Amateur Radio · VHF/UHF · Summits On The Air · Colorado Mountains · Adventure
From the That Took A Long Time department, the FCC granted a waiver requested by the ARRL that clarifies the rules concerning the use of TDMA (i.e., MOTOTRBO or DMR) on the ham bands. I posted on this topic way back in March 2011, so refer to that article for the background. Update: ARRL article posted here. I … Read more
A few weeks ago, I was at my day job working diligently on something. I popped up the SotaWatch web site to see of anyone was out activating SOTA summits. Sure enough, Steve (AKA Goathiker, AKA WG0AT) was headed up Mt Herman for the day. (I have recently declared Mt Herman to be the Most Radioactive … Read more
Last week, I had lunch with an old friend, Bdale Garbee (KB0G). Bdale and I had both worked at HP for a number of years and we have been involved in some common ham radio clubs and activities. I followed the test and measurement path with Agilent Technologies when that company was formed, while Bdale … Read more
One of the more popular articles on my web site is Choose Your 2M Frequency Wisely, which explains the 2 Meter (144 MHz) band plan. VHF and UHF band plans are mostly local in nature and there is no one band plan that works across the US or North America. So that article is written … Read more
As I prepare for the ARRL January VHF Contest, I loaded the latest version of VHF LOG, a software program by Dave W3KM. I have used this free program for many years and it just rolled over to version 4.0 to support Windows 8. VHF LOG is easy to use while covering the basic contest … Read more
Some time ago, I qualified for 50 MHz VUCC from another location (rare grid DM67, operating portable). Lately, I have been racking up grids on 6 Meters from my cabin in DM78. Since a VUCC award is good for a set of locations that are within 200 km of each other, these new contacts count as a … Read more