Episode: 4575
Title: Making First Contact
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4575/hpr4575.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:15 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4575, for 2026-02-13
Today's show is entitled, "Making First Contact"
The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:29:16
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "Ken finally makes his first contact with Kees "
hi everybody my name is ken fallon and you're listening to another episode of hacker public
radio wow this one has been a long time in the making ladies and gentlemen i am joined here by
elmer and you are i am case and the call sign is papa alpha seven tango risky oscar or m5 twr
yeah in five two in five two so um the reason that this we're actually recording after work
and uh case is a licensed amateur radio operator here in the netherlands and my first contact with
you was where some sort of i had some sort of aerial uh 5 8 whip thing and uh one of the guys
said yeah go down to case he knows all about this and ever since then case has been bugging me to do
uh to become amateur radio operator and it was actually you send me a link that the rsgb which
is the religious society of the great britain during cold war had switched their introductory licensing
to online for the first time yeah yeah which actually brings me to this episode because
they also removed the need to do the when you do the technician class in the uk you're supposed to do
go to a club and you're supposed to do your first contact and you're supposed to do the aerial and
stuff and all the physical stuff of course that wasn't allowed during covert times so i skipped over
that then when i got the intermediate they had put that also online and then when i had done that
the third one also came online so i ended up not having made a contact and getting my full license
and now i've got a dutch license due to the magic i'm haric and now i'm paranoid because i got this
lovely radio which i bought from you or via you and i'm very scared to turn it on because if i get yeah
get around i'll blow it up a little bit of background from my end then yeah 1990 was my first
license in the netherlands d license on the vhf what was it 25 watts or 10 watts or whatever in fm mode
1991 half year later i switched to f-class that was 50 megahertz yeah full license it was 15 megahertz
and up whereby the six meter band was the only possibility to do dx-ing
further than let's say 1500 to 2000 kilometers that lasted until the year 2000 where i took the
advantage of the switching from z class a and b to be to become more less so to say and in one of the very
last exams in the uk i did the cw uh uh yeah the moscow the moscow exam and hence me getting the uh the m5
dw as i believe the one and only foreigner in a range of something like maybe 90 or left or so
and of course i'm uh range super and you're still bugging me to do sort of motorcycle absolutely
elementary cause yeah it would be nice it would be nice because as i said to you it would be nice
to get an irish call sign because they're they give you the ie then a number and a three debtor
if you don't have morse but if you do morse you have to you know it's just a subtle thing it's like
you've got horse i see you've got horse um that's the same with the m5 right yeah
it would be nice and it also bugs me that my license has got cw not included yeah yeah on the little
license card yeah okay now i might not be willing to blow up uh two grand amateur radio but i am
willing to blow these things up and these things here are both filing five or minis uhf vhf analog
amateur radios for i was able to get two of them for the price of 35 euros
to deliver to your house deliver to my house okay somebody somewhere has been exploited but okay fine
um the guys on the it's probably just one chip inside yeah exactly that's that's what it is and
that's right it's darn cheap uh the guys on the hbr um uh channel were talking about this so it was
like a no-brainer and tech minds video i'll put a link in the show notes also a link to pictures of this
in the show notes as well for this episode so what we're going to do is this is the plan we will open
this up oh and we will uh make a contact and we will make my first ever contact with an actual radio
and basically go through what would have gone through had i needed to do it back in the day okay
sound good yeah let's open the box oh look at that so what we're looking at here are two little
radios and by little i mean they're tiny they're like very tiny they're like remember the old
mobile phones yeah i got those specifically so there you go have one room and drill you're gonna
have one yeah i'll have the other here's here's the battery and the battery uh i did unpack these
last night on charge actually it's actually made from aluminium right yeah it feels oh basically it's
heavier okay yeah it feels nice and the battery's got a usb charger on it meaning you don't need any
additional proprietary connector or whatever however you would i i mean i've got bars of chocolate that
are bigger than this yeah it feels nice in them it does feel nice yeah you it's clicks together
it's okay quite well how do you put the box in presumably
it says bb turn them out okay um anything about the antenna on this
it says fm 136 to 174 400 to 520 megahertz
so i'll screw on the little tiny antenna and literally it is the width of my hand
okay how do i turn this off that is a little bit of a question right it's now in dual band mode so we
need to try to get rid of that i haven't i have a manual oh dear you didn't find it out first yeah
we can look at the manual or we can waste everybody's time here while we're talking about
