It’s been minute since my last poet but here I am with a little update on my amateur radio satellite station. I had a bit of a break from the sats this spring as I was planning travel, then traveling, then recovering from travel, then had a back problem, then recovered from that, and now I am back operating sats again. Whew!
I still use my original two-radio setup consisting of a Yaesu 817ND uplink radio and am iCOM IC-705 as a downlink radio, with no automation. I still love using it and can’t say enough about how much the 705 and it’s pandapter display improves the experience of working full duplex. Being able to see your signal on the downlink and then tune to it makes getting on frequency a breeze. That’s less QRM caused, and more time making contacts.
I thought about this the other day: If I was using two 817/818’s I would make a habit of using my phone to snap images of both displays during the pass. That would let me build a better cheat sheet and save a lot of time. Let me know if you do this, or if you use another method.
The other development is my use of the CSN SAT controller with my IC-9700 in a sling-style camera bag, into the ARROW II antenna. I stopped procrastinating and finally did the easy work of connecting a battery bank to the SAT, and connecting it to the CI-V port on the 9700. I’m using a HEIL headset and I run in VOX mode. I still have a few wrinkles to work out. The connections for the CI-V and the Key, and probably the HEIL headset cables and adapter, may be picking up some RF and I get a popping/click in the RX when transmitting on 2M (RS-44, for example). I will be making sure I have the wiring as neat as possible and throwing a choke or two into the mix in attempt to quiet that down.
Not only am I enjoying the life of automated Doppler compensation, which is a great way to operate, but I get to see how manual tuning stations sound to the automated stations. On several occasions I had been told I was “drifting” and it made the contact difficult. It’s all relative I guess.
In manual tuning I set the lower of the two bands (2m uplink on RS-44) and track the Doppler with the higher of the two bands (70cm RS-44 downlink). An automated station adjust both uplink and downlink to maintain the same frequency at the input of the transponder. Last night I heard a station on RS-44 that was super loud but couldn’t find themselves. It sounded like a lot of power and seemed to be pumping the RS-44 AGC, but who knows. I eventually worked them and had two observations. The apparent drift I was observing was due to differing tuning methods. Also the other station was super loud but often couldn’t hear themselves or the other station. I’m going to make a guess: Manual tuning, no frequency display on the downlink, likely too much power, and probably a mounted linear-polarized antenna and not able to twist it to match the sat’s polarization.
Having a man-portable/wearable, computer controlled IC-9700 opens up a lot of possibilities that would be difficult to wrangle with a manual tuning station. One is quick QSY between satellites since you can use the SAT control app to just pick another sat as it comes into view. Another is eliminating the need to switch antenna connections when switching modes as I need to do on my two-radio setup. Lastly I have started to use CW on RS-44 which is “interesting. I have to secure the paddles well enough to send accurately, and in a position where I can manipulate them in something like a normal hand position. It’s all a compromise. Then there is the challenge of manual tuning while sending with my right hand while pointing and twisting the Arrow with the other is quite a juggling act. With the two-radio setup I have to tune ahead, my signal or the other station drifts past, and then I retune again. The 9700/SAT will allow me to just send and manage the antenna.
The last difference is weight. The 9700 weighs a lot, and using a sling bag does not help as the weight really digs in to one side of my neck. I’m looking for a backpack that I can wear in reverse in order to distribute the load better. Until then I can manage that setup in return for the ease of use.
All of these things are pointing to another round of finding a suitable pack, them modifying it to solve these problems, and trying to keep the weight as low as possible.
That’s all I have for now. Have fun on the air, and Stay tuned.
[This post was drafted in early 2024. As of December 2025 I have cleaned it up and added a bit of new information with the intention of writing a Part II with comparison images]
Three things that defined my childhood were Music, Radio, and Photography. This was almost completely due to the influence of my father and my grandfather. My grandfather had started in photography in the 1920’s, developing his own roll film and making prints in a home darkroom. He started by installing electrical extensions in homes where the only electrical was one plug in the parlor. Later he worked as a projectionist, and then he started a “mom and pop” Radio, TV and Appliance store. It was literally mom and pop as he ran it with my grandmother. As a result our home was littered with radios and electronics. I started with a little transistor AM radio and unwittingly got into AM DX as I followed Boston Red Sox games while they were on the road.
Another thing my grandfather had was a darkroom. He picked up photography as a young man and that carried on to my father and then to me. I learned how to develop black and white film, and got to spend time in the darkroom learning to make basic prints. My grandfather started out on something like a Kodak Brownie but quickly switched to 35mm roll film cameras like the affordable Argus C-line. Both my grandfather and my father were low-tech photographers. An internal light meter was a luxury! As such, I was given a Yashica Lynx rangefinder with a dodgy shutter and broken meter as my first real camera. Little did I know I was learning Shutter Priority mode as only the 1/30, 60, and 125 shutter settings seemed to work. Later on I scraped together the cash for an Olympus OM-G and had a SLR with a working shutter and light meter! What joy.
I’ll be the first to admit that I had no style as a photographer. It took me a long time to get beyond snapshots. It wasn’t until I started using a digital camera that I had the kind of immediate feedback I needed. That’s not much as admissions go but I learned a lot about what kinds of processes I feel engaged with. In music I prefer live performance where the feedback is immediate, and similarly with amateur radio. But it was digital photography where I could have the immediate feedback while using a camera. I think my first digital camera was a Nikon point and shoot. It was poor on specs but a fun camera anyhow. I went through various compact (cheap) digital cameras and then I got a used Nikon APS-C DX format DSLR camera (D50, D200, D300). Those were very good cameras and relatively affordable. I shot with those cameras for years. They were bulky and heavy, but very reliable. Looking for something lighter led me to the Olympus Micro Four Thirds system. These cameras had a good sensor with a 50% crop factor (20mm lens is equivalent to 40mm on a 35mm full-frame sensor. The compact size and relative affordability was reminiscent of why I was drawn to the Olympus 35mm film cameras 30 years earlier. They were small, light, capable, and had excellent lenses.
I’d say the lens selection for m4/3 is as good any any camera system in production, with the exception of the Nikon F-Mount system. Even the plastic-ish kit lenses are sharp and bright, if not especially fast. The sensors are not great at high ISO, but the in-body image stabilization (IBIS) is among the best available. I shoot almost entirely handheld so this is a huge benefit. I can run longer shutter speeds and keep the ISO lower. After a trying a few other lenses my main setup has been a Olympus EM-1 MK-II with the 14-40mm and 40-150mm PRO zoom lenses. They fit perfectly in a Think Tank sling bag and cover everything I need in focal length with a constant f/2.8 aperture. Compared to my Nikon gear the Oly setup was lighter, more versatile, shot better video, and the lenses were as good an anything I used from Nikon. That bag has traveled the world with me and I took a lot of good photos with it.
And then a funny thing happened… I shot some film with my trusty Olympus 35SP rangefinder. I was back to a fixed lens camera with a 42mm f/1.7 lens, almost exactly the focal length I used in my old Yashica. Sure, film is getting nothing but more expensive and processing is eye-watering costly, but the feel of a simple camera with a “normal lens” was immensely satisfying.
I picked up a used Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 “pancake lens” to use on my Olympus, and while I loved the images I could never be friends with the slow autofocus in low light. It isn’t a great performer on Panasonic/Lumix cameras, but it gets even worse when that lens is mounted on a non-Panasonic camera. But the idea was set.
Meanwhile I was also reviewing thousands of images in my Adobe Lightroom library and doing a lot of culling. Digital has the advantage of letting me make a lot of exposures without fearing the time and cost of processing, but that also means I have a trove of bad images in there. As soon as I started that project I was confronted with the reality that I wasn’t happy with a lot of my images, even the technically solid ones. doing a review of 20 years worth of digital images is a great way to take a step back and think about what you really want out of photography. Sure, there are the travel photos, the special moments with loved ones, the special places and faces. Of course that is essential and something I would not change. But there are also many times when I was using those nice zoom lenses and the results were not great.
So I did two things: I put that 20mm Panny onto my EM-1 and started shooting with it again; and I started looking at fixed lens compacts. The Panny is as I remember it. It makes beautiful images, but as soon as the light dims the autofocus heads for the exits. I loved the compact feel of ditching the big zoom for a pancake lens, and I loved the way it brought my focus back to the composition instead of “zoom to compose”.
