Amateur Radio · VHF/UHF · Summits On The Air · Colorado Mountains · Adventure
Activity was light during the ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes, but I had fun anyway, working more grids on 2 Meters than I expected. The January VHF contest is not a big deal for me but I try to at least get on the air. In previous years, I have operated backpack portable for the contest. … Read more
Just a reminder that the January VHF contest is this weekend, starting at noon on Saturday Mountain time. I will be at our cabin up in the mountains (DM78av) with no real antennas up yet but I’ll have a decent Yagi set up temporarily for working 2 Meters. I’ll listen on the calling frequency 144.200 … Read more
The D-STAR buzz continues to build in Colorado with a few repeaters on the air and more to come. For an overview of D-STAR, take a look at the article I wrote for CQ VHF magazine. I decided to dig into the digital modulation format that is used in D-STAR so I could understand it … Read more
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 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
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