amateur radios so this thing is um has got a little rubber duck antenna at the top
it's got a button that says volume on and off and when i turn that on i see the bowfine logo and it
says four three zero and then disappears menu
and we'll pause the recording here while we figure out how these radios work
so we got them working we don't know how but fine i don't know how you do so um what we're going to do
now is a qso what's what's a qso the qso is just an interaction between two radio licensed radio amateurs
in this case and just exchange some information and we start by asking whether the frequency is
actually free to use so no why well you can interfere others if you don't and that we should try to
avoid them you can just change the frequency take another one which is free and do the conversation
there so what what uh what spectrum are we using what button with all right this is to meet a bit
so one four five five uh five two seven megahertz so that means exactly the same thing so yeah which is
a simple simplex channel and so one four five six hundred and up are for repeaters right and for some
other uses as well but below that up to one four five what is it two hundred or something that's for
simplex traffic so when we talk about meters two meters we're talking about it's shorthand for a range
of frequencies it's about how long the wavelength is that is correct and then you can also say how
frequent the wavelengths come past is also a way of measuring it it all relates to the propagation speed
of light so it's essentially the same thing yeah um and that also depends on the antenna that you have
whether it can pick it up or not or whether it resonates uh better at least on the two on the
on the two frequency bands that are in this little handle uh yeah so super short of ship optimized so you've
got all the spectrum and then amateur radio gets a thin slice of the various different bands so you've got
the very little bands 20 meters 40 meters yeah and we've got a tiny little sliver of all of those and
then within a country those tiny or within a region those tiny slivers are further divided up so that
this this part is where you're going to get more schooled this part is where you're going to get
talky talky stuff yeah here's where our repeaters are recommended not a firm firm very firm depends on the
country but here in the netlands at least it is an advice yeah so let's do that yeah and you're also not
wasting time by being somewhere that somebody's not going to be so actually okay so what's next what
what next would be that we will exchange the callsigns does it matter so say identification i will go cq which
is a shorthand for or can i go cq talking to you and give your callsign you in example if you're just
querying whether somebody will respond to you uh beside that like for now we've got the appointment
here made to do the qso but you're just sending it out in the in the world so to say that radio
signal is there anyone around basically yeah yeah exactly and then you you provide your call sign
and then receiving stations on the other end now okay it's a guy from holland or from england or
whatever country they probably can even see your license class they can in the meantime if they
really quick look you up on qrz.com so they know your name already up front or at least the location
they are where you're probably transmitting from and then you exchange the two callsigns so i know that
you are valid licensed radio amateur and vice versa and then you can have a conversation about almost anything
you like except uh music in the netherlands that's still not allowed although you can talk about it
but you can't play it yeah i do hear qsrs whereby an example just a tiny little bit of music or or tiny
little bit a low volume of music is actually playing in the background i never heard of any problems around
that topic but what what needs to be avoided is like you are like a pilot's radio station yeah
broadcast our station yeah that is not what they like yeah and it's supposed to be for amateur use
and non-commercial exactly exactly so and we should also bear in mind that it's a public channel so
everybody can listen everybody can listen in so uh be aware that there are small kids or whatever could
be listening yeah that is of course with normal fm fm mode radios and nowadays we also use digital modes
whereby at least you can scribble some of it and there are specific propriety uh handles where you
program a specific code just between what uh let's say two or more handles but uh if you don't know that
specific programming goes then you cannot decide yeah i thought that's that's sort of gray area because
you're not supposed to encrypt anything either yeah yeah it happens yeah it happens fair enough okay
so can i suggest you go outside i'll stay here with the recording yes sure then i'll press the b button
i'll call qso rcq yeah then what do i do you start talking i just go is this frequency free first of all
then that is that's the first thing you always need to ask or or just determine whether the
frequencies you use yeah you want to know for sure you want to be certain then you ask if you can see
yeah and then uh then there's five and nine what's this five and nine that everybody keeps talking
about i actually wanted to take a side step and look at your transmitting lookbook what is what is
what is that about and why should why do you need here because we are here in the netherlands we're
here in the netherlands and there's not not it's not mandatory and it's not i don't think it's mandatory
in the uk either but it is mandatory in ireland and i personally think it would be nice to record of
