Category: Korea

On a radio safari


Today was a real adventure on the airwaves. I only made 12 contacts, but there were a few that are quite memorable. My location here in South Korea affords me the ability to make contact with exotic locations even with my modest Buddipole antenna. The first contact wasn’t actually a contact – tuning around 20M, I stumbled across 9W6HLM and 9W6BOB operating from Borneo (yes, 9W6BOB is Borneo Bob… how cool is that?). Both stations were on the air, leisurely trolling for contacts… although they couldn’t hear me. I was able to hear them work Denis, WA5TYJ, in New Mexico. Fortunately, the noise level for me was very low and I could just hear Denis.

The next two contacts were with JA’s – a completely unremarkable accomplishment from the QTH here in HL-land. However, they were made using my newly basedlined Linux Ubuntu hamputer using CQRLOG, Fldigi, and Flrig. Again, an unremarkable accomplishment on the face of it… until you hear about my trials and tribulations of getting it working.

Then I worked ZS6CCY, a South African station, on 20M phone! That was pretty exciting. I switched to Fldigi to give PSK31 a try and was able to work a few Russian stations. Then booming down the waterfall came Kim, HL2DYS. I had yet to work another station here in South Korea… but I had to be patient. Kim was working the South Pacific and Europe. When there was a hole, a jumped in and we had a great QSO. Hopefully I will be able to meet Kim soon for an eyeball QSO.

There was a major JA phone contest underway, so I decided to head up to 17M and see if I could scare up another phone contact. While spinning and grinning I fell upon V73RS… Rob on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Wow!! He was just above the noise level and I was his first contact before the spotters got him and the pile-up hit. Rob stuck with me, which is saying something. First – because my callsign here is HL2/AD7MI…. which is horrendously difficult to pass across less than desirable band conditions. Second – Rob wanted the name of my city, which is Uijeongbu (I spell: Uniform India Juliet Echo Oscar November Golf Bravo Uniform). It is quite a mouthful. The pileup kept building, but Rob stayed with the QSO and told me he was there on Kwajalein and that I should look for him on 10M, as conditions generally more favorable for a 2-way exchange.

Back to 20M where I worked another Russian station. Then I snagged JT1DN, a station for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It is hard to get more exotic than Ulaanbaatar. Mongolia is not actually far from Korea, but it was my first contact ever with the country and I won’t soon forget it.

Maintaining the exotic theme – my next contact was with YC9ETJ – Bali Island, Indonesia. Agung had quite a pile up and I was glad to get picked up by him.

Sunset and the grayline approached and I was successful in working Poland and Norway. All in all – I was quite excited with the contacts for the day.

Buddipole to the rescue

Spinning & Grinning has been quiet for too long. Life here in Korea has been really quite busy. But I can’t complain about the commute, with my quarters only a short three minute hike to the bunker where I work. I don’t go off the camp here nearly as much as I should. By the time I get to my room after work, I am usually just too tired to make the effort. Summers in Korea are HOT. Not Iraq hot, but more of a Georgia heat… with all the humidity. I don’t have a car here, so all my movement is on foot and using public transit. The summer made it fairly uncomfortable to go out and explore. Now the summer is gone and the weather is just right, in my opinion.

My quarters here in Korea are not conducive for amateur radio operations. There are low-lying power lines everywhere and not many trees. It is also impossible to establish a permanent feedline exiting my room as there is no existing access and I can’t drill a hole through the wall without incurring the wrath of the garrison commander.

The answer: the Buddipole. I’ve read NE1RD’s blog on his 100lbs DXpedition and am well acquainted with the virtues of the Buddipole. With a Buddipole, I would be able to quickly set up and take down an antenna that would let me get on the HF bands. For a feedline, I would be able to support a short run out of my window and out to the Buddipole that would have to be located nearby.

Coinciding with the CQ WW DX Contest, I decided to set up the Buddipole and give it a try. I’ve used Hamstick dipoles before without much success. I didn’t have high hopes for the Buddipole, simply for the fact that it is a compromise antenna and I had it set up right next to a three story building. I should have had much more confidence. When I fired up the rig, 20M was alive with activity and I had a 1:1.0 SWR. It was a great feeling to be behind the mike again and I enjoyed logging the contacts.

Now I need to go get some QSL cards printed up for HL2/AD7MI.

4th of July

I have been here in Korea for just over two weeks and am settling in at Camp Red Cloud, located north of Seoul. I think I’ve done a poor job in the blog of laying out the last month and half in which there has obviously been some significant changes in what I am doing.

On May 20th, I graduated from the School of Advanced Military Studies, culminating my two years at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, knee deep in graduate-level text books and Army field manuals. One of the requirements for graduation was to write a monograph on a military subject. I choose to write on the early history of MARS prior to World War II, when it was known as the Army Amateur Radio System (AARS). During this years Hamvention at Dayton, I had the opportunity to present the paper and I am pretty happy on how it all came together. No significant research had ever been done on early MARS history so I spent the majority of my research combing through primary sources and even conducting a few interviews with the few remaining former members of the AARS. If you have an interest in MARS, the history of radio in the Army, or the origins and organization of radio emergency communications, the paper is available here at no cost. One facet to the history of the AARS that I found intriguing was the relationship that grew between the AARS and the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. The ARRL recently posted a short article I wrote on the subject and you can see it here if you are interested.

