To help with your NPOTA withdrawal
Like NPOTA, WWFF was devised in order to get Amateur Radio ops off their duffs and into the Great Outdoors. I love their catch phrase – “Make nature your shack!”
AmateurRadio.com

BY70-1 Satellite camera operating guide
An open telecommand is designed to allow radio amateurs to send commands to take and download an image.
LilacSat

Today: KB6NU streaming General Class course
The classes are going to run from 10 am – noon, and will probably run through the end of March.
KB6NU

80m doublet antenna
Technically, what I have is almost an 80m Doublet – there’s about 18m of wire on each “leg” and I’ve about 20ft of 300-ohm slotted feeder which comes into the Shack and through an FT240-31 choke and then about 30cm of coax to the back of the MFJ-847 tuner.
M0PZT

First DMR QSO
Accomplished my first DMR QSO today with K5IMO (thank you Larry!) on the TG3184 TalkGroup for the State of Texas.
K5ACL

Propagation prediction tool
Area coverage maps and point-to-point HF propagation predictions.
G4FKH

Mystery cosmic radio bursts pinpointed
As the name suggests, Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are short-lived – but powerful – pulses of radio waves from the cosmos.
BBC

Automatically recognising digital modes with machine learning
There is a good prospect of using machine learning image recognition for guessing digital modes. Ideally this would be built in to clients but it might make a good app (using the phone camera to capture the unidentified signal) or a web site where you upload a screen shot.
marxy’s musing on technology

Shortwave Pirate Radio 2016 – A Year In Review
Overall, 2016 was another great year for shortwave pirate radio listeners.
RadioHobbyist.org

The missing Q signals
Some Q signals have never made it to the ARRL’s official list.
K3HRN

Video

New FM transponder satellite BY70-1
2E0ICL works 2E0SQL via a new amateur radio FM satellite, BY70-1, launched into orbit on 28 December 2016.
YouTube

How to install powerpole connectors
I introduce you to Anderson Powerpole connectors and how to solder and crimp the connector pins. This connector has become a standard among Amateur Radio operators.
K7AGE

Contact via UHF ISS Digipeater
For this video I recorded the audio from my Kenwood TH-D72a and later played it back to Soundmodem+UISS. Soundmodem decodes many more packets than my radio does. I made a screen capture of UISS and its map so you can see the complete details of every received packet.
KG4AKV

Maclogger DX walk-through
Is there a Mac in your Shack? This time I’m looking at the Maclogger DX logging software and rig control for the Mac platform.
K6UDA

2016 Year in Review

For this last issue of the year, I pulled the most popular links from each issue and complied the top 10
as a ‘look back’ on the world of Amateur Radio in 2016. Enjoy! –Cale K4HCK

#10

A stealthy HOA HamStick directional dipole
This is a sneak peek at a very detailed build, tune, and operation on 20 and 40 meter bands using both Phone and PSK31.
Prepared Ham (Issue 94)

#9

Hey, which coaxial cable should I use?
We’ll focus on the most popular cables, with 50 ohm impedance to match the output impedance of our transceivers.
Ham Radio School (Issue 115)

#8

Five common mistakes new Hams make
This short list comes from working with a gaggle of new hams over the years and trying to help them get started in ham radio.
Ham Radio School (Issue 137)

#7

Hidden Antennas for HOA restrictions?
I have a confession to make… I live in a HOA! I know most hams say what the hell did you do that for, you knew you could not put up a 60 foot tower. Turn in your FCC license…
Prepared Ham (Issue 97)

#6

Easy, homemade Outernet antenna
An antenna for less than $1 total cost, doable without power tools and soldering, in less than 30 minutes.
Radio for Everyone (Issue 136)

#5

Portable antenna options for HF
For all the choices, it’s surprisingly hard to find a portable antenna for HF that is affordable and practical.
Off Grid Ham (Issue 138)

#4

End-Fed antenna revisited
I really like the simplicity of this antenna for many aspects: fast to deploy, works on many bands, no antenna to tune…
VA2SS (Issue 126)

#3

New: Baofeng UV-50X3 tri-band mobile
Baofeng just launched the UV-50X3 tri-band mobile radio and it looks like a jab, cross and left hook to the established Japanese manufacturers who were caught dreaming about DMR, C4FM, D-STAR and other leprechauns.
QRPblog (Issue 120)

#2

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 (Issue 108)

#1

First impressions of the Icom IC-7300 HF + 6M transceiver
We did not use the transmit functions on the radio, but were able to test out the receiver at my campsite with a Budipole antenna on 40 meters.
AB4BJ (Issue 99)

Ham Radio Deluxe bricks user’s software after negative review
37 pages into into this forum’s discussion of HRD’s brutally inept handling of a customer complaint, the co-owner of the company wades into the fray and apologizes.
Techdirt

