More Power!

Power's getting cheap! It seems the lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo) battery market is being flooded with relatively inexpensive high capacity batteries. These cheap and lightweight power sources can negate the justification for low power QRP rigs in many applications. I've long griped on this blog and Facebook that manufacturers have gotten lazy when it comes to QRP rigs. Nobody (except Xiegu, with their G90) wants to push past the 10 watt barrier and deliver a portable HF package in the 20 - 50 watt range. The 10 watt mindset (and the silly obsession with stuffing in UHF/VHF just to get the manufacturers' favored digital mode into the mix) has paralyzed the thinking at Icom and Yaesu. The two manufacturers with the resources and skill to deliver a high quality HF field radio are too scared to take the leap.

But it's not all grim news. For a few years I've advocated building a portable rig package around the Icom IC-7300. It offers everything a portable operator needs - excellent performance, lots of output power, integrated digital mode sound card interface, effective cooling and a great tuner, all in a fairly compact package. Yaesu recently answered the IC-7300 challenge with their FT-710, by all accounts also a great radio that matches the IC-7300 feature-for-feature and does some one-ups. Both radios offer everything a field HF rig should have. Although both are a bit large for the role, considering they were initially designed as shack rigs, they are remarkably small and light weight for the features they offer. If these radios have a drawback, it's amperage draw on receive. The IC-7300 will pull about 1.25 amps while just 'idling', and the FT-710 will suck down up to 2.2 (!) amps on receive. These numbers always put a limit on field operations, particularly on extended digital mode sessions. Your choice was small, light weight batteries of limited capacity, or larger capacity batteries that either weighted a lot (think lead acid car batteries), or LiFePo batteries that offered great run times but at a much higher cost (over $300 for a 30 amp hour battery).

But cheaper batteries can change the paradigm. Most battery buyers I've talked to stop considering buying a LiFePo battery at about the 30 amp hour point, based mainly on cost. It's undeniable that these batteries offer amazing performance given their size and weight, but the prices go up almost exponentially as you go up in amp hour ratings. Thirty amp hours seemed to offer an ideal price-to-performance ratio for running a full sized rig in the field, but extended run times can mean having to turn the TX power below 50 watts. We need more (and cheaper) power!  

Now, what if I told you that you can get a really cheap 100 amp hour LiFePo battery? Something about the size of a 30 amp hour lead acid battery, but a fraction of the weight? Well as Tracy, VE3TWM reports below, it's here! The battery Tracy shows off, the LiTime LiFePo4 100 Ah battery is currently on sale from the manufacturer for $199 US. Compare that with Bioenno's current price for the same capacity battery - $862. Bioenno is a highly regarded LiFePo battery manufacturer, and the battery management system boards they build into each battery are considered some of the best in the industry. But that $660 price difference between batteries is extremely compelling. Even if the LiTime battery craps out after a few years and only provides half the recharge cycles the manufacturer lists, it's still a better buy than the Bioenno offering.

So here's Tracy from Outdoors On The Air laying out his argument. There's a lot of merit in what he says. For field operations, cheap high capacity LiFePo batteries make power sipping QRP rigs running on tiny batteries almost irrelevant.

W8BYH out

A Useless Appendage

That's what UHF/VHF is in a QRP rig. Useless. It's a marketing gimmick.

"Icom, why didn't you build a tuner into the IC-705?" Icom: "Hey look, it's got UHF & VHF!"

"Yaesu, why didn't you design your new FTX-1F field radio so it gets an IP rating?" Yaesu: "Hey look, it's got UHF & VHF!"

Building UHF & VHF bands into their QRP rig offerings reflects laziness on the part of the product design teams. Why? Because it gives the design teams the excuse to not get other, more important things right. Like an integrated tuner, like an IP rating for water resistance, like better RF shielding, like more power output, like a better form factor.

I don't care a damn about 70 centimeter or 2 meter capabilities in a QRP radio. If I want to talk on those bands at low power I've got HTs that do a much better job. If I want more UHF/VHF 'oomph' I've got a selection of 50 watt mobile rigs that do a better job. And it's not just me. Over the past few weeks I've talked to a number of IC-705 owners, and they all report that, other than using it to occasionally hit local repeaters, they never use the UHF/VHF side of their radios. 

Like I said, it's a gimmick. 

