KM1NDY
A Secret Little Adventure Ham Radio Blog
I have been struggling with FT8, well, pretty much since the moment I heard about FT8. I am excited to say those days ended tonight. The Icom IC-705 could not be easier to use with WSJT-X. And in fact, this little radio keeps impressing me more and more. Like just a few mornings ago when …
We are hooked. When Skip KB1CNB announces that the BCRA is going to have a foxhunt, our only question is “where?” Marc AA1F and I dragged Jeff AC1JR along with us for our third amateur radio direction finding event. The weather was exquisitely cooperative! We met AC1JR at the Massasoit State Park where he was …
The pronunciation of Moosilauke is debatable. Some say “lock”. Some say “lock-key”. I prefer the former. But no matter what you call it, Mount Moosilauke at 4802 feet tall and the 10th highest peak in New Hampshire is big! And the Carriage Trail, beginning at the end of a washed out road leading to the …
That is an MFJ-16010 random wire antenna tuner. I attached a green 12 gauge stranded copper wire to a screw on its chassis for grounding. I drove a 1/2″ diameter copper pipe a few feet into the ground, and secured the green wire to it with a clamp. This random wire experimentation has me exploring …
New Englanders have a knack for doing things the hard way. The trail up Mount Tecumseh, home of the Waterville Valley Ski Resort, is a prime example. I mean, which makes more sense for building a trail up a steep slope? Gentle switchbacks? Or carving a granite staircase straight up the side of the mountain? …
This title is disingenuous. The Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (STARS) did actually have a proper 2A ARRL Field Day in 2020. But after a year of online radio club meetings, the fact that we were opening the event back up to the public was a big deal. In fact, Field Day June 26 and 27 …
For reasons too personal to discuss, AA1F and I needed to stay near the QTH despite the rare long weekend. And it so happens that the Fourth of July is also my favorite holiday. Despite our heavy hearts, celebrating a little freedom by sitting in my van with a wire in a tree seemed in …
I cracked into triple digits this weekend with a big SOTA points excursion into the Catskill Mountains. A RaDAR (Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio) of Black Dome Mountain and Blackhead Mountain in the Windham-Blackhead Range Wilderness of New York State scored me 20 (for a grand total of 103) SOTA points. In the W1 New England …
I don’t even pretend not to be open to suggestions. So when one of my buddies mentioned that we needed a 6M beam to work digital modes on Field Day…well I realized I DID NOT HAVE A 6M BEAM! And of course, instantly I wanted one. And it had to be portable, and now all …
Magic lies within contrasts. Is kettle corn delicious because of the sweet or the salty? Is it the darkness or the light that creates a glorious sunrise? Is it the sound or the silence that makes the perfect rhythm? AA1F and I capped off a deeply personal day for our family by generating radiofrequency from …