On the search for a compact camera there were a few options that rose to the surface immediately: Fujifilm rangefinder style compacts with the X100v sitting at the top of the heap; The Sony RX-100 VII with insane autofocus and exposure capability and a superzoom lens; Canon G series camera of which I have owned a few and like them; and this oddball camera from Ricoh called the GR III. I had seen the GR before, and I knew Ricoh because my dad had a Ricoh 35mm SLR that used Pentax K-mount lenses. The Ricoh full manual SLR was about the least expensive point of entry into 35mm SLR in the 70’s and into the 80’s. It was even cheaper than the Pentax K-1000, the cockroach of the camera world (durability and ubiquity, not revulsion).
Any research into the Ricoh GR III immediately brings you into the world of street photography because it combines a 24mp full frame sensor and excellent image quality with a pocket sized basic-black point and shoot that looks like a toy. On the street this is akin to a secret weapon where you look like a clueless tourist but you are getting the good stuff. Subjects who might recoil at the sight of a “real” camera just go about their business when you point this little chunk of camera at them. It is also seen as a good alternative to the “unobtanium” status of the Fuji X100-V, a camera in low supply commanding twice it’s sticker price. The Fuji is a great tool, though it isn’t actually compact like “in your pocket” compact. Styling-wise it is a dead-ringer for the rangefinder classics of the 50’s through the 70’s, which I love. Sadly it also has a certain hipster cachet that has helped pump up the street price. The list price is about $1300 USD but finding one for under $2000 is rare. Also, at that $2k+ point many photographers start looking at Leica as an option, as opposed to looking for cheaper alternatives.
At the end my decision came down to the Sony RX100 vs the Ricoh GR. Simply, the Fuji wasn’t small enough and the Canon wasn’t going to give me the image quality I wanted. The Sony is an excellent camera and I have pixel-peeped some raw files and I think it is the best 1″ sensor camera out there, but one of my goals was to make a step up from the IQ of the 20mp Micro 4/3 sensor in the Olympus. It’s not that the Oly is bad, it is actually a great sensor and Olympus packages it with great technology and lens selection. The problem I have is the resolution/look for the actual digital negatives. I shoot in RAW+JPG and edit my RAW files in Adobe Lightroom (actually now Luminar Neo). The Olympus RAWs are just what you would want. They can take a lot of manipulation and hold up great to any kind of preset edits. It turns out that I’m not a true “pixel peeper” but I found some of the Oly images wanting.
So that leaves the Ricoh, and I decided that the GR IIIx was the way to go. I like shooting wide, and I can see where a pure street photographer could make use of the extra width of the 28mm GR III even just for some wiggle room on framing/cropping when shooting from the hip. But I wanted to go back to the boring days of a fixed normal lens and the IIIx is the best option for me.
About two months later I was in a local (since closed) camera shop, yes a real camera shop, and they had a Sony RX-100VA for a very good price. After not much thought I purchased the Sony and now have a little competition going on.
In the next post I’ll put together a mini review and my first impressions. Thanks for reading. P
Just a quick update on my language learning adventure before I move into some new topics. I am still very comfortable with my decision to stop using Duolingo. I’m trying to be fair in saying that it has a place in the language learning landscape. If I was stuck with limited financial resources and needed to get the basics of a language, plus build a daily study habit, then certainly Duo fits the bill. The user data I have seen shows that it is massively successful in teaching English to people who will see a massive economic benefit of being able to find work in English-speaking communities, or in their own communities. While traveling I have stuck to a rule that if you needed to find an English speaker, walk into a hotel lobby. In many countries the people there got the job precisely because they speak English. In Mexico, Central America, and South America, learning English makes a lot of sense as a career builder. In the USA the same can be said of learning Spanish which is very much the second language in most of the country. It also might be useful to be learning Japanese or Cantonese/Mandarin if you are looking to work in those countries or with companies from those countries.
I’m a guy with an Italian ancestral background who decided to make sure I could manage the basics in the Italian language. I’m also old and currently retired. My tolerance for nagging from a cartoon bird is minimal. I also found Duo to be a poor fit with my approach to learning a language, and with the other tools I am using.
The good news is I gave Busuu a try, and it is a much better fit. It keeps some of the features of Duo like streaks and daily goals, but it does away with almost all of the game elements. Another improvement is the voices used in the spoken examples. Where Duo can sound very artificial and cartoonish, Busuu uses actual people speaking naturally. My comprehension has improved greatly thanks to that feature. It also has a very robust social element where you can correct other student’s work, and have yours corrected. Having a native Italian speaker correct my work is fantastic. I try to return the favor as often as possible. If I see someone learning English and their written/spoken example needs a tweak, I can give them feedback.
Another area where Busuu clobbers Duo is in practice mode. You can pick Vocabulary or Grammar, and work on only words you have had trouble with, for example, or only a specific grammar topic. In some cases you can engage with either voice or writing. It’s a great way to review and isn’t any more complicated than Duo’s, but it is much more effective.
I’ll leave that right there. Check out Busuu if you are in the market for a daily language app.
Here are links to a few more resources I have found useful/essential:
itakli spoken language platform. The UBER of language learning (minus the strong smell of Axe Body Spray)
Deep-L AI-assisted language translator app. Better natural-language translations.
WordReference Dictionary/Thesaurus/Conjugator. The interface is terrible but the value is immense.
Collins Dictionary is a WordReference alternative. Better in some ways, worse in others. Some day one of these will get a modern makeover. Until then have both ready to use.
Memrise enhanced flashcard platform. Some features of an app, in flashcard form. Great for quick-hit learning.
Language Reactor translator plugin for Chrome. A learning platform based on translating foreign language closed captions. Amazing.
This is a companion to my previous post about my experience with Duolingo (actually Super Duolingo paid service).
First off, I’m just a “punter” when it comes to Duolingo. Please check out the Duoplanet Blog, which is an excellent resource and answers questions more thoroughly and objectively that I have. I’ve linked directly to their review of Super Duolingo, but just go to their homepage and check out their excellent content.
This just in
I am “tapering off” on Duo but as soon as I started the next level there were new types of exercises. I don’t think any of them are groundbreaking, or even that useful, but they are better from an engagement perspective. One is sentences with two blanks, one for a singular expression and one for a plural expression. It sucks that they give you both answers and you just chose which goes first and which goes second. It would be better to give the user the word in English (or other native language) so they can answer on their own, but at least you get to jab at buttons. The other exercise is worse. Much worse. You get a voice prompt and two possible words. They aren’t difficult but it is a basic listening exercise. So you pick the right answer… AND IT DOESN’T TELL YOU WHAT THE WORD MEANS IN ENGLISH! WTAF. There are other exercises with the same problem. You complete the challenge but Duo doesn’t provide a translation. Massive fail.
So Duo continues to disappoint. I admit that it is a quick way to complete some exercises and feel like you came away having improved. I don’t hate that about it. But it can and should be much better at teaching a language.
A Variety of Resources
One thing I can’t stress enough is how many other great language learning resources are available on the internet, and through local libraries. Even if you are a die-hard Duo user you can amplify those lessons with some videos or podcasts on basic grammar, usage, phrases, and expressions. Here are a few of my favorites:
A surprising and maybe under-known resource is this Learn Italian program from UNC. It’s more of a grammar and usage resource, but it is well written. The content is very direct and thorough as you might expect from a university resource.
I also use a ton of YouTube video content, and here are my favorite YouTubers:
Easy Italian – This YouTube Channel is where I started with video resources and I still think Katie and Matteo are the best. They have a great mix of instruction in English and in Italian, the content is fun and enjoyable, and they do a great job of presenting it. Their Super Easy Italian series is an excellent intro to the language and you will have fun doing it. Their man-in-the-street videos let you hear actual Italians speaking Italian in an informal/candid setting. They also have a subscription plan through Patreon and it is worth looking into (I have a supporting subscription). The material can be a little difficult to find as it is spread around on JoyOfLanguages.com, Youtube, and various podcast sites. Their Grammar Bank and the exercises/transcriptions for each video are very good. One glitch: Grammar Bank is full of broken Soundcloud links (they should definitely fix this) but the episodes are likely available on the podcast service of your choice.
