2025 Blog Archive

A new feature film about paranormal radio pioneer Art Bell, W6OBB (SK) may be on the horizon. Apparently Paul Giamatti (John Adams, The Holdovers, Sideways) is attached to play Bell who died in 2018. For a decade, Bell had the ears and minds of late night AM radio with Coast...

I enjoyed reading the ZD7KYD DXpedition summary by KY8D, vacation style. A modicum of polite banter was both hoped for and expected. Minimalist QSOs of just only 599 TU did not merit manual entry into my spiral-bound paper logbook. And for being absent from that, were not transcribed...

Today is my 66th birthday. They seem to be coming faster which is not necessarily a good thing. I am grateful for what is becoming a rather long-ish life with continued good health. Knock on wood. I came of age in the 1970’s and am proud to be a product...

The plan was to hangout for several hours during the ARRL International DX CW contest this weekend in hope of snagging some needed DXCC. I hung out, but the pickings were pretty slim. I would say band conditions were “meh” but they were a little better than that. Big...

Quarter Century Wireless Association is offering an Introductory 90-day Full Membership for qualifying applicants for only $3.00. That’s right; three dollars! This offer is limited to Amateurs licensed in 2000 or before and who have never been QCWA Members, as well as those whose membership expired before February...

Yesterday I worked KH0W on 10 meters. The Saipan CW Club. The Northern Mariana Islands. Another joyless ATNO for me as I discovered LoTW was verboten to them. This has not been an uncommon experience. When I set out on this quest for a little DX wallpaper in 2022 I...

I have a friend, a good friend, who is twenty years my senior. Our lifestreams crossed when we both worked for Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati more than thirty years ago. Our common thread being amateur radio. He retired early, I think he was 56 when he bowed out of...

There’s a new race in space, but it’s not where you might think. It’s happening close to home – in the nearest bit of space, right on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. Sky skimmers: The race to fly satellites in the lowest orbits yet Roughly 10,000 satellites are...

There was a lot of CW activity on the bands yesterday. I worked DL2025S again, on 15 meters this time. The 2025C ham radio event started on January 18, 2025, at the same time as the opening of the Capital of Culture (CoC) year of European Capital of Culture...

Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War IN THE EARLY 1970S, the Cold War had reached a particularly frigid moment, and U.S. military and intelligence officials had a problem. The Soviet Navy was becoming a global maritime threat—and the United States did not have...

Mac Hodges has lived a long life for a guy just 30 years old. Friends call him an “old” soul, but he says “it’s not the years, it’s the miles”. A decorated Navy SEAL, retired. Raised by an uncle, a powerful and wealthy businessman in Virginia, now serving a second...

Daniel Estévez, EA4GPZ decodes a commercial satellite from Hydra Space transmitting in the amateur satellite 435 MHz band using the same modulation, coding and telemetry format as HADES-R, an AMSAT-EA satellite launched at the same time. Decoding HYDRA-T “Some days ago, people in the LibreSpace forums...

Three years ago today was my last working day. After 42 years at the coalface, I terminated my employment and began my journey into the final frontier; retirement. The transition was easy, mostly because it occurred at the tail-end of the Covid crisis when I had been working remotely, from...

In this video, Bob Nagy, AB5N compares the ICOM IC-7610 and the Elecraft K4D. This was of interest to me since I own both transceivers. The comparison was well received though N6TV added several clarifications that are worth a look. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LW7H2e7sVF4?si=FUs-w-a2MCP7DQ7h" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0"...

This event generated a lot of activity on the bands. I replied whenever I happened across one of the WWA stations calling with a strong signal and it ended up comprising a quarter of all the DX CW contacts logged in January. ...

End of the month chores completed. Logs updated, back-ups made, that kind of stuff. My first month in the New Year using CW-only went reasonably well. While the quantity of contacts was significantly lower than recent monthly averages, effort toward chasing specific DX was more focused. Several ATNO’s were worked...

Here in Indiana we have endured a rather rough winter season. A Polar Vortex along with sky-high egg prices, when you can find them. Yes, life isn’t perfect here in the Hoosier state and it’s often difficult to keep up, let alone get ahead, in this world gone mad. I...

I caught SM4OTI calling CQ on 10 meters this morning. He had a great signal on this end and we had a brief chat. His QTH is Leksand, famous for the Leksands IF ice hockey team, who have won four Swedish Championships. I remained parked on frequency for...

I’ve been listening for Felix, DL5XL operating from Antarctica for the last several weeks with no luck. Not a peep. Then yesterday I saw him spotted on 10 meters CW and could hear him, not strong, but well enough for a QSO if I was lucky. I wasn’t. He never...