course yes because i'm not i'm not dx-ing and dx-ing is something that you are very much into um which is
dx-ing will be contacting this distance stations i guess the action can be described as like a a distant
dcc entity yeah which can be okay when you start with uh with amateur radio and if the goal of of
doing the hobby is like okay i want to work as many possible countries or entities then any new country is
actually a dx for you yes but for me it is like the the very few remaining are all way past 15 000
kilometers from from where i reside with my with my amateur radio station and yeah you need specific
conditions provided by mother nature number one politics yeah politics as well but with regards to
neighbors you mean no no with regard they might be there the it wouldn't happen oh yeah yeah look at
p5 like like north korea i mean the only way to contact that country is probably via if in the future
like it happened in the past is with the vn mission yeah and then for the vn mission at the time the only
way to to one of the ways to talk back to their home country was via the amateur radio yeah un mission yeah
so they're yeah exactly so yeah unless something funny happens so to say or something totally
unexpected with with regards to north korean uh north korea um yeah that will be one of the countries
you've also that i just can't work you also chase chasing dx is something that you've done you've done
different modes morse codes yeah yeah well all the different yeah there's in the in the united states
there's a award program uh dxc award program and you basically start with um contacting at least 100
countries or 100 entities so to say you get all the digital or the paper confirmations or a paper
confirmation being a qsl card yeah yeah yeah qsl card those cards need to be checked by a field checker from
the dxc desk most countries have got one person assigned within the amateur radio community
to do their field checks and then the list will be sent to the usa to the desk and if they approve
your application then you get a nice award and that you have contacted and confirmed a conversation with
at least 100 countries but that's just the start next you can also do exactly the same
on all frequency bands that you are allowed on but you can also start and they've got the program as
well to do an example in single sideband mode in frequency mode or am mode or cw mode
so yeah that is rather a life a challenge for life yeah i think that's the right wording here
uh you probably be never ever complete uh you can never complete admission and some of us now are
at the stage whereby yeah most of the entities are being confirmed are confirmed and there's just
nothing new anymore no and then you need to take another look at the hobby you're like okay yeah
yeah yeah i'm going to do next there are many side steps like you can get all kinds of certificates
etc etc but the dx hunting so so working that specific entity which cannot on a normal circumstances
not be reached during the day or night or whatever period of time of the day and then you make the qso
after five years of waiting and trying and desperately sending emails like i can be please be on the
frequency in that time at that time of the day we should have at least one percent chance and if then
the qso completes then you're just happy days yeah of course and i've got several with whereby
we had to attempt so many qsrs yeah and one of the countries and a qso is sorry just in case
a qso is just a conversation conversation yeah yeah yeah and so we're going to be having a qso now here
exactly yeah of course that's very short distance well the vhf radio it'll be the longest distance
i've ever done yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly but at least it will be in the car my my main uh
last adventures uh with amateur radio was the 60 meter band 605 uh five megahertz and um the
the band before that one which i wanted to have completed was the one with 60 meter band
which is uh with our tiny gardens in the netherlands quite a mission to get accomplished yeah yeah and
that took me over three years in summer time during the summer months trying out antennas
up to the very moment where all of a sudden it all came together and then it was like in a half year's
time i did excellent excellent excellent good stuff and uh because of you i have this hobby now which
has been very useful um and i know you're interested in dx but for other people listening it's it's like
when somebody says oh you're in it you know you're you're going to a party at something and you go you're
in it and you're talking to somebody who's who's doing you know databases for ibm or you're talking
to somebody who's doing cobalt there's so many different facets of the hobby yeah yeah but the
good thing about it is once you get your uh once you get your full license uh all how to's and all
discussions are based on that level of assumption if you're having a conversation with somebody who's got
a full license you you don't need to start explaining how yeah you you can assume that they know the speed
of light you can assume that they know what uh when you when you go for the exam for the license right
you need to have basic knowledge of electronics in example but also about antenna also about propagation
safety safety safety uh so yeah it's just nice nice common knowledge as well yes it's nothing and only
anything that i've come up on the course that hasn't i haven't found interesting or yeah or in fact
useful later on particularly what we do here and work okay should we do this thing
is it so super okay i'll press pause
okay
papa alpha seven kilo echo november go ahead over
yeah papa alpha seven
thank you
what's your call sign again over
