A Nice Ride This week both the terrestrial and solar weather were in agreement that I could bike out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park – US-0020 for an activation. I’ve been keeping my cycling closer to home due to rain and whatnot, but with sunny skies and an ionosphere that wasn’t really unhappy with us,…
Yes, I’m Still A Ham It’s been quiet around the blog, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been out and playing radio. With the weather turning into real spring and temperatures that are above the 40dF mark, I’ve been spending a lot more time outside on the bike and a lot less time in…
Back To The Park The temperature was supposed to hit close to 60dF on a cloudy Tuesday in early March and that just screams GET TO THE PARK! I had a lot to do that morning, but I wasn’t going to ignore this clear sign from the universe that I was meant to head out…
The First Activation of 2025: Solitude It was absolutely silent and completely deserted at West Branch SP – K-1999 on 19-Jan. It was Sunday morning at about 10:00 local time and the temperature was sitting at about 20dF. There was a steady 6mph wind and it was a safe bet that no one would be…
Brought To You By… This post is about building a QRP Labs QMX+ transceiver. No, Hans G0UPL didn’t sponsor this. Someone else made it possible. That someone else is Brandon Sanderson aka BrandoSando aka B-Money. He released a book about a week ago and at that point I became a Stormlight Archive Widow™. My beautiful…
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…
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…
A Long Weekend I had the opportunity to take Friday off, so I did. And with a day off and no commitments until much later, I headed out to The Octagon at Cuyahoga Valley National Park – US-0020. I just couldn’t think of a better way to spend a few hours in the quiet before…