Happy husky ham with a headset

Bill, KL7TC, wanted a QSL that said something about Alaska, where he lives. Snow? Check. Mountains? Check. How about a club logo and an ARRL diamond? Easy peasy. And a husky with a headset? Why not?

The northern lights that appear were a little more challenging. Because it’s tough to illustrates with line art, I instead dropped in a free stock photo of the real thing. It works.

After a few tweaks — mainly toning down the typography from bright yellow to subtle blue — the QSL was good to go.

KL7TC’s QSL has one other unique feature: On the back of the card, instead of a dot indicating Fairbanks’ location on the map, I placed a heart, acknowledging the city’s slogan as “The Golden Heart of Alaska.”

The art of the rag chew

If you’re reading this, you probably know the boilerplate elements of a standard ham-radio QSO: signal report, QTH and name, generally followed by your station equipment and maybe a word about the weather.

A lot of hams never go past that, and that’s fine. But what if you want to have a real conversation — a “rag chew,” as we hams call it?

Amateur radio long-winded QSOThese illustrations, taken from the late Doug DeMaw’s “W1FB’s Help for New Hams,” first published by the American Radio Relay League back in the 1980s, accompanied some very good advice. (The book is out of print but easy to find via Amazon and other online booksellers.)

For one thing, keep it short and to the point. There’s nothing like dueling monologues to kill a QSO. DeMaw wrote:

Some hams are so enthusiastic about the prevailing conversation that they tend to “windbag” when it is their turn to talk. Excessively long transmissions may annoy the other people in the QSO, especially if they have never met you before.

Amateur radio boring ragchewAnother thing is not to belabor the obvious. Better yet, why not ask the other ham a question to engage him? DeMaw suggested asking your contact about, say, his signal strength to get the ball rolling, writing “(Don’t) bore him by repeating dull information about that may be of little interest to him.”

Are any topics off limits? As a matter of law, very little is forbidden. Still, common sense ought to guide you. DeMaw wrote:

I recognize and honor our 1st Amendment rights, but I feel that coarse language, profanity and bigotry have no place in Amateur Radio … An important part of our amateur credo is to promote good will rather than animosity. Even though the FCC allows the use of several unsavory four-letter words on the air, you will fare better and earn greater respect by “keeping it clean.”

He added:

Restraint, in general, is an excellent rule with regard to the tone of your conversation during a QSO. Although each of us has the right to discuss such topics as politics and religion, some points of view and statements may seriously offend others with whom we chat … Certain frequencies in our HF bands are regarded by some as cesspools, because of the language that’s used and the suggestive nature of the conversations. It’s best to avoid involvement with these groups in the interest of avoiding guilt by association.

Amateur radio profanity on the airRemember, unlike social media, where to some extent you can restrict your audience only to friends who agree with you (or at least tolerate you), amateur radio is essentially a party line. Anybody can listen to you, at any time. You have to assume anybody, licensed or not, may well be listening — and what you say may represent the entire hobby to others, even if it’s only your personal opinion.

Even though I discuss politics vigorously on my personal Facebook page (I’ve worked as a journalist and have drawn editorial cartoons in the past, so I’d like to think I know whereof I speak), I really value amateur radio as neutral turf. Some aspects of the DeMaw book are dated — does anyone actually tune up their transmitters these days? — but other aspects are timeless. How to conduct a rag chew, in my opinion, still rings true.

 

All about public service

Gordon Wes Tech public service watermarkThis is another cartoon I created for Gordon West’s new Technician license manual, illustrating public service. We all know this guy, of course: Club baseball cap, orange vest, and a half dozen handi-talkies hanging from his belt. (The only reason I’ve never been this guy myself is I can’t afford a half dozen handi-talkies — a single dual-bander usually suffices.)

A lot of new licensees joined our ranks for just this purpose. Are you one of them? What public-service groups do you belong to? And how many radios do you carry on event day?

A different kind of home-brew

K5MAF ham radio cartoon QSL by N2ESTMike, K5MAF, has another hobby in addition to ham radio — he brews beer. And what goes better together than an adult beverage (in moderation, of course) and ham radio?

Mike wanted QSL art that reflected that combination, with roosters both hamming and imbibing. With slight modifications, the art will also appear on his beer labels.

I’m grateful to Mike not just for the commission but for his patience; we’ve been talking about this back and forth for months at meetings of our radio club, the South Canadian Amateur Radio Society in Norman, Oklahoma. Thanks for waiting, Mike. I hope it was worth it.

Little Ralphie was a ham

“A Christmas Story” — the holiday classic movie about little Ralphie and his quest for a Red Ryder BB gun — is shown non-stop on TV this time of year. Did you know Ralphie eventually became an amateur-radio operator?

It’s true: the late Jean Shepherd, the author and voice behind the movie, became a ham in his teens and stayed licensed throughout his life. He was a fixture on New York broadcast radio, and his semi-autobiographical essays, published mostly in Playboy magazine, became the basis for the much-loved movie.

Shepherd was a hardcore CW operator, so much so that the American Radio Relay League had him introduce this code-practice tape circa 1980, produced several years before “A Christmas Story” premiered in theaters in 1983. You can hear it above. Enjoy  — and Merry Christmas!

What did the fox say?

WX2S cartoon QSL by N2ESTSteve, WX2S, is into radio direction finding — that is, fox hunting — and prefers being the fox to being the hunter. That’s why he wanted a QSL that shows a fox at the operating position, with trophy plaques of all the “hounds” he’s eluded. You get extra points if you notice that framed picture near the bottom of the card that shows a hound with his rig on fire.

