Licence of amateur radio station in the USA ~ I will try to get it!

   Recently, my son got a licence of amateur radio station.   I do not believe that most of young generation kids are interested in amateur radio since the internet might be much convenient and fun for their communication.  It is probably different from when I was a student long time ago.  However, I do not know why, but he is interested in amateur radio.

   The license is getting changed a lot recently.  There are only 3 classes of license, "Technician", "General" and "Extra".   There is no morse code related test any more.   My son got "Technician" this time.

Licensing Exam

The exam is total 35 questions and more than 74% of correct answer is required.  Each questions has 4 selections of answer and pick one of correct answer.  The questions include regulations and technical questions.   The exam my son took was in a fire station with hosted by volunteers.   If a candidates pass the exam, then the information will be registered in the FCC database with Call-Sign.  Then they can start operating amateur radio right away.  This is very different from the regulation in Japan. 

    He passed "Technician" and he allows to take "General" exam, but he could not pass since he did not study it at all.  In case people wants to get higher level license, they have to pass all exams from "Technician"   It seems that people can take exams in the same day.

I also plan to take exam ...

Here is today's topic.  Since my son got the license, I also want to get one.   I have a license issued by Japanese government about 40 years ago.   Based on the regulation, I could do it with Japanese license.   However, it is probably interesting experience for me and I want to take the exams to get "Extra" license here.    Thus, I just started checking the questions in the past.   Since I study this area about 40 years ago, the contents is changed a lot!

   Regarding the regulation, it is basically the same for international regulation.   However regulation in the USA is different from Japan and some of term in the regulation is not typical words I usually use in the daily life.  Therefore I probably need to learn the term for this exam.   For technical related questions, I learned it before and I probably understand majority of questions.  But the style of question is very different from what I took the exam in Japan.  Also some new technology such as data communications and etc, I probably need to learn more to pass "Extra" class.   I am on the border line to pass "Extra".   I guess I might be able to pass "Technician" and "General" without much extra effort.  However, to pass "Extra" I might need to spend some time to learn some areas.

   Here is a site of ARRL (The national Association of Amateur Radio) where we can find the questions in the past.   It seems that this is a new project and one of my objective for the coming year!

Progress of heart rate based training ~ Comparing result in 4 months ago

Doing a training plan in Garmin Connect!

I have been doing training regular basis for Marathon and hiking.   Unfortunately, I got injured in April and stopped training for 6 weeks this year.  Now, my fitness level is getting better after the injury.   I have done "Full Marathon - Level 1" in Garmin Connect from August till November and I started over the same menu December and this week is the third week.

Comparing the result on the same menu....

I compared two different training menu from the third week.  One is "threshold run" and the other is "long run".
Threshold run is warming up for ten minutes and 4 sets of high intensity (heart rate zone 4) for 4 minutes and resting for 20 seconds.
Long lone is 3 sets of brisk working for 10 minutes and slow jogging for 25 minutes.

Following tables are comparison of the results

 Comparison of threshold run

Lap	Time	December 13, 2017		August 23, 2017		Remark
		Distance	Average Pace	Distance	Average Pace
1	10:00	1.40	7:09	1.36	7:20	Warm-up
2	4:00	0.81	4:57	0.70	5:43	High intensity
3	0:20	0.04	8:07	0.04	9:06	Rest
4	4:00	0.75	5:19	0.74	5:24	High intensity
5	0:20	0.04	8:33	0.04	8:36	Rest
6	4:00	0.69	5:45	0.66	6:04	High intensity
7	0:20	0.03	10:49	0.03	12.50	Rest

Comparison of long run

	December 16, 2017	August 26, 2017
Distance	13.60	12.73
Total Time	1:48:19	1:46:08
Agerage Pace (min/km)	7:58	8:21

Those distributions of heart rate zones are very similar and they indicates I can run faster with a similar heart rate.  Now I am doing the same training plan and my pace is faster than the previous.  I expects to get more improvement with this menu.

This is a good thing for heart rate based training.

I just wonder if I need to step up to "level 2".  But it seems that the same menu (level 1) would be good for now.  Especially, it is better to stay and getting a small improvement without over training.