Learn Italian with Lucrezia – Lucrezia is more direct than Katie and Matteo, but also delivers excellent lessons in an engaging manner. I often turn to her lessons on specific problems I am working on and they have been very helpful. She has many informal travel-style videos as well as her excellent language lesson episodes.
Italian in 7 Minutes – Simone is my kind of teacher. His approach of “slow learning” has been very helpful. Spending less time jumping between material and getting closer to doing one thing per day (reading, writing, listening, researching grammar and verbs…) has made a great difference in how I feel about my progress. His specific lessons are also very good. Specifically, his lessons and videos have changed my learning approach from “grammar first” to “speaking and listening first”. I am able to read basic Italian and it is great for learning usage and vocabulary, but my real goal is comprehension and speaking. It’s the part of the process I struggle with, but that is because I never made it the focus of my learning. I’m working to change that after 3 months of “spray and pray” learning.
Learn Italian with Teacher Stefano – Stefano is the Energizer Bunny of the group. His energy and focus is only matched by the ferocity with which he rrrrrrrrolsssss his rrrrrrrrrrsss. Time spent with his material pays dividends, even though it can be a lot to take in for a beginner. Watch a video a few times in one session and it makes a lot more sense.
Un sacco di lezioni
I quickly found myself adrift in a sea of learning material. I found that many of these resources expect that you either have set a goal, or you are in a scholastic setting and are learning *everything* at once and are looking for an assist on certain topics. It isn’t a matter of using fewer resources, but of using the most important ones more and the less important ones less.
In my case I am shifting from a reading/grammar focus to a speaking/listening/writing focus. I will continue to read and continue to work on grammar, of course. But I am prioritizing putting the language into use and developing my ability to think in Italian, and speak in Italian. In my case that is not my comfort zone, but I think that is self-imposed. If I worked on it more I would be more comfortable.
I’ll end with a quick story about a conversation I had with my late-great friend Luuk. I am a musician and I had the immense pleasure of performing at the Zappanale Festival in Bad Doberan, Germany. It is, as it sounds, a festival dedicated to the music of Frank Zappa. After a performance we were having a beer and talking about the bands we had seen, and he said “I don’t know how you get up on stage and do that. I would be shitting myself!”. And my reply was that I put in a massive amount of practice time so that I don’t have to worry when playing to an audience. I had already made all the mistakes! So that is my inspiration as I progress in my studies.
I gave Duolingo a real chance to teach me Italian and these are my thoughts and observations after three months…
NOTE: Please read/skim to the end and maybe follow the post. Not only is this long and sprawling, but I know I will be making edits, adding images, and adding links to specific resources over the next week or so. I am not telling anyone not to use Duolingo. This is my reaction to three months of using Duo at least twice per day, for between 30 and 60+ minutes per day. Thanks for reading.
Introduction
As you might glean from the name of this page, my name is Peter Brunelli, born in the USA to American parents of Italian descent. While I am at least two generations removed from my ancestral homeland of Italy, I have been surrounded by Italo-American culture since birth. Nobody in my family has ever hid from their ancestry. Italian culture continues to be the center of how we see ourselves and our families, how we celebrate and mourn, and how we see the American experience.
Italian-Americans are their own people with their own culture. We are typically very proud of our Italian ancestry, but also proud of how our ancestors managed to assimilate into a strange culture where many were not initially welcome. Sure, we do not do things the way they are done in Italy. But my friends from other cultures are in the same exact boat. Their cuisine has adapted to the North American climate, food supply, and employment opportunities. Imagine leaving Napoli, the home of the San Marzano tomato, and landing in New England, home of the potato. It must have been a shock. I’ve travelled in China, and they are committing Crimes Against American Cuisine that are on par with how badly their cuisines are treated here in the states. Our country is strewn with the criminality of restaurants putting peas and other garbage into their spaghetti alla carbonara. But I know there are Italians putting strange stuff on hot dogs. What goes around comes around.
As much as I embrace the Italian culture there has always been one missing link to the “old country” and that is the language. I never heard Italian conversation used in my family’s homes. I heard exclamations, interjections, aspersions, random phrases… but nobody spoke Italian. I am a descendant of Italians who arrived in the US at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. There is a 120-year gulf between their arrival and where I stand now. That means it is not very surprising that I speak American English, especially in light of the assimilation pressure my ancestors faced in the early 20th century.
Why was no Italian spoken for about three generations? My “a-ha” moment come when I was a teenager and asked my paternal grandfather why nobody in his family spoke Italian. His response was, as I remember it “because I didn’t want to get a beatin’.” His family hadn’t left their homeland to raise Italian children. They were here to raise American children, speaking the English/American language well. For him it eventually meant not being turned away from work because of a thick Italian accent. He actually had a New Haven (Connecticut) accent. Which is a thing.
Despite not hearing much Italian, I was always seeing/hearing it used in relation to food, travel, cars… I could read enough to make sense of a cookbook, or a menu (yes, the food obsession runs deep). Italian and Italo-American cuisine has been my main link to the culture of my ancestors’ homeland. I cook like both of my grandmothers as a result. Maybe as I progress in my studies I continue to find ways to treat Italian recipes better, and appreciate both sides of the equation more fully.
I also have many bad Italian-American habits like swallowing the vowels at the ends of words, or using the plural incorrectly like “a biscotti”, or “a pannini” because that is something we see all the time in the USA. I don’t feel too bad because that is how language works. Italians make a hash of English the same way Americans abuse Italian.
Learning Italian has always been something I wanted to do but didn’t follow through on. Over the years I have made a few weak attempts to improve my skills but it never went anywhere. This summer I set out to change that. Now I’m off for a nice gabbagool sang-weech.
Learning Italian from the Interwebs
Before I address the Owl In The Room, here is a quick breakdown of the tools I have been using and how I use them:
Translating resources: Wordreference and Google Translate have been very helpful. The Wordreference iOS app is garbage, but the website is better. I use Google Translate as a study tool. I type a sentence in Italian, and I will get a functional translation. Then I hit “reverse” button and it will show me a better Italian version of the translation. I can take that and then try using indirect pronouns or changing the gender/number. I think it is more helpful than it sounds. Try it!
YouTube Instructional Video: There are dozens of language educators making great content on Youtube, and many have podcasts and lesson material available to supplement the videos. They have been a great way to improve my listening comprehension and learn key concepts in a mostly passive manner.
Video/Film in Italian: I was already watching Italian cooking shows, and have been for years. But I wanted to do more than catch a few words or try to turn on translated subtitles. Finding a way to watch The Simpson in Italian was great, but it is not easy at all. The pace is very fast! Just like the English version.
Easy-Reader material in Italian: Between my local library and Kindle there are many low-cost of no-cost books with beginner-level short stories and conversational dialogues in Italian. Reading is my comfort zone so these have been great. Resding lets me see a variety of tenses, vocabulary, and idioms in a comfortable environment.
Conversational Italian: I am just starting to use italki to schedule conversations with native Italian speakers. This is very much outside my comfort zone and I need to do more of this.
I will expand on how my use of these tools later, but you get the idea. I am not using just one tool. In fact, I use these other tools more than I use “the bird”…
l’Ucello
Yes, the bird, the owl, the emotionally manipulative taskmaster you love to hate. I had used Duolingo previously but never really dove in. It looks like I first opened an account in 2015, and that was most likely in an attempt to improve my French language skills (I live four hours from the Quebec border and have friends in Quebec). I took away several important reasons why that (mostly) failed and am trying to avoid those problems this time around. Aside from diversifying my learning materials, and putting in more time on a daily basis, I decided that I was going to see what the Duolingo app could really do. I started by purchasing a one-year Super Duolingo subscription so I had no ads, less dopey gamification (not really), and a less distracting experience. Or so I thought.
After 90 days (plus a few as I taper off) I am on Section 2, Unit 6. Let me tell you. It was the Section 2, Unit 5 that really did me in. I felt like I was doing ok with indirect pronouns, but Duo is all over the place. Not only am I not learning more, but I became more frustrated and felt like I was backsliding. I was trying to please the app and it wasn’t teaching me how to correct my mistakes. That is my one major takeaway. The only way you progress in Duo is by failing a lot and using outside resources. It will NEVER tell you why you are getting it wrong or pop up a message with a tip. For an app that sprays notifications at you like an enraged ex-girlfriend on Ladies Drink Free Tequila Night, it is mystifying.
