Tag Archives: Guest Posts

Small Unidirectional Loop Antenna (SULA) Part 3: Questions & Answers

8 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor extraordinaire, 13dka, who brings us Part Two of a three part series about the new SULA homebrew antenna project. This first article describes this affordable antenna and demonstrates its unique reception properties. The second article focuses on construction notes. This third and final article will essentially be a Q&A about the SULA antenna. 

This wideband unidirectional antenna is an outstanding and innovative development for the portable DXer. I love the fact that it came to fruition via a collaboration between Grayhat and 13dka: two amazing gents and radio ambassadors on our SWLing.net discussion board and here on the SWLing Post. So many thanks to both of them!

Please enjoy and share Part 3:

Part 3: SULA Q&A

by 13dka

Q: Where can I ask questions, discuss all aspects of the the SULA or collaborate in its further development?

A: There is a thread dedicated to the SULA in the new SWLing.com message board: https://swling.net/viewtopic.php?t=55

Q: Since the antenna is “lossy”, what’s the point of having a “beam”?

A: The answer is once again “SNR”: First off, remember that the LNA is there to make up for most of the losses. Secondly, this is all about the noise pickup, 20dB less gain/more losses outside the main lobe means also a reduction of atmospheric/cosmic/whatnot QRN and of course everything manmade from all these sides. The wide horizontal lobe is more or less one hemisphere horizontally, but the flat-ish vertical pattern makes that only a slice of it. In other words, there will be less QRN and QRM pickup from the back and the top. The idea is that the SNR will ideally increase more than the preamp’s noise figure will cost and it often sounds like this is what actually happens. Of course it’s also nice that you can turn an unwanted signal down using the more or less pronounced notch in the backside pattern up to 21 MHz – also very helpful for direction finding.

Q: Do I need a rotor?

A: It depends. If you are one of the lucky few still having a low-QRM-environment at home and you want to put it in the backyard, you really may want to be able to turn it remotely. If you’re using it portable you can simply rotate the mast manually. If you have local QRM or can’t mount it very far away from your or other houses, you may want to rotate the back of the antenna towards that source, leave it at that position forever and enjoy what’s coming in on the pretty wide main lobe of the antenna. The horizontal lobe covers more or less half of the horizon, depending on your stations of interest and location you could get away with never turning the antenna at all.

Q: Is it better than the XYZ loop?

A: Hey, that’s exactly what I wanted to ask you! 🙂 Even though the SULA is very similar in appearance and performance to a good SML working in ideal (ground conductivity) conditions, the SULA is a pretty different animal with a different behavior: Regular small loops, besides being bidirectional, can lose quite a bit of their low angle sensitivity over “poor” ground while the SULA is supposed to be retaining its properties better over any type of ground. Also, while many SMLs are tuned for VLF through the lower portion of the shortwave, the SULA complements those with quite uniform (good) properties up to 30 MHz and beyond.

Q: I have an end-fed random wire or dipole strung up from the house to a tree etc. – can the SULA beat that?

A: That’s quite possible. To get low takeoff angles from horizontal wire antennas you need to string them up at least 1/2 wavelength high, that’s 20m/66ft on 40/41m, 10m/33ft on 20m and so on. If you can’t do that, the SULA may be your ticket to listen farther beyond the horizon. Also, wire antennas are often strung up to match space restrictions or avoid QRM vectors and that way you may end up with some directionality in directions you don’t want, or no directionality at all when the wire is too low. Another noteworthy point is the ground: For most horizontal antennas, better ground means a considerable higher takeoff angle so the dipole needs even more height for low angles. The SULA’s takeoff angle benefits a little from the better ground and only gets a little worse over poor ground.

Q: Do I really need an LNA?

A: I hope so? Of course it depends… if you are going to try this antenna in a very noisy environment, the LNA may have little to no benefit. The noise is limiting your “radio horizon” to very loud signals anyway and for those you may not need an LNA, ever. On the other hand, the antenna is very lossy and in a quiet environment where noise is not an issue at all, weak signals may drop below the sensitivity threshold of your receiver without the LNA. The less noise you have, the more you’ll be able to benefit from an LNA. You will also need one when your radio isn’t all that sensitive, similar to the requirements to run a YouLoop. Andrew kept the loop impedance as constant as possible in order to allow any low impedance coax preamp to work behind the Balun. Any LNA with 20dB of gain should do, as per usual, better stuff may bring better results.

