ARRL 10 Meter Contest

Usually I don’t focus on the ARRL 10 Meter contest, especially when the solar activity has been so low. However, band conditions have really picked up and 10 Meters is alive and kicking. We have quite a few new Technicians that are discovering the wonder of worldwide HF propagation with even a modest station. I … Read more

A Pretty Good List From K3NG

K3NG reposted one of his classic articles Things I Wish I Knew When I Was A Young Radio Artisan. Here’s a few items from the list: With antennas, it’s not about the feet and inches (or meters), think in terms of wavelength. Don’t worry about the orientation of a dipole when it’s less than a … Read more

What’s a Country?

Recently on Google Plus there was a discussion of what qualifies as a separate country in the amateur radio world. The confusion point was that Alaska was showing up in logging software as a “country”. It turns out is is both a country and a state. The generally accepted countries list is established by the … Read more

This Spewed Out of the Internet #20

There’s lots of information spewing forth from the interwebznet. Here are a few items of interest. The amateur radio community is buzzing with excitement from the excellent propagation on the HF bands during the CQ Worldwide DX Contest last weekend. For example, see the radio-sport.net post or my post. One of our local Boy Scouts … Read more

Another Great HF Slacker Weekend

I had previously admitted to being an HF slacker…that is, I only really enjoy the high frequency bands when the DX is loud and plentiful on 15 and 10 Meters. For almost a half decade, I’ve listened to the True HF Enthusiasts say things like “move to the lower bands when the solar activity is … Read more