Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 317

Amateur Radio Weekly

Neighborhood Watch utilizes GMRS
Sponsored by the Sand Canyon Volunteer Council and Tehachapi Valley CERT team in conjunction with the Tehachapi Amateur Radio Association.
Tehachapi News

DLARC preserves Ham Radio & More radio show
Ham Radio & More was a radio show about Amateur Radio that was broadcast from 1991 through 1997. More than 300 episodes of the program are now available online.
DLARC

FreeDV January update
Applying Machine Learning (ML) techniques to quantise Codec 2 features.
FreeDV

Radio Orienteering Cyber-Coach
The Cyber-Coach will answer any question related to Radio Orienteering.
Open ARDF

Amelia didn’t know radio
That Earhart and Fred Noonan failed to reach Howland Island on their 1937 around-the-world flight because of radio problems has been said before—but little has been written about the specifics.
U.S. Naval Institute

CATS Mobile Transceiver
70 cm CATS mobile transceiver, with integrated GPS.
cats.radio

114 digital voice nets (PDF)
Various nets taking place on EchoLink, AllStarLink, IRLP, and more.
ROC-HAM

YLISSB celebrates 61 years on the air
The YLISSB operates on 14.332 MHz every day of the year.
ARRL

Video

Quartzfest 2024
A comprehensive video playlist of events at Quartzfest 2024.
K7AGE

What went wrong when I elevated my fan dipole?
To my dismay, when I checked the fan dipole antenna again, the SWR had gone beyond the tunable range of my automatic antenna tuner.
Johnsons Techworld

The Origins of Silicon Valley: Roots in Ham Radio
This talk focuses on the contributions of Amateur Radio to the development of a climate of innovation and collaboration in what has become Silicon Valley.
KM6LH

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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 316

Amateur Radio Weekly

Static on the airwaves
Understanding the drop in U.S. Amateur Radio operators.
KD0TLS

Ghostbusters fans warned of safety and legal risks with the use of Baofeng
Baofeng appears as prop along side proton pack in upcoming film, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
Ghostbusters News

Setting up your Ham Shack Hotline
Are you ready to take your Ham Radio game to the next level?
N1JUR

World of Receivers and Transceivers
A collection of SDR receivers from across the globe.
World of Receivers and Transceivers

How to make your Ham Radio club as unappealing as possible
My list of things a club needs to do to make it as unappealing as possible.
Random Wire

AMSAT responds to planned decommissioning of IO-117
AMSAT stands ready to leverage our 55 years of experience in managing Amateur Radio satellites.
AMSAT

Getting to know GNURadio
Make a working receiver and more on your computer.
The Communicator

lofi air traffic control
Lofi music paired with air traffic control radio.
lofi air traffic control

Retevis Ailunce HD1 GPS first impression
Leaving the radio out in the elements unprotected for 3 days in -33F temperatures.
OH8STN

FCC will add vehicles for pirate radio enforcement
FCC to conduct annual enforcement sweeps of pirate radio in the five markets with the most pirate operations.
Radio World

ARRL January VHF Contest — 2024 blockbuster
Sunday was exceptional, bringing my score to 17,296.
K5ND

Video

Building a simple, inexpensive 2 meter dipole antenna
Using Christmas lights wire.
KI5IRE

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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 315

Amateur Radio Weekly

ARRL responds to FCC proposals
ARRL concluded that the FCC should also remove the bandwidth limits that apply uniquely to the data modes on the subject bands.
ARRL

In praise of old meters
There were two obviously burned resistors and a leaking battery—an easy repair to put this meter back into service.
Hackaday

SDU-X: Software defined data transmission with ultrasonic transducers
SDU-X uses two ultrasonic transducers mounted on 3D printed parabolic dishes.
RTL-SDR

open890
open890 is a web-based UI for the Kenwood TS-890S Amateur Radio, and features good usability, clean design, and high-speed bandscope/audio scope displays, among other features not available either on the radio itself, or in the ARCP remote control software.
N0RUA

144 MHz EME Newsletter
Since 2003 I’ve produced the monthly 144 MHz EME Newsletter focusing on 2m EME activity. The newsletter comes free of charge and is my personal courtesy to the Ham community.
DF2ZC

What’s new at DLARC January 2024
On January 1, 2024, content published in 1928 in the United States entered the public domain. But what about the Amateur Radio content?
Zero Retries

Investigating creeping ground fault
I decided to make a device that could monitor the residual current of my mains installation over time to see if the if it would uncover anything.
Dzl’s Evil Genius Lair

Top 5 Parks on the Air tips for activating a park
The top 5 tips to help you make the most of your park activations and ensure a successful and enjoyable experience.
N1JUR

Video

External meter display and tune button for Yaesu FT-991a
Build a Yaesu external meter display and tune button yourself with an Arduino NANO.
PA0LUX

Build a Ham transmitter with a Raspberry Pi Pico
Using only a few external components build a Ham Radio transmitter covering 0.5-30 MHz.
101 Things

Handheld spectrum analyzer review
The Jstvro spectrum analyzer covers 240-960 MHz on the first port and 15 – 2700 MHz on the second port.
Tech Minds

Meet the students using radio waves to contact the ISS
A high school club in Pennsylvania is making waves — radio waves, that is.
TODAY

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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 314

Amateur Radio Weekly

The ARRL Board is at it again
A newly proposed Code of Conduct, which I believe is the equivalent of a loyalty, confidentiality and obedience pledge to the League itself and not to the members that elect us.
KB6NU

Going on a social media diet
Leaving Twitter, investing in Mastodon.
QRPer

MeshCom 4.0
A project to exchange text messages via LORA radio modules. MeshCom modules can be combined to form a mesh network, but can also be connected to a message network via MeshCom gateways, which are ideally connected via HAMNET.
ICSSW

