Amateur Radio · VHF/UHF · Summits On The Air · Colorado Mountains · Adventure
This weekend is the ARRL Field Day, the major ham radio operating event in North America. Here in Monument, the Pikes Peak Radio Amateur Association and the Tri-Lakes Monument Fire Radio Association will operate from TLMF Station 1. Details are on the PPRAA web site. The “Get On the Air” station is perfect for new … Read more
The July issue of QST arrived in the mail recently with an article on the January VHF Sweepstakes results. It always takes about 6 months to have the scores show up in QST, so some people make it a point to share their scores via email and figure out who won. I just submit my … Read more
It’s time to do one of those miscellaneous collections of drivel that spews forth from the interwebnet pipes. Some of this might even be important! Some upcoming events: ARRL June VHF QSO Party and the Colorado FM Sprint, on the weekend of June 12th. The FM Sprint runs concurrently with the ARRL contest but only … Read more
Ham radio VHF enthusiasts have been patiently waiting for the ICOM IC-9100. This HF/VHF/UHF/Satellites covers most or all of the popular amateur bands. Recently, ICOM has posted the specs and brochure on its web site. The rig has dual receivers that allow monitoring two bands at once and it is set up for full-duplex on … Read more
For the RF/microwave enthusiasts out there, you may recall the old HP Reflectometer Calculator that does conversions between SWR, Return Loss and calculated mismatch uncertainty. Well, fast forward to the 21st century and this same functionality can be found in an iPhone ap. Agilent Technologies has a free ap available on iTunes that does these … Read more
The other night, I attended one of those unfortunate, but all too common dysfunctional radio club meetings. (The name of the club will remain confidential.) You have probably been to one of these sessions where the leadership of the club is frustrated because they feel like only a few of the members are doing all … Read more