Copasetic Flow

 I made eight QSOs on my first hour long straight key month shift operating as K3Y/6! Points of note: I'm still operating five watts from the kitchen window in San Francisco. The ' shiny F2 ' cutoff was not disproven. The critical frequency between San Francisco and Utah did go below 7,750 kHz and there was only one QSO that went east of Louisiana out to New York. That happened when the fof2 value was about 8200 kHz. Does the Data Fit with ND7K in Arizona? I noticed that while Utah had disappeared again, I was still being spotted in Arizona at 01:00 UTC. Looking at the fof2 values to the spotting station, ND7K revealed that this spot conformed to my evolving rule of thumb. The midpoint fof2 is at about 8,000 kHz at the time, so above 7,750 kHz. Note for future use: The rig's freuqncy/fof2 = 14.0574/7.750 = 1.8138 The factor is for use with this figure.

  FM modulation is so elegant it almost feels like a magic trick. After finally watching a 1940s U.S. Army Signal Corps training film, I realized just how simple frequency modulation really is—both on transmit and receive. Seeing the LC tank, limiter, and discriminator explained visually made everything click. Even better, that understanding immediately paid off in a modern, practical way: fixing an overly aggressive CW sidetone in my video QSLs using nothing more than an audio limiter. I finally understand FM modulation and it's so simple I'm amazed it wasn't developed first. I found an old US Army signal corp video that describes how both FM transmit and receive work. Audio Modulation I had not understood that modulating the transmit frequency was this simple. It all makes sense now that I see it, but I hadn't considered how simple this could be. The video demonstrates the use of an LC tank circuit to  generate the required RF. By placing a a condenser mic in p...

 I made a run to New Mexico a few weeks ago. I took the chance to attempt POTA activations from Ciblola National Forest, Lincoln National Forest, and a few other places I'll talk about later this week. My first activation in Cibloa National Forest the day I arrived in Albuquerque was by far my most successful in terms of raw QSO count. Having just arrived in town, I of course made my way to Blake's Lottaburger for a green chili cheeseburger. I've been trying to reduce my food intake a bit so I ordered an itsaburger as opposed to a lottaburger. (Seriously. It's an excellent naming scheme, no pun intended.) Next, I made my way out to Simms Park. The park is operated by the city of Albuquerque, but it's completely contained within the boundaries of Cibola National Forest, US-4514 , so voila. I taped the Project TouCan's vertical antenna on its carbon fiber support mast to a wooden railing post and got to work. I've found several references warning not to u...

 We're working on a promo video for our smartphone-based CW practice app. We had great luck last week using the sora-2 app to create B-Roll footage for the Gladych Files . This week, I'm hoping to make an entire scripted trailer for the CW app using sora-2. There are issues though. The first one is that while the sora app has a storyboard feature, (at least the one I can access this week), the API does  not. It does however allow you to pass in reference images to bridge scenes. That's pretty cool, and seems to work. I'm working on  a Python script to wait for bridging images between clips. That's worked out ok.  The real issue, so far, has been sora-2 moderation. Profanity and Real-Person Filters You cannot pass the image of a real person, (even one sora-2 invented), between clips. Moderation stops it every time. ( Moderation is what sora-2 calls its engine that decides if it's able to make your video at all.) This is what set off a cascade of moderatio...

  Just a quick note that the AI tutored Project TouCans exams are up and running for the latest US technician class question pool for the license exam.  The exam sprang out of two different projects here at the home QTH. KO6BTY is studying for her extra class license. Also, I'm learning about developing code with AI. And voila: AI tutored ham radio practice exams. Try the AI-tutored Technician Class practice exam now. Project TouCans technician class practice exams . Read more about this project: First  demo  of OpenAI ChatKit enabled exams First release of extra class exam based on OpenAI responses API Removing the vector store  to reduce costs Experiences with Vector Stores Early debug to add contexts by local compute and storage First release of extra class exam  with no AI

 I’ve just launched the new Extra Class Practice Exam site, and it’s officially the first app running on the new Project TouCans platform! The exams follow the same familiar format as the ones here on the blog — but with a major upgrade. Now, when you’re stuck on a question, you can click “AI Help” to start a ChatGPT-powered tutoring session for that specific problem. You can try the exams here: 👉 https://projecttoucans.com/

 At the moment, I have the experimental, Open AI ChatKit enabled ham radio practice exams flying blind: I'm not passing the figures for exam questions into the AI when the student asks a question. This has led to a really cool thing! The AI is asking students to tell them what they see.  The question: includes a schematic of a linear voltage regulator. Here's the thing though, the AI system doesn't know that, it's just passed the question along with the correct answer at this point in development.  See that question at the bottom? "Now, could you describe or summarize what components or features you see in Figure E7-2?" That's super-cool, I think. The LLM asked because it does not have the picture availble to it. I responded  that I sawa Zener diode attached to the gate of a transistor, and it was off and running explaining to me how linear voltage regulators function and what the zener diode was for. What About Usage Costs? So far, I've taken three ...

Ever tune across the HF bands and wonder just how many Morse code operators are on the air at that moment? Thanks to WW5TH’s ingenious setup that reads directly from the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN), you can see it in near real time. The RBN ’s worldwide network of “skimmers” automatically decodes CW signals, giving a fascinating snapshot of CW activity across the globe.  Pat wrote the code up here and you can find the latest data here . Here's an example from this morning. This quick visualization from W5WTH shows how data from the Reverse Beacon Network can reveal real-time CW activity. It’s a great way to see where the bands are hopping and how propagation changes minute by minute. Check out Pat’s GitHub for code details, and watch the data to spot when Morse action is hopping. Want to dive deeper? Try building your own CW dashboard from RBN data using Chat GPT , or explore similar projects in ReverseBeacon.net and Parks on the Air to see who...

  Extra Class Practice Exam Free AI enabled (no key required) exams are now available: extra tech Get ready for the FCC Extra Class license exam with this free online ham radio practice test. Our interactive exam tool uses the official FCC Element 4 Question Pool (valid July 2024–2028) and automatically tracks your performance. See your score history, review stacked bar charts of correct vs wrong answers by subelement, and drill down into specific group stats with a single click. This version of the exam is identical to the first release with a single exception. This version has an AI help facility. To see a demo of how to us it, please see this post and associated video. To use the AI features, you'll need to have your own OpenAI API key. You'll input that in a dialog that is not visible to anyone but your browser. One of the points of these exam practice pages was to demonstrate that they could be deployed without needing server-side code, and they don't. This is the f...