2023: The Year in Radio
Ham Radio in 2023 was a continual source of rejuvenation and energy.
KC8JC

Introducing QSOMate
A Ham Radio logging application for iPhone, iPad, and macOS Desktop.
MacHamRadio.com

Mini-whips: Junk, right?
The results were very surprising.
Real-World Amateur Radio

Everything you wanted to know about Zulu Time
Zulu Time is the military name for Universal Coordinated Time (UTC).
OnAllBands

AM or SSB are there ‘windows?’
A new voice mode appeared in 1947 when Wes Schum, W9DYV, introduced the first Amateur Radio SSB transmitter.
K9EID via AmateurRadio.com

Somaiya students’ Amateur Radio Satellite takes to the skies
Equipped with a voice repeater and digipeater, the satellite extends its services to the global Amateur Radio community.
HindustanTimes

Video

Demo of 3 Ham study sites
Demo of 3 Amateur Radio study sites in under 3 minutes.
Branvini Films

Salmon Run 2023
WA State QSO Contest from Samish Overlook.
WA7JNJ

Working the ISS Ham Radio Repeater with a Baofeng
My first attempt working the International Space Station Ham Radio Repeater.
W6IWN

The best Ham Radio videos of 2023
Top 10 list.
KB9VBR

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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 313

Amateur Radio Weekly

Another year of Ham Radio is in the books! Before turning our sights toward 2024, let’s take one last look back at 2023 through the lens of everyone’s favorite metric: Email engagement. The following are the top ten most clicked links measured across every issue of Amateur Radio Weekly in 2023. Happy New Year!

73 K4HCK

P.S. Take a look at the top links from years past: 2022, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015

Top links of 2023

10. Practical Antennas
Based on 50+ years of building and experimenting.
WB6BYU

9. Ham Radio tunes in to a new generation
Ham Radio appears to be making a comeback.
The Times

8. A strange but proven antenna
The VP2E has earned a place of honor in my antenna box.
Ham Radio Outside the Box

7. $30 Lowes antenna
You can still put together a decent all-band antenna on a budget.
KB6NU

6. Revision of the RST standard for signal reporting
Technology has developed a situation where the time has come for a revision.
Amateur Radio Daily

5. RFNM: A next generation SDR with 10 MHz to 7200 MHz tuning range
Up to 612 MHz of real time bandwidth for receiving and two DACs with up to 153 MHz of TX bandwidth.
RTL-SDR

4. A 200ft wire antenna up zero feet
How does it perform?
Ham Radio Outside the Box

3. It’s finally dead!
Yaesu FT-818 discontinued.
OH8STN

2. Amateur Radio License Map
Use this map to find Amateur Radio license holders in the USA.
KT1F

1. HamClock
A kiosk-style application that provides real-time space weather, radio propagation models, operating events, and other information particularly useful to the Radio Amateur.
WBØOEW

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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 312

Amateur Radio Weekly

NASA streams first video from deep space via laser
The video, featuring a cat named Taters, was sent back from nearly 19 million miles away.
NASA

QRP Cluster
A QRP self spotting cluster.
QRP Cluster

Visualizing FT8
FT8 operators coming and going over a 24 hour period, animated on a map.
K9OX

The lifeline of CW and POTA
The Ham community saw me through my difficulties.
QRPer

The 2023 Winter Olivia QSO Party
The first-ever Winter Olivia Digital Mode QSO Party is about to commence.
The Olivia Digital DXers Club

NanoVNA setup for common antenna system measurement tasks
A common task is an overall assessment of an antenna system.
owenduffy.net

A WSPR monitor running on an old Android TV Box with OpenWebRX
These TV Boxes have an AMlogic S805 chip with excellent performance.
RTL-SDR

IC-9700 Hamlib setup for FT-8 via QO-100
There were some interesting commands that are obviously not in use within hamlib/rigctl.
Notizbl0g

Meteor scatter experiment with the 2023 Geminid shower
Using an Amateur Radio beacon 500kms away to find the peak of the 2023 Geminids meteor shower.
EI7GL

Video

Intro to the Olivia digital mode for HF
An introduction presented to the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society by NW7US.
NW7US

Why the ARRL matters
Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R, serves as the Director of Marketing and Innovation at the ARRL.
W1DED

HamClock on Windows
This method works on Windows 10 and 11.
KF0IDT

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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 311

Amateur Radio Weekly

ISS SSTV this weekend
Event celebrates 40th Anniversary of Ham Radio in Human Spaceflight.
AMSAT UK

12 Days of Christmas on-air special event
12 stations plus 2 bonus stations will make up the event.
Amateur Radio Daily

CATS Communication And Tracking System
CATS is a packet radio standard primarily designed for autonomous position reports.
CATS

AO-73 back in transponder mode
After a year long period of battery management, the transponder on AO-73 has been restarted.
AMSAT UK

GEO satellite proposal could include large portion of North America (PDF)
Plus an experimental laser based high-speed data link.
AMSAT

Host A YSF DMR DSTAR C4FM Multi-mode reflector on Ubuntu
XLX is a multi-mode/multi-protocol gateway reflector for Amateur Radio digital modes.
The Modern Ham

UniQSL-2: QSL cards made easy
Create an easily printable PDF file, three QSLs per page.
UniQSL-2

Determining signal bearing from switching antennas in software
Time difference of arrival system for determining the bearing to a transmitter.
KA7OEI

Two new DX-peditions planned for Bouvet Island
Just days later, a rival expedition announced that they were planning a separate expedition.
EI7GL

Video

TAPR Digital Communications Conference
Video recording of the 2023 TAPR Digital Communications Conference.
TAPR

DX from a Christmas Tree
Christmas light dipole.
Modern Ham

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  • Matt W1MST, Managing Editor