Episode 184 - Tomas Hood - NW7US - Transcript
Welcome to the QSO Today podcast, I'm Eric 4Z1UG, your host. Tomas Hood NW7US is the propagation editor for a number of shortwave and amateur radio magazines, and has a wide variety of websites that grew out of his love for listening on the bands too far off DX and commercial broadcast stations. Tomas shares his understanding of propagation and the lessons we can learn from listening, really listening, to the QSOs and exchanges during contest operation.
NW7US, this is Eric 4Z1UG. Are you there, Tomas?
Tomas NW7US:
Yes I am. This is NW7US, Tomas in Nebraska.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Tomas, thanks for joining me on the QSO Today podcast. Can we start at the beginning of your hand radio story? When and how did it start for you?
NW7US, this is Eric 4Z1UG. Are you there, Tomas?
Tomas NW7US:
Yes I am. This is NW7US, Tomas in Nebraska.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Tomas, thanks for joining me on the QSO Today podcast. Can we start at the beginning of your hand radio story? When and how did it start for you?
Tomas NW7US:
I was a young boy living in Montana, and my parents gave us more or less free rein when we're not in school. Being a very curious boy, I would go through the house looking for things of interesting playability, things that I could invent imaginative scenarios. I would rummage through my dad's belongings and discover cameras and a radio. I secreted the radio away down a few houses from where we lived, went underneath the porch, and began trying to figure out what this radio did. I figured out how to turn it on, and I began turning knobs, extending the antenna. I heard all sorts of exotic noises coming out of this thing.
Then I discovered AM broadcasting, FM radio stations, those are interesting, but man, the exotic sounds that came out of this one segment of the radio, when I switched the knob to something called SW, I was fascinated. There were weird sounds coming out of this thing.
Then I came across this monotone clicking, and all the sudden, I heard, "This is WWV Fort Collins, Colorado," and gave the time. Why would anybody tell me the time on a radio and click out the seconds? It was obvious that these clicks were seconds being ticked away. I would just sit there and listen and listen, listen. Going off into dreamland a little bit.
Then somebody came on and said, how many sunspots there were. We had a geomagnetic storm, which I had no clue what any of that meant. Sunspots? What were sunspots? That was the spark for lifelong curiosity about our sun and about whatever it was that these people were talking about on this little radio underneath the porch in Montana.
As I continued to experiment day after day during the summer, I heard ... This is radio South Africa, this is the BBC, this is the voice of America, Radio Australia, Deutsche Welle. I was like, wow, people talking from all over the world. How could that work?
Eric 4Z1UG:
Did you have to come out from under the porch at some point and confront your father that you'd found a radio?
Tomas NW7US:
No. I never told him for quite a while. Matter of fact, it wasn't until a couple years ago when I posted a picture on Facebook, because I found a radio at ... Over the years, the one that I had as a child disappeared somewhere, who knows where. When I was at this HAM fest, I came across this same exact radio. It's basically a Sony 4 band portable radio. Horrible receiver, but at the time, I didn't have any clue as to what was good or bad. It was just what it was.
I posted that on Facebook and my dad, who's also on Facebook, saw that and he goes, hey, that's the radio I bought when I was in Germany, that was all the time in my car, because it was able to be mounted in a vehicle. I said, yeah, that was the first radio that I ever used, and it got me started with what I'm doing outside of the computer side of things, it's what I do with my life.
He goes, "Yeah, I always wondered what happened to that, it disappeared." It's because I stole it. It was after so many years, that was in the 1970s, early '70s, that I secreted that radio away. Speaking of that, like I told you, I was always curious. It would take a lot of my dad's belongings, even alarm clocks, and I would disassemble them and then try to put them back together again, because I wanted to figure out how they worked, and then I put them back together.
Usually, I could put the thing back together, it'll all be fine and worked. Alarm clocks, once in a while I had extra little things lying around, and then they didn't have an alarm clock that worked. Would go out and get another one, I would take that apart. I got in trouble a lot, because of that. In Missoula, we lived on a military base, it's called Fort Missoula. '70s, there was a Navy reserve unit that had this long building, the interior was redesigned as a ship, a model ship, or a simulated ship. They had an engine room and all sorts of different parts of a ship. Of course, that was fascinating to me as a young boy, so I would go in there and I would watch them do their drills, and I would just observe mostly.
When they weren't there drilling, I ... did the building and I was looking at things like the telephone wires that came in, and I would disassemble that. Of course, their phones never worked, and they were trying to figure out why. It's because I was playing around with the stuff. I got, like I said, in huge trouble. My mind was so active and so curious about the scientific side of things, wires and electricity. Yes, I was the boy that stuck things into an outlet and went boom with the electrical arc between two things. Got myself shocked.
Disassembling anything electronic and trying to put it back together. My dad caught in, and to bring home this RadioShack 150 in one project springs, and you wire things together and they had the resistors and transistors, a meter and a speaker. Morse code key that was just basically bent metal with little plastic knob on it. He brought books home and fed my curiosity. That was the start in radio.
Eric 4Z1UG:
How did you find your way into amateur radio?
Tomas NW7US:
I continued to beg information and my dad, I'm not exactly sure how he went about this, but he came across somebody. Now, I do remember, we were at church and I had a book on tubes, listening to the sermon. I wasn't paying attention to the ethereal, I was in this book, reading about tubes and how they worked. I had a little sketchpad, and I was drawing a tube diagram, and I was just trying to copy and absorb all this information. I guess there was somebody behind us in the pew behind me, who was an amateur radio operator, but he didn't come directly to me.
He took my dad aside privately, "Your son ... knack for electronics. I'm an amateur radio operator, and I'd like to give you information, some books and materials that you can give him to continue his ..." That was my first introduction to amateur radio, indirectly through this connection. I'm not sure why the guy didn't talk directly to me, maybe my dad say no or something, I don't have a clue.
That was my first exposure. Then, there was no amateur radio exposure for a very long time, from the kid perspective. I think it was about four five years later, we had moved from Montana down to Salt Lake City, my dad was stationed by the US Army to an installation in Salt Lake City. It was in Salt Lake City that I came across a neighbor, because there was this huge tower, a big antenna, and I went, radio. I know what that is. I went over there and I boldly knocked on the door, I said, you have a big antenna, do you do radio?
That was where I first began to get Elmered directly on a radio, I actually got to send some Morse code. He gave me Amoco records where I would go and listen to two words a minute, five words a minute. I slowly began to learn Morse code the wrong way, I think now. There it was, to be by my Elmer, my first Elmer. This, I think was about '76 or '77.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Do you remember what his name was, or what his call sign?
Tomas NW7US:
Tom Billis, maybe. Think about, but I have no clue what his call was. He's a silent key. I think it was in the '90s that I discovered that he had passed away.
Eric 4Z1UG:
What year did you get your first license and how old were you?
Tomas NW7US:
There's the journey. See, I got Elmered and I learned Morse code, but because I was a military brat, we started doing a lot more moving around. In Montana, I stayed there a good stint because my dad was able to convince the Army to let him stay there as long as possible, because he just absolutely loved Montana. Then the military started moving us around.
After Salt Lake City, we moved back to Montana for a very short period. Then we moved up to Alaska. This first Elmer of mine though did give me my second shortwave receiver. It was made by Collins, and it's an interesting radio. I'm trying to remember the nomenclature specifically, I'll have to go look at where I can find that. It was the most amazing radio. It dwarfed anything that portable radio could hear.
When we moved from Salt Lake, where I received my first Elmer, a short stint in Montana, then we went up to Alaska. In Alaska, I erected a wire antenna around my bedroom, along the walls, with the darkness of winter, almost all of the day. Amounts of time, just absorbing shortwave, from one end to the other. Even AM DXing. I heard stations from ... during the nighttime. With that makeshift antenna.
From Salt Lake up to Montana to Alaska, and then Alaska back to Montana. School, just graduating, this is a real quick story. I went into, own business, I started, I was an entrepreneur, I went into satellite TV, sold satellite TVs, and I also did computer stuff. This is along the way, my dad became a computer salesman, brought home computers, and I started learning computers. That was a natural thing for me to do, is become this businessperson, started a business, had clients did programming and installed satellite TV.
I got a partner, the partner embezzled, all of the sudden, I got sued. My lawyer said, because I'm like, [inaudible 00:11:31]. My lawyer said, you know the best thing for you right now? Let me handle exonerating you in court, but you should probably join the Army, just get the heck out of Montana. At that point, we had come back to Montana. I said, join the Army? Dad, with his life, I don't know if I want to do that.
I talked with my dad and he convinced me yeah, it's a good idea, you should do it. You can get college fund and all that. I joined the Army, and I went into the signal corps. I was a signal man, and I did shortwave stuff and I did satellite stuff in the Army. That childhood experience, radio and learning about propagation, because I got books on propagation in the ionosphere, all of that lent itself to being a signalman in the Army. Amazing things while I was in the Army, because of my knowledge of amateur radio.
When I got out of the Army in Connecticut, and I worked at the Travelers as a programmer, and my supervisor was a HAM radio operator. To relearn the code, he helped me. He was my second HAM radio Elmer. Took me along, and he and some other HAM radio operator eventually gave me a novice test in the cafeteria, Morse code, and I had to receive Morse code to their satisfaction. Then I had ... And I got my novice license. That was 1990.
