The HF Voyager Project
Jupiter Research Foundation Amateur Radio Club has integrated an HF transceiver with an autonomous ocean-going drone. Our mission is to deploy a ham radio station that roams the world’s oceans while providing an opportunity for amateur radio operators everywhere to make contacts with rare locations.
JRFARC

ARRL repurposes AM broadcast transmitter for Ham Radio use
Thanks to a joint effort by ARRL and the Vintage Radio and Communications Museum of Connecticut (VRCMCT), a classic Gates BC-1T AM broadcast transmitter will enjoy a second life on the Amateur Radio bands for occasional use under W1AW.
ARRL

Alexa Skill: Band conditions
This skill uses the information from http://www.bandconditions.com/ and can help Amateur Radio operators quickly get information about current band conditions on a scale from “dead” to “great.”
AC4PA

How to make a MMDVM Digital Repeater
After following this article you will be able to put together a multimode amateur digital repeater that can be connected to the internet for world wide digital communication.
San Antonio Digital Radio Club

The Army’s costly quest for the perfect radio continues
The decisions that the Department of Defense made about its “radios of the future” more than 20 years ago are still having an impact on the communications gear the military services purchase today.
Ars Technica

Will the FCC sink pirate radio in Colorado?
Word spread quickly about the mysterious unmarked black SUV parked at a highway exit just outside the town of Ward, CO.
Westword

Valerie, NV9L, is Amateur of the Year
Hotzfeld is a co-host of the netcast Ham Nation and has created several how-to videos on YouTube for the ham radio community.
ARRL

The QCX 5W CW Transceiver from QRP Labs
The board is top quality, and comes with the two SMT devices already soldered on. They are the Si5351, which is the heart of the synthesized VFO, and the FST3253, which is used for the quadrature sampling detector. Inside the red packing is the LCD module.
AA7EE

Solar power in a can
Already designed to resist the elements, [bennelson] is using a 50cal. ammo can for a portable enclosure. Inside, he’s siliconed a 15AH, 12V lead-acid battery in the centre to maintain balance and to leave room for the wiring and storage.
Hack A Day

Veteran long distance walker to use 2m on his latest 900 mile walk
Fifty-nine year old Paul Truswell, M3WHO, of Macclesfield, Cheshire, will shortly be starting a 900-mile walk south to north across Great Britain.
Southgate

Video

Ham radio helps WA9SZL find his voice
Johnnie Mayfield began using ham radio when he was young, and the hobby has helped in real emergencies, including the time he spent days relaying information during a blizzard.
WRAL

ARRL requests expanded HF privileges for Technician licensees
ARRL has asked the FCC to expand HF privileges for Technician licensees to include limited phone privileges on 75, 40, and 15 meters, plus RTTY and digital mode privileges on 80, 40, 15, and 10 meters.
ARRL

A KX2 to FT-818 comparison
In terms of form factor, the 818 is essentially unchanged from the 817. So it’s worth asking again: just how “ultra portable” can an HF radio be?
W2LJ QRP

N8RMA’s 2018 State of Hobby
I’m hosting my own survey, to collect the opinions from the community on topics that I care about. 2017 Results.
N8RMA

UCF to manage Arecibo Observatory
A consortium led by the University of Central Florida will start formal transition activities to take on the management of the National Science Foundation’s Observatory.
University of Central Florida

Keep the faith, having fun with no sunspots
Keep the Faith. Go call CQ. I was glad I did.
AmateurRadio.com

Instant GNU Radio
A customizable, programmatically generated VM and live environment for GNU Radio.
bastibl.net

Finding noise with an antenna
The main culprit in K5ACL’s house is the ceiling light that’s right there in the shack.
Hack A Day

Morse code shoes send toe tapping texts
A pair of smart shoes has been created to let industrial workers keep in touch via toe-typed coded messages.
BBC

Video

Point to point networking line of sight in Google Earth
How to make straight lines to see if there’s a line of sight between our point to point 5Ghz nodes. The google earth 3D buildings and terrain are insanely accurate and useful for line of sight analysis.
N0SSC