Amateur radio fans drop the ham-mer on HRD’s license key ‘blacklist’
Remotely killing one customer’s copy was not an isolated incident, say readers.
The Register

NPOTA contact tally tops 1 Million
Activators operating from National Park Service units across the US and Chasers around the world pushed the contact tally over its goal this week.
ARRL

EME In The ’80s
Unlike today’s widespread JT65B usage on eme, where signals can be many db into the noise and inaudible by ear, eme contacts could only be completed by actually copying signals that you could hear with your ears. This usually required big antennas and lots of power.
VE7SL

Keeping an NVIS antenna legal on 60 meters
To compute ERP, antenna gain must be relative to a half-wave dipole antenna. An NVIS antenna has a lot more gain than a dipole.
keep-nvis-legal-on-60m

A Cootie key
The “Cootie” key or “Sideswiper” is basically a double-sided straight key and has a reputation for being very hard to learn, possibly harder even than the Vibroplex Bug.
Ham Radio QRP

Using a GPS repeater antenna with the Yaesu FTM-400DR
My Yaesu FTM-400DR has had a difficult time ascertaining a GPS lock inside of my vehicle. Some others have also complained of this.
K5ACL

Video

Discovering secret “Numbers Stations”
Brian and Jason have been scanning the air waves for sstv signals for two months, but what they found was something else. An old standby from the Cold War.
The Modern Rogue

Icom-7300 spectrum scope band edge how-to
For those of you wanting to customize the band edges here’s a how-to.
K0PIR

DMR range test part 1 of 3: Baofeng DM-5R
In the series I am doing a range test of three different DMR radios from two locations. One location is 11km away and the other almost 19km away.
dmr-range-test

A diamond radio receiver
Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have made the world’s smallest radio receiver.
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering

Chinese Over-the-horizon radar QRMing 40 meters
IARU reports that one of China’s HF Over-the-Horizon radars has been transmitting on 6.999 MHz.
ARRL

Ham Radio: What are we millennials and younger doing?
We’re being hackers, engineers, leaders, developers, creators, and designers.
N0SSC

Portable antenna options for HF
For all the choices, it’s surprisingly hard to find a portable antenna for HF that is affordable and practical.
Off Grid Ham

GMRS: The other UHF band
GMRS is a licensed radio service but does not require a technical exam so it works great for basic personal communications.
K0NR

Review: WSPRlite WSPR Beacon
A small, light, & super portable WSPR beacon that transmits a WSPR signal on 20 or 30 meters.
K5ACL

Morse Toad, a Morse Code game
Morse Toad is an educational app that teaches you morse code through a series of simple lessons and exercises.
Ham Radio QRP

SSTV images received from MIR space station
April 16, 2000
N7CXI

Tracking down sources of radio noise
Yet another !&*%$! noise source…
The SWLing Post

Video

New UHF ISS Digipeater
Recently, the old VHF Ericsson handheld used for the digipeater on the ISS died and it was replaced with an equivalent UHF one. This is my first time digipeating through it.
YouTube

Amateur Radio Parity Act stalled
The legislation will be reintroduced in both houses of Congress after the 115th Session begins in January.
ARRL

Pearl Harbor Attack: Monitoring American radio traffic
IJN beefed up its radio-intelligence coverage of the American military presence in Hawaii. Two more stations, on Saipan and near Tokyo, now covered the communications of the Pacific Fleet and the U.S. Army Air Corps in Hawaii.
U.S. Naval Institute

28MHz high hopes monitoring
This blogpost is about monitoring 28MHz just before the ARRL 10m contest this weekend. It will be updated regularly till the weekend.
PE4BAS

ABC Ditches Shortwave Services
The ABC will end its shortwave transmission service in the Northern Territory and to international audiences from 31 January.
Radio Today

Five common mistakes new Hams make
This short list comes from working with a gaggle of new hams over the years and trying to help them get started in ham radio.
Ham Radio School

Where does 9600 bps come from?
We use serial communication all the time. But why are we using multiples of 300?
SparkFun Electronics

Reverse engineering traffic lights with an RTL-SDR
To reverse engineer these new lights he made a recording of the signals in GQRX and then opened them up in Inspectrum.
RTL-SDR.com

Creating a 2m repeater with a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR dongle
I will be using an RTL-SDR dongle to receive an input signal on 70cm. The receiver signal will then be demodulated and retransmitted using a GPIO pin on the Raspberry as a transmitter.
ZR6AIC

An unusual night for CB
For the most part, AM is used on most of the channels but you’ll find LSB activity on Channel 36 (27.365 MHz). And when the band gets busy and crowded, you’ll hear LSB QSOs from Channels 36 – 39 (27.365 – 27.395 MHz).
The SWLing Post