Did you know that this weekend is the annual Winter Field Day event? Emergencies are never scheduled. If you haven’t planned anything, you still have time to get your radio, get outside and get on the air. WFD is a radio communications exercise designed to help you improve your...

News from the ARRL DXCC desk: The Programs & Services Committee and headquarters staff from the Radiosport Department are moving ahead with the creation of a new DXCC award – DXCC Trident – which will recognize those who achieve DXCC using CW, phone, and digital modes. Higher achievement endorsements...

I live in East Central Indiana (EN70ge) in a small farming community. A mile or two north of here is another wide spot in the road called “Cammack” where there is a nice place to eat, the Cammack Station. It was designed to look a little like an old-time...

The polar vortex arrived. It was -1 degree when I woke this morning. The good news is it showed up without snow storms or wind, which is great for the power lines. It’s just brutally cold and will remain that way through Wednesday. Better days ahead with temperatures more normal...

Rain this morning, but right on the verge of snow. It’s 35F now and has been raining for several hours. It got up to 40F yesterday with sunshine which took it’s toll on the accumulated snow here. I had some hope that once the rain started to fall the rest...

Awoke to generally poor band conditions which makes LoTW being down less of an irritation. My local DX cluster is down again too. Plus, I worked a DX station who correctly pointed out that we had worked previously, a few years earlier, and he didn’t appreciate dupes in his...

The good news this morning was that when I tested my local DX cluster, it was back online following a couple weeks of downtime. Given it resides at Purdue University, the timing was right for it to have gone down while the students were on winter break and wasn’t recovered...

I use Jekyll to manage my blog content. It’s been around a long time and is stable. It’s also highly configurable providing me with plenty of options. I selected it as my CMS because Wordpress and Blogger had become worn as an old toothbrush. Plus, everyone tends to use the...

Circumlocution seems the order of the day when it comes to bad-mouthing ARRL. Or more correctly, the ARRL Board of Directors. I have a solution that will go a long way toward fixing it. Never vote for an incumbent. Always vote for someone who is not currently a Director. You...

A fellow on one of the QRP mailing lists was asking if anyone had a TR-45L CW transceiver they would like to part with. This due to the fact that John, WA3RNC went QRT on radio production last year when he retired. You can’t buy them new from...

Last night, hours after local sundown, I decided to try to work a few stations in the NAQP. The juice had already drained from 20 meters and signals were right down in the noise. Slow-tuning, I heard an interesting call, just barely above the noise. You know how it...

While I made no specific resolutions for this New Year, I have made a few decisions that sure look like resolutions given their timing. For example, I’m quitting on a lot of memberships and subscriptions in the coming year. Been meaning to do that since I retired but haven’t been...

I’ve had a Bluesky account since the service launched. I’ve been loathe to mention it here because having fled Twitter a few years ago, I really haven’t wanted much to do with social media. Creating a Bluesky presence was more “let’s see what this is like” than a commitment...

Good morning. Here in the US, it’s a National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter, the first former president to live to 100. That means things won’t fully operate as normal today, and flags will fly at half-staff for the next 30 days. NCDXF is pleased to announce...

Band conditions haven’t been great the last few days and my DX production has suffered because of it. Not helping is that my favorite DX cluster went down over the weekend, not a fatal problem, but another brick in the wall. I had things setup smooth as a perfect self-checkout...

People keep saying the ARRL needs to do something to goose up it’s membership numbers. Problem is, few have good ideas for how they should do that, although from what I read most suggest that they throw open the floodgates in Newington and give everything away for free....

I refilled the bird feeders Saturday and enjoyed watching the little creatures eat their fill. My ham shack is located in a sun room addition to the house that protrudes into the backyard making it a perfect spot for me to keep tabs on the birds and the squirrels who...

Woke to 10F with clear skies this morning. The temperature in the shack had fallen to 45F, the coolest I’ve seen it in here. I fired up the heater before starting the first pot of coffee and things have warmed up to 60F in here now. Not a bad start...

I got my first scare of the K4 era yesterday when I noted a sudden high SWR on ten meters. I checked the antenna and found no issue there, I even setup the IC-7610 on 10m with the same antenna without seeing a problem. I assumed something was fried and...

Well I’m not the kind to live in the past, The years run too short and the days too fast, The things you lean on are the things that don’t last, Well it’s just now and then my line gets cast into these, Time passages… Living in Central Indiana, I’ve...

Happy New Year! Survive until ‘25 was a popular mantra. Now what? The 2024 blog posts have been archived and the new files for 2025 have been spun up. I’m writing this with a few hours remaining in ‘24 so the numbers aren’t quite precise, but the stats at the...