I started by using everything: Lessons, word matching, phrase matching, league points, gems/lingots… I wanted to see what it was all about. What I figured out in the first week was that much of Duolingo is about getting you on a treadmill of buying lingots to get enough time to finish word matching games or extending 2X points sessions. It didn’t take long for that to grow tiring. When I searched the web for discussions about how people were completing the 2nd and 3rd level word matches without buying extra time I found that they were using pattern matching! Users had figured out where the app puts the new words and then sped through the pattern, not reading and matching. That’s garbage. That’s how you get past levels on a game console, not how you learn a complex language.
Pay once, Pay again: There is also a huge disparity between the rate at which you earn lingots and the cost of buying an additional minute of time to complete a challenge. 450 lingots for a minute, and if you only use 15 seconds you lose the rest of the minute. Must be nice… [this is an example of a predatory business model] If you are working your way through the lessons you might amass that 450 lingots in two weeks. The imbalance is shocking. But hey, in-app purchases are staring you in the face. Just buy your way to excellence. So immediately I stopped using that part of the app that I refer to as “Chump Central”.
Weak Workouts: There is an exercise module with options to practice what you got wrong (Mistakes), vocabulary/words, stories, listening, or speaking. Being able to go back to the mistakes I made, review them, and get them right is very useful. I do that immediately after a session. The “Words” section is terrible. It is still showing me words from week one, and putting maybe one or two newer words into each exercise. A large percentage of your time is spent letting the app know you still know how to say “bread” in Italian. The other modules are similarly frustrating. So there is another large chunk of functionality I take a pass on.
A League of Your Own: The league scoring concept is useful to let me know how much I am using the app. Other than that I am not driven by matching points with users who are doing “more”, especially now that I know how bad/easy/gameable many of the modules are. But, here’s a HOT TIP: Do 15 minutes early in the day to get the Early Bird chest, and then again in the evening to get the Night Owl chest. Both give you 15 minutes of double points. So you can care a little about points without needing to think too much about it. That kind of usage will keep you out of the “drop zone” in whatever league you are in. It would be nice if these lasted until the next day but Duolingo uses them to drive engagement. You can use that technique to keep you from slacking. But beyond that it is pointless (IMO). I’d trade it all for better language resources (more than zero) and better practice modules.
I’ll get to the important part now: At this point I am using maybe 25% of the functionality of Super Duolingo. Is it worth the $80-ish annual subscription? I’ll admit to being on the fence now that I have the subscription, but If I knew all of this going in I would not have spent the money. I and now only using it as a study aid which is reasonable once I found a way to skip all the filler. I am about to take a break from the my daily Duo routine after 90 days of continuous use. I will turn off all notifications and give the bird to the bird. I’m sure I will pop in for an occasional lesson and it is possible that I will be back at some point. I have read many reviews from advanced speakers who use it as a “tune up” or daily exercise. That makes sense. Time will tell
The Bad, and it is bad…
With that out of the way, I’ll tell what parts of the app are the worst:
Voice Recognition: At least half the time the app tells me I recited the sentence correctly before I am finished speaking. Sometimes it just tells me I got it right before I have said anything, maybe only uttering one syllable. That tells me the app is both poorly put together and the developers don’t care if you actually do the work. The voice recognition is shaky/garbage. Also, you can be wrong to an alarming extent and it still passes you. I found myself just jabbering and trying to make it sound right and it would say YAY! You Are Amazing. WTAF.
Gamification: Look, if you are a Candy Crush player who wishes you could feel less like a sloth while punching your phone’s screen, this app is your huckleberry. It has all kinds of ways for you to spend money, get bling, compete with strangers, and otherwise create a virtual social bubble. You will also have some basic foreign language skills. I don’t think it makes for a better learning environment.
Extreme Active Learning: Duolingo is almost 100% “experiential”, as opposed to learning from textbooks in a teacher-led setting. So if you are looking to know WHY you are using a word or structure you are out of luck. Duolingo just clobbers you with repetition, and you find a way to get it “right” but you will likely have no idea WHY. Duo provides virtually ZERO conjugation tables, examples, discussion, etc… There is a one-page summary at the top of each module. It is pretty useless. Traditional language learning support is not part of the Duo world. You will be learning things like indirect pronouns by guessing and making a lot of mistakes. Maybe it motivates you to find resources outside of the app. So you might progress, but your ability to THINK in the language is not a priority.
Emotional Pressure: Yes, the little characters are annoying. But you will be presented with Duo crying, the little characters in the side-challenges acting petulant or bored if you don’t use them, and the nags/notifications can be manipulative. If you have a well developed sense of DGAF you should be ok. But this backdrop is off-putting. I feel awful knowing that some users are succumbing to this and not being motivated by their own sense of self-education. It’s manipulative in the way only a candy-colored feeder-bar app can be.
Non-Functional Sync between devices: I have the iOS app installed on a phone and an iPad. The iPad never shows the chests from my twice-daily sessions. I can only see them on the phone I used on those sessions. I have tried a resync, logging out and back in, and reinstalling the app. Nothing works. Here is where I admit that my trust level in the app is so low I can’t imagine dealing with whatever passes for user support over at Duo. Pick a device and only use that device.
The Wrap
So that’s my three months of Duolingo fun. I’ll say this: there are worse ways to kickstart your language learning. I don’t know that a one year subscription is worth it, especially considering other available resources. It is one of the least expensive 12-month plans, especially if you don’t make in-app purchases during the year. You might also be the kind of learner who is a hand-in-glove fit for the Duo learning model. It is obvious to me that I am not a great fit for Duo. I suggest running a search like THIS ONE and checking out a few pages worth of links before committing to Duolingo. There is a lot of excellent analysis, and some other writers have analyzed the language model vs the business model, which I have been doing since the first day of this three month journey. I don’t think the learning model is without merit, but I do believe their business model is much more sophisticated.
Whether it is a credit card, social media, or any time I engage with an aggressive cash-extraction business model: Be A Bad Customer. Be A Great User. Get what you want out of the experience and be on alert for manipulation and hidden fees. DUOLINGO is a publicly listed for-profit enterprise. Users spending money is THE POINT. Users learning a language is not a revenue stream, it is the enticement. So bear that in mind as you decide whether to spend, and how much to spend, with Duo.
Whew! That’s a lot and thanks for reading any of this, never mind the whole thing.
Paraphrasing Frank Zappa [Jazz isn’t dead, it just smells funny] should give you an idea that I don’t take myself too seriously, even if I sometimes have strong opinions. My last post kinda took a detour into EMCOMM issues, and I stand by those comments.
But EMCOMM is a valuable resource bot for hams and the general public. I do think the technology needs a refresh. I do think hams in general are using tech that is outdated or incompatible with modern emergency communication systems. But that doesn’t mean I think the EMCOMM ops out there are wasting their time.
I will keep thinking about these issues along with other RF tech that I am interested in. Expanding and modernizing our operating scope should be part of radio tech education, spectrum defense, software development, user networking, and more. With the current threats to HF spectrum in particular these tech issues become more important. Ask your friends at the ARRL, or professionals in the commercial radio industry. It will only get harder to defend our generous spectrum allocations as our tech ages out and we fail to add value to the amateur radio service with technical innovation.
With hurricane season bearing down on the western Atlantic it’s a good time to think about what kinds of tech, or integration of existing tech, would provide a real benefit to our communities. I’ll be doing that. Chime in with any suggestions or ideas you have.
This is a quick hitter post but it something I think about often.
PLACE FOOT ON RAKE
Let’s take FM repeaters. The things we perceive as gateway systems for anyone with a HT, or for the local version of HF low-band nets. We have repeaters. The frequency pairs, tones, and networking are a mystery. We also have APRS which is great at squawking out test strings. Why are repeaters not squawking their pertinent info in a standardized format, which any modern radio has the computing horsepower to convert to a memory channel or VFO setting?
We are still using keypad menus that make a 1998 Nokia Stickphone look like a test case in great UI design. Ask most hams (this is an opinion) and they will tell you that identifying repeaters, programming repeaters, and determining where they are is a pain in the butt if not impossible.
