January-February 2019 eTCA Now Avaliable

The electronic TCA (eTCA) version of the January-February 2019 TCA is now available for viewing or download.

The Canadian Amateur (TCA), Canada’s premiere national magazine devoted to Amateur Radio, is published six times per year and is the membership journal of the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC). It is available in both print and digital versions (eTCA). Members of RAC, Canada’s sole national Amateur Radio organization, receive TCA automatically.

At 64-pages per issue and reaching approximately 4,500 readers, TCA offers news and views on the Canadian Amateur Radio scene from coast to coast to coast. It includes regular columns, features and technical articles of interest to Amateur Radio operators. In addition, a Coming Events calendar, Feedback, QSL Bureau information and coverage of regulatory issues are also provided. For more information on The Canadian Amateur magazine visit the TCA webpage. A sample copy of TCA is available there for downloading.

Download January-February 2019 eTCA - https://wp.rac.ca/digitaltca/

WSJT-X 2.0 Full Release now Available

“The new protocols become the worldwide standards starting on December 10, 2018, and all users should upgrade to WSJT-X 2.0 by 1st January 2019. After that date, only the new FT8 and MSK144 should be used on the air.”

— Joe Taylor, K1JT

The WSJT-X 2.0 software suite has been released, and developer Joe Taylor, K1JT, is urging FT8 and MSK144 users to upgrade to what will become the new standard

The FT8 and MSK144 protocols have been enhanced in a way that is not backwards compatible with older versions of the program. That includes any version 1.9 releases.

Quick Start Guide for WSJT - https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/Quick_Start_WSJT-X_2.0.pdf

FT8 Operating Guide by ZL2IFB - http://www.g4ifb.com/FT8_Hinson_tips_for_HF_DXers.pdf

Logbook of The World Tops 1 Billion QSO Records

As of 19th December 2018, more than 1 billion contact records have been entered into ARRL’s Logbook of The World (LoTW) system, including nearly 187 million contacts confirmed via LoTW over its 15-year history.

The one billionth record was uploaded by 7X3WPL, the Sahara DX Radio Club, at 23:32 UTC for a 20-meter SSB contact with with Davide Cler, IW1DQS, that took place on 28th December 2016. The upload resulted in a match (QSL).

LoTW debuted in 2003 after a lot of behind-the-scenes planning and development. Initially LoTW got off to a slow start. While user numbers gradually grew to about 5,000, a lot of hams didn’t fully understand what LoTW was or how it worked, and opening an account could be cumbersome.

LoTW continued with few major changes until October 2011, when a perfect storm struck — a large ingestion of logs after the CQ World Wide DX Contest and a freak snowstorm that knocked out power for more than a week in most places.

Fusaro said uninterruptible power source (UPS) back-up power quickly depleted in the days-long power outage. “When the system came back online, it was overwhelmed with the amount of data coming in and could not keep up,” Fusaro said. “The water was coming in faster than the pumps could pump it out. Crash!”

“The service still has room for a lot of improvement, but it continues to grow and is the preferred method of confirming QSOs because it strives to protect the integrity of DXCC and all awards”

The disaster was a blessing in disguise, though, because it revealed weaknesses in the LoTW software and hardware.

Fusaro said the League spent tens of thousands of dollars for new hardware that was express-shipped and installed at HQ. IT Manager Mike Keane, K1MK, started implementing some code changes to expedite log processing by giving priority to small- to medium-sized logs and inserting mega-files as openings occurred. Fusaro said a lot of the large files contained duplicate data, bogging down the process so much that users were resending logs already in the queue. Through all of this not one QSO record was lost because LoTW uses a redundant backup process.

“A big problem was communicating to the public what was happening,” Fusaro said. An LoTW users’ group reflector and a queue-processing status page were set up. With better communication, Fusaro said, the system attracted additional numbers. Today, LoTW boasts some 112,000 users in all 340 DXCC entities, and 75% of all DXCC applications are filed via LoTW, which accounts for 86% of confirmations applied.

Now, ARRL is looking at the development of LoTW 2.0, Fusaro said. “Over the years we have added more awards that can be applied using LoTW QSL credits; VUCC, Triple Play, and two CQ awards — WPX and WAZ.”