Among the sparse offers for decent shortwave LNAs, the NooElec LANA HF seems to be the only decent LNA sold via Amazon. It’s comparatively low-cost and unlike the other offers on Amazon, ready to be powered via Bias-T or even via Micro-USB and therefore happy with 5V. Since I also had the balun from the same company I could simply connect that all with a couple of these cute little SMA plumbing bits and it worked. The downside is its unknown but perceivably low resilience against intermodulation (low 3rd-order intercept point), this is usually not a problem with such a small loop but it can be in the presence of nearby transmitters.

If you do have nearby transmitters and don’t mind sourcing an LNA from Europe, Andrew recently pointed me to preamps from here. They offer a moderately priced preamp with a 2N5109 transistor (based on the W7IUV design) for a high IP3 value and low noise, which is also available in PCB-only and fully assembled versions including a compartment. They also offer Bias-T boxes.

Q: What is special/different about this antenna? There are already very similar designs!

A: It’s supposed to be simpler and more compact/portable, and it seems to deliver more consistent results over the entire coverage range in different usage environments than similar designs. The SULA was designed to be made with things that are particularly easy to obtain, or which were already obtained — many of us SWLs have some of that Nooelec stuff in our drawer anyway, even when (or because) we’re not habitual antenna builders and balun winders. Now making a better balun and buying a better preamp is not hard and could even bring better results but the point is that you don’t have to. In summary, this is not meant to be a miracle antenna, just number of compromises re-arranged to create a particularly uncomplicated, small, unidirectional loop antenna that aims for DX, for apartment dwellers and DX nomads like me.

Matt’s 2022 Portable Loop Antenna Shootout

14 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Matt Blaze, for the following guest post:

Matt’s 2022 Portable Loop Antenna Shootout

by Matt Blaze, WB2SRI

Followers of this blog may be familiar with my “shortwave radio shootouts” that I post from time to time. The idea is to compare how well different radios demodulate the exact same signal. Basically, I take a bunch of radios, hook them up to the same antenna via an RF distribution amplifier, tune the radios to some distant signal, and record the audio output from them simultaneously. Sometimes that kind of comparison can be more revealing of actual real-world performance than lab measurements or technical specifications.

The other day, I decided to do the same thing, but for antennas instead of radios. Essentially, I inverted the setup. Instead of hooking up different radios to the same antenna, I hooked up identical radios to different portable antennas and recorded them demodulating the same signals at the same time.

In this first of perhaps a series of these antenna shootouts, I wanted to compare three portable amplified magnetic loop antennas. When I say “portable” here, I mean broadband antennas that can pack reasonable compactly for travel and that can be set up and broken down easily for use “on location”, say on a picnic table or hotel balcony, or perhaps installed temporarily on a roof, without too much fuss.

The antennas are:

– The Wellbrook FLX1530LN with a 1 meter diameter loop of LMR400 coax. This is my “standard” portable antenna (I use a telescoping broom handle for the support; I wrote about it here as the “signal sweeper” last year). Excellent performance, but on the bulky side for travel. Performs well from LW through HF. Not cheap, at about USD 225 including shipping for the amplifier and power injector, but not including the loop, mounting hardware, or feedline.

– The Wellbrook FLX1530LN with a 0.5 meter diameter loop of RG142 (a stiff “aircraft grade” version of RG58 that holds it shape well at this size). I used some 1/2 inch PVC pipe as the vertical support. Because of the smaller diameter loop and thinner coax, it packs down to a much smaller and lighter package than the 1 meter LMR400 version.

– The K-180WLA, an inexpensive (about USD 60) 0.5 meter loop from China, sold on eBay and Amazon. The loop is steel wire (which can be wound down to a small diameter for transport), and the kit includes everything you need, including a rechargeable power injector. (However, the power injector uses a noisy voltage booster, so I substituted my own bias-T injector for these experiments). Ostensibly covers LW through VHF, but the low end coverage is, shall we say, somewhat aspirational, as you will see.

– I also recorded, for comparison, the built-in ferrite bar (for LW/MW) and whip antenna (for HF) of the receiver.

This is, of course, only a small sampling of portable loop antennas, both commercial and homebrew. But I wanted to start with what I had on hand and with what meets my own needs. (I omitted from consideration loops that require tuning, since I want to be able to install the antenna without needing access to it every time I change frequency).

