Amateur Radio

More on the TS-930S PA

Ethan K8GU — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:53:56 +0000

I put the “troublesome” TS-930S back on the bench again yesterday to investigate its PA instability some more. A few points are worth mentioning: The instability onset power gets lower with increasing frequency. That is, at 7 and 14 MHz, the instability onset is at about 60 watts output. At 28 MHz, that drops to 40 [...]

Guess I have heard everything

Larry W2LJ — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:05:00 +0000

I have often heard it said that, "If you listen to the radio long enough, you will hear everything." I think that in 30+ years as a Ham, that finally came true the other night.I was driving home from work and had the Icom in scan mode. It settled on o...

Soviet-era key received from Ukraine

John AE5X — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:55:29 +0000

My little piece of Cold War history arrived today in the form of an NOS telegraph key built for the Soviet military in the 1980’s. For only $18, I had to have one. Shipping was quick (got here in 12 days) and the key seems as solid and well-built as I was hoping it would be. For [...]

That was bad!

Larry W2LJ — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:54:00 +0000

Tonight was my night in the barrel as Fox in the 20 Meter Summer Foxhunt. And in the 5 or so years that I have been a Fox, this had to be my worst performance, by far!20 Meters was lousy for me tonight with some local QRN that was horrendous. I took ...

Handiham World for 28 July 2010

Patrick WA0TDA — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:36:00 +0000

Welcome to Handiham World!Update: Larry Huggins, KA0LSG, Handiham Volunteer, holds the Wouxun HT on cover of WorldradioLast week's mention of the Wouxun talking dual band handheld radio created quite a stir, so we are devoting some time to a follow up....

Weather station data flow via APRS

John AE5X — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:43:35 +0000

There seems to be a lot of interest in personal weather stations among ham radio ops. I started my own a little over a year ago after researching what was out there, equipment wise, and I did so thinking it would be interesting to see trends over time here at my own QTH. What I didn’t [...]

200 Ohm Feed Point Off-centre Fed Dipole

Alan VA3STL — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:48:16 +0000

As I mentioned in the earlier Field Day 2010 report, the CUARC group built two antennas for the event. In this post I will describe the first one of these, an off-centre fed dipole. The common place for the feed point of the off-centre fed dipole is at a 1/3 : 2/3 split in the [...]

FOBB Ain’t Broke… SO…

Kelly K4UPG — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:41:46 +0000

Various QRP related email reflectors and lists are full of chatter about the Flight Of the BumbleBees (FOBB). Comments about the CW being too fast and the weather being too hot at this time of year make it sound like a broken event. IMHO it is far from being broken! It is probably the premier [...]

Lessons learned

Larry W2LJ — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:21:00 +0000

As always, FOBB taught me a few lessons,1) Really have to get a Buddipole mast. The plastic insert on my painter's pole can't handle the weight of the Buddistick. Those 10 foot whips add A LOT of weight! It did the job yesterday; but at the end, the ...

Win 1,000 Full-Color Photo QSL Cards

Matt W1MST — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:00:59 +0000

AmateurRadio.com is offering a free prize drawing! With the help of our generous sponsor, KB3IFH QSL Cards, we’re holding a drawing for 1,000 free full-color photo QSL cards. This is a US$100 value. Enter now to win! They have a huge selection of QSL cards, license plate QSL cards, state QSL cards and much more. Please share this post with [...]