KM1NDY
A Secret Little Adventure Ham Radio Blog
This was a little rabbit hole. On some amateur radio forum somewhere someone mentioned the MFJ-802B RF Field Strength Meter. This piqued my interest because I had not realized that a field strength meter was a consumer accessible device. Turns out there are all sorts of RF meters and detectors available to purchase. Who knew? …
Scroll to the bottom if you are only interested in the FD checklist! Is Field Day worth it? This year, more than any other, it seems this question was popping up on ham radio forums across the internet. Other versions seem to be what is the relevance of FD in the day and age of …
For last year’s Field Day, I took a stab at networking a couple of computers together with an ethernet cable so that our N1MM+ logging software could be synced up. It was both surprisingly easy to do, but equally daunting due to the curious lack of reasonably digestible tutorials tackling the topic on the interwebs. …
With ARRL Field Day around the corner, it is the time of year where amateur radio operators far and wide wonder if they are going to be stuck having their QSOs wiped out every time their neighbor keys up the microphone. Interference between stations in a multi-transmitter field day operation can be the norm if …
And boy-oh-boy did we make a lot of noise! Running three generators, a cement mixer, and a tractor equipped with a scary-looking auger, we managed to dig…a hole! Congrats AA1F, on not only digging three feet into the ground, but on fixing your auger after it snapped a shear bolt when it wedged itself under …
So much for playing radio this weekend. In the last half hour my 200mW Zachtek WSPR transmitter, cycling from 80M to 10M every 15 minutes or so, managed to be heard in 2 places… Both in Boston and presumably by ground wave. By comparison, here is a half hour block from a good propagation day: …
Doing a little hammy ham ham research during the solar eclipse at the Ole Farm-O-La…Welcome to the first Technical Bulletin of the KM1NDY – Secret Amateur Radio Journal.
Every now and then I decide it’s time to homebrew a receiver. You may remember my attempt back here. Or even way back here. They never work. So this even more complicated, 3 transistor, 2 diodes, and audio amplifier IC definitely did not work. Again. Well sort of. Technically it is actually a receiver. Just …
Stole the OM’s radio, grabbed the puppy, and went to make a qso or two for the CQWW SSB contest down on the seawall at Castle Island. That is the Elecraft KX2 with the AX1 antenna. I only managed a single contact…but it was to Slovenia. I think it counts. KM1NDY
The mark of an expert is knowing not simply what you know, but knowing what you don’t know. There are things in life I am truly an expert in. Electricity is decidedly not one of those things. For every new tidbit I learn, a door opens to reveal a seemingly infinite number of topics I …