For each signal captured, I oriented and positioned each antennas to maximize signal quality, taking care to move them away from each other and interfering metal objects. So you’re hearing (approximately) the best each antenna had to offer (on my roof under suboptimal band conditions).

The receivers I used were four Sangean ATS-909×2 portable LW/MW/SW/FM/Air radios. I believe this to be the best currently available (relatively inexpensive) portable shortwave receiver on the market. It has excellent performance (and is admirably resistant to overload and intermod when used with an active antenna). It lacks a sync mode, but that’s rarely implemented well on portable radios anyway. As a practical matter, it has a good line-level output jack, and I already happened to own four of them.

As in my other shootouts, for each signal, there are a total of five recordings: a monoaural recording of the audio from each of the four antennas, plus a narrated stereo recording comparing a reference (the 1M Wellbrook) on the Left channel with each of the other antennas in succession on the Right channel. The stereo recording is intended as a quick overview, but it will only make sense if you listen in stereo, preferably with good headphones. (You can switch the earcups to get a quick comparison as you listen.)

Continue reading →

Guest Post: Dan’s letter concerning the new Elite Satellit

24 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who publishes the following guest post:

Letter to Eton:  Cutting Corners on Elite Satellit Won’t Succeed

by Dan Robinson

As SWLing.com readers will recall, weeks before Eton shipped the first group of Elite Satellit receivers I published a commentary that asked a key question:  would Eton be able to meet the higher standards of the listening community in 2022 when it comes to new advanced portables?

Unfortunately, we all see what the answer to that question was.  Eton was forced to recall Elite Satellit radios that had been shipped to major resellers such as Universal Radio, Ham Radio Outlet, and others as defects became all too apparent.

A radio that had been on its way to me for review was among those recalled.  But I recently was able to examine a unit that a friend in the Washington, DC area purchased.  What I found I am putting in this commentary as a letter to Eton.

If the company takes these points seriously, I think there is still hope that the Elite Satellit can join the ranks of respectable multi-band portables – after Eton has gone back to the drawing board so to speak.  However, if Eton continues to cut corners with this receiver, its future is not bright:

Letter to Eton on the Elite Satellit

Dear Eton,

MUTING WHILE TUNING

As many who purchased or tested the Elite Satellit have remarked, the fact that you decided to release a radio with this issue is beyond comprehension.  Tuning on the Elite Satellit is, tragically, an uncomfortable and frustrating experience.  This needs to be corrected/fixed – you only need to take a look at Tecsun receivers such as the H-501 or PL-990x to know what needs to be done.

POORLY-IMPLEMENTED PASSBAND TUNING

Perhaps even more puzzling than muting, the Elite Satellit I tested had an even more mind-boggling issue.  Passband tuning should function to adjust the signal pitch without changing the audio frequency.  On the radio I tested, PBT was actually TUNING and changing the frequency.  Using PBT on this radio was virtually no different from tuning in SSB, with injected tones heard, until a zero beat was achieved.  All you had to do was take a look at a E1 receiver, or any other receiver with well-implemented PBT to understand how real PBT is supposed to function.

Continue reading →

Small Unidirectional Loop Antenna (SULA) Part 2: Construction Notes

34 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor extraordinaire, 13dka, who brings us Part Two of a three part series about the new SULA homebrew antenna project. This first article describes this affordable antenna and demonstrates its unique reception properties. This second article focuses on construction notes. The third and final article will essentially be a Q&A about the SULA antenna. All articles will eventually link to each other once published.

This wideband unidirectional antenna is an outstanding and innovative development for the portable DXer. I love the fact that it came to fruition via a collaboration between Grayhat and 13dka: two amazing gents and radio ambassadors on our SWLing.net discussion board and here on the SWLing Post. So many thanks to both of them!

Please enjoy and share Part 2:

Part 2: SULA Construction notes

by 13dka

The drawing [above] has all you need to know. You basically need to put up a symmetrical wire diamond starting with a balun at the one end and terminating in a resistor at the other end of the horizontal boom, the sides are supposed to be 76cm/29.92″ long so you need to make yourself some…

Support structure:

I used 0.63″/1.6cm square plastic square tubing/cable duct profiles from the home improvement market to make the support structure. You can use anything non-conductive for that of course, broom sticks, lathes… The plastic profiles I used had the advantage of being in the house and easy to work on with a Dremel-style tool and everything can be assembled using the same self-tapping screws without even drilling. The profiles are held together with 2 screws, for transport I unscrew one of them and put that into an extra “parking” screw hole on the side, then I can collapse the cross for easy fit into the trunk, a rucksack etc.

