Ham College 114
Ham College episode 114 is now available for download.
Technician Class Exam Questions – part 1
T1A – Purpose and permissible use of the Amateur Radio Service. Operator/primary station license grant, Meanings of basic terms used in FCC rules, Interference, RACES rules, Phonetics, Frequency Coordinator.
George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].
Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 335
A super-simple standalone WSPR beacon
IgrikXD managed to hit Texas and Colorado from the edge of the North Sea on several bands, which isn’t too shabby with a fraction of a watt.
Hackaday
After dubious shootdowns, NORAD now checks with balloon hobbyist groups
NORAD has learned to check hobbyist websites to identify balloons since the US military shot down three unidentified objects in 2023.
Task & Purpose
The RigPix Database
A no-nonsense, multi-gigabyte source of information and pictures of radios, accessories and more.
RigPix
The Matrix HAM Radio Community continues to grow
Come and say hello, a welcome awaits.
M0AWS
The Ionosphere
Earths ionised upper atmosphere.
VK3FS
Preparing radio and trail gear for a once-in-a-lifetime hike
A quest to hike the Appalachian Trail.
QRPer
Decoding Meshtastic in realtime with an RTL-SDR and GNU Radio
Aaron shows how to install the Meshtastic GNU Radio software on DragonOS.
RTL-SDR.com
Video
1946 Packard car radio
Let’s try to save it.
The Radio Mechanic
KH6WI’s Portable Amateur Radio satellite setup
Setup for working Amateur Radio satellites while portable and while doing amateur satellite roves.
KI5IRE
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Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.
Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 334
The gradual normalization of automated FT8
The one-man FT4GL DXpedition on Glorioso is ground-breaking.
AE5X
Ham Map
A map that shows WWFF, POTA, SOTA, and GMA references.
OK1SIM
QO-100 satellite ground station complete build
My QO-100 satellite ground station is built around my little Icom IC-705 QRP transceiver, it’s a great little rig and is ideal for the purpose of driving a 2.4Ghz transverter/up-converter.
M0AWS
Noise management on Field Day
One bad apple can really be aggravating, so here are a few techniques you can use to keep the peace.
OnAllBands
CQ Pride special event June 7-17
An Amateur Radio event intended to celebrate pride month, support inclusion in Amateur Radio, and to enjoy some time on the air.
Pride Radio Group
11 Meter Field Day is June 29
The EPFD is a radio sports event which involves Freeband enthusiasts uniting for a day or 2 in the great outdoors—armed with a portable station—and chasing DX.
Delta Alfa
First time net control
My first time ever being net control and it was a blast.
N3VEM
Amateur Radio making a comeback in Northwest Missouri
Missouri Valley Amateur Radio Club takes steps to increase membership.
News-Press
NI1Q’s long-awaited Elecraft KH1: Worth the wait?
After 126 days, a long-awaited unboxing: The KH1 arrives.
QRPer
A reason to get on the air
What motivates you to get on the air?
K0NR
Video
TX Factor celebrates 10 years with 30th episode
Bob G0FGX demonstrates the Groundstation 2 from DX Patrol in the first of a two-part feature on operating via the QO-100 geostationary satellite.
TX Factor
Portrait of a scientific glassblower
Jim Breen, the highly-skilled artisan, has created glass apparatuses and other vessels for Berkeley researchers — not just those in chemistry.
UC Berkeley
The greatest clock (and map) ever made
I needed to restore a Geochron World Clock, which first meant learning how they work.
Attoparsec
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Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.
TX Factor – Episode 30
We’re back with our 10th year anniversary show!
Bob G0FGX demonstrates the Groundstation 2 from DX Patrol in the first of a two-part feature on operating via the QO-100 geostationary satellite. He looks at the hardware and software needed to achieve your first QSO at home or out mobile.
We visit the new QTH of the Sidmouth Amateur Radio Society in South Devon, UK and meet Dave Lee G6XUV who helped SARS to secure a derelict former sports social club from the local town council and renovate it into a community hub and club QTH.
Bob reviews the latest mobile transceiver from Yaesu – the FTM-500D and demonstrates the many advanced features of this versatile FM and digital rig.
Watch now via our website: txfactor.co.uk
Nick Bennett 2EØFGQ co-hosts TX Factor with Bob McCreadie GØFGX and Mike Marsh G1IAR. Contact the team at [email protected]
Strategic partnerships with public libraries by ham radio clubs: Updates
Since the previous blog post got out and syndicated via AmateurRadio.com, I’ve had inquiries about how to go about building an effective relationship with a local library system. Some clubs have already done this but focusing on emergency communications activities. The ARRL tends to call these “served agencies.” This may be with a local Emergency Management Agency, hospitals, area Red Cross agency, or local governments. As I’ve written here before, why not think of other organizations as educational “served agencies”? That might be a good start!
Back in January (2024), I led a Forum at the Capital City Hamfest in Jackson MS on developing strategic partnerships with public libraries. We had representatives from the Madison County (MS) Library System and the Director and Vice Director of the Delta Division of the ARRL on the Panel. Here is an updated slide deck of that Forum discussion. The interested reader might use this as a jumping-off point to take the ball and start dribbling (see last slide!).
Download PDF here.
Strategic-partnerships-with-public-libraries-by-ham-radio-UpdatesFrank Howell, K4FMH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Mississippi, USA. Contact him at [email protected].