It looks like Yaesu is about to release a radio that, in form and function, is little more than an IC-705 clone. Icom got lazy with the design of the IC-705, and Yaesu is doubling down on laziness by copying the 705's capabilities, and little else. The FTX-1F's packaging may be a bit more clever, but at the end of the day it really won't do anything that the IC-705 already does.

"Let's just throw in the guts of an HT, toss it over to marketing
 and call it a day"

Think of what could have been. A highly refined HF-only portable field communications package that offers real performance under all conditions, and puts out enough wattage to make a difference. Yaesu is aiming at the wrong target with the FTX-1F. They're aiming at the IC-705. Instead they should have been aiming at the Elecraft KX2, and taken the opportunity to define a whole new class of radio.

Yeah I'm pissed. I'm almost 68, and it looks like I'll be dead before either of these two companies get it right.

 W8BYH out

I Don't Care How Good Your Receiver Is

With Yaesu's recent announcement of their new FTX-1F QRP radio, lots of wish-casters are commenting about how this new radio just has to come out with top-of-the-heap receiver ratings. Otherwise the radio is a complete failure. Hmmm... Now, odds are this radio will exhibit excellent receiver performance; Yaesu long ago figured out how to make great communications receivers. But if that's what you are focusing on, you are focusing on the wrong thing.

Most of the major radio manufacturers - Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood, Elecraft, Flex, and others - know how to make radios with great receivers. Right now Yaesu, Flex, Icom and Elecraft are duking it out for top position on the Sherwood Engineering receiver ratings, and Yaesu has a surprising number of rigs in the top six slots. I think it's safe to say that the FTX-1F will have a pretty good receiver.

What Yaesu (and Icom) don't seem to understand are the requirements for a low power field radio - a rugged, battery powered radio that is easy to pack and carry long distances and is highly integrated - built-in sound card interface, wireless connectivity, tuner, modern power management - and provides transmit output beyond the conventionally defined QRP levels. But as far as receiver performance, that's not the most important thing. For a radio that's marketed as a low power field radio, receiver performance is less important than form factor, user interface, non-RF features, ruggedness and TX  output. Here's a few examples:

• Yaesu's own FT-817 was never a top-notch receiver. In fact, among it's peers when it was first introduced in 2004, it was just middle-of-the-pack. But the radio became a phenomenon mainly because Yaesu nailed the non-RF features and form factor right out of the gate. Users were fine with merely OK receiver performance because the rest of the little rig was outstanding. It didn't just 'fit the QRP mission', it defined the mission, and it stayed in production for almost 20 years. It was that good
• Elecraft's KX2 took the FT-817 example up a bunch of notches - improved receiver performance, an easy to view front panel, excellent internal battery performance, and an internal tuner that is truly world-class. The KX2 is still the only all-mode HF radio you can slip into the cargo pocket of your trousers and take to the field and effectively communicate for hours at a time. You can even use it as an HF walke-talkie. The KX2's receiver performance isn't first class, according to Sherwood (though it' is still very good), but Elecraft understood the QRP field radio requirements and nailed the features and form factor right out of the gate. That's why, eight years after its introduction, there's still a waiting list for newly manufactured units
• Icom IC-705 is a high quality radio that packs a bewildering variety of features and capabilities into a small package, and it ranks higher on the Sherwood receiver test results than the KX2. Yet the IC-705's design reflects a lot of compromises that make it a less capable field radio than the KX2. Why? Because Elecraft paid more attention to the QRP field radio requirements than Icom did. All Icom wanted to do was get a QRP radio, any QRP radio, to market. They squished down the IC-7300 and tossed in a bit of ID-51. Although they did a great job of integrating all the technology, the resulting form factor is a chunky and awkward box that doesn't sit well at any useful angle, lacks an internal tuner, only offers one antenna connection (no separate HF / VHF & UHF connectors) and the stock battery performance is a bit anemic. This means the IC-705 field footprint will grow - an external battery, an external tuner, a transverter so you can run HF and VHF/UHF without antenna switching, and some sort of stand to hold the radio at a useful angle. When you lay it all out on the picnic table at your POTA location and ponder the footprint, you end up asking yourself why you didn't just bring your IC-7300. Again, Icom didn't understand or ignored the QRP field radio requirements when designing the 705

