P5: Disease or Sickness?
It’s time for the ARRL to do the responsible thing and delete P5 from the DXCC list.
KE9V

Breached secrecy foiled North Korea DXpedition, group leader says
“What we did not have was the support of those we asked to remain quiet, nor the support of anyone we asked for help with funding.”
ARRL

Three new CubeSats now in orbit
Signals have been received from the three CubeSats launched April 25 on Soyuz flight VS14 from the Kourou spaceport in South America.
Southgate

The Icom IC-7300 vs. Elecraft KX3: Which do you prefer for CW/SSB?
At the end of this post, I have an embedded a survey in which you can vote for the sample recordings you like best.
The SWLing Post

Power Genius XL sneak peak
This baby uses a pair of state-of-the-art LDMOS chips and cruises at 1,500 Watts 100% duty cycle (no worries in RTTY or JT65) and covers 160m to 6m.
With Varying Frequency

FCC Invites Comments to eliminate 15 dB gain limit on amplifiers
Expert maintains that the 15 dB gain limitation is an unneeded holdover from the days when amplifiers were less efficient and the FCC was attempting to rein in the use of Amateur Service amplifiers by Citizens Band operators.
ARRL

USB soldering iron is surprisingly capable
We know what you’re thinking. There’s no way an 8 watt USB-powered soldering iron could be worth the $5 it commands on eBay.
Hack A Day

How the End-Fed antenna gets a bad reputation
When used in a shack you hear all manner of stories of how the end-fed random wire antenna absolutely reeks havoc with RF at the station. So what’s the deal?
Ham Radio QRP

Dissecting D-Star streams between reflectors
In preparation for some software development work contributing to XLX reflector software I wanted to disassemble the UDP stream exchanged between D-Star reflectors and a reflector and a connected node respectively.
Notizbl0g.

W1UL free Ham license preparation
The W1UL method is a ham cram on steroids.
Ham Cram

Company settles charges of operating cellphone jammers
An Alabama company has agreed to pay $20,500 in civil penalties to settle charges that it illegally operated cellular phone jamming devices on its premises, in violation of FCC rules.
Southgate

Repeater owner bans Baofeng radios
Simply put, these radios do not allow for “advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art” (Part 97.1).
N4NJJ

Online streaming platform for DMR Brandmeister network
All Brandmeister Talk Groups are streamed on-demand and active participants will show up on the dashboard automatically.
Hoseline

Ladyada passes Extra exam
Ladyada took all 3 exams at once, including perfect scores.
Adafruit

Fo Time podcast is now HamRadio360
In an effort to keep it Fun, we decided to do the 50th episode with a Live Video Stream. You’ll quickly see why we do the show with audio only!
HamRadio360.com

Iridium Antenna Hack
Here’s several channels simultaneously visible in Inspectrum.
ShareBrained Technology

Hearing The Hum?
Glen set up a website where people could report what they were hearing and found that it was a worldwide phenomenon.
amateurradio.com

Learning CW is not a sprint
I am in the 9th month of my CW / Morse Code journey and I will readily admit that in my case it has been slow, steady progress rather than a sprint.
Ham Radio QRP

ESDR: New portable SDR HF transceiver
The ESDR features a large color display, digimode decoder/keyer, 2x USB ports and micro-SD card. The required supply voltage is 12.6V and the maximum output power is 30W.
QRP Blog

Differences between UV5R / UV82 series Baofengs
The UV5R, RA, RB, RC, E5, F8, GT3, etc. are all cousins.
Miklor

A lightwave adventure
VE7CNF successfully inaugurated his lightwave station earlier this week, on Monday night, completing a nice two-way CW contact between West Vancouver and Mayne Island.
VE7SL

Rare and classic shortwave QSL cards
A couple months ago at my local ham radio club meeting (the NCDXCC), my buddy Paul Greaves (W4FC) mentioned that his passion for amateur radio DXing originated with shortwave broadcaster DXing.
The SWLing Post

Video

FCC enforcement team
We got a great demonstration on how the FCC enforcement team keeps unlicensed & wireless spectrum violators at bay.
YouTube

FS 5000 receiver demo: Cold War spy radio
This is a demonstration of the receiver section of the FS-5000 cold-war shortwave spy radio, developed during the eighties by the government branch of AEG Telefunken.
YouTube

ISS Slow Scan TV success
This week, radio hams around the world received Slow Scan Television (SSTV) transmissions from space commemorating 15 years of Amateur Radio on the International Space Station.
Southgate

American Airlines UFO report caught on Ham Radio
The pilot reported seeing an extremely large bright object that he estimated a mile wide to his right.
Open Minds