These profiles are available in different diameters that fit into each other like a telescoping whip. This is useful to make the support structure variable for experiments and to control the loop shape and tension on the wire. The booms end up at 1.075m each, the profiles come in 1m length, so that’s 4 short pieces of the smaller size tube to extend the main booms by 37mm on each side

On the resistor end of the loop that smaller tube isn’t mounted in the “boom” tube but to the side of it in order to keep the wire running straight from the balun box on the other side.

Mast/mounting:

You can use anything non-conductive to bring it up to height. On second thought that is indeed bad news if you were planning on putting that up on your metal mast…and we have no data on what happens when you do it anyway. I don’t know if the smallest (4m) telescoping fiberglass poles would suffice for portable operation, but I’m a fan of just using the big lower segments of my 10m “HD” mast for the stiffness they give me (3 segments for the height, the 4th collapsed into in the base segment for easy rotation). Telescoping masts also give you easy control over…

Height:

The published patterns are for 3m/10′ feedpoint height over “average” ground. Increasing height further has no expectable advantage, instead it will deteriorate the favorable directional pattern of the loop. Flying it lower, or even a lot lower in windy weather on the other hand is causing a surprisingly moderate hit on performance.

Continue reading →

Introducing the amazing SULA: An affordable unidirectional DX-grade loop antenna that you can build!

43 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor extraordinaire, 13dka, who brings us a three part series about the new SULA homebrew antenna project. This first article describes this affordable antenna and demonstrates its unique reception properties. The second article will focus on construction notes. The third and final article will essentially be a Q&A about the SULA antenna. All articles will eventually link to each other once published.

This wideband unidirectional antenna is an outstanding and innovative development for the portable DXer. I love the fact that it came to fruition via a collaboration between Grayhat and 13dka: two amazing gents and radio ambassadors on our SWLing.net discussion board and here on the SWLing Post. So many thanks to both of them!

Please enjoy and share SULA Part 1:

Introducing the Small Unidirectional Loop Antenna (SULA) 1-30MHz

A small and simple, unidirectional and DX-capable loop “beam” for SWLs!

by 13dka

In early June, Andrew (grayhat), SWLing Post‘s resident antenna wizard suggested a variation of the “cardioid loop” on the SWLing Post message board: The original “cardioid loop” is a small loop receiving antenna deriving its name from a cardioid shaped (unidirectional) radiation footprint. The design is strikingly simple but it has a few downsides: It relies on a custom preamp, it needs a ground rod to work and it is unidirectional only up to 8 MHz.

Andrew’s version had the components all shuffled around and it did not only lose the ground rod, it also promised a nice cardioid pattern over the entire shortwave, from a small, diamond shaped loop. Wait…what? It can be made using parts available on Amazon and your DIY store:

You need some 3m wire and PVC tubes to create a support structure to hold the wire, a 530 Ohm resistor and a 9:1 balun like the popular “NooElec One Nine”. Since it’s a “lossy” design, adding a generic LNA like the NooElec “LANA HF” would help getting most out of it. When you put that all together you have what sounds like an old shortwave listener’s dream: a small, portable, tangible, and completely practical allband shortwave reception beam antenna with some more convenient properties on top, for example, it is a bit afraid of heights.

That sounded both interesting and plain crazy, but the .nec files Andrew posted were clearly saying that this antenna is a thing now. Unfortunately Andrew suffered a little injury that kept him from making one of those right away, I on the other hand had almost all the needed parts in a drawer so I ended up making a prototype and putting it through some of its paces, with Andrew changing the design and me changing the actual antenna accordingly, then mounting it upside down. Let me show you around:

  •  Small, diamond shaped wire loop (with 76cm/29.92″ sides), needing as little space as most other small loops.
  • Unidirectional with a ~160° wide “beam” and one pronounced minimum with a front/back-ratio of typically 20dB over the entire reception range 1-30MHz.
  • Moderate height requirements: It works best up to 3m/10′ above ground, where it gives you…
  • …a main lobe with a convenient flat takeoff angle for DX
  • Antenna is comparatively insensitive to ground quality/conductivity.
  • Wideband design, works best on shortwave and is pretty good up to 70cm.

