most folks.

Since the hay day of the Packet radio the Internet has come along. New digital modes have been developed that work much better on HF. There are many reasons that Packet is no longer king but the Packet BBS is still a tool that we can and should utilize if we can.

PBBS's have the advantage of being a place to store information and move written messages without the need of commercial service. You don't need the Internet or a phone line. PBBS's can be setup to forward messages from one location to another automatically. They also use the full AX.25 protocol which is an error correcting mode unlike APRS that only uses half of the AX.25 protocol. This make Packet BBS's well suited at the very least for local Emcomm use. Winlink is great if you an plug it into the Internet. Cell phones are great if the tower has power or the system isn't overloaded.

I think we need to consider the humble Packet radio BBS. We need to reconsider Packet in general. Being around for a long time doesn't make it less valuable. I think it makes a case for how good it is.

Of course thats just me.