Fundamentals As I get more and more into this hobby, I begin to despair the information available on the internet. I was having an exchange with a fellow ham that basically came to the sad fact that things on the internet will give you some of what you need but will either leave out the…
What and Why? Back in the 90s when I was at NYU, I got into using GNU/Linux systems. This was largely due to my digital signal theory professor who would carry his tower to class to demonstrate things on Matlab because there were no computers available that could do what he needed done. There was…
Ah, The Weather October isn’t usually kind enough to grant days in the 70dF range here in NE Ohio. The past few weeks have been really good for that. Sunny, clear days with leaves in high color and a light breeze. It really doesn’t get much better than that for me at this time of…
Big Changes This isn’t a blog where I share everything that happens in my day to day life. The purpose here is to document the fun and challenges of my amateur radio hobby. But a hobby does intersect with life. We’ve all picked up and put down hobbies over time depending on life circumstances. I…
Support Your Parks! Every quarter, the Parks On The Air folks have an event called Support Your Parks Weekend. The idea is to get out to the park at least once a quarter, right? I see it as just another weekend to go play, but maybe there are more hunters out there and a better…
An Activation With An Up And Coming Mode I’ve been pretty active on the Mastodon radio community for a while and I’ve noticed that there are a lot of operators using a mode called Single Side Band or SSB for something called Phone. Apparently, this is where you talk into the microphone (that box with…
This morning, I had a mis-click on the POTA site and ended up on the awards page. Lo and behold, I just got the Howell’s Spectacular Thelypody award for 500 unique parks hunted. Who knew? I would like to thank all of the activators and the parks management services around the globe for this award!…
Ah, The TR-45L… I will go out on a limb and say that if we were to poll every person who purchased the Penntek TR-45L and those operators were honest in their answers, 90% or more would say that they bought it because it looks like what a ham radio should look like. It has…
QRP Rigs Are Fun My interest in POTA and portable operation has evolved as I’ve spent more and more time in this wonderful hobby. I’ve said before, and I will say again, that POTA leads to QRP which leads to CW. As someone who started off in digital modes during a horrible solar cycle, I…