Eric 4Z1UG:
What was your call sign?
Tomas NW7US:
KA1VGL. KA1, very good lasagna. There's people that say hey, very good lasagna.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You upgraded shortly after?
Tomas NW7US:
Not too long after that. I stayed at the Travelers for about a year. This is a negative, but I got custody of the kids. Had no interest in at that time being a mother. I ended up with kids, and I was working at the Travelers, they allowed me to telecommute for a bit. It was just too difficult with basically an infant and a toddler, to work all day and have two kids, being somewhat a new dad.
My dad back in Montana, who had retired in Montana, and my mom there said, why don't you come back to Montana and we'll help you raise the kids? I thought that was a pretty good prospect. I gave my notice at the Travelers, gear and other belongings, and drove to Montana.
When I got to Montana, this was a prime time for me to get a new call sign. Since it was regulation that when you move into a new region, you had to refile anyway. The FCC assigned me N7PMS. Horrible call sign for a guy, especially once I got to 80 meters. Check in to these nightly round tables, and I would give my call, N7PMS, and man, it would be five to 10 minutes of ribbing. I chose different for that extend PMS, what people think of PMS. Montana Skunk.
That's what I pushed any time people were ribbing me, PMS.
Eric 4Z1UG:
It does bring a smile to one's face when you first hear it.
Tomas NW7US:
Sure. It irritated me at the time.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You're new in Montana. Did you get a rig at that point?
Tomas NW7US:
I was still using the 520S, Kenwood 520S was my first rig. By the way, that was given to me by my second Elmer at the Travelers. He wanted to inspire me and get air, so he said hey, I've got this old Kenwood TS-520S, I'm going to give that to you as your first rig, and as my gift that you passed your novice test, and get on the air and operate. We built my first antenna, which was a random length of wire and a ground, and it was a Dentron tuner, which was about the size of two shoe boxes. Amazing Dentron manual tuner. Tuned that random length of wire beautifully.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Didn't that have a roller inductor inside?
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah ... piece of machinery.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You don't see those, I don't think you see those very much anymore. A lot of tuners have fixed points on the coils.
Tomas NW7US:
They don't make things the way they used to. There was some really great construction in some of those older companies, like Dentron.
Yeah. Anyway. Long story short, after Montana, I moved to Washington to find better opportunity for work. That did help, as a single dad. I was a single dad for 11 years. I was raising those boys by myself. HAM radio still played a huge role for me. I, through the years, upgraded until I got to amateur extra. I had 520S, I went to a Kenwood 830 I think it was, an 830, which was a really nice band, which had the WARC ... I mean a radio, it had the WARC bands, the WARC, I think, WARC bands. Which, like, 30 meters.
I got more spectrum, and enjoyed, I began learning about 30 meters and what it was capable of. I did a lot of HAM radio stuff in Washington. I was-
Eric 4Z1UG:
Washington DC or Washington state?
Tomas NW7US:
Washington state. The evergreen state. That's where, when I upgraded to amateur extra, I applied for a vanity call for the NW7US, to get away from that PMS call. I chose NW7US because I am a huge fan of the pacific northwest in Montana. Montana's not considered the pacific northwest, but it's adjacent to it. In my mind, anything northwest United States is just beautiful. I wanted to promote that love by getting a call sign, NW7US.
There were no NW7 prefixes taken by anybody. Even though I could've gone with a 1x2 call sign, I chose the 2x2 call sign, because I wanted to promote the northwest seven United States. I had a really excellent friend, Mitch, NA7US is a call sign that he applied for after he saw my call sign. He goes, hey, I like that idea. He got North America 7 US.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Do you think that HAMs still enjoy shortwave listening? Can they do it, and do you think that it would make us better operators if we listened more?
Tomas NW7US:
Oh. That's key. Great that you brought that up. I think there are a lot of people that don't listen well. I believe in my case, that the extensive hours that I listened to shortwave, and I listened to air traffic, I listened to mariners, I listened to military operators, and of course I listened to a lot of HAM radio, both Morse code and voice. I gained a sense of more than just an etiquette, but a skill in communicating well, the message that you're trying to convey.
Eric 4Z1UG:
When we're thinking here, it seems to me, what I've heard from a number of operators, they say that you spend enough time listening to a pileup, for example, in a contest, you start to figure out what the receiving station was doing, or the guy that's actually running the pileup, you get a sense of where he's going to show up or where he's listening.
Tomas NW7US:
Absolutely. That's a lost skill.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Right. I guess in that sense, that was the point of my question was, is that if we're listening more, then we figure out what people are doing.
Tomas NW7US:
Oh, I love the hunt. I love the DXing hunt in pileups. I was a new HAM, still living in Connecticut, and code, it's a little bit different than voice but the same criteria of the hunt exists. You've got to listen carefully to find his modus operandi. What is that operator doing? How does he work that split? Does he go up, does he go down, does he stay on a single frequency for a bit? What's his rhythm? And, what's the rhythm of the pileup. I think a pileup begins to have its own rhythm. If you can figure that out by listening for a while, and that's the trick too, because it may not be a long opening. You got to get in there before the opening closes, if conditions are marginal.
If you've got a good knack for listening to the rhythm of things, you'll find that opening and man, I loved ... 100 watts and a random piece of wire, I broke so many pileups in DX, right out of the ... I think it's that ability to break pileups. The first or second call, I would be able to work the DX in really heavy pileups, with 100 watts and a simple piece of wire.
Again, I think the longtime of listening to shortwave, the years before that, I just had the knack to hear that rhythm and find out where that opening was, where I could insert myself between the two beeps ... Calling, and the guy moving just a little bit in frequency.
Yes, the answer is absolutely. Learning how to listen, to grasp the rhythm of the pileup or whatever your environment's giving you, amounts to success, in my opinion. It's not the huge antenna and the kilowatts and calling over and over and over and over and over and hoping that eventually, something sticks to the wall. That's brute force, but I think the art and skill of DXing ...
Eric 4Z1UG:
As a long time shortwave listener, do you think that the internet has replaced shortwave transmissions? Is the shortwave band dead now, or is it the same as it always was? What do you listen for now?
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah, that's a really great question. They're still in a phase, governments feel that financially, it's more effective, better use of their funds, to now have streaming services that a voice in the world to express their culture, to express their outlook and their foreign policy. Many radio stations have closed their radio outlets and moved that operation to streaming.
A few of them discovered that it's not as effective as they thought, back to shortwave, but on a limited basis. A lot of stations that I grew up listening with are no longer on the air. That gave me a disillusionment, and I thought, that's the demise of radio. Very intuitive politicians that see that radio can still reach an audience that are not yet connected to the internet. Especially in developing countries, or into areas of economic downturn.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Or countries where the internet is being blocked, for example.
Tomas NW7US:
Exactly. Therein lies the joy that DX hunt now, for shortwave listener, there are stations that are not official, and yet provide a voice for people who are bypassing their government to get their voice heard. There are stations like that that can be hunted. Not all of them in English, unfortunately. Some of them are able to get somebody who knows how to speak English. You'll get a broken English transmission, whatever. A lot of stuff coming out of Asia, and a lot out of the Middle East.
That's still an area of shortwave listening that I think is still alive. It's harder, because you don't have these huge ... level broadcasters. You'll have very weak stations, because they don't have megawatts, antenna arrays. They've got kilowatts or maybe just 500 watts and a marginal antenna. It's a bigger challenge.
But I think the joy is there, the reward is there, when you catch something extremely rare. The internet does provide some tools that aid that hunt, however. One, of course, is being several outlets of schedules that radio broadcasters and listeners have put together databases of stations and frequencies and times, that you can pursue to help figure out what you're hearing, or target a time where you might want to catch a particular station. There's also things like what I provide, and that's the propagation and the science of space weather, and how conditions are. That can be an aid to DXing as well.
Shortwave is still vibrant. Harder to get into, to find something of interest, you can't just tune across and hear an interesting type station anymore, or Radio Nederland, where you have the program, Smile Across the Miles. These DX mailbags and whatnot. There're still some stations from Cuba that do a DX mailbag, but it's not like the old wall to wall, on the 31 meter band. You'd have so many stations. Now, you have to hunt. The brick houses now are religious broadcasters, refined, interesting. They're always there, so it's not a challenge. If your station's Kyrgyzstan or something, a thrill to hunt that.
Of course, there's also the utility, military, aeronautical, Marine. There's a lot of other things on shortwave than just the broadcasters. While area that's still very vibrant, because people want to listen to military and to aircraft, because coast to coast, transoceanic flights still use shortwave, still use that infrastructure.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You just mentioned that you have an interest in propagation. I figure I'll give a chance for the listeners to hear some of your credits, that you're the propagation editor for CQ Communications magazine, the Spectrum Monitor, I think that's where I first read you. CQVHF Magazine and Popular Communications magazines.
You also wrote about propagation and other radio related topics in Monitoring Times, before its demise. You mentioned the interest in propagation started as a young child. How did that interest in propagation continue to develop, and how did you end up being the guy that writes about it?
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah. I'm also now Radio User UK magazine. I am now technically in the UK. Exciting. I'm into my ... February's my first month of publication in Radio User UK.