It's looking like Yaesu is following Icom's lead. The FTX-1F will be a mash-up of Yaesu's successful FT-710 HF rig, and their FT-5DR UHF/VHF handheld. Lots of technology in a small box. Yaesu seems to have addressed a few of the IC-705's shortcomings - dual HF & VHF/UHF antenna connectors, a snap-on tuner, a large capacity snap-on battery pack (the two of which, unfortunately, can't be used together). The fully functional footprint of the FTX-1F may well be smaller than the IC-705's. Good thing. But based on what we know right now, it's still just a run-of-the-mill QRP rig that's not optimized for field use. I may be wrong. I hope I'm wrong, but right now it looks like the FTX-1F will be little more than a warmed-over IC-705.

As a ham radio operator with money to spend, I've grown real tired of this QRP thing. QRP radios as Icom and Yaesu envision them are so dull, so unoriginal, and so unnecessary. Designing and building just another QRP rig reflects complacency and laziness on the manufacturer's part. Yaesu's had three years to study the IC-705 and its market performance. They could have focused tightly on the  QRP field radio requirements and included features that make the FTX-1 more compelling than the IC-705. Things like 20 watt TX capability with an integrated battery pack, an IPX and MILSTD rating, an integrated tuner, improved form factor and user ergonomics. That would have set them apart in the market space, taken  market share from Icom, and assured the long term success of the FTX-1. 

Instead, when the new Yaesu hits the market the only real discriminator will be the digital mode. If you are a C4FM guy or gal, you'll buy the Yaesu. If you are a DSTAR guy or gal, you'll buy the Icom. That's about it.

From a philosophical standpoint it's just a swing... and a miss

W8BYH out

What's A QRP Radio?

Note: I'm writing this as a lead-up to another blog post I'm working on, but it's important that I first lay out my argument that the 'accepted convention' regarding QRP power levels has allowed radio manufacturers to be lazy, and put out sub-par products. 

QRP = low power. I think every ham understands that. It's generally accepted that QRP means 5 watts max output on CW, or 10 watts PEP on SSB, but these are just generally accepted conventions, not hard and fast rules. However, for decades ham radio manufacturers have used this 5 - 10 watt convention to their market advantage. If they are designing a QRP radio they only have to worry about 10 watts, and that's on external batteries. Most only put out 5 watts on internal batteries. This 'accepted convention' has allowed radio manufacturers to get lazy. Why build a small field radio that puts out more than 10 watts? If you go over that number you are not really QRP, are you? 

Bullshit.

This QRP mindset has left us with is a huge ham radio capabilities gap. We have HF rigs that put out 10 watts, and then nothing until we get to the 100 watt output level. Nothing between 10 & 100. There are a few outliers, like the Xeigu G90 with its 20 watt output, but it sits almost alone in the market.

And yet, modern design technologies, manufacturing techniques, improved battery chemistries and battery and thermal management systems can easily deliver a small, high performance HF radio capable of sustained operation at 20 watts of output. It's not that hard. Radio manufacturers like Harris, Barrett and Codan have done it for decades. I guarantee you that when it comes to radio design, Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood are the equal of those three. The only difference is that Harris, Barrett and Codan's biggest customer bases - large government and military organizations - demand 20 watts of output on battery power. 

It's time ham radio puts the message across to manufacturers that we want more transmit power options. Stop half-stepping it with measly 5 & 10 watt rigs. Show some inventiveness and a bit of corporate courage, and deliver well designed and integrated field radios that put out 20 watts.

It's time for us to define what we think QRP means. To me it means 20 watts PEP on SSB.

W8BYH out

What To Do With An Old FT-818?

This past weekend's reveal at the annual Japanese Ham Fair may kill off the market for good used Yaesu FT-817s & 818s. Yaesu announced the pending release of their FT-818 replacement, the FTX-1F. 

 

From what we know so far, this new radio looks like it's got a pretty good feature set. There are some lingering questions about things like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS capability, but overall it looks like a worthy successor to the FT-818, and should give the Icom IC-705 some stiff competition. But we won't really know how 'stiff' until we start seeing some pricing information.

