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…
The Deep Thoughts Documentary films are my favorite form of visual entertainment. There is nothing better than settling in to watch a deep dive on something like a particular ecosystem or concept or literary movement. Naturally, I’ve seen most of Ken Burns’ oeuvre and it would follow that I have watched The National Parks documentary….
On Being Invisible Late last week, I was made aware of some concerns that the POTA team were having relayed to them by various official agencies about the poor behavior of activators in parks and on public land. This led to a great post by Thomas K4SWL and some good discussion over in the ham…
Radio Goals for 2024 Laying out radio goals last year seemed to work really well. It provided a place for me to look as I moved through the year to compare what I said I wanted to do with what I was doing. It all seemed to track pretty well. I got deeper into CW,…
2023: The Year In Radio 2023 was a really, really great year for me with Ham Radio. I was able to get on the air and spend time investing in the hobby. It was a continual source of rejuvenation and energy for me. In short, it was exactly what a hobby should be. Parks On…
How Did That Happen? There were a lot of things stacked against doing an activation on the 27th. First and foremost, it’s my wife’s birthday so she sets the tone for the day. Having a birthday after Christmas isn’t fun. Most people are just celebrated out by that point and no one wants to eat…
Peace and Quiet in Deceptive Weather Saturday, December 09 was not what was promised by all of my various weather apps. On a day when the sun was supposed to make an appearance and it was supposed to be dry, there was a touch of rain in the pre-dawn morning and no sign of the…
My last couple of activations have been at West Branch State Park – K-1999. I mentioned back in January of this year that one week there were restrooms and picnic shelters and the next weekend they were all gone. As someone who frequents a park, it began to kind of eat at me. There had…
There are as many ways to enjoy this hobby as there are people enjoying it. Plenty of categories for one to assign to one’s self. There are contesters. There are DXers. There are experimenters and kit builders. There are CW only operators. There are paper chasers. Some are rag chewers. There are the microwave operators…
Learning The Code Learning CW is, like most most skill acquisition processes, a journey. It reminds me a great deal of learning a musical instrument. There are times when it’s nothing but a grind to master a piece of it in order to move to the next level. And then there are moments when something…