Advice
ARRL made a comment in an update yesterday about some members “believe [ARRL] should be openly communicating everything [emphasis added] associated with this incident.” That’s not what this member has been suggesting. The update goes on saying “[authorities] […] have directed us to be conservative and cautious with our communications.” I really hate to belabor this, and I’m not trying to Monday morning quarterback the event nor sound condescending, but this is really a teachable moment for ARRL, for whoever may be listening. Here’s my advice, carefully outlined:
- Post updates daily, even if it’s a short update. Anything.
- Put a human face with the response effort. This can be quite simple: just post a two minute video every other day with someone on the leadership team or someone tasked with public relations to say “hello”, “this is what we’re doing today”, “these are the challenges we’re facing”, “we got this!, ” and “be patient”. Even add some snarky humor. This is not that hard to do, but it maintains and builds reputation capital and a rapport with the community and stakeholders. I’ve been amazed over my career and in my personal dealings in the online world how far a face, humbleness, self-deprecating humor, and falling on your sword goes in a bad or challenging situation. This isn’t going to silence irrational critics, of which there are plenty, but for 95% of the people out there, it works.
- Technical details which, if made public, may compromise the investigation are separate from details regarding the restoration efforts. Don’t stand behind an investigation, it just gives a sense of secrecy and a lack of transparency and frankness.
- Service restoration ETAs should be communicated from day one, and with each update. Even if an ETA is “we don’t know yet” or the ETA is in weeks, rather than hours or days, it’s much better than nothing.
- Enumerate what services are affected, as soon as the scope is known, and track them throughout the ongoing communications. Initially to the outsider this appeared to be just an LOTW outage. It turned out this also affected the phone system and various administrative systems used to provide other services and publishing of periodicals.
I honestly hope this is my last post on this. For ARRL leadership there are takeaways from this event beyond technical issues. Technical issues can be fixed with expertise, money, and time. Cultural issues are much more challenging.
This article was originally posted on Radio Artisan.
Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.
A Reason To Get On The Air
I don’t need much but I do need a reason to get on the air. This can take many forms as I wrote in this blog post some time ago. I see quite a few new hams struggling with the problem of “I got this license but now what?”
Operating goals or awards are a fun way to keep focused on accomplishing something via ham radio. Really, it’s a specific reason to get on the air and make radio contacts. I am not big on idle chit chat via the radio (“the weather here is 65 deg and raining”) so having a reason to make contacts helps me get on the air. I’ve tended to pursue awards in a serial manner…once I hit some level of accomplishment, I usually declare victory and move on to something else.
Way back in the wayback machine, the first award I pursued was Worked All States (WAS). It does take some effort but I was pretty active on the HF bands at the time, so many of the states just showed up in my log. But to really drive it home, I kept track of which states I still needed and actively looked for opportunities to work them. Later, I pursued Worked All Continents (WAC), which obviously requires working some DX. But then I decided that if I had any DX cred at all, I needed to get DX Century Club (DXCC). Recently, the popularity of FT8 has been a game changer and I currently have about 175 entities confirmed (thank you, Logbook of The World). I don’t chase paper QSL cards anymore, which is just too much trouble for a Slacker DXer.
The VHF and higher bands have always been a passion for me, so I pursued the VHF/UHF Century Club (VUCC) awards. First, it was 6 meter VUCC, the easiest one to get. A really good run during the ARRL June VHF contest can produce the 100 grids you need for the award in one weekend. Later, some mountaintop activity resulted in 10 GHz VUCC. At one point, I got into working the LEO satellites and confirmed the required 100 grids for satellite VUCC. (Hey, Technicians, this is something you can do right now!) I still don’t have very many grids confirmed on 2 meters, so that one is still calling to me.
Summits On The Air
If you read my blog, you know that Summits On The Air (SOTA) is my number one activity lately, both activating and chasing summits. This is a natural fit for me as I’ve enjoyed mountaintop operating in various forms, mostly on VHF and UHF. (See my SOTA blog postings.) My hiking partner and wife, Joyce/K0JJW is almost always activating with me. Her #1 ham radio activity is also SOTA. We both achieved Mountain Goat status (1000 activator points) using only VHF and higher frequencies. (Technicians can have a lot of fun with SOTA on VHF!)
The SOTA program has a wide variety of awards, supported by a comprehensive database used to record SOTA radio contacts and keep track of the scores. It is not really a competition but there is friendly rivalry between SOTA enthusiasts as they monitor each other’s posted scores. Here are the “badges” that pop up when I check my SOTA info.
Parks On The Air
In the past few years, we have added the Parks On The Air (POTA) program. It turns out that not all regions of the country have interesting SOTA summits but they all have state or national parks. This fits nicely into our outdoor hiking/camping/4WD activities.
Many of our SOTA activations are in parks (national forests, national parks and state parks), so we usually try to make the SOTA activation count for both programs. This means that many of our POTA activations are done using VHF/UHF only, if from a summit. More commonly, we use the HF bands for POTA activations. Our standard POTA setup is a Yaesu FT-991 driving an endfed wire antenna, usually on SSB or FT8.
POTA also has a great database, good tools and plenty of awards available. Here’s what shows up on my POTA awards page. Just like SOTA, POTA is not a competition but it is interesting to see what other hams are doing and compare you level of activity.
So those are my thoughts.
What motivates you to get on the air?
73, Bob K0NR
The post A Reason To Get On The Air appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.
Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].