okay okay papa alpha seven
tango whiskey alpha this is papa alpha seven kilo echo november you're coming in loud and clear these
are very nice little hand cells and let's say
back to you
back to you or do you say over
yeah okay papa alpha seven kilo echo november this is papa alpha seven
tango whiskey oscar
yeah yeah
maybe it's one kind of menu setting in the little uh but uh the audio is very good um
very crisp uh nice mid and high pitch so um yeah this is not bad at all i wonder how much how much
how much output power how much rf is actually transmitted by the little radio whether it will be like
a few on the billy watts or maybe even a few watts but uh sounds very good indeed uh papa alpha seven kilo echo november this is papa alpha seven
tango whiskey oscar listening to
tango whiskey alpha is papa alpha seven kilo echo november
um yeah it sounds good here i think uh i think we can call this
done i did have one question should you um
should i be doing this in dutch or uh in english over back to you papa alpha seven
kilo echo november back to you yeah it's papa alpha seven kilo echo november this papa alpha
seven tango whiskey oscar w o returning um in english or dutch it doesn't really matter right
i mean as long as we can identify our call signs and we did which using the international spelling
alphabet alphabet the nato alphabet it's all fine okay though then we call it an end uh papa alpha
seven kilo echo november thanks for the qso and see you back upstairs in a few minutes from papa
alpha seven tango whiskey oscar papa alpha seven tango whiskey oscar closing your station cheers
so we're picking this up again so now i've got my logbook not everybody has to do this but it's also
no harm what you're doing it so i actually know that exactly the same time yeah so uh i'm filling
out the days the start time in utc oh utc so that would be 13 at the moment 13 28 and the frequency
that we were on 145 525 and it was fm frequency modulation power we don't know it was high power so i
assume they've got something like in the book station called was pa 7 it doesn't matter if
called or worked
t w o report was five and nine and received was five and nine
first contact contact
for
i'll fill in the number when i get it
they don't specify the rf power i'll uh i'll fill that i'll find out and put it in the show notes
for this episode look it's not in there the technical specifications with the output power is
lovely i think it's uh usually around five lots
so what happens now what would you what would happen normally if you were at home and doing this
all right then i lock it in my electronic electronic logbook and yet
that that lookbook i can manually upload to the dcc desk in the states yeah and or to clublog in germany yeah
and then the qso will be hopefully uploaded by you as well yeah and then we got the confirmation yeah that
indeed both parties uh both stations entered the same date frequency mode etc etc and then the qso is
being confirmed in a digital from a digital perspective and then count for the netherlands as
your first dcc you just work now your first country your first entity or country and next
uh if one like then one likes then uh we can exchange qso card which is a postcard sized
card uh often decorated uh however you want it to be with your call sign and the flag of the country
or or i have one of yours here which i'll put a photo in the show notes yeah sure and on the back of
that card or on the front depending on the back uh you write the qso data so the date of the day the
time the frequency used the mode used power used maybe some remarks and uh that will be exchanged uh
in uh can be exchanged two ways one is uh direct over the mail yeah or via the snail snail mail system
and the other way is via the qsl bureau which is a collective uh postal system for qsl cards amongst
countries or better to say amongst amateur radio unions within the country so it goes but then it
takes a long time in general like all the year is nothing somebody's going to germany so they'll bring
a bag to germany so you can probably imagine that if you send the qsl card to a distance uh dxcc uh it
can take up to many years before this even sent yeah but it's once it's it's not two euros to send a card
even to europe exactly so if you wait for 11 of them you can send 20 kilos of a box for that price
yeah you can probably also imagine that if you make your first qso like you did now you're very
eager to get the qso card yeah you can probably also imagine that if you were the thousand pa
yeah you're not really interested more in the cards yeah but if you still want to because of some
certificate or or or whatever award program is maybe maybe maybe used by yourself then you can
still request it by sending a card via bureau which will take ages general but the cards will be there
yeah the losses are minimal fortunately the other way is that you log in into club log one of the
electronic systems and you can directly request a qsl card being sent over the post you pay a few
dollars like two or three dollars just for the purchase costs and then you can expect your card
much quicker being at your own okay case we're hitting uh half an hour on that i think that was
uh absolutely excellent thank you for taking the time most welcome i'd like to be not sure i'm gonna
thank you for the fact that uh you got me into this thing in the first place but uh it's been uh it's been
a lot of hard work uh very rewarding and um i messed up my first qso but you know how you did we got there
in the end of course um thanks case and tune in everybody tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker public radio
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