Volunteers on the Air is coming Back to Utah

Volunteers on the Air (VOTA) is an ARRL-sponsored year-long nation-wide event in 2023. Every state will be participating and Utah was on the air in January and will be again for the last time in July. All hams are invited to participate and we request that all Utah clubs encourage their members to get involved. You may operate under your own callsign and earn points or you can operate as W1AW Portable 7 (W1AW/7) or both. Complete information about VOTA may be found on the ARRL website.

Signups are coming and for the July week will be powered by a website. All bands (except WARC) and modes are welcome.  

Utah’s 7-day week begins at 6pm Utah time Tuesday, July 12th and we be shortly scheduling W1AW/7 band/mode slots around the clock during that week. Although preference for band/mode slots will be given to Utah’s big gun stations, stations of all sizes are encouraged and welcome to participate and no ham will be turned away.

To sign up to operate as W1AW/7 and be assigned a band/mode shift, fill out the survey (coming). If you have questions about VOTA rules, guidelines, and how you can earn points, read [this] page. If you have questions about Utah’s participation in VOTA, contact coordinator Ted Cowan, NA7C by email at na7c@arrl.net, by phone or text at 385 204-6655 or look for the VOTA page.

Keep an eye on this space for the opening of the schedule for our week in July. As in January, it will be first come, first serve. To operate as W1AW/7 the rules state that two W1AW/7 stations cannot be on the same band and mode at the same time. All hams are welcome to participate and request a band/mode slot with preference given to big gun stations with experienced operators.

Announcing the 2023 7th Area QSO Party (7QP)

Most states hold an annual on-air event and Utah is no exception. Some states, like Utah, get together with nearby states and have a group QSO party. 7QP is one such event, the third largest such event in the USA.

In 2023 7QP will be held on Saturday, May 7th at 7:00am to Sunday, May 8th at 1:00am (1300Z on May 7th to 0700Z May 8th). Learn more all about the event by viewing this presentation.

For more information, log onto the 7QP website at 7qp.org or contact Darryl Hazelgren, K7UT, at darryl@hazelgren.net.

Volunteers on the Air is coming to Utah

Volunteers on the Air (VOTA) is an ARRL-sponsored year-long nation-wide event in 2023. Every state will be participating and Utah is on the air in January and July. All hams are invited to participate and we request that all Utah clubs encourage their members to get involved. You may operate under your own callsign and earn points or you can operate as W1AW Portable 7 (W1AW/7) or both. Complete information about VOTA may be found on the ARRL website here.

Signups are now open here if you wish to operate as a W1AW/7 station during Utah’s assigned week in January. All bands (except WARC) and modes are welcome.

Utah’s 7-day week begins at 5pm Utah time Tuesday, January 17th and we are now scheduling W1AW/7 band/mode slots around the clock during that week. Utah is one of first states scheduled in 2023 to activate W1AW portable. Although preference for band/mode slots will be given to Utah’s big gun stations, stations of all sizes are encouraged and welcome to participate and no ham will be turned away.

To sign up to operate as W1AW/7 and be assigned a band/mode shift, fill out the survey here. If you have questions about VOTA rules, guidelines, and how you can earn points, read this page. If you have questions about Utah’s participation in VOTA, contact coordinator Ted Cowan, NA7C by email at na7c@arrl.net, by phone or text at 385 204-6655 or look for the VOTA page on arrlutah.org.

Hurry! First come, first serve. To operate as W1AW/7 you must submit the survey and receive a band/mode assignment because the rules state that two W1AW/7 stations cannot be on the same band and mode at the same time. All hams are welcome to participate and request a band/mode slot with preference given to big gun stations with experienced operators. If you participated in the ARRL Centennial event in 2014, this event is similar in structure. I operated as W1AW/7 in the Centennial event in 2014 as well as under my own (previous) callsign, and it was a blast. The ARRL awarded me this for my effort:

I coudn’t boot from USB because of the battery???

I bought an older, used Dell Optiplex 7010 mini-tower and although it let me set the boot order to put USB at the top, and I had a USB stick that booted on other computers, I still got a message saying there was not a bootable OS present and the system would not boot from my USB stick.

I even flashed the BIOS to the most current one on Dell’s website but nothing changed.

I then read online about someone who replaced the motherboard CR 2032 battery so I replaced mine. It worked!

Who knew?

I tried to post my findings on dell.com but it let me write the post but then would not let me publish it because I had not yet verified my email address. I couldn’t find how to verify my email address so I am posting it here.

Out of date technology is costing me a fortune

I use a significant amount of software every day in my job and hobby. This post is focused on what happened when my technology failed me and what I will do going forward about it.

I am an amateur radio operator (also known as ham radio) and each week one of my (many) ham radio clubs conducts an on-air “net”. We check in during roll call, receive announcements and training and report on hours spent in ham radio public service the preceeding month. In this case, we were asked to participate in an exercise where we were to check into the weekly net on a different frequency than we normally use, and in a different way. I won’t bore you with the technical details, but my very aged mobile transceiver’s means of making that switch was broken and I had no idea that it was until I tried it.

I don’t use this particular radio for much more each week than checking into this particular net, but it took me well over an hour to resolve the problem, and my resolution was a workaround, nothing more. That feature on that radio is broken and the company no longer supports this radio. This kind of thing happens all the time with outdated software and hardware and because it is outdated, the OEM will simply not help you.

This experience happens to me too often, and I have made a decision: life is too short for outdated technology. Here are the six steps I will take in the future each time this happens.

  1. Determine if the problem is a failure on the part of the technology or my failure to understand it (RTFM!).
  2. If it is my problem, read up, make notes in Evernote or other appropriate system, and permanently implement the change so the problem doesn’t waste my time going forward.
  3. If it is the technology that has failed, time for a repair or replace decision. If the cost of either exceeds the value of the service provided, make a conscious decision to live with it.
  4. If repair is the answer, get it fixed immediately and simply pay the price. Life is too short to agonize over pennies in cost that wastes dollars in time.
  5. If it is time for new technology, spend a time-boxed research period finding an appropriate replacement. I may have to buy more than one solution to find the right one and there may not be a “right” one. If the service provided is mission-critical, lengthen the time box and consult with those you trust. Then invest, implement and document.
  6. Always keep in mind that the promise of technology is almost always a lie. Sometimes technology is a blessing in life but frequently it is simply expensive and time-consuming and the best solution is to sell it on eBay and find a simpler solution. When technology is needed, keep it up to date by paying for upgrades, the same way you keep your car reliable by buying a new one after about 100,000 miles.

What would you add to this list? Do you have a good workflow for managing your technology?