Back to that Sony portable radio and my first exposure to WWV and their solar bulletin, solar and terrestrial condition bulletin every hour. When I discovered the sun, and how it's a variable star, and that things are always changing, it captivated my imagination for my whole life. When I leaned about the ionosphere and the magic of a signal emanating from an antenna, and refracted or bounced off of the sky, for me as a kid, gave me a chance to travel the world without leaving home. That was all through that magic of the ionosphere.
It's captivated me for my entire life. As I said, I got every book that I could possibly find on the topic, and there weren't many, but I would try to absorb whatever it could. Amateurs, after the Connecticut ... I was a part of a HAM radio club there, out of ... It might've been out of Hartford, but I'm not sure now, I'll have to go back and dig that up. There were people there that could explain to me what was going on with the ionosphere and propagation, and how radio waves traveled.
I was so in love with that, that when I first got onto the internet and the world wide web, I tried to search through the limited search features that were on the internet at the time. I'm an early adopter, so I was on the internet as soon as it was a thing. There were no websites that talked about this stuff. It clicked in my mind that it's time for me to give back to the amateur radio community, and to the shortwave listening community, the wealth of information that I've gained over the years, and how can I give that back, but through a website of my own? Make a website, and I put the first amateur slant shortwave listening propagation website on the internet.
I'm the first. I can prove that, because some people have challenged me on that. I'm definitively the first amateur non-government outlet for space weather and radio propagation. That was HFradio.org. I've got a second domain, sunspotwatch.com, because that was a better, as a name, for that segment of my website at the time. It sorely needs overhaul at the moment, but I just don't have the time to do that. I'm probably going to hire somebody to help redesign the website.
Long story short, when I got a webpage and I began posting forecasts and data, I began to have a following. Unbeknownst to me, the original CQ amateur radio magazine's propagation contributing editor came across that website and began researching me a little bit. When he retired from being the editor of that column, said to Rich at CQ magazine, that I was one of the candidates that he would suggest replace him as writer of that column.
Out of the blue, I get this email from Rich Moseson, and he said, hey, do you have time for a phone call? I have a proposal for you. I thought, okay, sure. Give me a call. He introduced ... CQ magazine, I wasn't a subscriber at the time, of CQ. I only had the QST. He described the magazine, he described the column, he said that George Jacobs is retiring, and suggested me as his successor.
I was thrilled. I thought, wow, I've gone from giving back through a website, to the potential of actually writing about this, and educating amateur radio operators the stuff that I've learned throughout my life? What a great opportunity.
For the first three editions, I co-wrote with George. More and more took over the column. Rich was happy with my writing, George was happy, George retired. Did it for 50 years, if I'm not mistaken. He never missed an issue, not once. It's like, what, 2001 or something like that, and I have missed a couple of editions, emergencies, and I missed a couple of columns.
I just am still to this day thrilled that I have some opportunity to give back to the amateur radio and shortwave listening community, because they gave me in my opinion so much in the beginning. So much Elmering and insight to amateur radio. Had two different people give me rigs to inspire me to stay on the air or to get on the air and operate. That was both for the hobby and active love for the communication community, to give me radios like that? I was young, I didn't have the ability to afford those things. I just feel giving back to the ... This is my calling, to give back to the community.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You're paying it forward, in other words.
Tomas NW7US:
Paying it forward, yep.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Right. Now, you mentioned your two websites, HFradio.org and sunspotwatch.com. Are there other resources available on the internet to help a HAM better understand what's the happenings are in the universe, and how it affects band openings and closings?
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah. This, after about 2005 onward, I would say there was an explosion of different online resources, coming into the sphere of radio and propagation and space weather. You've got the governmental agencies, the ESA, the IPS out of Australia, of course the NASA and the space weather prediction center. These are greatly funded now, and information ... Government agencies have a repository of official data and sub science. Not radio Australia, but the IPS in Australia, they've got some educational material of course, read every page. There's the Wiki and there's been a lot of community efforts to enhance through the Wikipedia pages.
Of course, a lot of my competitors that are out there, doing their take on space weather, and the science of radio propagation. There's also YouTube that's out there competing for your time. Man, it's just, amount of available information. The thing that bothers me, and really gets under my skin, is that there's a lot of misinformation out there still, perpetuated from one source, sounds credible, and that's their source. They don't go and research to see if it's true. There's a lot of myths still being perpetuated in the amateur radio community or the community at large, just the public, about things space weather-related.
For instance, you'll hear on the nightly news or you'll hear some amateur on an 80 meter round table or 75 meter round table, gathering in the evening, you'll hear this phrase: oh, the sun has erupted with a solar flare that'll hit us in a couple of days. It probably will make HF unusable. Okay. Let's dissect that for a moment. A solar flare is an instantaneous explosion of ... energy stored in the magnet structures of the sun. When this burst of energy is released, instantaneous emission through the radio and light spectrum. It takes approximately eight minutes for light to go from the sun to the earth.
By the time we detect that a solar flare has occurred, we have already seen eight minutes go by in our time. We have some spacecraft that are in between the sun and the earth, so it may be that five minutes our or seven minutes out, that satellite already detected it, but eight minutes is a short period of time. Here's somebody in the evening on 80 meters say, a solar flare has occurred and it's going to hit us in three days. They're not factual in that estimation. It's already occurred. That light's already hit the earth. The effect of that solar flare has already impacted the ionosphere within that eight minute window.
What they're referring to is artifacts that are related to the solar flare, but not always to a solar flare. That's the emission of plasma and plasma clouds that take a lot longer to get to the earth. It could take up to three days for that plasma cloud to ride the solar wind and then interact with the magnetosphere and effect our local terrestrial environment. That may come up to three days later.
Kind of gray, when people talk about space weather. I have a mission in my columns, my website, my YouTube videos, to try to explain how the science really works. The reason that's important, for a DXer to get on the radio and just start hunting. That's fun. It's like taking your fishing pole, taking your tackle, taking different kinds of bait, going down to the local watering hole, casting a line and hoping that you get a bite, and spending a few hours there dangling your feet in the water. That's fun, it's relaxing. It's great.
But, if you have a limited window of time and you've got to feed your family and you want to go out and catch some fish, you might want to think about how can I best utilize my time, when the best time to go get that fish, where's that fish actually hanging out, what bait is really ... There's a bit of skill there and a bit of science. People plan for their fishing trip. Then they go out and if they're successful, they put food on the table. It's the same thing in radio.
Dishing, for instance. There's a lot of planning that goes in, as to when they will operate on what band, which antenna, what direction. There's all that science, how they'll be successful as a DXpedition, and maximize the opportunity for DXers around the world to make contact with that DXpedition. If they understand space weather, and understand what forecasting is telling them will happen, what time of year and the statistical variances of the ionosphere, they'll be better and equipped with navigating target areas and operations.
That's where I come in. That's why I'm still passionate about this. I'm trying to help people understand these things.
Eric 4Z1UG:
We're at the bottom of the solar cycle. The bands are supposed to be dead for the most part. Are they dead for the most part?
Tomas NW7US:
We discovered during the last solar minimum, which was an extended one, such an extended long low period, years, four, five years of marginal, if any, sunspot activity, we went months without one single sunspot. Everybody thought, going into that, that yeah, the bands are going to be dead. It's not going to be possible to really enjoy HF. Start learning how to use a repeater. Start learning the VHF side of things, because man, you'll never get anything on HF. That was proven wrong.
First, anything below 20 meters can have good propagation with or without sunspots, especially when you get down to about seven megahertz, or below. You'll always have propagation, even if there's no solar activity energizing the ionosphere. It's just the science of the chemistry and the atmosphere, and that there's going to be a strong enough ionosphere that up to seven megahertz is going to propagate, even if the ionosphere is just ... low energy mode or condition.
Eric 4Z1UG:
We're talking 40 meters, 60 meters, 80 meters, 160 meters.
Tomas NW7US:
Exactly. Yeah. Things that people consider as a nighttime band. Those will always work, because there's no sun involved in nighttime propagation, really. There's a little bit of residual effect, but there's no direct sunlight. Whatever we experience on those bands, that's going to be always there, no matter what part of the sunspot cycle we're in.
The ionosphere is this tricky thing. Even though we know sunspot activity correlates with ionospheric density and layer thickness, et cetera, there's also the terrestrial science of the ionosphere. We're talking about temperature inversions, we're talking about thunderstorms. Different phenomena that can stir up the ionosphere and change its dynamics. The ionosphere, for instance, is not just a flat mirror surface. It's more like a bunched up silk cloth. It's very textualized.
You'll have, even during sunspot minimum, we had 10 meter openings that weren't sporadic E, but were other types of modes that were enhanced by maybe aurora or other types of things. And, there's propagation possible. I've always told people, even though there's a science of propagation, it's still fun to go dangle your feet in the water, cast your line and see if you get something. Get on a band, even if you don't hear anything, and try a few calls. Stay there at least 10 minutes calling CQ, because somebody else may be tuning across going huh, I wonder if the band's open today. They'll be tuning across, and they'll hear you.
If everybody's listening, you'll never know there's an opening. You got to actually get a signal out there, cast a line, and discover that maybe there's an opening. WSPR mode, WSPR by Joe Taylor, is one of those modes where you can have transmissions going on a band, you fare it out how the propagation's turning out on a band during a given ...
