If you’ve read the first post in this series or are playing along yourself, you’ll be aware of the 52 Week Ham Radio Challenge. If not, hit up that link for the details!
This post covers the challenges from weeks 45-48, which were:
- Fix something that is broken.
- Write a useful computer program!
- Submit an idea for the Ham Challenge 2026!
- Transmit a QRSS signal on the HF bands
Week 45 (3-9 Nov): Fix something that is broken.
Sadly this one is a “pass” from me. The only broken thing I can think of is the SMA connector on my HackRF, but sadly I didn’t manage to get the part in time. I also got a cold that completely knocked me out for 4-5 days this week, so I was in no mood for a frustrating solder job. Maybe next time.
Week 46 (10-16 Nov): Write a useful computer program!
This week’s suggestions for a useful computer program were to calculate the length of a dipole for a given frequency, look up which Amateur radio band a frequency belongs to, or convert a letter to its representation in the ICAO alphabet.
But honestly, why achieve when you can over-achieve.
How about a web-based DX cluster that can aggregate data from over a dozen sources, providing a geo map and band map, xOTA activation and DXpedition alerts, with its own well-documented API that others can build on; the result of the last two months’ effort?
Yep, I chose this week to release version 1.0 of Spothole. It’s free for anyone to use at https://spothole.app and of course it’s open source, released into the Public Domain.
Also this year, I’ve written:
- POTA New Park Finder (development started in February)
- QSO Map Tool (development started in April)
- UKBota n-fer Finder (written in May)
- WAB layer for Leaflet (written in June)
- BunkerBase 2 maps (written in July-August)
- APRS Azimuth/Elevation Calculator (written in September)
Just in case I wanted to stick to the suggestions, both Spothole and the Map Tool contain a lookup table that enable them to look up which Amateur radio band a frequency belongs to!
I also wrote the code for the Billy Bass Sat Nav this year, but calling that “useful” is a bit of a stretch…
Week 47 (17-23 Nov): Submit an idea for the Ham Challenge 2026!
For Ham Challenge 2026, I wanted to see if I could get people having more of an outdoor adventure than this year’s simple “Make your own xOTA activation” challenge in week 29. So, my suggestion for next year is of course my favourite thing… a rove! I’ve suggested not just one but at least two activations, on a single day, from at least two separate locations.
I’ve also suggested taking part in RaDAR Rally, which definitely could use more participants from around the world, though being essentially “take part in this one niche event”, it’s probably a little too specific for the Ham Challenge.
Week 48 (24-30 Nov): Transmit a QRSS signal on the HF bands
It’s another pass from me on this week, unfortunately. I had hoped that there would be some easy software for transmitting QRSS, or perhaps that support for it would be buried in fldigi somewhere. Unfortunately, having looked online for people doing this, the majority are using dedicated hardware which is definitely out of scope for my limited interest in QRSS. There are a few people talking about pre-generating and transmitting audio, but I’m afraid I didn’t have the patience for this, and being away for work sealed the deal on making this a “skip” week.
That said, if you have a beginner-friendly way to transmit QRSS, I’d love to hear about it—and maybe catch up on this challenge next month.
That’s all for this round-up, see you just after Christmas for the results of weeks 49 to 52!
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