My assignment following school was to Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division. To actually get there, I elected to take a less typical means of transportation for part of the journey. I decided to take Amtrak from Kansas City to Seattle, where I would board a government contract flight to Seoul. I had ridden trains quite a bit in Europe, but never had taken a train for more than a short distance in the United States. I had also recently read Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service, A Year Spent Riding Across America by James McCommons. If you are interested in passenger rail travel, enjoy a good road trip, or would like to know why train travel fell victim to the car culture, you will enjoy this book. The author, James McCommons, travels all the primary Amtrak routes (with mixed experiences) and talks with US rail movers and shakers around the country. Overall, he said Amtrak was good and getting better. I decided to see for myself.

One of the countries more historic and picturesque routes is that travelled by the California Zephyr. Originating in Chicago, the train traces its way west, climbing through the Rockies west of Denver and on to the Sierra Nevada’s an into California, terminating near San Francisco. My folks still live where I grew up near San Jose, so California was great for a stop over. I could then take Amtrak’s Coast Starlight from San Jose through Northern California, central Oregon through Eugene and Portland, then on to Seattle.

The train ride west was wonderful and I did write a post about it. The stop over in California was a lot of fun. Arriving during the early evening of Thursday, June 10th, I was able to get some sleep and meet my dad for some QRP portable field operations. We headed up to the Santa Cruz Mountains, above Saratoga, strung up a 40m dipole and had fun playing with my FT-817 and KX1. Although we didn’t achieve any great DX contacts, it was a great time. Saturday morning we headed over to a local monthly hamfest known as the Electronics Flea Market @ De Anza College. De Anza College is a little known junior college which has overseen the growth of Silicon Valley. Although I did not find anything I couldn’t live without, I enjoyed roaming around and seeing what the vendors had.

Before lunch, we headed over to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Founded in 1999, the museum opened long after I had left the Bay Area. Very cool museum!

Then it was back to the train station in San Jose and I hopped on the Coast Starlight and headed north. The train ride was relaxing with some amazing scenery.

I spent Sunday night in Seattle and caught a shuttle bus on Monday to SEATAC. Flying with AMC can be an experience and differs from a commercial flight. The AMC counter was located at the far end of the international terminal and I joined a long line of guys with short haircuts and heavy, canvas green bags. Although I had to check in at 7:00pm, the flight wasn’t scheduled to board until 1am. They didn’t pack the flight, so there was a little elbow room. Instead of flying directly to Korea, our route would take us to Anchorage, followed by Yakota (near Tokyo) and then Osan Airbase in Korea. We got to Anchorage, deplaned for fueling, reboarded and then sat for three hours. Apparently the weather was bad over Japan, so we were held over for about 24 hours in Anchorage. I had been stationed in Alaska during 1993-1994 and it was nice to see that midnight sun again (sunset at 11:30pm with sunrise at 4:30am).

From Anchorage to Japan with a short layover and then on to Korea. The rest of the story is here.

And on the amateur radio side of things… My equipment is here. I shipped over my Icom IC-7000 for HF and a Kenwood TM-D710A to use with my EchoIRLP node. Also on the way is a Davis Vantage Vue weather station that I hope to get on line and on APRS. I need to get my Korean license and have all the necessary paperwork. Just need to get it turned in now. There is a monthly hamfest in Seoul next Sunday that I am going to try an attend – that should be an experience and I will have to bring my camera.

Have you been enjoying Jeff’s new podcast at KE9V.net? Cornbread Road is a Jeff at his best, weaving a tale of mystery and amateur radio in the heartland.

I will endeavor to keep my blog up to date with posts about my experiences here in Korea.

Korea Arrival


I arrived on Thursday, June 17th, to Osan. Osan hosts a major air base and is about an hour south of Seoul. It was a fairly straight forward process of working through Korean customs, despite the long line. I grabbed my bags and was directed to a bus. We were transported up to Yongsan, the hub of US military presence in South Korea and located in Seoul. After some initial inprocessing I headed over to the Dragon Hill Lodge. The Dragon Hill is a really nice resort/hotel run by the US military, similar to ones located in Hawaii and Germany.

I was able to do a load of laundry, buy a towel (I’d forgot to pack one!), check email, and do a webcam Skype call back home. I tried staying up until 9pm, with the time change really working it’s evil. I woke up around 3am, ready to go… but with nowhere to go. The gym opened at 4:30am, which allowed me to get in a workout. Friday’s inprocessing was to be conducted in civilian attire – unusual but I wasn’t complaining. Like most inprocessing, it dragged quite a bit. Those of us leaving Yongsan and heading up to 2nd Infantry Division-land were herded onto a bus and transported up to Camp Stanley, less than an hour north of Seoul. Driving through Seoul is a reminder of the duality of Korea. Seoul is a super modern city with everything you could think of. But it doesn’t take too far of a trip until you reach areas that could easily be considered third world.

Camp Stanley is a small installation, maybe half mile by half mile square. It serves as the inprocessing location for all 2ID soldiers. Here our records our updated, equipment is issued, and everything is done to prepare a recently arrived soldier to be integrated into his unit, ready to get to work. However, it is a Monday through Friday schedule. Upon our arrival we received a general briefing covering the Do’s and Don’ts, issued rooms and bed linen (no towel – but I had bought mine earlier), and we settled in for the weekend. Restricted to the camp while we inprocess, there are all the basics amenities located within short walking distance: Post Exchange (PX – like a small department store), Commissary (the military’s grocery store which stocks just about everything you could get stateside), a food court, community activities center (like a rec center; pool tables, TV, video games, and free wifi), gym, and library (also with free wifi).

I’ve considered pulling my FT-817 out to see what I can hear, but think I will wait until I arrive at my final destination, which should be sometime next week.