In one of his recent blog posts, Dan KB6NU, asks why ham radio has no presence at the Maker Faire. You may have heard of Make Magazine from Bill at SolderSmoke or other places on the web. Dan writes: About a week ago, I got an e-mail from a ham down in Texas who had… Read More Adapt or Die
Got home from work and had an itch to try a bit of PSK31 this morning. 80 and 40 seemed pretty dead at sunrise, but 20 meters was already hopping with signals. I was wondering if I would ever catch the EU stations from the new and improved QTH, and I finally got my answer… Read More A Bit of Morning DX
I know that the blog updates have been a bit light over the last week or so. Although we have been in our new house for three weeks now, it seems like the chores just keep piling up. However, I have done a little bit of work in the homebrewing department. Inspired by messages from… Read More Back to Basics
A few quick updates to the avs3a software that I’ve writting for the Avnet Spartan-3A Eval Kit (as mentioned in a previous post). First, many thanks to George Gallant from the Avnet Spartan-3A Eval Kit mailing list for rewriting the code to fix the horrible configuration time, as well as for the many error checking… Read More avs3a Google Code Page
On Friday, I noticed that this weekend was the monthly SKCC Weekend Sprint-a-thon. Since I’m a straight key guy, I figured this would be a good way to get in some of the CW practice that I desperately need. The event runs from 0000 to 2359 UTC on Saturday, but I didn’t get on the… Read More A Little SKCC Activity
A blog that I follow on a regular basis is from Aussie ham Peter Marks, VK2TPM. He posts from the perspective of an experienced ham who is really starting to get bitten by the homebrewing bug, so it’s a real pleasure to see him discover some of the things which make that aspect of the… Read More BCD Switch Goodness
No, you got your ham shack in my Linux! I’ve been grumbling to myself about the lack of active ham radio podcasts (sorry but the usual generic ham radio news shows don’t count as podcasts in my book). Lo and behold, I see that KB5JBV and K5TUX have just launched a new podcast, Linux in… Read More You Got Your Linux in My Ham Shack!
Tonight I fired up the 718 again to see if last night’s performance wasn’t a fluke and I could snag a few more QSOs. Eighty meters PSK31 was a bust, so I moved up to 40 and called CQ. Right off of the bat, I got an answer from KD7MTI, who is only about 10… Read More Attention Hound
Sit down, and let me tell you a tale of woe. As I mentioned in my last post, I got my random wire antenna up in the air and it seemed to tune reasonably well with my AT-100Pro. However (isn’t there always a “however”?), the problem that I immediately noticed is that there was broadband… Read More Fun With Broadband Noise
WIIGII! Tonight I had my first QSOs with the new station! I was considering CW but I was feeling a bit sheepish about trying because I’m so out of practice right now. So I dragged out my homebrew sound card interface and homebrew CI-V level converter and hooked them up to the IC-718. A bit… Read More First QSO!