Foundations of Amateur Radio

If you have the need to switch something on and off, a likely first candidate is to get a switch from the local hardware store. The principle is pretty straightforward. …

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I look at an antenna and marvel at what it implies. A simple piece of conducting material made into some particular shape and size …

About ten minutes ago I was blissfully unaware of the existence of James K2MIJ. It's unclear if this bliss will ever be returned because it's obvious to me that James an…

During the week I received a funny picture from a fellow amateur. This particular image was one titled "Multitap Antenna" and it featured a Four Wheel Drive vehicle with…

Today I was going to talk to you about Grid Dip Oscillators. Some research later I realised that I don't yet understand the topic enough to explain it to myself, let alo…

Last week I went on an adventure and came home with an experience. I've been wanting to go out and play radio for a while. Work has been spectacularly unhelpful in makin…

Today I want to talk about Politics. I can hear you groan from here, so hold your horses, stow your tar and feathers and put your pitchfork back in the barn.

Amateur Ra…

The other day I celebrated my sixth birthday, no not that one, the one that reminds me when I first became licensed as a Radio Amateur. It caused me to reflect on what I…

Let me start completely off-topic today with a thank you for emails and other expressions of concern regarding the demise of the bearing last week from my messy desk. I …

In my time as a member of the radio community I've been in around 30 different shacks and a similar amount of camp-out style activations. I've operated at least a hundre…

There are moments in your life when you say to yourself, duh, why didn't I think of this earlier?

I had one of those last week.

As you might recall, I have a hard time…

Ingenuity is the name of the game in Amateur Radio, building, inventing, solving and helping are all part and parcel of this hobby. We like to lay claim to being the sou…

Last week over dinner I was chatting with a friend about Amateur Radio in a discussion about things that take your fancy. I was attempting to explain what it specificall…

Being on air and getting on air are part of the journey that you undertake when becoming a Radio Amateur, but what happens before all that, what do you need to get your …

One of the recurring topics in on-air discussion is that of antennas and if we were to graph the topics of conversations, antennas would be the clear winner in any line-…

Have you ever been on air and in the middle of a wonderful discussion that all of a sudden and often unexpectedly erupts into a heated argument about nothing?

One of th…

Recently I talked about making a propagation map in your mind by listening to the various NCDXF beacons across the globe on various HF bands. You're not limited to liste…

Technology is a moving feast. New ideas spring new inventions which in turn change our lives. Amateur Radio is at the forefront of such inventions. Radio Amateurs have b…

The world is your oyster, but sometimes you need to find a way to test what is going on with your station and determine what is working and what isn't.

Often I turn my …

Recently I made a comment about melting your coax and that this was a bad thing. Today I'm going to talk about some of how this comes about and what kinds of parameters …