There are other modes now that are very active. WSPR was a revolutionary thing. PSKNet was another effort, especially on 10 meters, for people to understand the openings that go on. PSKNet revealed a lot of what's capable on 10 meters during a solar minimum. They were instrumental in gathering data. The sporadic E that's prevalent in the summer in North America, is a fine example of how 10 meters can still be very active during a sunspot minimum, yet still give you lots of opportunity on 10 meters. 10 meters being at the very top of the radio spectrum, you have to have sunspot activity ... A lot of sunspot activity for that band to even be open or be operable.
It's not the case. Sporadic E, some aurora effects, trans equatorial propagation. Different modes are all possible on 10 meters in those higher bands. Yeah, radio is red hot, they said back in the '70s and the '80s.
Eric 4Z1UG:
I'm wondering whether or not the reason that people are having so much success with the digital modes, not only because the digital modes are clever and they can recover a signal way down in the noise, but they're beaconing. They're sending CQ when, before the additional modes, people would say oh, the band's dead, they were all listening but they weren't sending CQ.
Tomas NW7US:
Right. Exactly.
Eric 4Z1UG:
I'm just wondering whether or not actually, you said the people that are having great success with the digital modes are having that success because they're actually transmitting?
Tomas NW7US:
Yep. Same thing happens during a contest. People discover the bands are alive during contests, but they're not alive when there's no contest? How can that be? Is it because all these signals weren't in the ionosphere? No. It's because they're actually on the band operating and throwing out that signal that can be heard by somebody.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You have a link on your website to the current aurora oval. What is an aurora oval and how and where does it affect propagation?
Tomas NW7US:
The earth is an amazing planet, and we've discovered that over plants are very much like earth. In that, the earth, like a bar magnet, you've got a north pole and you got a south pole. If you remember from grade school or perhaps junior high in America here, the science teacher that would have the iron fillings on a piece of paper, and underneath the paper or a cardboard box, they would take a bar magnet and they would ... right underneath those metal filings, and low and behold, we see magnetic lines emanating from each pole, kind of like a donut.
The earth has the same magnetic environment. The solar wind, which always emanates from the sun in what's called a parker spiral, if you've seen a sprinkler in a yard, that goes around and around with three or four arms, spraying out these constant streams of water, as it's going around, those streams of water are curved. The solar wind is this curved plasma and magnetic field line flow of energy out of the sun. That interacts with the earth's magnetic field.
When magnetic fields that ride the solar wind interact with the magnetic fields of the earth, sometimes, there's a connection. Think of the two bar magnets, where you have north and when you go ... as both, so that one north is pointing to the south of the other, they connect. If you go north/north, they repeal, like charges repeal, they say. The earth and the sun have this interaction through the solar wind, of these magnetic interplays. If the solar wind is oriented in such a way that it connects with the earth's magnetic field, it's like opening a window. The plasma, the space plasma coming out of the sun, solar wind, goes through that connection into the earth's magnetic field, continues to ride the earth's magnetic field, which as you know, comes down at the poles.
All this plasma is raining down these magnetic lines and coming closer and closer to the earth. The aurora is a reaction or an interplay between the molecules and the plasma, the plasma comes in, bombards these molecules, and forces electronics out of orbit, emitting light. The aurora is this beautiful display of how our atmosphere interplays with solar plasma. Like a shield, it protects us. Magnetic field actually is a force field, that protects us. The ionosphere formed by the chemistry and magnetic interplay of those molecules, electronics in our atmosphere, form the shield that protects us both from extreme ultraviolet, as well as that plasma.
The aurora is like a rainbow in a different way, a testimony of this protection that we have around us. Beautiful. Not only is it visually beautiful, but the concept that we can live on this planet so close to the sun, protected by this force field around us, that's a beautiful display of our existence. Something to celebrate.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You have a love for CW. Do you consider it a digital mode, and how's it's doing now?
Tomas NW7US:
Yes. Morse code is digital. It's on and off. There will be purists who will say, it's not a computer type of digital, it's not binary. Yeah, and no. Maybe call it a gray area, I call is a digital mode. It's the only digital mode that you don't need a computer for. Your own brain, your own computer.
Morse code is my first in HAM radio. It's my first love. I still feel that Morse code, as a language and a mode on HF is the odds. You can work so much more DX code than you can with a single side band emission. The reason for that is, the efficiency of that carrier wave just being broken, as opposed to the envelope of a single side band emission. [inaudible 00:46:45] out of the same wattage of a signal, when you're using Morse code. Your brain is also an incredible computer. It has the ability to filter and do the conversion into intelligence, way more than any computer or analog circuit can do.
I guess that's probably what inspires me the most about Morse code, is just pure human ability to decode not spoken, and link yourself all over the world through such a primitive method of communication, defies time. And of course, it's musical, it's rhythm. Every operator has their own style of sending Morse code, so you can over time, learn how to discern who's who. The Morse code signature. Unlike a computer generated signal that is hard and fast, defined, it's very precise. Morse code doesn't have to be precise. A dialect, you can have an accent, as it were, in Morse code. It's very personal, very intimate in that way. Very human, is the "coal" digital world of computer generated things.
Eric 4Z1UG:
That's a pretty good description. What excites you the most about what's happening in amateur radio now?
Tomas NW7US:
I really am inspired by two ... The maker movement, one is the ... movement.
Eric 4Z1UG:
I'm sorry, what was the second one?
Tomas NW7US:
Prepper, those that are preparing for disaster, the end of the world.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Oh, the prepper movement.
Tomas NW7US:
Prepper movement.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Right.
Tomas NW7US:
Both of those have given a boost to electronics and amateur radio communications. Both of those movements have captured the younger minds. That's exciting, for amateur radio to survive, you need the young and the new blood coming in with fresh ideas, curiosity, and the passion to explore the boundaries of what's possible. One of the things amateur radio has always been is a seed base or an incubator for new ideas in communication.
A lot of innovation in our commercial products and commercial offerings, amateur radio. In the bright minds, took a concept, put it to the test, proved it out, viable idea through the amateur radio service, and then it made its way into commercial radio, et cetera.
The young mind, getting inspired by the possibilities in science, and experimentation, results they can hang their hat on, some ... QSL cards, even though there's a lot of electronic QSL cards, there's still some paper QSL cards. There's different forms of rewards, and these young minds ... successful in trying out a new idea, and getting some kind of a reward for it, it just inspires this new and fresh outlook. That's inspiring to me. School clubs, early 2000s. Nothing like seeing the joy somebody who's really shy, gets onto a microphone, but all of the sudden, has a conversation with somebody thousands of miles away, and there was this human connection through a microphone, a box, and some wire. No internet, no cellphone, magic.
Just that, inspires the young mind. There's so much more. Building robots, which isn't quite HAM radio. Building radio kits, equipment, having all of that rich involved, hands on involvement inspires young ... That's what's so amazing to me.
Eric 4Z1UG:
What advice would you give to new or returning HAMs, to the hobby?
Tomas NW7US:
You caught a great aspect, wisdom, early on in this conversation. That is listen. The first bit of advice, as to radio, is get yourself a radio that's capable of listening to local repeaters, or get a shortwave kind, and begin ... antennas and listening. Listen to everything you can. Amateur. Hear what is probably not good operation, and identify what that is, form your own opinions about it, learn what works, hear the culture. Try to absorb the culture of amateur radio. Read as much as you can about the ethics of operation, versus the technical side of operation.
Absorb as much as you can in the beginning. Also, be bold, scan, as in any large group of people, you're always going to have the bad actors. Amateur radio has bad actors. Scan and let it just be water off your back. Don't let them dissuade you, don't let them inspire bad feelings about the community and about amateur radio, because those few bad actors are not representative of the vast majority of people that are in the amateur radio community. Have a thick skin, and be bold, and venture out eventually in actual operation on the air.
Maybe you'll start with digital operations, because that might be less scary. You don't have to talk, you just have to type on the keyboard. Maybe not even type on a keyboard, some modes you just click some buttons. That'll be your first foray. Or maybe you'll venture into Morse code and you'll actually try.
I'll tell you, after they drop the Morse code requirement, Morse code operation actually increased, and it's provable because some of the CW contests had more participants active in the contest submitting logs, after the dropping of CW as a requirement, than before. It's proven that people love to sail sailboats, even though they can use a motorboat.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Yeah. I think that's a great point.
Tomas NW7US:
There are opportunities on amateur radio for you to get out, be bold, enter in for you, and enjoy yourself. It's a hobby. Remember that too, it's a hobby. It is a life for some people, it's a lifestyle for many people, but it is still a hobby. You got to have a bit of humor. You've got to have an attitude that hey ... opinions and I have mine, but we can all play along in this huge space known as amateur radio. It's a very wide and broad hobby. Little Knicks and corners of interest, special interest groups on building low wattage, what we call QRP, low power transceiver, or people that love to build amplifiers and discover new ways to put out as much power as possible.
There's something for everyone. You'll find your niche, you'll find your rhythm.
Eric 4Z1UG:
That's certainly true. I want to thank you for coming on the QSO Today podcast. It's been inspiring. With that, I want to thank you and wish you 73.
