Author: N6DZK

Thank you to all that came out to support the MHARS, GVARC, SBCARA combined 2017 Field Day! We had a really great team that helped set up, feed, and operate this past weekend. This was the first year our group ran 24 hours for the event. We had several sleep on-site while others ran stations. The bands were very busy. 20 meters was a non-stop pile-up coast to coast. While we do this for fun, we still managed to wrack up over 300 contacts for the weekend. 20 metes was busy but 80 meters overnight was only slightly behind. Kudos to the overnight 80 meters team.

We ran 4A. Our station captains came well prepared with batteries and solar panels. Our antennas consisted of:

• 20 meter hex beam on 70 foot portable tower with rotator.
• 40 meter sloper off 50 foot crank up tower.
• 15 meter beam on push-up tower with rotator.
• 80 meter dipole between the 70 and 50 foot towers.

Some tallies for the weekend…

• 80 M – 107 contacts
• 40 M – 56 contacts
• 20 M – 115 contacts (+ about 30 CW contacts) for 135 total
• 15 M – 15 contacts

Arizona was the busiest state for us with 26 contacts.We covered over 60 sections.

We are already planning how we will improve for next year.

HRD Software released a statement Friday that Co founder Rick Ruhl will be stepping down in the aftermath of the product review / blackballed call sign brouhaha that was waged on the internet and in multiple forums and internet sites over the past month. In the statement Rick announces his retirement as co-founders Dr. Mike Carper and Randy Gawtry acknowledge Rick’s contributions to HRD. A new EULA is also announced that should be released shortly. In what may be a record 169 page forum thread on QRZ, the debate has raged on regarding the events that lead up to Rick’s departure. Somewhere along page 37, HRD published an apology for the incident and vowed to review their customer service policies. An apology was also posted to eham, their twitter feed and their Facebook account. All of this has also been tracked in a huge Reddit thread. Let’s hope this can now be behind them and they can get back to fixing bugs. Ham Radio Deluxe is a package of software products to enhance PC based rig control, logging, digital modes, rotor control, and remote operation of your ham shack.

How to not endear yourself to your customers 101: Shut off the licensing to your customer when they post a critical review. N2SUB found out the hard way you don’t mess with Ham Radio Deluxe.

After publishing a review on eham about his experience with trying to get things to work with Windows XP, and then with Windows 10, N2SUB had his HRD license revoked, and was told by technical support that his license key had been “blackballed” by the company.

Dr. Michael Carper, WA9PIEA, Owner and partner of HRD, in a very ham-fisted reply, claims that the blackball of the license key was the result of an over-zealous support tech. However, reading his response, it hardly reads like an apology. In fact, it is rather defensive of the incident as a whole where HRD seems to try to explain the behavior as an example of “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”. While that may be the case, the fact it was retaliation for a product review may be in violation of the Consumer Review Fairness Act (HR 5111).

The eham review that sparked the controversy seems to speak fairly well to issues other hams have encountered with the product, including myself. N2SUB does not call anyone names, make any false claims, and is frankly a rather tame expression of his frustration with HRD. For HRD to have retaliated in this manner is bizarre.

In the end, it appears that things have been set right with N2SUB for the time being and his license has been un-blackballed. But the incident in general, and the response from the company, was odd. Let’s hope this behavior does not become a trend.

**UPDATE** Here is a link to the thread on QRZ.com

**UPDATE2** Here is some more info on the shenanigans taking place at Ham Radio Deluxe.

 So this showed up today in my news streams. It is a BITX40 7Mhz QRP SSB transceiver. At 7 watts, it has more than enough power to get on the air with a simple SSB radio. It is a “some assembly required” “kit”. The board is fully assembled, and it comes with connectors and other parts, but there is no housing, or speaker. At $45, it is an interesting thought. Check out their website for more details. http://www.hfsigs.com

Please take action! Check out ARRL’s Amateur Radio Parity Act action page so you can contact your representatives and let them know you support this legislation!

Time is of the essence!  The Amateur Radio Parity Act, having successfully cleared the US House, now awaits action in the US Senate.  If the bill is not passed before the Senate adjourns for the year in December, it will “die” and we have to begin the entire process in both houses of Congress when the 115th Congress is sworn in come January 2017.

Please use this link to contact your US Senators and request they support the bill when it comes to the Senate floor during the “lame duck” session, between now and mid-December’s adjourment.