About the line on the bottom for Tom Floryck, the original WX2S … Steve says he never knew Tom but thought it only appropriate that he tip his hat to him with the new QSL. I couldn’t agree more.

The American Radio Relay League has an excellent online selection of articles about fox hunting here. Check ’em out!

 

Danger: High Voltage!

dangerous high voltageThrowback Thursday: I drew this cartoon years ago for a chapter on safety in “First Steps in Radio” by the late Doug DeMaw, W1FB, published by the ARRL. It makes a really good point: Some of our equipment — particularly power supplies — can kill you if you’re not careful.

Always practice safety first — and NEVER work on high-voltage equipment when you’re not fully alert. If you were tired before, you’ll end up going to sleep a lot sooner than you’d planned.

The return of Jeeves

KL7AJ Jeeves cartoon QSL by N2ESTThis QSL has a long history — several decades’ worth of  history, in fact.

It started in the 1980s when I illustrated one of the first of many QST articles written by technical whiz Eric Nichols, KL7AJ. That cartoon must have made an impression, because a few years ago when Eric wrote his book “The Opus of Amateur Radio Knowledge and Lore,” he asked me to illustrate it. I was honored to do so. Eric has been a friend and advocate ever since. (“Opus” is a great book, by the way. If you love ham radio and you like Dave Barry-style humor, you’ll like this book.)

One cartoon — illustrating several generations of ham radio — must have particularly caught Eric’s eye because I snuck Jeeves into it.

Ham radio history

Jeeves in the “Opus” cartoon

Who’s Jeeves, you may ask?

Jeeves, every ham’s fantasy assistant, was a recurring character in cartoons drawn by Phil Gildersleeve, W1CJD, for QST. Gildersleeve — or “Gil,” as he signed his cartoons — drew thousands of cartoons for League publications from the 1930s until shortly before his death in 1966. His work helped define the look of League publications for many years, and it was as good as or better than the work of any other professional cartoonist of his day, ham or not.  In my opinion, Gil was the greatest ham-radio cartoonist of all time, bar none.

Jeeves’ rise from the dead gave Eric an idea: Why not create some new Jeeves cartoons, casting the butler as a Rip Van Winkle character? In other words, the hobby had changed but Jeeves hadn’t, and therein would lie the humor. And with the ARRL’s 100th anniversary fast approaching, surely QST would be interested in printing some new Jeeves cartoons.

Jeeves filling out QSLs

the QST submission

I agreed, so I set about creating a new Jeeves cartoon very much in Gil’s style from one of a stack of ideas Eric sent me. I pored over dozens of old Gil cartoons, doing my best to make the illustration look as if he’d drawn and lettered it himself. Even though I was working with regular markers and brush markers  (Gil likely used pen and India ink), I think I came pretty close.

Unfortunately, QST wasn’t interested.

In a short reply to Eric, QST managing editor Becky Schoenfeld, W1BXY, wrote “While it is well executed, its ‘throwback’ style is something we try to minimize in QST, as we really need to be looking ahead and not behind us.” She later answered me personally with a longer email, emphasizing that “(QST editor) Steve Ford and I have been mandated by upper management to keep the magazine’s focus as current as possible.”

I was terribly disappointed. Still, I could understand League management’s logic even if I didn’t agree with it. If you were licensed before the mid-1970s as both Eric and I were and read League publications, Gil’s cartoons were inextricably tied to your earliest experiences of the hobby. But if you were licensed after the mid-1970s — about the time QST’s format changed and Gil’s work disappeared from print almost entirely  — you’d likely have no idea who Gil or Jeeves were. You may not even have cared. And there are a lot of hams who’ve gotten their licenses since the mid-1970s.

Problem was, I had this beautiful cartoon without a home — that is, until Eric asked me a few months ago to create a QSL for him. I suggested using the Gil cartoon. Eric agreed. The cartoon had finally found a home.

How to Become a Radio Amateur

A League book, circa 1972

I decided to design the card as a love letter to the League publications we both remembered, right down to the red-and-black color scheme, the draftsman-style hand-lettered call sign and the Futura typography. That it looks like the League book I studied to earn my Novice ticket is no coincidence.

There was one final touch that not even Eric noticed until last week. The call sign on those QSLs that Jeeves is frantically filling out? That’s Gil’s call sign.

For sentimental reasons, this is one of my favorite QSLs.

 

Satellites, anyone?

ham satellite cartoonThrowback Thursday: This is a cartoon I drew some years ago for “Morse Code: The Essential Language,” written by L. Pete Carron Jr., W3DKV, and published by the American Radio Relay League.

What do satellites have to do with CW? Carron wrote at the time that the “low-duty-cycle characteristic of the code makes it especially popular for satellite communication.”

That was in 1986 (the book is now out of print). Who uses satellites now, and how do you use them?

Have you ever caused a pile-up?

Who do I answer?When that rare DX station appears, we’ve all had the experience of trying to be heard in the ensuing pile-up. But have you ever caused a pile-up?

Of course, operators of DX stations are used to sorting out calls in pile-ups. But what if you’re a new operator who’s just called his first CQ and more than one station answers?  For the novice ham — like this one in a cartoon I drew for “W1FB’s Help for New Hams” — the effect can be overwhelming and seem like a pile-up.

If you’re a DX station on the receiving end of pile-up, how do you pick who to answer? And how would you advise a new operator to handle multiple answers to a CQ?