A functional small beam antenna for shortwave reception that’s just as small and possibly even more lightweight (prototype:~250g/9oz) than your regular SML, that can be easily made out of easy to obtain parts and easily carried around for mobile/portable DXing and due to its cardioid shaped directional pattern also for direction finding, a “tactical” antenna that’s also doing DX? Unlike conventional, Yagi-Uda or wire beams it can achieve a low takeoff angle at only 3m/10ft height or less, the front/back ratio is typically better than that of a 3-element Yagi, with a particularly useful horizontal pattern shape. That it’s rather indifferent to soil quality could mean that more people get to reproduce the good results and being a real wideband antenna is making the SULA an interesting companion for multiband radios and SDRs. Really? A miracle antenna? Is it that time of year again? If I had a dollar for every….

Continue reading →

Radio Nostalgia: Bob’s first radio

8 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bob Colegrove, who shares the following guest post:

My Very First Radio

By Bob Colegrove

Sears and Roebuck Co., Silvertone, Catalog No. 8003, Model No. 132.818-1

I don’t remember much from 1949.  I was seven years old and still in the first grade.  I do remember being gifted a radio by my mom and dad on my birthday.  It was a Sears and Roebuck Co., Silvertone, Catalog No. 8003, Model No. 132.818-1.  I don’t really remember asking for it.  I’m sure mom and dad did not have a clue as to how consumed I would become with radio over my lifetime.  In truth, this was not the radio that got me totally absorbed, rather that function would be filled in 1958 by the Howard Radio Co. Model 308 combination MW/SW radio-phonograph console which had been relegated to the basement in favor of the TV set.

In 1949 television was on the cusp of success, and AM radio was still the one-way Internet of its time.  I recall my mother listening to countless soap operas during the afternoon.  The Howard was still in the living room and we listened to all the popular programs at night.  Anyway, the Silvertone was mine.  It took up residence in my room and I could independently explore the wonder of five local stations broadcasting in Indianapolis at that time.  There were no parental guidance settings on the Silvertone, nor was there any need.

The Silvertone was not a world-class radio with all the sensitivity, bells and whistles I would later desire.  Below WXLW, 950 kc it was deaf.  It was, in fact, one tube short of an “All American Five.”  However, one of its four tubes was dual function, if you counted the detector.  It was what was called an “ac-dc” radio.  This meant it could be powered by either 110 Vac or Vdc.  Granted, there were a couple communities in the US which were still serviced by dc power at this late date, but that fact certainly did not warrant advertising.  The whole thing always seemed to me no more than a marketing ploy on the part of manufacturers to cover for the lack of an expensive isolation transformer in the circuit.  Given the fact that electrical standards of the time did not provide for polarized outlets and power cords, these things could be quite hot, and it’s amazing so many tinkers, myself included, are around to talk about it.

One Tube Short of an “All American Five”  

The dial was very crude, and the tiny tuning knob swept all 107 available channels in a 180-degree twist of the variable condenser.  My mom, always handy with a paint brush, took to marking favorite stations  with a dab of nail polish.  1430 kc was WIRE and 1070 kc was WIBC.  Perhaps she got the idea from Bill Halligan who used little red dots on the controls to indicate the setting that would likely produce some noise.

The printed media were sizeable and substantive in the 1940s.  The Indianapolis Star’s morning edition for Friday, April 13, 1945 was particularly mournful as the U.S. woke up to the news that the president had died the day before.  I was later given to understand that many stations broke from the normal schedule for a few days to play somber music.  Notwithstanding, the first section still bore the quintessential hourly radio program schedule from 6 am to midnight for each of the four local stations.  We always kept clippings of station logs for each day of the week.

My interest in baseball grew over the next couple years, and the Silvertone played an important role in my keeping up with the local AAA team.  The static on a summer night was atrocious.  Further, in those days, the broadcasters were not compelled to fill the air with chatter between pitches.  There were no recitations of mindless statistics and no color commentators to describe the nuances of sliders and curve balls.  Consequently, between pitches there were often long pauses of nothing but dead air.  If you happened to tune in during a pause you had little idea where WISH, 1310 kc was on a hopelessly crude dial.