ARES group boots storm chasers off repeater
The Wichita County ARES group had to shoo at least two storm chasers from the group’s repeater.
Times Record News

Contact with the inventor
I had the honor to meet Joe K1JT on air at 20m JT9 this evening.
PE4BAS

My first attempt at NPOTA
They were chastising me because I wasn’t on the air long enough and were upset because they were waiting for me on 40m and didn’t make enough contacts on 20m.
NT1K

Multi-band Slinky Doublet
Further research showed a single slinky can stretch to ~5m in length and contains ~20m of coiled wire.
M0SPN

29 MHz – the forgotten frequency for amateur radio satellites
Unfortunately, a 29 MHz downlink would not be practical for most of today’s very small satellites, owing to the size of the antenna required.
EE Publishers

Coax cable: It’s all in the family
Even many experienced ham operators will approach a table full of coax cable reels at a swap meet or stare at online listings and feel lost in all the options.
Off Grid Ham

The Eagle has landed
Ten-Tec Eagle — A CW masterpiece.
Ham Radio QRP

Improved GPS reception with a ground plane
It definitely helped make indoors reception in my shack much more reliable.
amateurradio.com

Final Days of VK0EK (ATNO Days)
One of our objectives is to give an All-Time New One (ATNO) to as many DXers as possible.
VK0EK

April 18th: World Amateur Radio Day
World Amateur Radio Day is the day when IARU Member-Societies can show our capabilities to the public and enjoy global friendship with other Amateurs worldwide.
IARU

Radio amateurs in the quest for geostationary satellites
In the next few years radio amateurs will have access to two geostationary platforms.
EE Publishers

The Doctor is In: New podcast from ARRL
Hosted by QST Editor In Chief Steve Ford, WB8IMY, the ARRL The Doctor is In podcast is a twice-monthly audio podcast that answers your questions.
ARRL

D-STAR satellite to launch from Kourou
OUFTI-1 from the University of Liege, Belgium, will be the first satellite to carry a D-STAR Digital Voice transponder.
AMSAT UK

Fuses: Make sure you can trust them
The Dollar Store fuse turns out to be the worst: running several minutes at 20A, double the rated current.
Noisebridge

Field guide to communications towers
Technically speaking, they are called Base Transmitter Stations (BTS). You might see ‘cell site’ and ‘cell tower’ used interchangeably, but these terms are not synonymous.
Hack A Day

Meteor Scatter season gets underway
Meteor Scatter season has started with the April meteor showers and will continue until the beginning of January next year.
Southgate

Morse News: Get your news the old fashioned way
It’s an application that pulls RSS feeds and translates them to Morse.
Ham Radio QRP

Video

Demolition: Voice of America Radio Towers
The final 48 “quad” towers were felled in a single explosives sequence on Monday, April 4, setting a new World Record in this category.
DCI

Rainy SO-50
From the 2016-03-27 2111Z SO-50 pass over North America.
Space Comms

Yaesu FT-891 – New HF/50MHz transceiver
Although the details are extremely limited, it seems we are talking about a HF/50MHz mobile radio similar with the FT-857 in size.
QRP Blog

The future of MacHamRadio.com
Popular website may close due to conflict of interest with employer.
MacHamRadio.com

ARRL tells FCC to restore balance of modes on 80 and 75 Meters
Refarming 3600 to 3650 kHz for data modes could prove to be a disincentive to General licensees to upgrade.
ARRL

Digital voice adapters for Raspberry Pi and Arduino
This is an ongoing project to develop very inexpensive hardware and software to help amateur radio folks with D-Star.
KI6ZUM

RF exposure – Evaluating your station
How do you practically conduct an RF exposure evaluation of your station?
Ham Radio School

TLF: A Linux based Ham Radio contest logger
TLF is a curses based console mode general logging and contest program for Amateur Radio.
TLF

APEX, New APRS Protocol, New Paradigm, New Software
APEX stands for “APrs EXtended”; It will be a new protocol which expands on and fixes most of the issues in the older APRS protocol while still remaining backwards compatible.
jeffreyfreeman.me

Nanocounter: Frequency Counter with an Android UI
The Nanocounter is an accurate, open source frequency counter that uses an Android phone as its display.
Hack A Day

Why you should get your Extra Class license
The Amateur Extra Class license is the highest class of license in the United States, and perhaps the world. Many hams—even hams that live outside the U.S.—aspire to pass the test and be awarded one.
Everything Ham Radio

JSatTrak: Cross-platform satellite tracking app
JSatTrak is a Satellite tracking program written in Java. It allows you to predict the position of any satellite in real time or in the past or future.
JSatTrak