But if you are like me, and have one (or more) of the venerable old FT-818s sitting around, and are thinking hard about the FTX-1F, the question now becomes, what do I do with my old 818? Here's some options I've been pondering:

• Put together a radio 'bug-out' kit with the FT-818 as a centerpiece and just leave it in my truck
• Set it up in my ham shack as a back-up (to a back-up). The little rig does just dandy on VHF/UHF and with my exterior antenna I can hit our local repeater with ease. I may just designate it as an over-sized HT and call it a day
• Hook it up to a SignaLink, park it on a single digital frequency, and turn it into something like a full-time JS8Call machine
• Try to rig up some sort of manpack HF system
• Sell it to help fund the possible purchase of an FTX-1F
• Use it as a door stop

Like so many hams, I've got a soft spot in my head heart for the FT-817/818. It was a paradigm changer when it came out in 2004, and it's the radio that helped start the SOTA craze. It proved to be a rugged and versatile little beast that saw it used in some pretty unusual non-ham applications. How unusual? It was bought in large numbers by Central and South American revolutionaries and drug cartels (often one in the same) for short and long range jungle communications. While today it's a very outdated design, that's no reason to toss it. After all, every week we've got thousands of hams firing up even older tube-based gear to get on the air. Nobody today thinks of tossing a Collins S-line into the dumpster. 

OK, so I've talked myself into hanging on to my FT-818. But what to do with it? Other than the ideas I've outlined here, anyone have any suggestions?

W8BYH out

Look To The Sky

So, does anyone have a clear picture on what the root cause was with yesterday's cyber outage? Was it a bad update released by Microsoft, or was it a bad update developed by CrowdStrike to be applied specifically to their own Windows applications? The on-line 'experts' are real foggy on this. One thing's for sure - the lawyers are racking and stacking. 

Oops...

Whatever the cause, this was certainly a lesson in vulnerability and fragility. Nothing nefarious or criminal, just a few lines of 'bad' code applied during an update that shuts down the airline and banking industries (to name just two) around the globe. No explosions, no gunfire, no evil hackers sitting in a star chamber somewhere in China. Just a few lines of code, code that had probably been tested and approved on development servers before being deployed to production servers world-wide. 

With increased complexity and scale comes geometrically increased risk and vulnerabilities. There's little you or I can do to anticipate these kinds of global-level impacts. They will happen, and happen right out of the blue with no warning. But have you thought about how you would mitigate these impacts at the personal, family and community level? What is your list of must-haves? Here's a short list to consider: 

• Reliable AC power to run things like refrigerators, home medical devices, security systems, to charge phones, computers, and power networking systems, etc.
• Reliable phone service (cell or landline) to keep in touch with vulnerable family & friends and to issue 'safe & well' updates
• Access to banking services, either on-line or at a local physical bank. Can you get to your money when you need it? (Although inflation chews away at it, experts recommend keeping a cash reserve on-hand to pay for things like food & fuel)
• Internet. The internet is what ties most of what we need together. It is the backbone that powers the global economy, and it's what links you to things like local emergency services, your loved ones (via email, text and voice comms), and necessary commercial services. Just because the internet is out at your location doesn't mean it's out everywhere. The key is being able to reach beyond your internet provider's local or regional infrastructure to get to where the internet is working

My solution for many of these must-haves can be summed up in one short phrase: look to the sky!

 

We live in an era where we can easily provide for ourselves. Small scale 'shelter at home' equipment, infrastructure and services are a burgeoning business. Generators, water purification and storage systems, off-grid communications systems and more are just an Amazon mouse click away. 

The thing that concerns me the most in a grid down situation is communications. I've got generators, I've got water storage and purification, I've got security systems, I've got solar power, I've got stored food and medicine. What concerns me most is keeping in touch with my loved ones. I'm not worried  about point-to-point radio communications with other hams, I know I can do that. I'm talking about checking in with my daughters, their families, close friends and others, and the ability to reach out to emergency services. It takes some planning, but it can be done, and the answer to most of this is right over our heads. Don't think in terms of bars of signal strength, think in terms of satellite constellation coverage and radio wave propagation. Consider these options: 