Most minor league broadcasters did not travel with the team.  When the team went on the road, they used an old Model 15 clickety-clack Teletype machine in the studio.  A local guy at the distant ballpark would observe a pitch or play, and quickly type a cryptic message on his Teletype.  On the radio you would first hear the receiving Teletype spring to life in the studio as the message came in.  The announcer would quickly interpret it, and then embellish the play with some excitement as best he could.

Teletype Model 15
Copyright Museums Victoria (Licensed as Attribution 4.0 International
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

During those times, it was not too uncommon for the Teletype to suddenly go down during the game.  What to do?  An announcer was suddenly left to his own creativity to fill in airtime.  Possible solutions were to describe the lengthy process of extricating a stray animal from the field, or a sudden cloudburst and consequential rain delay.  An intrepid announcer went on as nothing happened, making up the play-by-play over the interval.  Invariably, when the Teletype came back up, he found himself not quite in sync with the game and possibly a few runs behind.  At that point the challenge was to patch in the necessary play and go on to complete the game to the satisfaction of an otherwise unsuspecting audience.

Well, after 73 years, I’ve seen my share of radios.  In the meantime, the Internet has made it possible to DX the entire world at any time on a fifty-dollar Kindle – excellent fidelity, no interference, no noise, no fading.  But, after all these years, I still cherish those static-filled ballgames and teletype machines heard on the Silvertone a long time ago.

Quietly Waiting for the Next Pitch

A Practical Application of Ham Radio – the Commuter Assistance Network         

6 Replies

The big gun of the operation, the Motorola CDM 1250. While sitting on The Big 94 repeater, it also scans NY State Police frequencies.

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Disclaimer: this isn’t about shortwave; it’s about 2 meter ham radio, but it’s something I thoroughly love doing in the world of radio.

About 40 years ago, a Citizens Band operator named Ed Barnat started a loose-knit group called Tri-County Assistance. Its purpose was to detect problems on the roadways and report them in real time. Ed acted as the central hub for information and in turn relayed it on to the proper authorities for action. He also used the information gathered through the Tri-County net to provide on-the-air traffic reports for local radio stations. Back then, there were no cell phones and no traffic apps on smart phones. CB and broadcast radio were the only sources of traffic info for commuters.

In time, Ed got his ham license – N2RKA – and added a 2-meter section to the Tri-County net. Somewhere along the line, I got my ham license and participated in both sides of the net. Then change of jobs forced Ed to stop running the Commuter Assistance Net as it was now known.

Thrown into Deep Water

A couple of hams tried to continue the net, but struggled and ran into trouble. One day, I had just checked in when the repeater owner came on the air, because of a problem, he forbid the two hams from using his repeater to run the net and added, “Jock, if you want to run the net, you can.”

Holy smokes! I believed firmly in the concept of the Commuter Assistance Net. I had a wife and a son, and if they were out on the roadways and had a problem, I would want them to get help (no cellphones, remember?). So I agreed, but being Net Control is very different from being a net participant, and I had to figure it out as I did it. That was over 25 years ago.

At first, I kept a strict log of the callsigns of the hams who checked into the net, and I maintained a list over 70 agencies that I might need to call with an incident. With the advent of the Traffic Management Center (see below), now I have a single point of contact, and I keep a hash mark tally of the number of hams who participate each week.

One of the things I am most proud of is the lack of bureaucracy. We’ve operated 25 years with no dues, no bylaws, no formal membership list, and only three meetings . . . all for pie and coffee.

The Dawn Patrol

Scanners are part of the commuter net. Below are some of my notes for the week and my hash tag tally of check-ins day-by-day.

Every workday morning at 6 am, I fire up a Motorola CDM 1250 transceiver on 146.94 and announce: “This KB2GOM, net control, standing by for the Commuter Assistance Network.” 146.94 is an open repeater (no tone) that is located on Bald Mountain, north of Troy, NY. Its coverage footprint is enormous, reaching far to the North, South, and West. The East is pretty well blocked by the Berkshire Mountains. Official backup is our sister repeater on 147.330 – PL 146.2, and if both repeaters are down, find the net on simplex at 146.520.

The Big 94 — 146.94 — repeater has a huge footprint.