Soldering 101
See all sorts of soldering devices and learn how it’s done with lots of tips and techniques.
KE0OG

Rescue on Uncompahgre Peak
A teenage boy came up to me and said he had been sent to “find the guy with the radio” because a girl had been hit by a rock down below and was hurt.
K0NR

FCC: Bitcoin miner interfered with T-Mobile network
Bitcoin miner generated spurious emissions in 700MHz, disrupting T-Mobile LTE.
Ars Technica

Low cost carry bag for Elecraft KX3
This week I found a Manfrotto shoulder camera bag for $20 that fits it very well.
Marxy’s musing on technology

VARA HF Modem
VARA Modem brings state of the art Military grade technology to new and existing HF data.
EA5HVK

Diversity in the shack
The Raspberry Pi has opened up the opportunity to provide low cost services. I have one as an APRS igate, one that runs my SatNOGS ground station and that was it until last week when I put an unused older Pi2 to good use as an ADSB receiver using a system called PiAware.
G7KSE

DIY LiFePO4 battery pack for the Yaesu FT-891
This first pack (128wh) is a lightweight rapid deployment pack.
OH8STN

High school students go ‘Ham’ with Amateur Radio competition
In the school’s first year competing, 90 students signed up to participate.
Reporter Herald

J antenna variations
Here we see five variations on the basic J antenna (aka J-pole).
hamradio.me

Video

Charging and discharging a LiFePO4 battery at the same time
I demonstrate what happens when you try to simultaneously charge and discharge a LiFePO4 battery as you would when using a power module in the field.
KF7IJZ

Yaesu FT-817 replacement details leaked
Finally, the replacement for the very successful Yaesu FT-817nd is about to see the light of day.
QRPblog

APRS over HF
HFAPRS with APRS Messenger & DroidPSK.
OH8STN

Send APRS to email via Xastir on RF
You may only send one line messages of 64 total characters maximum for the message.
S55MA Ham Blog

KM4LAO brings Ham Radio hobby, expertise to campus
Willet, who is double majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Physics, first got licensed in June 2015 as a ham radio operator because of her interest in Morse code.
Kettering University

Build a Milk Crate AM Broadcast Loop Antenna
It’s small enough to maneuver around easily, but big enough to give it some gain, so I can listen to daytime DX.
Shortwave / Medium Wave

Inside the desperate fight to keep old TVs alive
Behind a nondescript Manhattan storefront, Chi-Tien Lui is stockpiling objects many people wouldn’t think twice about trashing: cathode ray tube televisions.
The Verge

1940s transmitter finds new home
The massive transmitter is being moved from the former RCI site to the former Dorchester jail.
CBC

Video

Video over HF
FreeDV plus Video adds a new dimension: A QSO where you’re able to listen to and see the other operator.
WA6NUT

Quartzfest 2018 part 1
Jeri Ellsworth, AI6TK, and Amy Herndon, AI6ZU, at Quartzfest.
K7AGE

A visit to Orlando Hamcation 2018
Hamcation video highlights.
Retro Tech & Electronics

Bouvet DXpedition aborted
Due to high winds and rough seas the captain of the vessel declared it unsafe to continue with our project and aborted the DXpedition.
Bouvetdx.org

D-Star satellite in orbit
D-Star One is a 3U CubeSat with modules configured to work as D-Star repeaters, so they retranslate the received D-Star frames on the downlink frequency.
D-STAR ONE

FT8 DXpedition mode is in the works for WSJT-X
The software can transmit up to five signals simultaneously, upping the potential contact rate to 600/hour.
ARRL

How-to: APRS igate for less than $100
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that getting started is not only relatively straight forward, but also easy on the wallet.
N1AAE

Photos of the colossal Duga-3 Radar System
They’re tearing it down later this year, because all the metal is quite valuable to the ailing economy.
PetaPixel

HamAlert
HamAlert is a system that allows you to get notifications when a desired station appears on the DX cluster, the Reverse Beacon Network, SOTAwatch, or PSK Reporter.
HamAlert

What are those hieroglyphics on your laptop charger?
These symbols are as complicated as the label on the tag of your shirt that have never taught you anything about doing laundry.
Hack A Day

