Amateur Radio · VHF/UHF · Summits On The Air · Colorado Mountains · Adventure
Like many technical activities, amateur radio has its own set of jargon and protocols used both on and off the airwaves. As part of our Technician license course, we cover basic jargon but also encourage the use of plain language. A new Technician recently asked about the use of the term “73” on the local … Read more
Just catching up on a few things spewing forth from the internetz. From the Great Minds Think Alike Department, Jeff KE9V suggests that the world needs a really good transceiver focused on 50 MHz and higher. I’ve always had this irrational attraction to VHF and higher and would love to have a solid radio in … Read more
The FCC finally got around to addressing a number of issues via a NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULE MAKING AND ORDER. This proposal is an odd mix of Volunteer Examiner (VE) rules, changing the license renewal grace period and dealing with a problem with emission designators. This notice proposes changes to Part 97 of the FCC … Read more
There is a more recent article on this topic. Please see: Can I Use My Ham Radio on Public Safety Frequencies? Updated We have quite a few licensed radio amateurs that are members of public safety agencies, including fire departments, law enforcement agencies and search and rescue. Since they are authorized users of those public … Read more
It was another great day for Summits On The Air (SOTA) activity. I hiked up to Kaufman Ridge HP (W0/SP-081) with Joyce K0JJW to do the first SOTA activation of that summit. This summit is just south of Kaufman Ridge North (W0/SP-085) mentioned in this post. Unlike some of my previous SOTA activations, I actually … Read more
I encourage newly licensed radio amateurs to go ahead and get a dual-band FM rig…handheld, mobile or both. I think the additional cost of the dualbander with both 2 Meters (146 MHz) and 70 cm (440 MHz) is justified by having the ability to operate on the additional ham band. I have noticed that the … Read more