The net serves the Capital District of New York, which nearly at the eastern edge of the state, about 145 miles north of New York City. Workday mornings, a large number of commuters drive into the three major cities: Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, which have a population of about 600,000. People commute to state government offices (Albany is the capital of the state), colleges, universities, and a variety of companies.

The net runs every morning from 6 am until 8:15 am and sometimes longer when a major event happens such as a blizzard or major accident. On an average day, there a relatively long stretches of silence, punctuated by check-ins. On a typical morning, 8-10 hams will participate, and we’ll handle 1-2 incidents a day.

Most of the time, the incidents are disabled vehicles in or out of traffic which I report by phone to the Traffic Management Center, which is run by the NY State Department of Transportation. The TMC is located in the same room as the State Police dispatchers, and when a report comes in, troopers or HELP trucks, as appropriate to the situation, are sent to handle the call. Sometimes TMC calls to let me know about incidents, so the communication is a two-way street.

A trash truck that almost went over the guardrail.

Sometimes we get accidents, accidents with injuries, chemical spills, vehicles (including a propane tanker) on fire, rollovers, and even a truck that smashed into a bridge overpass. During one morning, an ice storm swept through the area, and I handled 70 calls in two hours.

Just Two Rules

Everyone is welcome to participate in the Commuter Assistance Net. The goals are simple: to detect problems on the roadways and report them to the proper authorities and to share that information with net participants.

The net has just two rules. The PRIME DIRECTIVE is: Don’t cause anything! Rule two: when in doubt, report anyway.

With all the traffic cameras that seem to be just about everywhere, one might ask: “Why do you even need a commuter net?” Three reasons: (1) the cameras don’t see everything; (2) the folks at TMC can’t monitor all the cameras all the time; it’s impossible, and (3) there is nothing like a trained observed (which the net participants are) to let you know what is actually going on in a particular situation.

Sometimes Funny Happens

Here’s a true story from the net that was posted on Reddit:

Going back a few years, I had a job that required me to commute about 45 minutes each way. On one local repeater, on 146.94, there was a “commuter net” that ran every morning from about 6-8, net control was a fellow that worked from home named Jock Elliot, KB2GOM. The ostensible purpose of the net was to track commute traffic conditions, warn about backups, construction, obstructions, debris, and to get assistance to stranded motorists. Jock had the local traffic center (the one that provides traffic reports to all of the broadcast media in the area), DOT and several fire and police departments all on speed-dial and would bring them up to date. Sometimes, they would call him as well with info, because he could be counted on to get eyes on the situation. I was a participant every morning during this stretch of time.

It was a fairly relaxed net, the channel was quiet most of the time, owing to it being largely event-driven, so some light banter went by most mornings . . . more some days than others, depending on the overall conditions . . . you get the idea, I hope.

Anyway, it was protocol, when a car was spotted along the side of the road, we would call it in, and Jock’s first question was always, “Is it occupied?” The answer to this question would decide what order he called DOT (which had a free roadside assistance service), police, and the traffic center. If it was occupied, it was in that order; if not, it was traffic center, then police.

That leads us to one particular morning. Jock gave me a call. It went like this:

Jock: KC2***, KB2GOM. Are you on this morning?

Me: KB2GOM, KC2***. Go ahead.

Jock: Do I remember right, that you take I-90 east?

Me: QSL.

Jock: Have you passed Everett Rd. yet?

Me: Negative. Probably about ten minutes ahead.

Jock: Great. The Traffic Center is telling me that they’ve got a report of debris in the road. When you get there, would you get a closer look at it so I can tell them what it is?

Me: Roger that.

About ten minutes pass. . . .

Me: KB2GOM, KC2***. I have eyes on the debris.

Jock: KB2GOM. What is it?

Me: There is a mattress sitting in the middle lane, about a hundred feet past the offramp.

A beat.

Jock: Is it occupied?

Finally, I am deeply grateful for all the hams who have participated in the net over the years . . . over 150 by my best estimate.

One day, I was thanking one of the net participants, and I said: “Without you guys, I would be just a weird old guy with a radio.”

Fred, W2EMS, came back to me: “Ah, Jock . . .”

Me: Yeah?

Fred: “Even with those guys, you’re still a weird old guy with a radio!”

When I stopped laughing, I said, “Guilty as charged.”

So if you are in the Capital District of New York on a workday morning between 6 am and 8:15, drop a call on 146.94 . . . everyone is welcome!

  • End —