New product

SharkRF: Standalone digital radio IP gateway
Connect openSPOT easily to DMR, D-Star reflectors, C4FM/System Fusion rooms, and use your radio with excellent voice quality without sync errors.
SharkRF

Video

Power outage… Zero HF noise
During a power failure I thought I would see how quiet HF can be.
Michael Carey

Power is back… And so is HF noise
The obsession with everyone (me included) to surround themselves with crappy, poorly designed electronics creates a nightmare for urban HF radio operators.
Michael Carey

and finally…

Don’t do this
Power line short circuit.
YouTube

Realtime QSO information from Heard Island
Dashboard shows QSO counts, recently logged callsigns, and QSO search.
DXA3.org

Multimode Digital Voice Modem
A project describing an adapter for D-Star, DMR and other digital modes based on an Arduino Due and a little PCB to put on top.
Notizbl0g.

Radio attack lets hackers steal 24 different car models
Thieves are amplifying near-by key fob signals.
Wired

The Radio Amateur’s Code
Radio sport that involves chasing that elusive country, county, SOTA peak, NPOTA entity or whatever should never become the focus of our lives, or our reason for being.
W2LJ

Why I changed my call sign after 28 years
Up until last month, I’ve used my original Novice-class call sign since it came in the mail in 1988.
N4AE

Ham Radio and Photography
It goes without saying that I always have my emergency preparedness kit with me that is stored in the cargo bay of my mobile, as you never know when you might need to draw from it.
VE6AB

Man in trouble for cellphone jammer on public train
A 63 year old financial analyst is facing serious charges, because he used a cellphone jammer on a public train.
Southgate

The technology working behind the scenes of Heard Island
Here is a pictorial list of the technology we are using to support VK0EK. Every thing we use is in the “Cloud” – and everything is automatically maintained and backed up.
VK0EK

Rash believed to be caused by radiation from mobile phone mast
Resident said she suffers from electrosensitivity- a condition suffered by people who in varying degrees are made ill by connection to electricity.
Ledbury Reporter

North Korea intensifies shortwave jamming
North Korea has been from the beginning of March continually signal jamming radio broadcasts on the shortwave frequency used by the South Korean non-profit broadcaster Unification Media Group.
The SWLing Post

Video

NOAA WX Sat umbrella antenna
Using an umbrella in place of a quadrifilar helix antenna.
YouTube

Tytera MD-9600 DMR Digital Mobile Radio
Tytera has introduced a new mobile two way radio capable of operation in both digital and analog modes.
Cricket Ventures

In depth: Icom IC-7300 review
Icom IC-7300 is the first direct sampling SDR (software defined radio) available from one of the “big three” Japanese manufacturers.
YO9IRF

FreeDV 2400A
Two new FreeDV modes for VHF/UHF.
Rowetel

SM2000 update (turning your $35 HT into a digital radio)
KA8BMA has been working steadily on the CAD work for the SM2000 VHF Radio.
Rowetel

The Amateur Radio Operators Preparing for the Worst
In natural or man-made disasters, ham-radio enthusiasts put their hobby to work.
The Atlantic

The first transatlantic communication cables
The TAT-1 system would have two cables, one for east-west traffic, the other for west-east calls. The core of each cable was a single coaxial cable with a solid copper center conductor
Hack A Day

Over the horizon radars becoming routine on Amateur HF bands
A 50 kHz wide Russian OTH radar has been heard in the evening on 80 meters, often in the CW part of the band.
ARRL

Raspberry Pi QRP TX Shield for WSPR
The QRPi board is an inexpensive way of turning a Raspberry Pi single-board computer into a QRP transmitter.
Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corp

IC-7300 — A Game Changer
While traditional receiver designs utilize Local Oscillators, LO, these Analog to Digital converter, ADC, devices have become the heart of the IC-7300 receiver design.
Icom

Listen for ISS with Raspberry Pi 3 and SoDeRa
Receive amateur radio transmissions from the International Space Station.
AMSAT UK

Carrington Probabilities
His estimate of the probability of another Carrington event is surprisingly high.
VE7SL

Our hobby in 30 years?
An aging population will not buy so many rigs, will not support magazines. Numbers will fall. Activity will fall.
amateurradio.com

ARRL on Instagram
The official Instagram account for ARRL, the National Association for Amateur Radio in the US.
Instagram

Stuart Sizer: Heathkit designer
Stu Sizer––”stylist, artist, maker of models, bon vivant”––was tasked with crafting Heathkit’s user-friendly and attractive exterior designs.
The SWLing Post