AmateurRadio.com

My blog from the very beginning was intended to get ham radio and in particular QRP operating out there. I have gleaned the fruits of other blogs, the information, the challenges and the new understanding to certain areas of the hobby I never new existed. In my last post I floated the idea about linking social media to my blog. My intent was to increase the exposure of ham radio to even more readers. After numerous personal emails and comments on my AmateurRadion.com feed I have come to the understanding the only real exposure would be the strong possibility of Mal-ware being spread!! I have done some surfing of my own and it would seem social media on my site could be used by hackers to infect the site with Mal-ware . This Mal-ware could be spread to the readers of the blog by simply following a link on my site or social media sites.
I have listened to my readers and have taken down all social media anything from my blog. This blog is here for the readers to enjoy, grow in the hobby and share their information and learning curves with me and the other readers....It's NOT a place to spread computer virus's and to have readers who found the blog useful and entertaining at times to pack their I.P address and go elsewhere.
As of this posting VE3WDM'S QRPower blog is social media free. The readers have been heard and action has been taken.....continue to enjoy the blog. 
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

It was a perfect September afternoon. Judy and I hiked up to a field on Shute Hill. I worked Bulgaria, Bosnia, Cuba and three stations from Washington state.

We parked the car and walked north on the Rufus Colby Road. The town only maintains about a half mile of it, then it turns into an impassable woods road. After another few hundred yards, we headed east through the woods on an  abandoned farm lane. The woods open into a small field after a few minutes’ walk.

Here, there are two small fields separated by a stone wall. Judy gets a photo of me walking through the first field.

On the other side of the wall, we enter the second field.  I open my pack and setup the little Chinese HB-1B on 20 meters.  I heave a water bottle into an oak tree so I can pull up a wire. I miss my mark,  the bottle hits the ground, splits and all the water runs out. The bottle has lasted  for nearly three years of frequent outings. It had to happen sooner or later. I search in the stone wall for a suitable rock. I find one that’s a bit too heavy and my throw doesn’t go as high as planned. I use a half-wave sloper instead of a vertical! But still… it works.

With key in hand, I work six stations in about 20 minutes. Here’s the log:

Date      UTC   Time   Call      My His   QTH
———————————————————————————
16 Sep-12 2005  14.021 LZ1DS CW  449 599 BULGARIA
16 Sep-12 2015  14.026 E72U  CW  599 599 BOSNIA
16 Sep-12 2019  14.047 K7TJ  CW  599 599 WA
16 Sep-12 2020  14.048 W7WMO CW  599 599 WA
16 Sep-12 2022  14.049 K7INA CW  599 599 WA
16 Sep-12 2023  14.006 CO6RD CW  599 599 CUBA

This is a lovely, quiet spot to visit on an early fall afternoon. The air is chilly, but the sun is warm. These few days before the first frost are treasured, and I get out every time I can.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Please see Listening to my readers post for update on the social media scene at VE3WDM's QRPowers blog.  

Now that the blog is two years old and I have started to get the hang of posting, linking URL's, uploading pictures and changing the format of the blog around now and then. I felt it was time to move the blog (and me) along toward the social media arena. I have had a Facebook site (this link has been disabled due to possible virus threat) for some time now but have not really used it. I do have a Twitter (this link has been disabled due to possible virus threat) account as well and have been known to "tweet" now and then. I have not really been committed to either Facebook or Tweeter. It's not because I feel they were of no use it was just...no I had idea what I was doing!!!

 Well this weekend was the time to take the social media swan dive, easier said than done. I tried to log into  my Facebook account after numerous password failures I was asked to have a pass word reset sent to my email. For some reason it was sent to my (forgotten about) Gmail account. Kinda hard  to get the Facebook reset in an email account were AGAIN I had no idea what the password was!!!
 At this point I am two passwords in the hole, Gmail wants me to enter the "hint" regarding my password...favorite pets name of which I had many and the list went on. After many failed attempts  Gmail is going to send a reset password to my Hotmail account, now we are cooking with gas I know that account and password!!
 I logged into my Hotmail account and there was nothing from Gmail. After waiting for over a half hour and nothing meant something was up.....to make this a little shorter story apparently I have TWO Hotmail accounts well you learn something new each day. BUT back to no password again!! After several attempts a reset was going to be sent to my other Hotmail account. To finally get into my Facebook account I have to receive a reset password in one Hotmail account to then log into my second Hotmail account to reset that password to allow me to get the reset info for the Gmail account. One hour and 10minutes later I am in Gmail....not sure why now but I'm there. Oh it was to get info on the Facebook log in troubles, I am happy to say Facebook is now up and running and so is Twitter. Oh and the Twitter adventure I am not even going to get into but a very similar safari to that of Facebook.


Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Press image for magnification

I like to build small electronics projects and like many others I have found the small Altoids tins to be excellent enclosures. 

These tins are inexpensive, well shielded, easy to work with, and least but not least they enable you to make experimental circuits that are sturdy enough that they can be reused later.

Pictured here is a collection of projects I have built over the years with the hope that  they may inspire others.

To the left:

• AVR Butterfly morse keyer (KD1JV)
• AVR Butterfly Digital SWR / Power Meter for low power transmitters (KD1JV). Actually this project was built in the slightly larger Whitman’s tin.

In the middle:

• 50 MHz to 14 MHz receive converter (WA3ENK) with a low-noise  preamplifier
• Pixie II QRPP transceiver for 30 m

To the right:

• 2 m/70 cm antenna diplexer (OH3MCK)
• Computer-powered VLF receiver

Press image for magnification

Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Norway. Contact him at [email protected].

Here we are at Episode #090, just 10 away from the century mark. Things have been rolling along fairly smoothly, and except for Russ being deathly ill for the last eight days, there’s not even a lot to complain about. In this episode, we have yet another interview. This time it’s with John Hays, K7VE, of Northwest Digital Radio. These guys are producing an entirely new purpose-built radio platform called the UDR56K. This technology promises to be a great advance in the amateur radio arena as well as in the computing arena. It’s a bit of kit that’s going to find a use in almost every radio amateur’s shack. If you want to find out why, please sit down and take a listen to this episode of LHS. We promise you will not be disappointed.

73 de The LHS Guys

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Here’s the finished digital SWR and power meter kit from Radio Kits that is being used by the Workington Amateur Radio Club as a bit of soldering and coil winding practice. Not the poor lining up of the LCD screen. Shame really as the soldering was one of my better bits and that’s going to be covered up. All in all a nice kit to put together, I’m no soldering super star and I took my time so instead of it bring an ‘evening’ kit it I’d more like a ‘weekender’.

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

Conditions have been good recently on 15m. On that band I have a choice of two antennas – the multiband dipole or the magnetic loop. The multiband dipole doesn’t actually have elements for 15m so on that band I think the 40m element must do the work. The K3 ATU is needed to produce a good match.

There is quite a big difference in performance between the two antennas on 15m. The magnetic loop, surprisingly, has a higher noise level but it also produces stronger signals on some stations. On other stations the dipole seems best. It’s a pity I don’t have a sub-receiver in the K3. It would be interesting to try diversity reception one day.

Amman, Jordan

Whenever a band is open you can usually find some PSK31 activity even if you can’t hear any phone. That was the case yesterday on 15 metres when I worked Nart, JY5IB from Amman, Jordan. That’s an all-time new country for me so I was very pleased to get him into the log. On this occasion it was the magnetic loop that did the job.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].