Operating
This weekend, I've been participating in the SKCC Weekend Sprint when I get the opportunity in between other obligations. At about 0900 local, I heard F6HKA on 20 meters coming in pretty well with a very fluttery signal. As you can see on the azimuth map for my QTH, the path to France goes right [...]
I got a bit of cash for my birthday last month and it was burning a hole in my pocket for a few weeks. I decided I needed a good set of CW paddles for my station, since the only keying devices that I have (that work) are all straight keys. It was a bit [...]
The January 2010 issue of Linux Journal is hitting the newsstands, and this one has the theme of Amateur Radio and Linux. One of the featured articles was written by none other than the local Linux guru, KK7DS. I haven't purchased the issue yet, but I got a sneak peak at this particular article, and [...]
DXing is something that has never really been a part of my ham career. Not because I haven't had any interest in it, but mainly because I haven't had much of station to speak of. Being restricted to compromise antennas and low power does a lot to dissuade you from seriously pursuing DX (especially during [...]
I found something sitting on my USB thumbdrive from a year ago that I completely forgot about. A paper log file that I created in OO.org so I could log when I didn't have access to a PC. I'm not sure why I never did anything with it, so I figured I would turn it [...]
Disclaimer: For those who don't know, I'm an employee of Buddipole, and I do speak quite a bit of my positive experiences with some Buddipole products in this post. Yes hams, it's that time of the year again. Field Day, the Super Bowl of the ham radio world. I haven't had the best track record [...]
QRP is tons of fun on CW, but it gets a bit rough trying to work other stations on SSB with 5W, especially when you are using antennas that are low to the ground. I had been eyeballing the nice RF MOSFETs from Mitsubishi for a while, and since I got a hankering to get [...]
...to let you know that I'm still alive. I actually have been doing some ham radio related activities, but haven't had much time to blog about that. More about that in a moment... A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the 7th Area QSO Party. In the interest of full disclosure, [...]
Being such a long time since our last breakfast get-together, W8NF and I decided it was time for another gathering of the Portland Eggs & Coffee. The call went out far and wide, via the pQRP reflector and the ARRL Oregon section website. This time we had a great turnout, a total of seven participants: [...]
Continue reading about January E&C (or, Geekfest at the Peppermill)
Over the course of the New Year rollover here in Beaverton, I had the opportunity to operate SKCC special event station K3Y/7, which celebrates the 3rd anniversary of the manual key operation group. I had a great time operating, but I found the band conditions to be challenging. In the course of 4 hours (probably [...]
