I’m not a New Years Resolutions kind of a guy, but I do keep a running list of goals that I review every month. It’s a habit I got into years ago, and while it’s rather silly, I do it anyway. So as I was thinking about goals and radio, a neat blog post dropped…
Portable operation has been a lot of fun for me since the IC-705 showed up in my shack. It’s a really great QRP rig and I have had a wonderful time getting out and making contacts. One of the things that I’ve found while messing around at parks or on vacation is that it would…
After my recent upgrade and subsequent callsign change, I found myself at loose ends over my TH-D74 and my IC-7100 when it came to D-Star. Sure, I updated the Zumspot to have my new call and I registered with a new repeater, but nothing else changed. So I thought that a quick update to the…
This past weekend, PCARS went out to the Akron Maker Faire to show off ham radio. We put a SuperAntenna up on the roof of the building and dropped a cable down to the main display area. I set up my portable station. It was simply my IC-705 and the MS Surface Go 2 running…
Welcome to the new site! It has all of the content from the old KC3JXQ site but with my updated callsign as the domain. It was interesting to apply for and get a vanity callsign. I learned a great deal about the FCC licensing system and a pile of other little things that I will…
On 02-Oct-2021 I sat for the Amateur Extra exam. I passed! 49/50 for those keeping score (I was). I’m not sure why I waited this long (aside from managing life and work through a pandemic that has touched ever facet of life) but once I started studying, it really only took about 2 or 3…
Saturday mornings have, for the time being, been set up as portable operating times for me. There are several parks in the area – Ohio seems to have an embarrassment of riches in that regard – and getting out into them feels really good. This past Saturday, West Branch State Park was the destination. The…
When the summer was just rolling around, I ordered a SOTABeams Tactical Mini mast for portable operation. It seemed to stall out in Chicago (as a lot of things traveling into the states are) and then was magically in my mailbox one morning. I was pretty excited about it, but things got in the way…
This past Saturday, I took a couple of hours to go and operate from my Jeep in a park parking lot. It was a bit of a last minute expedition, so I didn’t have any real objectives other than to try out something that I’ve wanted to play with for a while. That’s running the…
Monday, July 05 was a holiday for me, so it made sense to head out into the field for a little radio fun. The IC-705 and assorted gear were already in their pack and ready to go. The destination for the day was to be the Virginia Kendall section of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park….