Video

TYT MD-398 power test
It is rated at 10W on high, let’s see if it is true to its claims.
Ham Radio Reviews

SSTV active from ISS December 8-9
The SSTV images will be transmitted as part of the MAI-75 Experiment on 145.800 MHz FM using the Kenwood TM-D710 transceiver located in the Russian ISS Service module.
AMSAT UK

Last call to press for Senate passage of Amateur Radio Parity Act
The House of Representatives approved the bill in September, and the Senate must follow suit if the bill is to succeed.
ARRL

Hurricane Center on air for SKYWARN Recognition Day
WX4NHC at the National Hurricane Center in Miami will participate in SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) on Saturday, December 3.
ARRL

Santa Net 2016
Every year on 3916, we give good little boys and girls a chance to talk to Santa Claus at the North Pole!
The 3916 Nets

2 element dual-rectangle beam for 70cm
The antenna described here is a direct-connect dual-rectangle beam for use on 70 cm between 440 and 450 MHz.
jedsoft.org

Easy homemade Outernet antenna
An antenna for less than $1 total cost, doable without power tools and soldering, in less than 30 minutes.
Radio for Everyone

Emergency preparedness on the road
If it is required that I spend the night away from home for whatever the situation, I am prepared, as I carry all the required gear that will keep me safe if I become stranded.
VE6AB

A review of the Elecraft KX2 general coverage QRP transceiver
The KX2 is a feature-rich pocket QRP transceiver. For those who are familiar with the Elecraft product line, it’s like a KX3 (feature rich portable rig) in a KX1-sized (much smaller, handheld/pocket) package.
The SWLing Post

Looking back at Cycle 23
Cycle 23 was a much bigger cycle with higher sunspot numbers than Cycle 24.
NY4G

Disturbing the peace: Can America’s quietest town be saved?
There’s a town in West Virginia where there are tight restrictions on mobile signal, wifi and other parts of what most of us know as simply: modern life.
BBC

Special event
Members of the ‘Battleship Iowa Amateur Radio Association’ (BIARA) will be active as NI6BB between 1600-2359z on Wednesday, December 7th, in memory of the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Southgate

Video

How to set up an Outernet receiver
Outernet continuously sends out useful data like weather reports, news, APRS data as well as files like Wikipeda pages, images, videos and books.
RTL-SDR.com

Virtual Build-a-thon
Using either Skype or Webex we will present each week for about 30 minutes showing you the next stage of building the project. You can then ask questions and show us how you are getting on.
Chertsey Radio Club

Toyota Tacoma Mobile HF Install
Surprisingly the 590SG is compact enough IMHO for a nice mobile install, however someone with a smaller vehicle might not have the luxury of so much space. I rarely use the access cab except to throw junk in, so why not utilize it better?
K5ACL

Upcoming solar years… Can they be too quiet?
In 2008 there were 265 ‘zero sunspot’ days and the following year saw another 262 days of blank suns!
VE7SL

Should amateur radio be used for military purposes?
If the Border Patrol or Army asked you to listen for potential terrorist communications, would you do so?
KB6NU

Podcast: Foundations of Amateur Radio
A weekly, 4 minute podcast. The building blocks for Amateur Radio, one concept at a time
VK6FLAB

FCC’s Laura Smith – Your Repeater; Your Rules
We haven’t heard a lot from FCC Special Counsel Laura Smith lately, but she spoke at Pacificon.
Southgate/Ham Radio Now

Solar powered Ham Radio for beginners
I am going through the gear one will need to operate with a solar power source, how to use it and a couple of things to avoid.
Ham Radio Reviews

SKYWARN Recognition Day on-the-air event is December 3rd
SKYWARN Recognition Day was developed in 1999 by the National Weather Service and ARRL to honor the contributions that SKYWARN volunteers make to the NWS mission.
ARRL

Special Event K7Z: Zane Grey’s 145th Birthday
Zane Grey was an author and master of the American western novel.
K7Z

Special Event W1T: Mark Twain’s 181st Birthday
ARRL staff will be operating as W1T from November 28 – December 4, in honor of Mark Twain’s 181st birthday.
W1T

Video

D-Star DVmega Raspberry Pi 3 hotspot
This hotspot is using a Raspberry Pi to operate as a full D-star hotspot.
HamRdioConcepts

Compact Homebrew End Fed QRP Antenna
I built this antenna specifically for low wattage QRP use to be compact and inexpensive. It utilizes a 9:1 balun wrapped on a T106-2 torpid and minimal hardware to be lightweight.
KD9EAS

W2LI: Dry Tortugas NPOTA Activation
Rob (K2RWF) and Craig (KD2INN) activate Dry Tortugas National Park in the Gulf of Mexico.
YouTube