So we have the tech but we have not integrated it. The same thing can be said for most DV systems. Hotspots, radio software, digital repeaters… all pretty much adrift. If you have great D-STAR repeaters and the right rig maybe it works for you. Otherwise forget it. You kinda use the same few rooms with your hotspot. Mostly over an internet connection… Not exactly robust. Yeah you are communicating with your micro-repeater hotspot. Technically radio but your RF contact is measured in feet. Keep telling yourself it is ham radio. Try not thinking about how that hotspot could be operating on GMRS just as easily. You’ll just get upset.
Most ham radio software is either DOS-era or WEB-0.5 era, with bad interfaces and bad hardware support. We are still tying much of your hardware interface tech to RS-232 standards. In the main we are more of a LARP or SCA hobby today than a cutting edge technical pursuit. And it is a foundation that is crumbling beneath our feet.
But what about emergency communications, you say?
With the recent questions about why Amateur Radio hasn’t played a bigger role in natural disasters like the recent (Summer 2023) Maui wildfires and such, one answer might be that our tech sucks. Half-duplex systems with little if no interconnection with public safety systems are not particularly useful in an emergency. DV repeaters and APRS are not particularly useful in an emergency if their use isn’t backed with a lot of training, coordination and the proper equipment. If I was in a wildfire and had to rely on sending messages from the keypad of my FT3D I would become a briquette before figuring out that trash interface.
And I have been into radio for about 50 years and a ham for over 30. I’m convinced that we don’t really have a useful communication network. Those Vietnam era phone patch days predate global satellite networks by 30 years. Nobody wants to go back there. We are not trained or equipped to integrate with public emergency services.
So what does that leave? Chatting about our medical situation, contesting, grid-chasing, political ranting over DV networks, pushing modes like RTTY as current when they are antiquated… You like RTTY? Great. Me too. But as a community we need to be honest about the impact nostalgia is having on the long term prospects for the bulk of our amateur radio hobby/service. Nobody is whipping out a RTTY system in an emergency. I’ll leave it at that.
As I said, a quick-hit post but I’ll close by saying we don’t need to eliminate any old tech. But, we do need an infusion of new, useful, integrated tech that will carry forward for another 100 years.
[editor’s cheap shot: From the constant stream of hams I see on internet forums and social media who can’t figure out a sound card interface I understand that I am typing this into the vacuum of space. Thanks for sticking with it. 73]
Much like my interest in radio I’ve been playing musical instruments almost my entire life. We just used to be somewhat obsessed over the guitars, keyboards, amplifiers and eventually software that we saw on stage (on air) and in magazines. Eventually that got its own acronym G.A.S. for Gear Acquisition Syndrome. What I learned from years of horse-trading equipment via selling, buying, swapping, upgrading, downgrading… is that at some point I was very happy with my equipment and changing it around was a distraction. I play electric bass and usually am playing one of the four basses I own to the exclusion of the others. It might be a holdover from the many years when I had one bass, one amp, and not much else. Honestly I am a relentless pragmatist and mostly look for a piece of gear with certain capabilities. There have been… exceptions. Nuff Said.
It has become the same thing with ham radio equipment. I moved around between many different radios and antennas in my first 10 years of ham radio operating. Mostly it was a need for a specific capability, like UHF all mode, or QRP HF with great CW chops. It was messy, and most of that gear is gone, but I learned a lot about what I do and do not like. I do still buy and sell things, but in the main I use the same gear for a long time. Time in the hobby helps you think “into the future” a bit and you can identify gear that will be junk soon, is junk now, is highly functional junk (heck yeah), or is the real deal. Spending time at hamfests is like a crash course. When I was an organizer for a small hamfest in Connecticut I was perusing somegrar at a table and one of the club “Elmers” buttonholed me and said “That rig was junk when it was new, and it hasn’t gotten any better. Talk to me later, but don’t buy it!” And we lear to sepeate the good from the bad (for our particular needs). There are radios that have very long useful lifespans (The FT-817/818, for example. The cockroach of the ham radio world.) and others that either have not or probably won’t.
Warning: The G.A.S. Monster is devious and does not sleep! Even as I started devoting more and more time to satellite operation I had resisted selling my FT-991A. It is a great radio. The ICOM IC-9700 is the only in-production V/U all mode with full duplex capability. That’s rare. There is usually competition in any given product segment. QRP radios, HTs, 100W entry level, Contest-focused rigs, HF linear amplifiers… There are choices. Not so in satellite ground station equipment. As I said in the last post, “One rig. That’s the list”. Meanwhile I am using my FT-817/IC-705 portable rig with a handheld antenna for all my sat work except for simplex digipeaters like Greencube/IO-117. I don’t know if I will ever put up a computer controlled alt-az antenna mount, preamps, etc… but I am interested in the capability. It was only a matter of time until I would decide to cut bait and obtain an IC-9700. May 2023 was that time.
After a short flurry of sales activity on QRZ.com I had moved my Yaesu FT-991A and backup FT-817ND on to new loving homes, and had squirreled enough cash to blunt the not insignificant cash crater the purchase of a new IC-9700 would create. It’s the only game in town. There are no sales, incentives, or promotions worth mentioning. You want it, they have it, and if you don’t buy it someone else will. That, friends, is Scarcity Economics in action. So on to my preferred enablers at DX Engineering I went and plunked down the plastic for a IC-9700, a headset adapter, and the Icom/Electret variant of the dynamic-mic Heil Sound Proset 6 that I use on my portable rig (FT-817 is my uplink rig). The Pro-7 would give me better isolation, but I will take a lighter headset with some bleed when operating out in public. I can hear someone walking by or asking a question. That’s not a bad thing.
It arrived quickly since DX Engineering is the king of getting the gear to your doorstep, pronto. First reaction: It’s a beautiful radio! I already had most of the power cabling I needed, along with N-Connector adapters, and it didn’t take me long to connect it to a dummy load and run through some menus. As I expected I felt right at home in the menu system. It is very similar to the IC-705. I also quickly noticed that the front panel is a bit cramped. Most modern radios have the same issue but I was thinking about using this radio outdoors, portable, and hitting the wrong control is something that just happens (foreshadowing).
Some of the questions I had about operating this radio would only be answered through use. I have picked the brains of some very helpful satellite operators, and scoured the web for videos, but nothing gave me a clear idea of how this thing worked in comparison to my FT-817/IC-705 satellite rig. I am fully manual with that setup, tuning the uplink rig (817) and the downlink rig (705) separately. The waterfall display on the 705 makes finding myself on the downlink easy with little need for a cheat sheet. I know the transponder ranges and centers, and get within a few KHz right away. QSY is as easy as tuning the RX, having an idea of how far away I moved, then adjusting the TX the same amount (in reverse on a sat like RS-44. RX up 3, TX down 3…).
The IC-9700 is different. It has a dual-VFO split mode and you can A/B between the two VFOs with dedicated touch screen buttons, using the main tuning knob to adjust each VFO one at a time. There is no sub-VFO control. There is RIT, but I am still not a fan of RIT for satellite work. My OCD tells me to just tune it correctly. I also won’t forget my RIT setting is on and waste time trying to figure out why I am out of band! That is similar to running two radios, but you only have one VFO knob.
Then there is SAT mode. I figured this would be the “killer app” for tracking frequency on sats. You can activate either VFO, and there is a NOR (normal)/REV (reverse) button between the VFO buttons on the touch display. Sweet! (Reverse is where the input of the transponder and the output are reversed. The bottom of the uplink puts you on the top of the downlink, and as you tune the uplink higher your signal on the downlink tracks lower, and v-v)
IC-9700 in a modified LowePro sling bag Rear Panel Access
I still use a handheld Arrow II antenna so operating sitting down is not a great option. Much like I did with my camera bag holster for the 817/705 rig I turned a LowePro sling bag that I had bought for a full-sized DSLR kit (and the bag was not great for that) and carved it up to allow me to wear the IC-9700. A Speedy-Stitcher made it easy to neaten up the cutouts I made for the rear connector access. I had to punch a hole through the side of the top compartment to snake the power lead out to the radio. Done. It worked and the rig only feels heavy, not unbearable. I hooked it up and went out to try a RS-44 pass. That’s a bird I am very comfortable on.
I put the radio into SAT mode, set the VFOs, and off I went.
