Foundations of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio In the middle of the night when insomnia rears its head, there are occasions when an idea sprouts that is still with me the next day. I imagined a spinning globe that shows ionospheric...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the weekend I had the opportunity to participate in two completely different community events, one aimed at an amateur radio audience, the other at the general public. Every year...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I heard a thunderclap and as is my Pavlovian response, immediately ran to my shack to disconnect the antennas from their respective transmitter and transceiver. I added a diary...

Foundations of Amateur Radio During the week I was shown a photograph of a chalkboard standing on the sidewalk with one of those "Thought of the Day" quotes on it. Credit aside, since I've been unable to confirm it...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the past weeks, actually, probably months, the push to talk button on the radio I use for my weekly discussion net has been acting up. In the middle of an over it would sometimes...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I explored the nature of amateur radio emergency response. I received a few replies providing an insight into the on the ground reality and it encouraged me to dig into this a...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Previously I've talked about one of the often lauded cornerstones of the amateur radio community, namely Emergency Response, and to be frank, I questioned then, as I do now, the reality of...

Foundations of Amateur Radio When the Sun burps, something that it does regularly, the mainstream media starts talking about aurorae and optionally the end of the civilised world, not always as clinically as that...

Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the more, let's call it challenging, skills to learn in amateur radio is the pace of the process. For many new amateurs I meet, face-to-face, on-air or online, the excitement to get...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day a friend of mine mentioned in passing that they'd hooked their Home Assistant dashboard to an RTL-SDR dongle to listen to the various ISM bands. If that sounds like gibberish...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the years I've had the opportunity to operate my station with other amateurs in close proximity. From a community perspective, this is loads of fun; from a radio perspective it's been...

Foundations of Amateur Radio It's a curious thing, this hobby of ours, in that the more you want out of it, the more challenging it becomes. For example, you might start your journey with a VHF or UHF handheld radio...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I was asked a question on social media. Having answered this question several times before, I admittedly .. initially .. groaned, then provided the bare bones of a response. A...

Foundations of Amateur Radio When was the last time you told a story? The hobby of amateur radio represents as diverse and disparate a group of humanity as I've come across in my life. While that might mark me as living...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The thing I think I love most about the hobby of amateur radio is the challenges it represents, not in terms of life or emotional ones, though I will admit that there's some of those .. in...