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity, Eric. It's been enjoyable.
Eric 4Z1UG:
That concludes this episode of QSO Today. I hope that you enjoyed this QSO with Tomas. Please be sure to check out the show notes that include links and information about the topics that we discussed. Go to www.qsotoday.com, and put in NW7US in the search box at the top of the page. If you'd like to sponsor the transcription of this episode, or any of the previous QSO Today episodes into written text, the cost is $67 US. There's a button on the right side of the show notes page to start this process.
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I was a young boy living in Montana, and my parents gave us more or less free rein when we're not in school. Being a very curious boy, I would go through the house looking for things of interesting playability, things that I could invent imaginative scenarios. I would rummage through my dad's belongings and discover cameras and a radio. I secreted the radio away down a few houses from where we lived, went underneath the porch, and began trying to figure out what this radio did. I figured out how to turn it on, and I began turning knobs, extending the antenna. I heard all sorts of exotic noises coming out of this thing.
Then I discovered AM broadcasting, FM radio stations, those are interesting, but man, the exotic sounds that came out of this one segment of the radio, when I switched the knob to something called SW, I was fascinated. There were weird sounds coming out of this thing.
Then I came across this monotone clicking, and all the sudden, I heard, "This is WWV Fort Collins, Colorado," and gave the time. Why would anybody tell me the time on a radio and click out the seconds? It was obvious that these clicks were seconds being ticked away. I would just sit there and listen and listen, listen. Going off into dreamland a little bit.
Then somebody came on and said, how many sunspots there were. We had a geomagnetic storm, which I had no clue what any of that meant. Sunspots? What were sunspots? That was the spark for lifelong curiosity about our sun and about whatever it was that these people were talking about on this little radio underneath the porch in Montana.
As I continued to experiment day after day during the summer, I heard ... This is radio South Africa, this is the BBC, this is the voice of America, Radio Australia, Deutsche Welle. I was like, wow, people talking from all over the world. How could that work?
Eric 4Z1UG:
Did you have to come out from under the porch at some point and confront your father that you'd found a radio?
Tomas NW7US:
No. I never told him for quite a while. Matter of fact, it wasn't until a couple years ago when I posted a picture on Facebook, because I found a radio at ... Over the years, the one that I had as a child disappeared somewhere, who knows where. When I was at this HAM fest, I came across this same exact radio. It's basically a Sony 4 band portable radio. Horrible receiver, but at the time, I didn't have any clue as to what was good or bad. It was just what it was.
I posted that on Facebook and my dad, who's also on Facebook, saw that and he goes, hey, that's the radio I bought when I was in Germany, that was all the time in my car, because it was able to be mounted in a vehicle. I said, yeah, that was the first radio that I ever used, and it got me started with what I'm doing outside of the computer side of things, it's what I do with my life.
He goes, "Yeah, I always wondered what happened to that, it disappeared." It's because I stole it. It was after so many years, that was in the 1970s, early '70s, that I secreted that radio away. Speaking of that, like I told you, I was always curious. It would take a lot of my dad's belongings, even alarm clocks, and I would disassemble them and then try to put them back together again, because I wanted to figure out how they worked, and then I put them back together.
Usually, I could put the thing back together, it'll all be fine and worked. Alarm clocks, once in a while I had extra little things lying around, and then they didn't have an alarm clock that worked. Would go out and get another one, I would take that apart. I got in trouble a lot, because of that. In Missoula, we lived on a military base, it's called Fort Missoula. '70s, there was a Navy reserve unit that had this long building, the interior was redesigned as a ship, a model ship, or a simulated ship. They had an engine room and all sorts of different parts of a ship. Of course, that was fascinating to me as a young boy, so I would go in there and I would watch them do their drills, and I would just observe mostly.
When they weren't there drilling, I ... did the building and I was looking at things like the telephone wires that came in, and I would disassemble that. Of course, their phones never worked, and they were trying to figure out why. It's because I was playing around with the stuff. I got, like I said, in huge trouble. My mind was so active and so curious about the scientific side of things, wires and electricity. Yes, I was the boy that stuck things into an outlet and went boom with the electrical arc between two things. Got myself shocked.
Disassembling anything electronic and trying to put it back together. My dad caught in, and to bring home this RadioShack 150 in one project springs, and you wire things together and they had the resistors and transistors, a meter and a speaker. Morse code key that was just basically bent metal with little plastic knob on it. He brought books home and fed my curiosity. That was the start in radio.
Eric 4Z1UG:
How did you find your way into amateur radio?
Tomas NW7US:
I continued to beg information and my dad, I'm not exactly sure how he went about this, but he came across somebody. Now, I do remember, we were at church and I had a book on tubes, listening to the sermon. I wasn't paying attention to the ethereal, I was in this book, reading about tubes and how they worked. I had a little sketchpad, and I was drawing a tube diagram, and I was just trying to copy and absorb all this information. I guess there was somebody behind us in the pew behind me, who was an amateur radio operator, but he didn't come directly to me.
He took my dad aside privately, "Your son ... knack for electronics. I'm an amateur radio operator, and I'd like to give you information, some books and materials that you can give him to continue his ..." That was my first introduction to amateur radio, indirectly through this connection. I'm not sure why the guy didn't talk directly to me, maybe my dad say no or something, I don't have a clue.
That was my first exposure. Then, there was no amateur radio exposure for a very long time, from the kid perspective. I think it was about four five years later, we had moved from Montana down to Salt Lake City, my dad was stationed by the US Army to an installation in Salt Lake City. It was in Salt Lake City that I came across a neighbor, because there was this huge tower, a big antenna, and I went, radio. I know what that is. I went over there and I boldly knocked on the door, I said, you have a big antenna, do you do radio?
That was where I first began to get Elmered directly on a radio, I actually got to send some Morse code. He gave me Amoco records where I would go and listen to two words a minute, five words a minute. I slowly began to learn Morse code the wrong way, I think now. There it was, to be by my Elmer, my first Elmer. This, I think was about '76 or '77.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Do you remember what his name was, or what his call sign?
Tomas NW7US:
Tom Billis, maybe. Think about, but I have no clue what his call was. He's a silent key. I think it was in the '90s that I discovered that he had passed away.
Eric 4Z1UG:
What year did you get your first license and how old were you?
Tomas NW7US:
There's the journey. See, I got Elmered and I learned Morse code, but because I was a military brat, we started doing a lot more moving around. In Montana, I stayed there a good stint because my dad was able to convince the Army to let him stay there as long as possible, because he just absolutely loved Montana. Then the military started moving us around.
After Salt Lake City, we moved back to Montana for a very short period. Then we moved up to Alaska. This first Elmer of mine though did give me my second shortwave receiver. It was made by Collins, and it's an interesting radio. I'm trying to remember the nomenclature specifically, I'll have to go look at where I can find that. It was the most amazing radio. It dwarfed anything that portable radio could hear.
When we moved from Salt Lake, where I received my first Elmer, a short stint in Montana, then we went up to Alaska. In Alaska, I erected a wire antenna around my bedroom, along the walls, with the darkness of winter, almost all of the day. Amounts of time, just absorbing shortwave, from one end to the other. Even AM DXing. I heard stations from ... during the nighttime. With that makeshift antenna.
From Salt Lake up to Montana to Alaska, and then Alaska back to Montana. School, just graduating, this is a real quick story. I went into, own business, I started, I was an entrepreneur, I went into satellite TV, sold satellite TVs, and I also did computer stuff. This is along the way, my dad became a computer salesman, brought home computers, and I started learning computers. That was a natural thing for me to do, is become this businessperson, started a business, had clients did programming and installed satellite TV.
I got a partner, the partner embezzled, all of the sudden, I got sued. My lawyer said, because I'm like, [inaudible 00:11:31]. My lawyer said, you know the best thing for you right now? Let me handle exonerating you in court, but you should probably join the Army, just get the heck out of Montana. At that point, we had come back to Montana. I said, join the Army? Dad, with his life, I don't know if I want to do that.
I talked with my dad and he convinced me yeah, it's a good idea, you should do it. You can get college fund and all that. I joined the Army, and I went into the signal corps. I was a signal man, and I did shortwave stuff and I did satellite stuff in the Army. That childhood experience, radio and learning about propagation, because I got books on propagation in the ionosphere, all of that lent itself to being a signalman in the Army. Amazing things while I was in the Army, because of my knowledge of amateur radio.
When I got out of the Army in Connecticut, and I worked at the Travelers as a programmer, and my supervisor was a HAM radio operator. To relearn the code, he helped me. He was my second HAM radio Elmer. Took me along, and he and some other HAM radio operator eventually gave me a novice test in the cafeteria, Morse code, and I had to receive Morse code to their satisfaction. Then I had ... And I got my novice license. That was 1990.
Eric 4Z1UG:
What was your call sign?
Tomas NW7US:
KA1VGL. KA1, very good lasagna. There's people that say hey, very good lasagna.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You upgraded shortly after?
Tomas NW7US:
Not too long after that. I stayed at the Travelers for about a year. This is a negative, but I got custody of the kids. Had no interest in at that time being a mother. I ended up with kids, and I was working at the Travelers, they allowed me to telecommute for a bit. It was just too difficult with basically an infant and a toddler, to work all day and have two kids, being somewhat a new dad.