Me and my Arrow
Let’s just say it did not go well. I’m going to bullet list the things I tripped over because I think it will make it easier to convey:
Seeing the display in sunlight is very difficult. I will need t make a shade to use this reliably in this configuration.
Changing between VFOs is not as intuitive as I expected, and not hitting the NOR/REV pad by mistake is even harder.
If you press on one of the frequency displays the frequency is highlighted making it easier to see, but that does not select the VFO for tuning.
If you use the VFO Select pads you can select the correct VFO, but it doesn’t highlight the associated VFO display. There is also that NOR/REV button waiting for you to step on it like Sideshow Bob on a rake. So switching VFOs and being able to see the display in daylight is a two-press and check the status of the NOR/REV before proceeding. Every time.
Then there is VFO synchronization where neither VFO is selected and NOR/REV tells the rig how to sync the VFOs. Yes, it works. But as you QSY the tracking isn’t great and once you have the RX on frequency you now have to retune the TX VFO (or v-v) to get yourself back on frequency. So it works, but not well enough to just retune and hit the PTT.
Admittedly I made it hard on myself by not doing more than a quick dry run before trying to make contacts with this radio. But I hope I am making the point that while the radio is a fantastic performer it seems more at home in a shack than hung around my neck. At the very least it will take practice to get to the point where manual operation is as intuitive as a dual-rig setup.
My next mission was to get active on Greencube/IO-117. This turned out to be much more straightforward. Because the IC-9700 presents two virtual COM ports over USB I was able to run CI-V control on one and trigger PTT with the other. I use SATPC32ISS for the CI-V (CAT) control, and UZ7HO Soundmodem controls the PTT by directly addressing the higher-numbered of the two ports. I was able to get rid of the VSPE Virtual Port Splitter app I was using, and SATPC32ISS instead of HRD/HRD Satellite. That’s three open apps as compared to five which is a better place to be in the field when things inevitably go wrong.
Greencube Portable Setup
It was as easy as the previous attempt was difficult. Using the same 70cm WIMO X-Quad I used with the 991A I was hitting IO-117 easily at 25w and made a few contacts immediately. Then “Greencube Hell” broke out and I wasn’t able to break in over the big signals is Europe and Russia. But it wasn’t due to a problem on my end. SUCCESS!
After a few tries I was able to make SSB and FM LEO contacts with the IC-9700 in my portable setup. I was still getting tripped up a bit, but having the sats in memory banks and being able to switch between them that easily is very cool. I am still occasionally hitting NOR/REV by mistake and my next step is to just run it in dual-VFO Split Mode and see if that is easier. I think it will be.
The performance of this radio is superb. Compared to the Yaesu FT-991A the receive sounds more sensitive and cleaner on weak signals. The 991A has a very good receiver, but there is something more “contrasty” about the RX on the 9700. The TX audio is levels above the TX audio on my FT-817ND. It is much punchier and clearer. You can pretty much tell a 9700 on the birds once you have used one. That is not a small detail when trying to make difficult contacts. Neither is the ability to dial up a few more watts when needed.
One last thing before I close this and start thinking about Part 3:
Even though the IC-9700 looks very much like the IC-7300 and IC-705 it is an older design and does not have features like Bluetooth Audio that I use all the time on the IC-705. Even if it was available I wouldn’t be surprised if it was left out to have one less RF source causing problems inside the IC-9700 chassis. It doesn’t feel as “fresh” as the IC-705 but maybe that is because I have a few years of 705 operation to rely on.
Nobody has ever said the IC-9700 is a “field radio”. It is meant for the shack and if you take it into the wild there will be compromises. Little buttons, crowded display, not designed for cold fingers or no-look operation… But once it hooks up on a satellite it doesn’t matter. If we have only one choice in this category I am glad it is the IC-9700.
Here’s the deal on not having the Yaesu FT-991A in my shack. I could easily see myself owning one again. It is a lot of radio for the dollar, epecially at the prices on the used market. As I have said on this blog, many people complain about the menus but how much time do you spend in the menus? The quick access menu takes care of day to day adjustments. I only had to go into the full menu to make major changes for data modes or filter ranges. The actual radio (not the feature set, the radio) is brilliant. It is a standout 100W HF rig with a great receiver, great on 6M, and the V/U performance is very usable. It isn’t a V/U thoroughbred like the 9700, but for most weak signal operation it is very good. I don’t work a lot of QRO HF, especially since getting set up for satellites, but I will miss a 100W HF rig at some point. The bigger miss is 6M. I like working 6M and this is a bad time of year to be without a 6M radio. My plan is to pick up a Yaesu FT-891 eventually and fill that void and have a portable QRO HF option.. Until then 10W on the IC-705 has been a good HF setup for me since I bought it, and it is still a great choice.
2023 marks 30 years of being a licensed ham and over that time I have owned a range of brands and types of radios, built QRP kits, built antennas… the usual stuff. I started out with a Ten Tec Triton IV, dial cord tuning, and that was a great rig. Excellent receiver, excellent QSK, great company. I ran a TT Scout for mobile HF and that was a fun radio. I liked the simplicity and the analog performance of those radios and can say I started off in ham radio as a “Ten Tec Guy”.
Ten Tec 540 Triton IV w/ Analog Tuning
But… I also have a “early adopter” streak, so I also bought an original Icom IC-706, then traded up to a MKII G when it came out. It was like buying a rig from the future! It may have been because the MKIIG is still a very good radio over 25 years later! Icom was ahead of the pack with the size and the feature set. The bleeding edge can be a good corner to hang out on.
Later on my VHF Rover activities gave me a chance to use various Kenwood, Icom and Yaesu radios. They all had pros and cons. They all made plenty of contacts. Over the years I have owned a few of each, but on balance you could call me a “Yaesu Guy”. Yaesu vs Icom reminds me of Nikon vs Canon cameras. Yaesu is more like a Nikon, making great performing gear but holding on to a set of features and specs well past their due date. Icom is to me an equivalent to Canon. Canon always felt a little more flashy, more modern and easier to use, and Nikon was more old-school tried and true. Maybe Ten Tec was my Olympus, because I was a Olympus guy, who eventually became a Nikon guy, who became an Olympus guy again. It’s complicated! Like this analogy.
A few years ago, after a bit of a layoff from ham radio, I had almost no gear left, and some accessories and a few HTs were all I had in my “shack”. I bought a Xiegu G-90 which is a very good radio, and a lot of fun, and it got me back on the air and active again. I also purchased a Yaesu FT-817ND because I have owned several before and I feel kinda “naked” without one. When I decided to get a 100W HF rig a few years back I realized that I needed VHF/UHF as well and the Yaesu FT-991A was the obvious choice. It covered VHF and UHF with some power, has a great receiver, and it has built in audio and and CAT over USB. After buying it I felt like I might have underestimated it. It is a better rig than I expected it to be. I have made loads of contacts with it. It is a 3-band VHF Rover rig, out of the box. I worked SSB, CW, RTTY, FT8, and other digimodes with ease. It’s also an excellent general coverage receiver and I did a lot of SWL with it.
But a funny thing happened when Icom came out with the IC-705. The early adopter in me was back in charge. I bought one soon after it was released and I have been blown away by that radio. It has done everything the 991A has done, and more, with the trade off of less power against less weight. I used it for POTA, travel operation, mobile use, and then as half of my portable LEO satellite station. The 705 has been my downlink rig since I started satellite operation, and it is a joy to operate in that role.
Icom IC-705
You can see where this is going. Right now Yaesu is making a great line of HF radios, with several new models over the past five years, but the 991A is their only V/U All Mode, and there are no indications of anything new coming any time soon. The 991A is similar to the FT-817/818 in that it is an older design and the clock is ticking. Just this year Yaesu killed off the 817/817 line and Yaesu has not indicated that it will replace that radio. Meanwhile, the IC-705 showed me a better interface, better menus, and in many ways better performance in a very compact package. Certainly it is more convenient than the 991A and a technological leap beyond the Yaesu FT-817/818.
In fact, I like the 705 so much that the 991A started to look like it might need a new owner. Between satellite operation and QRP the 991A wasn’t getting as much use. I never worried about the performance. It performs very well. Even the menu system isn’t that bad. It just isn’t great. And while it is a very good option for satellites like Greencube/IO-117 it isn’t full duplex and there is only one full duplex VHF/UHF All Mode currently in production, and it’s the Yaesu IC-9700. It might seem cliché for a sat op to run one but if you want the best satellite rig you can buy new the list is one rig long.