Brewing Japanese-SAKE Winter 2017/2017 (2) ~ plan to start brewing soon

   Now, it is already mid-December, it is really getting cold in northern California.   It is a time to start brewing Japanese-sake this winter.  I already placed an order for the material.
   As I mentioned in previous posts, I published a Kindle book to share my brewing experience in Japanese, unfortunately, I do not have English edition at this moment.  Although I have a couple items I want to try to see if there is any other improvement or not, I decides I will just try to do the same process / recipe this year to make sure the process / recipe is repeatable.   The reason is one of major items I want to try is how I can process the rice.   As you probably know, I am using a regular rice cooker to process the like instead of “steaming” which is a traditional way to process the rice for SAKE.   Based on the experience last winter, it seems that the rice with a regular rice cooker is too soft if the rice is milled up to 60%.  This is a different result to use a regular rice for a meal.   On the other hand, steaming is a little complicate process and it is not easy to do in a regular kitchen.  Therefore, I postponed this experiment in the future and try to make sure the process is repeatable.

   Thus, the basic direction is the same recipe and materials:

• ·         Rice milled up to 60%
• ·         Raw rice malt (Koji)
• ·         Yeast is #9

·         Recipe is exactly the same as last year’s I have been waiting for the material I ordered and I will start brewing as soon as I get them.  I am expecting to start it before Christmas.   Let’s see how it goes!

Pace management with heart rate (4) ~ Heart rate during hiking

   The previous post was talking about required endurance for hiking.   Without enough endurance, it might be hard to achieve some hard hiking just managing the pace.   Today, I assume a person has enough endurance for a hiking, then how he / she can manage the pace for hiking.

   First of all, a target heart rate which is the upper limit of heart rate during hiking needs to be set.  As the previous posts are talking about heart rate zones to define a target heart rate zone.   Of course, the idea is to maintain the heart rate below the target, however there are some tips.  It is probably better to set an actual target 5 ~ 10 bpm lower than the upper limit since it is typically increasing the heart rate slowly even if a person walking with a similar pace.  In many cases, the intensity of hiking is typically high and it is probably hard to maintain a similar heart rate even if he / she walk a similar case.  Also, the trail slope can be vary and it is hard to maintain the heart rate in some steep sections.  It is probably better to have some extra margin not to reach the upper limit based on my past experience.
   It is also better to slow down significantly or stop if the heart rate reaches close to the upper limit or beyond the limit.  Once it is not immediately lower the heart rate with slowing down / stopped, then it is a time to take a rest with completely stop walking.  You may need to take a rest till the heart rate is get lower than "zone 1".  If it is not getting into "zone 1" in a short period of resting, it is probably better to lower the elevation if you hike higher elevation more than 12,000 feet in general.  If you want to walk without taking reset for a long time, you might need to set the actual threshold to adjust the heart rate much lower.  If your target zone is "zone 2", you might need to close to be lower threshold of zone 2 or zone 1.
   Another tip is to try keeping a constant heart rate as well as you can for easy hiking.   If your heart rate range during hiking is big, it is typically really high intensity when the heart rate in upper side.  In this case, you might feel hard in many cases.

(This is a summary for pace management with heart rate)

For detail, I will be almost ready to publish a Kindle Book about this topic very soon.  It is under review now.   I try to complete this this months and I will be announce it when it is ready.

Pace management with heart rate for hiking (3) ~ Are you ready for hiking?

Fitness Level

   I was talking about heart rate zone definition in the last post.   I think it is probably good to use “zone 2” as a target heart rate for hiking if you are doing training regular basis.   It is probably possible to maintain the heart rate within the range during hiking.   For my case, I may be able to push myself to use “zone 3”.   Based on my experience, a good target zone for hiking would be zone 2 or 3.

   Now, let’s think about people who do not do training regular basis.  I think some people still can be a good fitness situation even if they are not doing training.  I think this type of people are a similar as people who is doing training.  The other group would be people who are not good fitness condition.  I got some feedback that the idea to use heart rate to manage hiking pace.  It seems that the scheme does not work very well for some people.   I think the idea could still help, however, the essential problem is that they are not really ready especially a long hiking.