My dad back in Montana, who had retired in Montana, and my mom there said, why don't you come back to Montana and we'll help you raise the kids? I thought that was a pretty good prospect. I gave my notice at the Travelers, gear and other belongings, and drove to Montana.
When I got to Montana, this was a prime time for me to get a new call sign. Since it was regulation that when you move into a new region, you had to refile anyway. The FCC assigned me N7PMS. Horrible call sign for a guy, especially once I got to 80 meters. Check in to these nightly round tables, and I would give my call, N7PMS, and man, it would be five to 10 minutes of ribbing. I chose different for that extend PMS, what people think of PMS. Montana Skunk.
That's what I pushed any time people were ribbing me, PMS.
Eric 4Z1UG:
It does bring a smile to one's face when you first hear it.
Tomas NW7US:
Sure. It irritated me at the time.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You're new in Montana. Did you get a rig at that point?
Tomas NW7US:
I was still using the 520S, Kenwood 520S was my first rig. By the way, that was given to me by my second Elmer at the Travelers. He wanted to inspire me and get air, so he said hey, I've got this old Kenwood TS-520S, I'm going to give that to you as your first rig, and as my gift that you passed your novice test, and get on the air and operate. We built my first antenna, which was a random length of wire and a ground, and it was a Dentron tuner, which was about the size of two shoe boxes. Amazing Dentron manual tuner. Tuned that random length of wire beautifully.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Didn't that have a roller inductor inside?
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah ... piece of machinery.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You don't see those, I don't think you see those very much anymore. A lot of tuners have fixed points on the coils.
Tomas NW7US:
They don't make things the way they used to. There was some really great construction in some of those older companies, like Dentron.
Yeah. Anyway. Long story short, after Montana, I moved to Washington to find better opportunity for work. That did help, as a single dad. I was a single dad for 11 years. I was raising those boys by myself. HAM radio still played a huge role for me. I, through the years, upgraded until I got to amateur extra. I had 520S, I went to a Kenwood 830 I think it was, an 830, which was a really nice band, which had the WARC ... I mean a radio, it had the WARC bands, the WARC, I think, WARC bands. Which, like, 30 meters.
I got more spectrum, and enjoyed, I began learning about 30 meters and what it was capable of. I did a lot of HAM radio stuff in Washington. I was-
Eric 4Z1UG:
Washington DC or Washington state?
Tomas NW7US:
Washington state. The evergreen state. That's where, when I upgraded to amateur extra, I applied for a vanity call for the NW7US, to get away from that PMS call. I chose NW7US because I am a huge fan of the pacific northwest in Montana. Montana's not considered the pacific northwest, but it's adjacent to it. In my mind, anything northwest United States is just beautiful. I wanted to promote that love by getting a call sign, NW7US.
There were no NW7 prefixes taken by anybody. Even though I could've gone with a 1x2 call sign, I chose the 2x2 call sign, because I wanted to promote the northwest seven United States. I had a really excellent friend, Mitch, NA7US is a call sign that he applied for after he saw my call sign. He goes, hey, I like that idea. He got North America 7 US.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Do you think that HAMs still enjoy shortwave listening? Can they do it, and do you think that it would make us better operators if we listened more?
Tomas NW7US:
Oh. That's key. Great that you brought that up. I think there are a lot of people that don't listen well. I believe in my case, that the extensive hours that I listened to shortwave, and I listened to air traffic, I listened to mariners, I listened to military operators, and of course I listened to a lot of HAM radio, both Morse code and voice. I gained a sense of more than just an etiquette, but a skill in communicating well, the message that you're trying to convey.
Eric 4Z1UG:
When we're thinking here, it seems to me, what I've heard from a number of operators, they say that you spend enough time listening to a pileup, for example, in a contest, you start to figure out what the receiving station was doing, or the guy that's actually running the pileup, you get a sense of where he's going to show up or where he's listening.
Tomas NW7US:
Absolutely. That's a lost skill.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Right. I guess in that sense, that was the point of my question was, is that if we're listening more, then we figure out what people are doing.
Tomas NW7US:
Oh, I love the hunt. I love the DXing hunt in pileups. I was a new HAM, still living in Connecticut, and code, it's a little bit different than voice but the same criteria of the hunt exists. You've got to listen carefully to find his modus operandi. What is that operator doing? How does he work that split? Does he go up, does he go down, does he stay on a single frequency for a bit? What's his rhythm? And, what's the rhythm of the pileup. I think a pileup begins to have its own rhythm. If you can figure that out by listening for a while, and that's the trick too, because it may not be a long opening. You got to get in there before the opening closes, if conditions are marginal.
If you've got a good knack for listening to the rhythm of things, you'll find that opening and man, I loved ... 100 watts and a random piece of wire, I broke so many pileups in DX, right out of the ... I think it's that ability to break pileups. The first or second call, I would be able to work the DX in really heavy pileups, with 100 watts and a simple piece of wire.
Again, I think the longtime of listening to shortwave, the years before that, I just had the knack to hear that rhythm and find out where that opening was, where I could insert myself between the two beeps ... Calling, and the guy moving just a little bit in frequency.
Yes, the answer is absolutely. Learning how to listen, to grasp the rhythm of the pileup or whatever your environment's giving you, amounts to success, in my opinion. It's not the huge antenna and the kilowatts and calling over and over and over and over and over and hoping that eventually, something sticks to the wall. That's brute force, but I think the art and skill of DXing ...
Eric 4Z1UG:
As a long time shortwave listener, do you think that the internet has replaced shortwave transmissions? Is the shortwave band dead now, or is it the same as it always was? What do you listen for now?
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah, that's a really great question. They're still in a phase, governments feel that financially, it's more effective, better use of their funds, to now have streaming services that a voice in the world to express their culture, to express their outlook and their foreign policy. Many radio stations have closed their radio outlets and moved that operation to streaming.
A few of them discovered that it's not as effective as they thought, back to shortwave, but on a limited basis. A lot of stations that I grew up listening with are no longer on the air. That gave me a disillusionment, and I thought, that's the demise of radio. Very intuitive politicians that see that radio can still reach an audience that are not yet connected to the internet. Especially in developing countries, or into areas of economic downturn.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Or countries where the internet is being blocked, for example.
Tomas NW7US:
Exactly. Therein lies the joy that DX hunt now, for shortwave listener, there are stations that are not official, and yet provide a voice for people who are bypassing their government to get their voice heard. There are stations like that that can be hunted. Not all of them in English, unfortunately. Some of them are able to get somebody who knows how to speak English. You'll get a broken English transmission, whatever. A lot of stuff coming out of Asia, and a lot out of the Middle East.
That's still an area of shortwave listening that I think is still alive. It's harder, because you don't have these huge ... level broadcasters. You'll have very weak stations, because they don't have megawatts, antenna arrays. They've got kilowatts or maybe just 500 watts and a marginal antenna. It's a bigger challenge.
But I think the joy is there, the reward is there, when you catch something extremely rare. The internet does provide some tools that aid that hunt, however. One, of course, is being several outlets of schedules that radio broadcasters and listeners have put together databases of stations and frequencies and times, that you can pursue to help figure out what you're hearing, or target a time where you might want to catch a particular station. There's also things like what I provide, and that's the propagation and the science of space weather, and how conditions are. That can be an aid to DXing as well.
Shortwave is still vibrant. Harder to get into, to find something of interest, you can't just tune across and hear an interesting type station anymore, or Radio Nederland, where you have the program, Smile Across the Miles. These DX mailbags and whatnot. There're still some stations from Cuba that do a DX mailbag, but it's not like the old wall to wall, on the 31 meter band. You'd have so many stations. Now, you have to hunt. The brick houses now are religious broadcasters, refined, interesting. They're always there, so it's not a challenge. If your station's Kyrgyzstan or something, a thrill to hunt that.
Of course, there's also the utility, military, aeronautical, Marine. There's a lot of other things on shortwave than just the broadcasters. While area that's still very vibrant, because people want to listen to military and to aircraft, because coast to coast, transoceanic flights still use shortwave, still use that infrastructure.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You just mentioned that you have an interest in propagation. I figure I'll give a chance for the listeners to hear some of your credits, that you're the propagation editor for CQ Communications magazine, the Spectrum Monitor, I think that's where I first read you. CQVHF Magazine and Popular Communications magazines.
You also wrote about propagation and other radio related topics in Monitoring Times, before its demise. You mentioned the interest in propagation started as a young child. How did that interest in propagation continue to develop, and how did you end up being the guy that writes about it?
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah. I'm also now Radio User UK magazine. I am now technically in the UK. Exciting. I'm into my ... February's my first month of publication in Radio User UK.
Back to that Sony portable radio and my first exposure to WWV and their solar bulletin, solar and terrestrial condition bulletin every hour. When I discovered the sun, and how it's a variable star, and that things are always changing, it captivated my imagination for my whole life. When I leaned about the ionosphere and the magic of a signal emanating from an antenna, and refracted or bounced off of the sky, for me as a kid, gave me a chance to travel the world without leaving home. That was all through that magic of the ionosphere.
