KM1NDY
A Secret Little Adventure Ham Radio Blog
There is a lot of lore and legend surrounding the Blue Hills Reservation when it comes to amateur radio. Back in the olden days (November 2019 to be exact), New England Sci-Tech (parent company of the Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society aka STARS) partnered with the Blue Hills Observatory to install the W1UQ 146.985MHz repeater on …
10 watts, a 40M OCF running on a 6′ privacy fence in an alleyway between triple deckers, in the heart of South Boston… MY FIRST HF CONTACT EVER USING THE ICOM IC-705! Could this be love????
(Want to jump right to the video? Click here!) It is no secret that we do not like to share our radios. Not so much in the “don’t touch my radio” sort of way, but in the “I want to play radio, too” sort of way. So when KB1REQ, AA1F, and I decided to get …
It’s a well known fact that sneaking off and activating a park behind your spouse’s back is grounds for divorce in some cultures. But AA1F’s POTA activation of Usher’s Road State Forest in Upstate New York (K-5355) produced such neat results that I can’t help but keep him! The 20M band had been getting him …
In the Parks-On-The-AIr program, you get awards for everything. Don’t believe me? Check out the “Warthog” award on AA1F’s qrz page. Summits-On-The-Air is a different ballgame. Us hikers-stroke-radio operators all want the “Mountain Goat” award. This means we need to acquire 1000 points as activators of summits. And nearly every peak in Massachusetts is a …
I am a huge fan of the compromised antenna. I like to bring the power on my transceiver down from 100 watts to virtually none simply by using a highly wasteful, inefficient antenna system. And its all because my need to operate out in the wild with the simplest, easiest deployment method far exceeds my …
…well, why yes, yes it was. And thank goodness you didn’t answer because I have *no idea* what I would have done?!?
Look, it didn’t stop me from buying one, but I resent the IC-705 for not having an internal antenna tuner. The KX2 has one. The Xiegu has one. Heck, the 7300 has one. Its not like its some weird foreign concept to Icom. Three compatible “small” external tuners are – or will be – available: …
My posting inviting criticism of this blog entry into the “Antennas, Feedlines, Towers & Rotors” section of the QRZ.com forums led to the following very interesting discussion from WA7ARK (box below). If you click on his call sign, it will take you to his QRZ biography page where he has attached a presentation on the …
I am never satisfied anymore. I remember not long ago when simply walking up a hill was enough for me. “To get to the top!” blah, blah, blah… Then I discovered amateur radio and SOTA, and then it was “to get the top, BUT! Just with 15 extra pounds of radio gear, the pressure to …