   Even myself, if I stopped training for a while, it was hard to run even if it was really slow pace.  The heart rate is easy to jump up and hard to continue running.   However, a few weeks after I resumed running, it was getting much better and I was able to maintain heart rate even if it was a little higher pace.

   Therefore, I would say if people who are not ready for a hiking, they need to improve their fitness situation first for a better hiking experience.

Test / Adjust the target heart rate

   So I would suggest people to do “test” once they sets the target heart rate.  Let’s say using one of method to define your heart rate zone.   Let’s pick “zone 2” if you are the first time to use heart rate based pace management.   Then let’s try to do some exercise to check if the heart rate zone is reasonable for you.  Please keep in your mind that “exercise” may have some risk to get injury or the worst case it could be a cause of a critical conditions in your life, especially people who do not do training regular basis, older people and etc.   It is probably better to check with doctor / trainer what type of “exercise” you may start based on your situation.

   Assuming you are ok to do some “exercise”.   You may start with “walking”.   You may try brick pace walking around 30 minutes and check your heart rate.  If it is flat load and the heart rate is over or close to the upper limit of zone 2.  You might need to improve your fitness level.  If you can maintain the heart rate within the range for more than an hour, you might want to do slow jog to see if you can maintain the heart rate within the range more than an hour.   You may use this is an initial target heart rate for hiking.  If it is too easy for you, then you can set a bit higher.  You may want to walk hilly trail to get a similar situation as hiking for further adjustment.

Pace management with heart rate for hiking (2) ~ Heart Rate Zone definition

Heart rate sensor for running

   Regarding a method to define a target heart rate for hiking, I think one of good methods is probably based on heart rate zone.   However, there are a few different way to define heart rate zones and the range of the heart rate zone is vary depending on how it is defined.  For detail, I will plan to publish a kindle book to talk about a method to manage hiking pace with heart rate soon!

   As an example using my data, I am 51 years old now (as of December / 2017).   A typical formula to estimate the maximum heart rate is "220 - age".  Based on this formula estimated maximum heart rate for myself is 169 bpm.   However, based on the past training data, actual maximum heart rate for myself is 178 bpm.

Maximum Heart rate the past 6 months

(Based on the training data)

   If I use this value and calculate the heart rate zone, the value will be different.   To be safe, I assume the target heart rate is "zone 2" which is 60~70%.

• Based on the formula: 101 ~ 118 bpm
• Based on the actual value: 107 ~ 125 bpm

   Thus there is some gap around a several bpm between the two different maximum heart rate value.  Also, there is another method with reserved heart rate range which is using actual range of the heart rate.  The formula will be "(maximum HR - resting HR) * xx% + resting HR".   xx% would be 60~70% for zone 2.  We need a resting heart rate value and based on the training data in the past 6 months, my number is 59 bpm.

Resting heart rate in the past 6 months

   The calculated value for zone 2 would be:

• 130 ~ 142 bpm

   The last method is based on lactate threshold.   The variation is huge depending on how we define the heart rate zone.   Lactate threshold could be estimated the latest running device like Garmin fenix 3 HR.   My number is 165 bpm and zone 2 would be 134 ~ 146 bpm.  (The formula I use is from a web site which is 81% ~ 89% of lactate threshold heart rate)

• 134 ~ 146 bpm

   This method is higher side result.   If people do a training based on the heart rate, this range needs to be reasonably accurate.   Since the strength of training depends on the heart rate, therefore this value is really key for the training menu.   However, it is not really key to define hiking pace and I believe using lower side might be safer.

   Based on my training experience, 134~147 bpm which is calculated based on lactated threshold value, might be reasonable range for myself.  It is also reasonable result for my past Mt. Whitney hiking.  This is just my opinion and less than 120 bpm for myself is probably too low.  I think we must adjust based on the training / hiking data.

   There might be a couple things to apply this method in general.  One is people who are doing training regular bases and the other is people who are NOT doing training regular bases.   For the next post I will try to write my opinion how we need to think about the target value with the heart rate zones.

(To be continue ....)