Spinning & GrinningHam radio and trail hiking have been a natural pair. There are a few hams (that I know of) who have stood out over the last few years in hitting the trails with their amateur radio gear. The first is Ed, WA3WSJ. He has been out on the Appalachian Trail (or AT) numerous times and [...]
Richard Fisher, KI6SN, had a post back in August 2009 that talked about an interesting transceiver that was in use by the military in the 1960s and 1970s: the AN/PRC-64. The radio is crystal controlled, limited to four channels between 2.2 to 6.0 MHz, has a max output of 5W for CW and 1W for [...]
My intent this morning was to shake-out my portable operations gear. I am travelling out to California next week, enroute to Seattle and then Korea. For the flight to Korea I am allowed to take two duffel bags (
My Dell Mini 9 netbook had been limping along on the Ubuntu distribution that came with it – 8.04. This specific version put out by Dell had some flaws. Follow on distributions were rumored to be glitchy with the Dell Mini 9; problems with WiFi, the integrated webcam, and other nits. With 9.04, Ubuntu introduced [...]
It has been a long time goal to be able to sit in a comfy deck chair out in the backyard and have CW QSOs using my Elecraft KX1. Tonight it happen! Last weekend I routed a feedline from an antenna switch down in the ham shack up to the deck in the backyard. I [...]
Feb 14, 1400Z-2200Z, Leavenworth, KS. Kickapoo QRP Amateur Radio Club, W0EBB. 5th Annual ‘Freeze Your Keys’ Winter Operating Event. 14.280 14.060 7.280 7.030. QSL. Gary Auchard, 34058 167th St, Leavenworth, KS 66048. w0ebb@juno.com
I’ve enjoyed a little of my down time by tuning around with my Grundig YP300E. While not a feature rich radio, I’m surprised at how well it does. Two nights ago I enjoyed listening to a news program on Iranian radio. Reception was pretty solid and the propaganda reminded me of when I used to [...]
I’ve been playing with my FT-817 and having some fun. It is amazing how many features they pack in such a tiny little box. I’ve slowly been learning some of them. The first (important) feature I discovered was the power setting. When you operate off batteries, the radio defaults to 2.5 watts output. You have [...]
After being away from my CW paddle for quite some time, I’ve been trying to get back into CW. Over the past few days I’ve been having success with a few QSOs. Tonight I went down to 80M and had a QSO with Ed, AB8DF, from Michigan. Ed was operating QRP with an Elecraft K2 [...]
A guy is stopped at an intersection when a farm truck comes whipping past him. As the truck takes the corner, a pig comes flying out and lands on the road. The driver of the car puts the pig in his car and takes off after the farm truck. As he’s speeding along trying to [...]