Video

Hawaii’s communication breakdown and how going Ham could save us
Ham Radio operators are standing at the ready and may save us all.
NBC Left Field

Ham Radio 2.0: TYT MD-9600 DMR Mobile, Version 3
Version 3 of the MD-9600 Dual Band DMR Mobile radio from TYT has fixed most of the issues that were present in the first 2 versions.
Ham Radio 2.0

Portable SDR TX: LimeSDR-mini, mobile phone, and QRadioLink
Broadcast FM, digital amateur radio voice, narrow FM, and SSB can be received and transmitted using the LimeSDR-mini.
YouTube

AM Rally this weekend
The purpose of this event is to encourage the use of Amplitude Modulation on the Amateur Radio bands.
AMrally.com

ARRL Grid Chase totals mapped
The IGC Grid Totals map visualizes the number of ARRL Grid Chase QSOs per grid square.
K1WDY

How Amateur Radio played a role in the Hawaii emergency response
While an official retraction from emergency officials of the alert did not come until 38 minutes had elapsed, amateur radio operators were able to confirm within 13 minutes that the Hawaii EAS alert was false.
Radio World

FCC Enforcement: A call to action
In recent months on 40M and 80M, there has been a concern by many Amateur Radio operators regarding certain individual’s operating behavior, specifically on 7.200 MHz and 3.822 MHz.
AmateurRadio.com

ARRL again calls for action on symbol rate limits
Introduced in 1980 the symbol rate restriction has crippled the development of innovative data modes in the United States and amateurs have been trying to get it scrapped for decades.
Southgate

Low-power local radio rises
A knowledge of geography is essential if you are running a tiny, 100-watt radio station. For a low-power FM radio station, anything measurable in miles is good.
New York Times

Inaudible tones in commercials to prevent triggering Alexa
Here’s why Alexa won’t light up during Amazon’s Super Bowl ad.
Bloomberg Technology

Ham turns up undead NASA mission
NASA lost contact with its IMAGE satellite in 2005, but it may still be operating.
Ars Technica

Sticker shock: CW keys cost too much, or do they?
My goodness, straight key manufacturers are gouging us aren’t they?
Ham Radio QRP

Video

Our ARISS contact
How I got involved with a helping a school talk to an astronaut on the ISS.
Space Comms

AO-92 commissioned, open for Amateur use
Initially, the U/v FM transponder will be open continuously for a period of one week. After the first week, operations will be scheduled among the U/v FM transponder, L-Band Downshifter, Virginia Tech Camera, and the University of Iowa’s High Energy Radiation CubeSat Instrument (HERCI).
AMSAT

Blinded by the light: The solar panel tariff
There are a few things off grid amateur radio operators need to know about the solar panel tariff.
Off Grid Ham

PicSat requests Ham Radio assistance to capture telemetry
The CubeSat PicSat carrying an amateur radio FM transponder was launched on the same PSLV-C40 flight from India that delivered AO-92 to orbit.
AMSAT UK

A better antenna for dualband handhelds
Recently, I wondered how well the antenna is really performing so I did a side-by-side comparison with the Smiley 2m halfwave.
AmateurRadio.com

Massive 78-year-old transmitter for sale
A piece of radio history could be yours for $5,000. A 1940 RCA 50 kW shortwave transmitter, located at the decommissioned Radio Canada International Site in Sackville, is up for sale.
CBC

A grave threat to GPS
In the coming months, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may allow high-powered, ground-based, communication transmitters to broadcast at a frequency near GPS L1.
GPS World

Visualizing satellite doppler shift
Doppler Shift is experienced as the satellite (wave source) is moving relative to you, the observer (or receiver) of the transmitted wavelength.
N1AAE

Do shortwave ‘Numbers Stations’ really instruct spies?
Today, numbers stations remain a reality on shortwave radio, even in the Internet Age.
Radio World

Video

Pre-planning for the ARRL VHF Contest
KB1HQS

Indoor attic dipole antenna
Trying out an antenna for Ham Radio in the attic.
K5ACL