Amateur Radio · VHF/UHF · Summits On The Air · Colorado Mountains · Adventure
When I purchased my 2003 Ford Escape, I decided to install multiple ham radios and a bunch of antennas. Mostly I use a Yaesu FT-8900 FM transceiver for operating on the 2-Meter and 70-cm ham bands. A while back, I started getting reports that I had alternator whine on my transmit audio. I was perplexed because I thought I had … Read more
HamRadioSchool.com is off to a great start with a learning system that includes a web site, iPhone app and a great Technician License Course book. The Technician book, written by my fellow instructor Stu Turner W0STU, has turned out to be very popular. Stu did a great job of balancing “teaching the right material” with “focusing on the … Read more
It is about time I updated one of my more popular posts, The Incomplete List of Ham Radio iPhone Apps from 2011. This was a challenging task back then and has gotten more difficult as the number of ham radio apps for the iPhone has greatly expanded. Still, I will give it a shot and appreciate your … Read more
Spring is finally coming to the Colorado high country so it was time for a SOTA (Summits on the Air) activation. I don’t know which idea comes first: let’s go hiking or let’s play SOTA. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’ve had my eyes on activating Aspen Ridge, which is near our family cabin but … Read more
In the Winter 2013 issue of CQ VHF magazine, I wrote about some of the VHF/UHF handheld radios available from China. In that article, I reported on the measured performance of a few of the Wouxun and Baofeng transceivers. One of the Baofeng UV-5R radios that I tested showed harmonic distortion that was a bit … Read more
This past weekend, I had a great time working the CQ WPX (SSB) Contest. I am pretty much an HF Slacker but I do like getting on the air once in a while for these contests. The attraction seems to be the opportunity to make lots of contacts in a short time and picking up a few new … Read more