So it happened… I sold both a backup Yaesu FT-817ND and the FT-991A and am now yet another sat op with a IC-9700! I have some immediate reactions from the first few days of ownership and I will cover them in the next post. Spoiler: Both the 991A and the 9700 are very good radios. They are also very different radios. And that’s a good thing.
In which I take N1QDQ international as N1QDQ/VE2 in eastern Quebec
Over the past 15 years I have made many trips into eastern Canada, and most of those trips have focused on the Gaspe Peninsula. It is a lightly populated region with amazing culture, friendly people, great food, and stunning natural beauty. The peninsula is bounded by the St. Lawrence River on the north coast, the Baie des Chaleurs on the south coast, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence at the eastern end. The region is heavily francophone, and their dialect can be tough to understand even for other Quebecois. For me with my limited vocabulary, tin ear, and brutal American accent it is pretty much impossible. But on the other hand most Gaspesians will use whatever English they have to stop me from assaulting their language. When it comes to road signs, menus, basic written French… I can get by comfortably.
As a satellite radio operator the attraction of the Gaspe is how few stations have contacted the region. Hams use a geographic system called the Maidenhead Grid Locator which organizes the planet by grids 2-degrees wide and 1-degree tall. In Rhode Island the whole state is in a Grid called FN41. The next grid square north is FN42, and the grid square to the east is FN51. Here’s an example:
Maidenhead Grids – I live in FN41 in the bottom left of the image
Hams collect contacts with these grid squares in a philately-like quest. Some grid squares are lousy with satellite operators. Even one or two active operators can make enough contacts to make that grid square commonplace. Other regions, and the Gaspe certainly fits this bill, have no operators at all. If you want a contact with that grid square then someone has to go there and “activate” it. That activity is called “roving”, and it is similar to the portable VHF contest activity I have done previously (also called a Rover station).
With all of the travel restrictions over the COVID era I have not been there since the fall of 2019. My good friend Philippe lives there and we have both missed our time visiting either here in New England or there in Quebec. This put two trips I wanted to take in play as one single trip. A satellite rove to the Gaspe and time to spend with good friends in a great region of the world. Matane, Quebec is about 750 miles and 11-12 hours from my home in southern Rhode Island. My preferred route is to avoid Boston traffic and drive straight up US Interstate 91 through Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, then to Drummondville, QC where the Trans-Canada Route 20 takes me 7 hours east to the Gaspe. The first goal is to get past Springfield, MA where the traffic calms down and the drive up the scenic Connecticut River Valley begins. Once across the Canadian border the terrain flattens and the English-speaking FM radio stations fade into the distance. Turning east at Drummondville, QC puts me on a not too pretty stretch of road that changes dramatically once I have passed Quebec City. From there it is a parkway through rolling farms, the St. Lawrence River, with the last gasp of the Appalachian Range ahead.
The Gaspe Peninsula
With all that preamble done, here is the radio stuff you probably came here for:
The Plan:
I brought equipment to work both Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and the Greencube/IO-117 Mid Earth Orbit (MEO) digipeater satellite. The LEO rig is a Yaesu FT-817ND for the uplink and an ICOM IC-705 for the downlink. I use Micro-circuits filters on both antenna feeds, and an Arrow II dual band antenna. It is powered by a homebrew LiFePO4 battery pack and is easy to take on a short walk or easy hike. The main satellites I was interested in were RS-44, AO-7, SO-50, and the ISS.
LEO operation above the St. Laurent in Matane, QC
My MEO setup is not so portable. My newly acquired ICOM IC-9700, a 20Ah Bioenno LiFePO4 battery, my Dell Ultrabook, a WIMO 435MHz X-Quad, and a very brawny and old Gitzo photo tripod.
My MEO/Greencube setup in use at Ninigret Park, Rhode Island
These trips are easiest for me if I get a very early start, and on this trip it was wheels-up at 5:00AM. Once I made it to White River Junction, VT I stopped for a break and checked the satellite schedule. I saw a decent RS-44 opportunity at about 9:30 AM EST / 1330 UTC. Here is a good example of the challenge a big trip like this posed to me: How much time am I burning to work a satellite pass when it is part of a 12-hour drive? When I saw a pass that had good elevation, or was in part of the sky I expected to see clearly, the plan was to look for a spot starting about 10 minutes before AOS. I would simply keep driving if I ended up in some gorge, or blocked off by a mountain range.
First Stop: RS-44 from FN34wa near Norwich, Vermont.
Roadside rest stop in Vermont
This is a roadside rest area and while it wasn’t amazing the pass was high enough to clear the short ridge to the west. I made 11 contacts and the site was fairly quiet. I was concerned about how much RF noise I would encounter at an interstate roadside. This one wasn’t bad even with traffic on the highway and the tractor-trailer that pulled in a parked right in front of me. Of course I was in rural Vermont and not on I-95 in the RF hellscape of Fairfield County, CT.
Second Stop: IO-117/Greencube from FN45al near Sherbrooke, QC.
Roadside operating location in Sherbrooke, QC
There is a grid intersection in Sherbrooke where the Rt. 55 briefly loops from FN35 into FN45, but none of the gridline locations looked safe. I pulled off an exit and found a safe roadside spot in FN45 with a good view of the pass. It was also near the entrance to some kind of gravel/crusher operation because dump trucks full of that stuff kept rolling past. It was hot, dusty, and dry. But, I did put another 11 contacts into the log.
Here’s my Greencube rant: I could have made many more contacts if it weren’t for the “ham radio stylings” of several operators. On a digipeater you are trying to get the sat to hear you, the retransmit your message. It is simplex, meaning it alternately receives or transmits on a single frequency. If you see your message come back then most of the other operators also saw your message. Job done. Or it should be. Several of the stations that kept calling me multiple times within each minute were taking the slots I needed to reply. Having one station doing that makes it hard to reply, and a few stations doing that made it impossible. These same stations were calling me, and THEN calling CQ in the next frame! EVERYONE SAW YOUR CALL. Why ask for more congestion when you are trying to make a contact? Also, the pass put the bird over Europe for the last half. These big-gun Europe and Russia stations have the sat at a very high elevation. I’m on a roadside running 25W off a battery and manually trying to keep the antenna pointed at the bird as it is at 20 degrees elevation and descending. My range to the satellite is at least twice what theirs is. And they keep big-footing the digipeater. I won’t go on, but I will say this about Greencube: Less Calling Equals More Contacts.
As much as some ops have turned this bird into a cesspool of terrible operating practices, ahem, I was looking forward to using the huge footprint to contact hams in Japan, and South America, and the Middle East… Sadly there was a technical problem and Greencube stopped operating its digipeater just after this stop. It was inactive throughout my entire trip and would not be active until one week after my return. Good Grief.
Stop #3: RS-44 from FN58oi, Le Bic, Quebec.
Parc Nacional du Bic – Bic, QC
In this case there was an eastern pass of RS-44 and I was passing one of the few stretches of the road where hills block the north and east. It looked like I might have to skip it but I was pretty sure the entrance to the SEPAQ park in Bic might have a view across the bay to the east/northeast. The question was if I would get there in time. I did, and it did. Again, 11 contacts! It had some power line QRM and the southeast part of the pass was blocked off by hills. After this is was time to pack up and finish the drive to Matane.
La Baleine has welcomed visitors to Matane for over 50 years!
I consider Matane the gateway between the Bas Saint Laurent (Lower St. Lawrence) region and the Gaspe-Peninsula proper. My perception is mostly about geography. Matane is the first of a long string of towns which sprung up where a river meets the sea. These were natural places for fishing, logging, transportation, and general commerce. The Matane river is a major salmon fishing destination and tourism hub, but is also a sleepy town with a few hotels and a nice centerville. Even if you just stop at La Fabrique microbrewery and gastropub it is worth it, but definitely take a walk by the river and see the port area.
On my first day I experienced a trademark weather switcheroo. We went for an early afternoon hike in the interior above Rimouski and had at least 90F/35C and full sun. As soon as we headed back to the coast the view over the St. Lawrence River greeted us with a line of storms coming straight across from the north. Within hours the temperatures had dropped into the low 40F range and were still dropping. That weather even set the stage for a cold and wet visit.