• Garmin in-Reach. Perhaps the most basic 'overhead' emergency communications system. It's a text messaging and alert system that is satellite based. Depending on the device you select (all made by Garmin) you can send and receive texts, send emergency signals (SOS), allow loved ones and emergency responders to track your location, and more. The in-Reach system has been in use for several decades now and has proven very reliable
• Satellite Phones. More expensive than in-Reach, but the overall costs have come down quite a bit over the past decade. There are a large number of sat phone manufacturers and a wide number of service providers, but they all seem to provide the same features and functions. 
• Satellite based internet. The big dog in this market space today is Elon Musk's Starlink. Starlink provides amazing performance, particularly when you consider service costs. It's not cheap like home internet (you have to factor in the hardware costs), but when you consider that it's an almost completely off-grid system (you still need AC to power the router and antenna) with high reliability and performance, for me it's a must-have.
• Winlink. Winlink is really the only viable ham radio-based system that can link you with non-ham radio individuals or agencies. It allows you to send emails to anyone, anywhere, via ham radio. No license needed on their end. And it's a two-way system; email your family members regarding your status, and they can respond back using their own email provider (GMail, Outlook, etc.). While not interactive like a phone call or text message, it is still a very viable, reliable and well tested system. But to use it you need your General-class license and the right equipment, and practice, practice, practice.

The next time something like this happens (and it will happen again - we can't beat the odds) don't just stand there shouting at your cell phone that's showing zero bars of coverage. Be ready for it and...

Look to the sky!

W8BYH out

NUCing Around

It's time for a computer switch-out. I needed to take one computer out of service, and that had a cascading effect. I found myself in need of a new computer that is well endowed with USB-B & C ports. Normally I'd tackle this job with a laptop and a USB port extender, but this time I decided to try something new. The concept of what Intel calls the Next Unit of Computing, or NUC, has interested me for quite a while. A NUC is essentially a mini-desktop computer. How mini? Many are small enough to be mounted directly to the rear of a stand-alone monitor. Intel didn't invent the form factor. I believe Apple was there first with their Mini Mac line, but Intel established the form factor in the Windows world. The best way to describe a NUC is that it's a laptop computer, but without the screen, keyboard, trackpad or battery - a single board computer in a small rectangular box that offers lots of ports. You bring your own monitor, keyboard and mouse to the game. A NUC is roughly 5" x 5" x 1.5", small enough to disappear on a ham shack desk, which is precisely what I was looking for. 

Interior of a NUC - a board, some memory, a cooling fan, lots of ports, and that's it!

Intel introduced the NUC back in 2012 and, as invariably happens, as soon as it gained market traction the clone manufacturers piled on. Everyone from Dell to 'China, Inc' got in the game. The competition got so fierce that Intel recently announced that they are selling off their NUC line to ASUS. Newly manufactured Intel NUCs are still widely available, but their pricing reveals a large part of why Intel got chased out of the market. The Intel units, while wonderfully made with top-tier (Intel) components, are roughly twice the price of a 'China, Inc' clone that offers better specs. Corporate America and the (dot)Gov world were OK with forking over $600 for a real Intel NUC with middling specs, but the mom & pop home owners, gamers and embedded system geeks were drawn to the far more reasonably priced clones. The price wars commenced, and the competition simply overwhelmed Intel.  

I can be heartless when it comes to computers. Like I've said before in this blog, I view computers the same way I view toasters; if it stops working it gets tossed and I get something else. However, it's rare I'll buy something new. I view buying computers the same as buying cars - I'm happy to let someone else eat the depreciation. That's why my ham shack is full of computers I've bought used. This allows me to explore the far edges of computing form factors without spending a fortune. And so it was with my new NUC. I found an eBay vendor selling used units with the specs I wanted, but for a fraction of the price of a new one.

There's really nothing much to talk about regarding the specs of this little computer. It's a run-of-the-mill Intel i5 processor unit with 8 GB or RAM and 512 GB of SSD storage. When it arrived I simply plugged in a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, hooked it up to a monitor, re-loaded Windows 11 and loaded up some ham radio applications. No gaming, no video editing. Nothing fancy. It works just as well as the laptop computer it replaced, but frees up a LOT of desk space, allowing me to stack more ham radio junk there.

I really like this small form factor, and I'm thinking about getting a second unit for the other computer in my shack. This time I may violate my long standing rule about buying new. I'm watching some NUC clones for sale on Amazon (the brand is BeeLink), and I'm waiting to see if the price comes down at all during the upcoming Prime Day sale. That would free up an old Panasonic Toughbook for field use. Computers come and computers go here in the W8BYH shack. I think there was a song about that in a Disney movie once. Something about the circle of life...

W8BYH out