It's captivated me for my entire life. As I said, I got every book that I could possibly find on the topic, and there weren't many, but I would try to absorb whatever it could. Amateurs, after the Connecticut ... I was a part of a HAM radio club there, out of ... It might've been out of Hartford, but I'm not sure now, I'll have to go back and dig that up. There were people there that could explain to me what was going on with the ionosphere and propagation, and how radio waves traveled.
I was so in love with that, that when I first got onto the internet and the world wide web, I tried to search through the limited search features that were on the internet at the time. I'm an early adopter, so I was on the internet as soon as it was a thing. There were no websites that talked about this stuff. It clicked in my mind that it's time for me to give back to the amateur radio community, and to the shortwave listening community, the wealth of information that I've gained over the years, and how can I give that back, but through a website of my own? Make a website, and I put the first amateur slant shortwave listening propagation website on the internet.
I'm the first. I can prove that, because some people have challenged me on that. I'm definitively the first amateur non-government outlet for space weather and radio propagation. That was HFradio.org. I've got a second domain, sunspotwatch.com, because that was a better, as a name, for that segment of my website at the time. It sorely needs overhaul at the moment, but I just don't have the time to do that. I'm probably going to hire somebody to help redesign the website.
Long story short, when I got a webpage and I began posting forecasts and data, I began to have a following. Unbeknownst to me, the original CQ amateur radio magazine's propagation contributing editor came across that website and began researching me a little bit. When he retired from being the editor of that column, said to Rich at CQ magazine, that I was one of the candidates that he would suggest replace him as writer of that column.
Out of the blue, I get this email from Rich Moseson, and he said, hey, do you have time for a phone call? I have a proposal for you. I thought, okay, sure. Give me a call. He introduced ... CQ magazine, I wasn't a subscriber at the time, of CQ. I only had the QST. He described the magazine, he described the column, he said that George Jacobs is retiring, and suggested me as his successor.
I was thrilled. I thought, wow, I've gone from giving back through a website, to the potential of actually writing about this, and educating amateur radio operators the stuff that I've learned throughout my life? What a great opportunity.
For the first three editions, I co-wrote with George. More and more took over the column. Rich was happy with my writing, George was happy, George retired. Did it for 50 years, if I'm not mistaken. He never missed an issue, not once. It's like, what, 2001 or something like that, and I have missed a couple of editions, emergencies, and I missed a couple of columns.
I just am still to this day thrilled that I have some opportunity to give back to the amateur radio and shortwave listening community, because they gave me in my opinion so much in the beginning. So much Elmering and insight to amateur radio. Had two different people give me rigs to inspire me to stay on the air or to get on the air and operate. That was both for the hobby and active love for the communication community, to give me radios like that? I was young, I didn't have the ability to afford those things. I just feel giving back to the ... This is my calling, to give back to the community.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You're paying it forward, in other words.
Tomas NW7US:
Paying it forward, yep.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Right. Now, you mentioned your two websites, HFradio.org and sunspotwatch.com. Are there other resources available on the internet to help a HAM better understand what's the happenings are in the universe, and how it affects band openings and closings?
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah. This, after about 2005 onward, I would say there was an explosion of different online resources, coming into the sphere of radio and propagation and space weather. You've got the governmental agencies, the ESA, the IPS out of Australia, of course the NASA and the space weather prediction center. These are greatly funded now, and information ... Government agencies have a repository of official data and sub science. Not radio Australia, but the IPS in Australia, they've got some educational material of course, read every page. There's the Wiki and there's been a lot of community efforts to enhance through the Wikipedia pages.
Of course, a lot of my competitors that are out there, doing their take on space weather, and the science of radio propagation. There's also YouTube that's out there competing for your time. Man, it's just, amount of available information. The thing that bothers me, and really gets under my skin, is that there's a lot of misinformation out there still, perpetuated from one source, sounds credible, and that's their source. They don't go and research to see if it's true. There's a lot of myths still being perpetuated in the amateur radio community or the community at large, just the public, about things space weather-related.
For instance, you'll hear on the nightly news or you'll hear some amateur on an 80 meter round table or 75 meter round table, gathering in the evening, you'll hear this phrase: oh, the sun has erupted with a solar flare that'll hit us in a couple of days. It probably will make HF unusable. Okay. Let's dissect that for a moment. A solar flare is an instantaneous explosion of ... energy stored in the magnet structures of the sun. When this burst of energy is released, instantaneous emission through the radio and light spectrum. It takes approximately eight minutes for light to go from the sun to the earth.
By the time we detect that a solar flare has occurred, we have already seen eight minutes go by in our time. We have some spacecraft that are in between the sun and the earth, so it may be that five minutes our or seven minutes out, that satellite already detected it, but eight minutes is a short period of time. Here's somebody in the evening on 80 meters say, a solar flare has occurred and it's going to hit us in three days. They're not factual in that estimation. It's already occurred. That light's already hit the earth. The effect of that solar flare has already impacted the ionosphere within that eight minute window.
What they're referring to is artifacts that are related to the solar flare, but not always to a solar flare. That's the emission of plasma and plasma clouds that take a lot longer to get to the earth. It could take up to three days for that plasma cloud to ride the solar wind and then interact with the magnetosphere and effect our local terrestrial environment. That may come up to three days later.
Kind of gray, when people talk about space weather. I have a mission in my columns, my website, my YouTube videos, to try to explain how the science really works. The reason that's important, for a DXer to get on the radio and just start hunting. That's fun. It's like taking your fishing pole, taking your tackle, taking different kinds of bait, going down to the local watering hole, casting a line and hoping that you get a bite, and spending a few hours there dangling your feet in the water. That's fun, it's relaxing. It's great.
But, if you have a limited window of time and you've got to feed your family and you want to go out and catch some fish, you might want to think about how can I best utilize my time, when the best time to go get that fish, where's that fish actually hanging out, what bait is really ... There's a bit of skill there and a bit of science. People plan for their fishing trip. Then they go out and if they're successful, they put food on the table. It's the same thing in radio.
Dishing, for instance. There's a lot of planning that goes in, as to when they will operate on what band, which antenna, what direction. There's all that science, how they'll be successful as a DXpedition, and maximize the opportunity for DXers around the world to make contact with that DXpedition. If they understand space weather, and understand what forecasting is telling them will happen, what time of year and the statistical variances of the ionosphere, they'll be better and equipped with navigating target areas and operations.
That's where I come in. That's why I'm still passionate about this. I'm trying to help people understand these things.
Eric 4Z1UG:
We're at the bottom of the solar cycle. The bands are supposed to be dead for the most part. Are they dead for the most part?
Tomas NW7US:
We discovered during the last solar minimum, which was an extended one, such an extended long low period, years, four, five years of marginal, if any, sunspot activity, we went months without one single sunspot. Everybody thought, going into that, that yeah, the bands are going to be dead. It's not going to be possible to really enjoy HF. Start learning how to use a repeater. Start learning the VHF side of things, because man, you'll never get anything on HF. That was proven wrong.
First, anything below 20 meters can have good propagation with or without sunspots, especially when you get down to about seven megahertz, or below. You'll always have propagation, even if there's no solar activity energizing the ionosphere. It's just the science of the chemistry and the atmosphere, and that there's going to be a strong enough ionosphere that up to seven megahertz is going to propagate, even if the ionosphere is just ... low energy mode or condition.
Eric 4Z1UG:
We're talking 40 meters, 60 meters, 80 meters, 160 meters.
Tomas NW7US:
Exactly. Yeah. Things that people consider as a nighttime band. Those will always work, because there's no sun involved in nighttime propagation, really. There's a little bit of residual effect, but there's no direct sunlight. Whatever we experience on those bands, that's going to be always there, no matter what part of the sunspot cycle we're in.
The ionosphere is this tricky thing. Even though we know sunspot activity correlates with ionospheric density and layer thickness, et cetera, there's also the terrestrial science of the ionosphere. We're talking about temperature inversions, we're talking about thunderstorms. Different phenomena that can stir up the ionosphere and change its dynamics. The ionosphere, for instance, is not just a flat mirror surface. It's more like a bunched up silk cloth. It's very textualized.
You'll have, even during sunspot minimum, we had 10 meter openings that weren't sporadic E, but were other types of modes that were enhanced by maybe aurora or other types of things. And, there's propagation possible. I've always told people, even though there's a science of propagation, it's still fun to go dangle your feet in the water, cast your line and see if you get something. Get on a band, even if you don't hear anything, and try a few calls. Stay there at least 10 minutes calling CQ, because somebody else may be tuning across going huh, I wonder if the band's open today. They'll be tuning across, and they'll hear you.
If everybody's listening, you'll never know there's an opening. You got to actually get a signal out there, cast a line, and discover that maybe there's an opening. WSPR mode, WSPR by Joe Taylor, is one of those modes where you can have transmissions going on a band, you fare it out how the propagation's turning out on a band during a given ...
There are other modes now that are very active. WSPR was a revolutionary thing. PSKNet was another effort, especially on 10 meters, for people to understand the openings that go on. PSKNet revealed a lot of what's capable on 10 meters during a solar minimum. They were instrumental in gathering data. The sporadic E that's prevalent in the summer in North America, is a fine example of how 10 meters can still be very active during a sunspot minimum, yet still give you lots of opportunity on 10 meters. 10 meters being at the very top of the radio spectrum, you have to have sunspot activity ... A lot of sunspot activity for that band to even be open or be operable.