Riviere Rimouski – Portes de l”Enfer Canyon
In Matane I scouted out an elevated spot above the Old Harbor which was good for seeing that big north horizon. The cold wind was a challenge which would continue for the most active part of the trip. This location in FN68 was my most productive as it was less than 10 minutes from the apartment and had parking spaces and a picnic table. Sometimes you take the easy spot and run with it. This was one of those times.
A colder, wetter, me above the Old Port in Matane, QC
With Greencube out of the picture I focused on RS-44, and looked out for AO-7 and ISS passes. The Matane stop was a good chance to recharge from the drive, and with the weather turning bad I wasn’t as active as I planned to be. Even with that I was sticking to my goal to move up the coast and activate FN69, FN79, and FN78. That drive just happens to be one of the most dramatic tours in Quebec. Even with the bad weather it was going to be a good drive.
Finding public spots to make satellite contacts on the coastline can be a challenge as the road does not have many safe pull offs. With the SW-NE angle of the coastline it can be tough to find a clean look to the E-SE and SW looks are even rarer. Many of the passes I worked were partials. I could see the first half or the last half of the pass, but not both. Better than nothing! Narrowing down potential passes was straightforward. I looked for good direction, good/workable elevation, and good timing.
Early the next morning I headed out to work two RS-44 passes in Matane, returning to warm up between passes. Then it was time to pack the car and start the trip to Riviere au Renard on the eastern tip of the Gaspe.
An operating location in Grosses-Roches, QCI made a few contacts from the Phare at La Martre, QC
I have been close but never actually visited Riviere au Renard before so all I had to go on was Google Earth and some photos from the web. I was excited to operate from here because the FN78/79 grid intersection runs right through the fishing port, and Google Earth made it look like the parking lot at the Auberge Caribou was on the gridline. I’d be having a comfortable activation and noshing on a chicken wing before sliding into my warm bed! Or so I thought.
This was a LIE! The Maidenhead overlay I use in Google Earth is deeply flawed. While it shows the gridline in an easy spot it turned out to be slightly south of here. This miscue is also on me because the Lat/Long display in GE actually shows me that this displayed line is slightly north of the true line. NEVER TAKE EASY INFO AT FACE VALUE.
The actual Gridline is HERE:
Here’s the thing: I am very sensitive to property issues and avoid trespassing whenever I can. While wearing headphones, carrying two radios in a sling bag, and pointing an antenna, I’m even more sensitive. You never know what kind of reaction you will get from a homeowner even if you aren’t on their property (or are you?). The beach on the east side of the 132 is where I should have gone. BUT, long drives in bad weather combined with a focus on where I thought the line should be gave me a kind of tunnel vision. I walked out onto the seawall and kept going until I hit the gridline. This was stupid. I have spent a lifetime rock hopping on seawalls here in southern New England. It’s not like I had no idea what I was doing. But, this thing was a beast. It had much more in common (difficulty wise) with an alpine scree slope than a Rhode Island “breachway”.
I even missed the first part of the RS-44 pass while I slowly made progress until my iPhone GPS showed both FN79 and FN78. I finally got to the spot and I made a few RS-44 contacts. Then I saw an overhead ISS pass was starting right after RS-44. I’m there already. I’m cold. I’m wet. But I’m there. Why not! I’m so fried that even an FM sat looks like an oasis!
And that’s when I worked astronaut @Astro_Woody Hoburg, operating as NA1SS on the International Space Station. To say it was surreal is an understatement. I was wet and freezing and trying my hardest to dodge the big splotches of seagull excrement that surrounded me. And then I’m talking to an astronaut. And then I’m not. And then I have to retrace my steps back to the shore. That is where the satellite portion of the evening ended. The next RS-44 pass was not going to happen. I needed to shower, eat, sleep…
By the way, Au Frontibus microbrewery is the hot setup in Riviere au Renard. Relaxing, hot fresh food, and good beverages no matter your tastes. Even the soda selection is very good. Auberge Caribou was a good place to stay but I’d skip the restaurant. There aren’t many choices, but Frontibus turned out to be a better option.
The next morning I had recovered enough and was still waking up very early. That happens to me on some trips, especially with an itinerary. At 0520 local I worked an RS-44 pass from the beach in front of the hotel in FN79. It was back to the hotel room to organize my gear and prepare for load-out. About 90 minutes later I made my way over to the port and worked the next RS-44 pass from a dock in the fishing port in FN78. That’s more like it. No ankle-breakers and bird bombs. The weather was still foul, I was still very cold and exhausted, but at least I wasn’t slipping on seagull poo.
A hot breakfast at the Croque-Faim restaurant, a hot-ish shower, and I was ready to hit the road back to Matane. I think the return trip is somehow even more dramatic than the trip out there. There are sections where you crest a rise in the road and the view is literally breathtaking. The massive St. Lawrence spreading out to the horizon, a tiny church spire on the shore below.
Grande-Valee, QC
Just west of Riviere au Renard is a small one of these crests, and there is a safe pull-off on the north side of the road. I used that spot for several passes, with its open view to the west and north. The photo below shows north but I think it is actually a but more west. The compass in my iPhone was unreliable in many spots. I’ve seen this at Ninigret Park in Rhode Island, an ex military air base with who knows how much ferrous and copper buried beneath the surface. For whatever reason I had a devil of a time getting compass bearings and resorted to maps with fixed north if I had cellular data available.
My operating spot above Petit-Cap, QC
An early pass there was nice and quiet, but the pass I worked on my way out of town was a mess of wall to wall white noise. I am pretty sure someone was welding nearby. It wasn’t crackly or fluctuating. It was just +20 white noise, then off, then on, then off… Just like someone laying down beads with a MIG welder. I still made contacts, and I took the approach of transmitting during the noise. I don’t need to hear myself and it increased the odds of a reply happening during an “off” period.
One very cool characteristic of the Gaspe is the lack of RF interference. In most areas you will hear four FM stations at most, and the cellular comms density is very low. In an area where I would be deafened by broadband noise, solar inverters, bad lighting transformers, etc… it was some of the quietest VHF/UHF conditions I have operated in.
The run back to Matane was still cold, but the sun came out and the Saturday traffic was light. It took me half the time to get back as it took to get out there on a wet Friday.
In the end I made 157 QSOs to 16 countries, contacted 82 separate grids, and activated seven grids (FN34, 45, 58, 68, 69, 78 and 79). This was my first rove and it was a trial by fire. My VHF contesting experience came in handy when managing the pileups and scouting for clear operating locations. The added logistics of finding appropriate pass times and trying to get to the right location at the right time were more difficult. On my outbound trip to Riviere au Renard it took over five hours. My Time-Speed-Distance (TSD) approach was down the drain. The return took three hours. Same deal. It’s either operate on the move, or hunker down. Doing both is a lot to manage.
Another major factor on a long trip like this is fatigue management. My trip from RI to Matane was 14 hours, and about 750 miles, including the three stops for satellite work. That requires some recovery time. I don’t want to have an accident or make a bad decision because I am exhausted. I was also there to visit a friend, so satellite passes were secondary at various times.
My great friend Philippe and I rid the oceans of the dastardly Moule, one Frite at a time!
My return to Rhode Island was an uneventful 12 hours on the road, carrying many great memories and knowing that I have to be OK with how everything worked out. A major satellite in my plan conked out. I was not as fresh as I thought I would be and the cold and wet really took some of the energy out of me. My take-away is that I could have spread out stays over more locations and felt less exhausted and less rushed. But I also know I had a great time and found some kind of balance between satellites, rest and relaxation, and driving. I hope to be back there in a few months and will at least have my LEO setup with me. I hope it happens and I hope to get more of these grids into the logbooks of my fellow satellite operators.
Acknowledgements:
I’d like to thank everyone who supported me with education, information, kind words, and encouragement. John VE1CWJ, Ian K5ZM, John KG4AKV, and Jerry W8LR were huge sources of support as I prepared to leave on this trip. Carsten OZ9AAR, Peter G0ABI, and Peter 2M0SQL were reliable voices as I did my best to activate these grids. The Ham Twitter community at large was massively supportive and I couldn’t have done it without them. Considering that I started working satellites in October 2022 it was a steep learning curve and many hams were there with patience and great information. 73
petebrunelli 