Last night I joined in my first multi-person Google+ Hangout and it was a blast.  I was invited in by another Amateur Radio operator, Jim, KA6QZU.  The Hangout was called “Ham Radio Nightly Hangout” and eventually others joined the group.  He told me their group has these meetings online every night at 9:00 PM, central time.  Usually I [...]

Since we have moved into our new home, I just have not felt like getting on the ham radio as much as I use to.  Part of the problems is that it just happened to coincide with the empty nest syndrome of my kids being grown up.  A while ago I was listing to some [...]

I finally got an identification script installed on the simplex node at my house this weekend.  This will help make it legal where it can comply with FCC rules requiring it to give call sign every 10 minutes.  Now I can leave it on the air where I can access the IRLP and Echolink with [...]

There are few things that I enjoy more than getting up before daylight on my day off.  I went to take my son to work around 5:30 AM and then went out to breakfast with my wife and got back home before daylight.  I came back to the house and turned on the WIN System on the IRLP and [...]

Last night around midnight I was listening to 20 meters when I stumbled on LY37LY in Lithuania.  I was using a Kenwood TS-2000 with a GAP Titan DX antenna at 100 watts.  Just for the heck of it, I threw out my call sign knowing he would not hear me and he answered me back.  [...]

This morning I turned on the HF radio on 20 meters and was saddened to hear those dreaded words… CQ CONTEST CQ CONTEST CQ CONTEST.  I am not sure why but I have always hated contesting on the radio.  Mainly because you can never have any meaningful conversation.  If you listened to the radio for [...]

As I have posted on here before, I just installed my new GAP Titan DX antenna at our new home.  I made this video with my iPhone to show some of the signals that I was hearing.  On this video I am scrolling my Kenwood TS-2000 radio across the band on 40 meters, 75 meters [...]

Those of you that have been following this blog will remember that I have had my ham radio gear in storage for nearly two years.  My wife and I decided two years ago that we wanted to move into a more desirable neighborhood where we would have more room.  During this process, I had to [...]

Anyone that has tried to install a repeater, they can attest to the challenges involved.  I know you are asking what a repeater is and I am going to tell you.  A repeater is a radio that takes the signals of low power hand held radios and re-transmits (repeats) it with more power and usually [...]

If you are one of those technology enthusiasts like I am, you may watch or listen to This Week in Tech (TWiT). I was listening yesterday, March 27, 2011, when they had Bob Heil on as a special guest on one of their podcasts called Triangulation. They use his microphones on the TWiT podcasts so [...]