It's not the case. Sporadic E, some aurora effects, trans equatorial propagation. Different modes are all possible on 10 meters in those higher bands. Yeah, radio is red hot, they said back in the '70s and the '80s.
Eric 4Z1UG:
I'm wondering whether or not the reason that people are having so much success with the digital modes, not only because the digital modes are clever and they can recover a signal way down in the noise, but they're beaconing. They're sending CQ when, before the additional modes, people would say oh, the band's dead, they were all listening but they weren't sending CQ.
Tomas NW7US:
Right. Exactly.
Eric 4Z1UG:
I'm just wondering whether or not actually, you said the people that are having great success with the digital modes are having that success because they're actually transmitting?
Tomas NW7US:
Yep. Same thing happens during a contest. People discover the bands are alive during contests, but they're not alive when there's no contest? How can that be? Is it because all these signals weren't in the ionosphere? No. It's because they're actually on the band operating and throwing out that signal that can be heard by somebody.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You have a link on your website to the current aurora oval. What is an aurora oval and how and where does it affect propagation?
Tomas NW7US:
The earth is an amazing planet, and we've discovered that over plants are very much like earth. In that, the earth, like a bar magnet, you've got a north pole and you got a south pole. If you remember from grade school or perhaps junior high in America here, the science teacher that would have the iron fillings on a piece of paper, and underneath the paper or a cardboard box, they would take a bar magnet and they would ... right underneath those metal filings, and low and behold, we see magnetic lines emanating from each pole, kind of like a donut.
The earth has the same magnetic environment. The solar wind, which always emanates from the sun in what's called a parker spiral, if you've seen a sprinkler in a yard, that goes around and around with three or four arms, spraying out these constant streams of water, as it's going around, those streams of water are curved. The solar wind is this curved plasma and magnetic field line flow of energy out of the sun. That interacts with the earth's magnetic field.
When magnetic fields that ride the solar wind interact with the magnetic fields of the earth, sometimes, there's a connection. Think of the two bar magnets, where you have north and when you go ... as both, so that one north is pointing to the south of the other, they connect. If you go north/north, they repeal, like charges repeal, they say. The earth and the sun have this interaction through the solar wind, of these magnetic interplays. If the solar wind is oriented in such a way that it connects with the earth's magnetic field, it's like opening a window. The plasma, the space plasma coming out of the sun, solar wind, goes through that connection into the earth's magnetic field, continues to ride the earth's magnetic field, which as you know, comes down at the poles.
All this plasma is raining down these magnetic lines and coming closer and closer to the earth. The aurora is a reaction or an interplay between the molecules and the plasma, the plasma comes in, bombards these molecules, and forces electronics out of orbit, emitting light. The aurora is this beautiful display of how our atmosphere interplays with solar plasma. Like a shield, it protects us. Magnetic field actually is a force field, that protects us. The ionosphere formed by the chemistry and magnetic interplay of those molecules, electronics in our atmosphere, form the shield that protects us both from extreme ultraviolet, as well as that plasma.
The aurora is like a rainbow in a different way, a testimony of this protection that we have around us. Beautiful. Not only is it visually beautiful, but the concept that we can live on this planet so close to the sun, protected by this force field around us, that's a beautiful display of our existence. Something to celebrate.
Eric 4Z1UG:
You have a love for CW. Do you consider it a digital mode, and how's it's doing now?
Tomas NW7US:
Yes. Morse code is digital. It's on and off. There will be purists who will say, it's not a computer type of digital, it's not binary. Yeah, and no. Maybe call it a gray area, I call is a digital mode. It's the only digital mode that you don't need a computer for. Your own brain, your own computer.
Morse code is my first in HAM radio. It's my first love. I still feel that Morse code, as a language and a mode on HF is the odds. You can work so much more DX code than you can with a single side band emission. The reason for that is, the efficiency of that carrier wave just being broken, as opposed to the envelope of a single side band emission. [inaudible 00:46:45] out of the same wattage of a signal, when you're using Morse code. Your brain is also an incredible computer. It has the ability to filter and do the conversion into intelligence, way more than any computer or analog circuit can do.
I guess that's probably what inspires me the most about Morse code, is just pure human ability to decode not spoken, and link yourself all over the world through such a primitive method of communication, defies time. And of course, it's musical, it's rhythm. Every operator has their own style of sending Morse code, so you can over time, learn how to discern who's who. The Morse code signature. Unlike a computer generated signal that is hard and fast, defined, it's very precise. Morse code doesn't have to be precise. A dialect, you can have an accent, as it were, in Morse code. It's very personal, very intimate in that way. Very human, is the "coal" digital world of computer generated things.
Eric 4Z1UG:
That's a pretty good description. What excites you the most about what's happening in amateur radio now?
Tomas NW7US:
I really am inspired by two ... The maker movement, one is the ... movement.
Eric 4Z1UG:
I'm sorry, what was the second one?
Tomas NW7US:
Prepper, those that are preparing for disaster, the end of the world.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Oh, the prepper movement.
Tomas NW7US:
Prepper movement.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Right.
Tomas NW7US:
Both of those have given a boost to electronics and amateur radio communications. Both of those movements have captured the younger minds. That's exciting, for amateur radio to survive, you need the young and the new blood coming in with fresh ideas, curiosity, and the passion to explore the boundaries of what's possible. One of the things amateur radio has always been is a seed base or an incubator for new ideas in communication.
A lot of innovation in our commercial products and commercial offerings, amateur radio. In the bright minds, took a concept, put it to the test, proved it out, viable idea through the amateur radio service, and then it made its way into commercial radio, et cetera.
The young mind, getting inspired by the possibilities in science, and experimentation, results they can hang their hat on, some ... QSL cards, even though there's a lot of electronic QSL cards, there's still some paper QSL cards. There's different forms of rewards, and these young minds ... successful in trying out a new idea, and getting some kind of a reward for it, it just inspires this new and fresh outlook. That's inspiring to me. School clubs, early 2000s. Nothing like seeing the joy somebody who's really shy, gets onto a microphone, but all of the sudden, has a conversation with somebody thousands of miles away, and there was this human connection through a microphone, a box, and some wire. No internet, no cellphone, magic.
Just that, inspires the young mind. There's so much more. Building robots, which isn't quite HAM radio. Building radio kits, equipment, having all of that rich involved, hands on involvement inspires young ... That's what's so amazing to me.
Eric 4Z1UG:
What advice would you give to new or returning HAMs, to the hobby?
Tomas NW7US:
You caught a great aspect, wisdom, early on in this conversation. That is listen. The first bit of advice, as to radio, is get yourself a radio that's capable of listening to local repeaters, or get a shortwave kind, and begin ... antennas and listening. Listen to everything you can. Amateur. Hear what is probably not good operation, and identify what that is, form your own opinions about it, learn what works, hear the culture. Try to absorb the culture of amateur radio. Read as much as you can about the ethics of operation, versus the technical side of operation.
Absorb as much as you can in the beginning. Also, be bold, scan, as in any large group of people, you're always going to have the bad actors. Amateur radio has bad actors. Scan and let it just be water off your back. Don't let them dissuade you, don't let them inspire bad feelings about the community and about amateur radio, because those few bad actors are not representative of the vast majority of people that are in the amateur radio community. Have a thick skin, and be bold, and venture out eventually in actual operation on the air.
Maybe you'll start with digital operations, because that might be less scary. You don't have to talk, you just have to type on the keyboard. Maybe not even type on a keyboard, some modes you just click some buttons. That'll be your first foray. Or maybe you'll venture into Morse code and you'll actually try.
I'll tell you, after they drop the Morse code requirement, Morse code operation actually increased, and it's provable because some of the CW contests had more participants active in the contest submitting logs, after the dropping of CW as a requirement, than before. It's proven that people love to sail sailboats, even though they can use a motorboat.
Eric 4Z1UG:
Yeah. I think that's a great point.
Tomas NW7US:
There are opportunities on amateur radio for you to get out, be bold, enter in for you, and enjoy yourself. It's a hobby. Remember that too, it's a hobby. It is a life for some people, it's a lifestyle for many people, but it is still a hobby. You got to have a bit of humor. You've got to have an attitude that hey ... opinions and I have mine, but we can all play along in this huge space known as amateur radio. It's a very wide and broad hobby. Little Knicks and corners of interest, special interest groups on building low wattage, what we call QRP, low power transceiver, or people that love to build amplifiers and discover new ways to put out as much power as possible.
There's something for everyone. You'll find your niche, you'll find your rhythm.
Eric 4Z1UG:
That's certainly true. I want to thank you for coming on the QSO Today podcast. It's been inspiring. With that, I want to thank you and wish you 73.
Tomas NW7US:
Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity, Eric. It's been enjoyable.
Eric 4Z1UG:
That concludes this episode of QSO Today. I hope that you enjoyed this QSO with Tomas. Please be sure to check out the show notes that include links and information about the topics that we discussed. Go to www.qsotoday.com, and put in NW7US in the search box at the top of the page. If you'd like to sponsor the transcription of this episode, or any of the previous QSO Today episodes into written text, the cost is $67 US. There's a button on the right side of the show notes page to start this process.
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