Antenna Lessons Part Three - Antenna Rigging
Aug 10, 2023
amateur radio
My home is smack in the middle of a forest, a mix of conifer (Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar, Western Hemlock) and deciduous (Red Alder, Cottonwood,
Lessons from Antenna Hanging Part Two - Hardware
Aug 5, 2023
amateur radio
I live in a forest, and I’ve hung a fair number of antennas from the trees that surround my home. I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. In this
Lessons from Antenna Hanging Part One
Aug 4, 2023
amateur radio
One of the lessons I learned from my recent maintenance effort on my main HF antenna (an 80m-6m OCFD) was that rope differences matter a great deal,
Antenna Suspension Maintenance
Aug 1, 2023
amateur radio
My main HF antenna is a Buckmaster 80-6m OCFD. Two of my friends put it up for me just after my leg was broken in 2015. At the time none of the 3 of
Improving NMO antenna magmount
Jul 31, 2023
amateur radio
I use a mag mount for the antenna on my car. I’ve run through a number of mounts, though, because I just route the coax through the rear hatch and
Get Home Bag/EDC Bag
May 15, 2023
musings & amateur radio
I got a good start on an EDC backpack/bag. This has prompted some thinking about what belongs in an EDC bag, and how much such a bag can weigh. So
Batteries and Preparedness
Jan 25, 2023
amateur radio
Long ago I settled on non-rechargeable AA cells as the battery standard for various packs/kits for both preparedness purposes and also recreational
SpaceX Starlink
Jan 20, 2023
life in the forest & amateur radio
(While not strictly Life in the Forest nor Amateur Radio I’ve tagged this with those tags for want of some better classification.) For something
Statistics and Preparedness
Jan 6, 2023
amateur radio & musings
Being part of the amateur radio world, and being predisposed to preparedness on my own anyway, I rub shoulders with a lot of people for whom
Minimal Winlink VHF RMS Station
Nov 3, 2022
amateur radio
Since sometime in 2019 I’ve run a VHF Winlink RMS that serves the Seattle Eastside/Snoqualmie Valley area. Originally I had a VHF station and a UHF
Skills are better than stuff
Oct 2, 2022
musings & amateur radio
(I’m giving this an amateur radio tag although it is only tangentially related to radio. So many hams are into emergency preparedness, it makes
Compactenna 2m/440+
Sep 5, 2022
amateur radio
Date 9/5/2022 YouTube decided I needed to watch a video about the COMPACTenna line of antennas. The inventor, Jack Nilsson N8NDL, states that the
Diversity and Inclusion
Jul 19, 2022
musings & amateur radio
I’m still thinking about Dan Romanchik KB6NU’s post about inclusion and amateur radio regarding one club having a chaplain and starting meetings
My Bridgecom BCR-220 story
Jul 19, 2022
amateur radio
In November, 2019 I bought a Bridgecom BCR-220 repeater and duplexer to set up at my home. I wanted to learn about repeaters, and owning one and
More NVIS Thinking
Jul 19, 2022
amateur radio & NVIS
I think the idea of different NVIS antenna designs for different situations is pretty solid, so I have been thinking about parameter ranges for
Inclusion
Jul 11, 2022
amateur radio & musings
Dan KB6NU opines on this reddit post about an amateur radio club that starts meetings with the group chaplain offering an invocation: Hello, newbie
An Excellent NVIS presentation video
Jun 23, 2022
amateur radio
I’m a big believer in learning from mistakes. My preference is to learn from other people’s mistakes. This saves me the time, effort, and
NVIS antenna thinking
Jun 22, 2022
amateur radio
After giving my newly revised presentation on NVIS propagation and NVIS antennas last night I was left unsatisfied with the last part of the
Marathon Support
Jun 13, 2022
amateur radio
Yesterday I spent about half my day doing communications support for the Tunnel Marathon. Race support seems like a fine alignment between my
NVIS presentation
Jun 8, 2022
amateur radio & NVIS
I’ve been asked to do a presentation on NVIS and NVIS antennas for the Microhams club. Since I’ve had further thoughts on how to improve my
Mobile VHF/UHF Installation
May 27, 2022
amateur radio
My goals for a mobile radio installation are: 100% reversible - no holes, nothing permanently mounted. Easily removable, so that it’s simple to
Portable Repeater Project - Shelf Weights
May 17, 2022
portable repeater & amateur radio
I’m in the process of putting all the bits into the SKB roto-molded 4U rack case I’ve got. Mostly that has consisted of arranging things on the two
Portable Repeater Project - Receiver & Transmitter
May 14, 2022
amateur radio & portable repeater
A lot of hams have picked Motorola Maxtrac radios for VHF or UHF repeater projects. But programming the radios is a pain, because Motorola are rigid
Portable Repeater Project - Duplexers
May 11, 2022
portable repeater & amateur radio
A repeater is basically just a receiver with the audio output routed to the input of a transmitter. Whatever it receives (modulo things like CTCSS
The Portable Repeater Project - Controller Choices
May 11, 2022
Amateur Radio & Portable Repeater
Repeater controllers have gone through a significant evolution. The club I’m a member of (SNOVARC) uses ARCOM RC210 controllers. They’re very
Portable Repeater Project - Power
May 10, 2022
amateur radio & portable repeater
In the past I’ve built go box style setups which included internal batteries. The goal, in my view, was to have a setup where you bring it to the
The Portable Repeater Project - Case
May 10, 2022
amateur radio & portable repeater
Since the Portable Repeater will be, well, portable, it will need to be in a case of some sort that will protect it from the heartache and thousand
Ultramarathon Go Bags for Hams
May 8, 2022
amateur radio & ultrarunning
Some little while ago I was discussing supporting ultramarathon races with some of my ham radio friends. The specific scenario discussed was
Towards A Modern Mobile VHF/UHF (part 1)
Apr 8, 2022
amateur radio
The current crop of mobile vhf/uhf radios is, er, disappointing. It’s like they were designed in the 1980’s and have been preserved in amber all
The Portable Repeater Project
Apr 5, 2022
amateur radio & portable repeater
One of my amateur radio projects I’ve got underway in a low intensity background sort of way is building a repeater that is portable - not intended