Ham Radio

Making Plans for Hamcon Colorado

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I attended the planning meeting for the 2009 Hamcon Colorado this morning. This event is the ARRL Rocky Mountain Division Convention, held in Colorado every three years as it rotates between Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. In 2009, it will be held on May 29-31 in Estes Park, a super vacation spot. Hamcon Colorado’s main … Read more

ARISS Update October 21

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I pulled this from the AMSAT-BB email list (a good update on the NA1SS activity this week by Richard Garriott): Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:48:26 -0400 From: “Frank H. Bauer” <ka3hdo@comcast.net> Subject: [amsat-bb] ARISS Update October 21, 2008 To: <amsat-bb@amsat.org> All, I think you all can agree that this has been a stellar and … Read more

Richard Garriott W5KWQ in Space

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Richard Garriott, W5KWQ is on his way to the International Space Station (ISS) as the sixth “space tourist” riding on a Soyuz spacecraft. This would be just another rich guy buys a ride into space story, except that Richard is a ham radio operator, a successful technogeek and the son of a famous astronaut. For … Read more

Bits and Pieces

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I’ve been out of town quite a bit for work and pleasure, so here’s a catch up post of several bits and pieces. You may have heard that Sarah Palin’s email got hacked. The background story is here on Wired’s site. The yahoo mail account was apparently accessed using the password reset system. That’s where … Read more

Sorry…I’ve Been on 2M FM Again

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I was looking out the window the other day and noticed that my wire HF antenna is laying on the ground. Hmmm, probably doesn’t radiate very well that way. But if I put a long, lossy coaxial cable in line, the SWR will still be good at the transmitter. And I can tell my buddies … Read more

Wanted: Improved Content on the Ham Bands

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On the dstar_digital Yahoo group, someone asked about how to deal with complaints about certain hams ragchewing on a particular system at all hours of the day and night. The specific example was about a d-star “reflector” but the concept applies to many types of ham radio operating. It seems that other users on the … Read more