I’ve gotten to the point where I don’ t listen to the radio anymore (does anyone?) for music. Too many commercials and idiotic DJ-speak. I don’t buy too many CDs either. Musically speaking, Pandora.com has changed what I listen to at home.
Typing in a combination of John Hiatt and the Moody Blues creates an online playlist that I can listen to for hours. But on summer evenings when the grill is going, it would be nice to be able to listen to Pandora outside without the hassle of running wires. So…..
a Google search of wirelss FM transmitters got me off an a tangent and sent me back to my radio beginnings. To tell the truth, it wasn’t the CB craze of the ’70s that got me interested in ham radio – it was pirate radio. Continue reading 'A walk on the dark side'»
Today's wx conditions
I don’t know anyone named June, but if she’s hot, I’d like to meet her. Such is my margarita-laced thinking on a 96-degree day. The 4th such hot day in a row. And we still have the summer months ahead…
But it’s not heat I’m interested in tracking. Or rainfall or wind gusts. It’s the trends that I want to learn, and the relationship between temperature & humidity, etc. So I bought a Davis Vantage Pro II and the software needed to upload the data is collects to both my computer and on to the internet. Results are displayed graphically and can be manipulated and superimposed every which way.
To me, an instantaneous snapshot of current weather conditions Continue reading 'A new Davis weather station…or, How Hot is June in Texas…'»
I doubt there’s a simpler kit out there, or a cheaper one that actually does something useful. At $14, Jackson Harbor Press’s LF Converter Kit does what it claims to do & does it well.
Continue reading 'LF converter kit from Jackson Harbor Press'»
A Google search for lowband DX antennas will yield tons of results, even if you are limiting your search to something that would fit on a typical city lot. I doubt any one person has tried more than a few variants of the many designs that are out there.
Continue reading 'Limited-space *Effective* Lowband DXing'»
It’s funny how a certain specific aroma can suddenly transport our memory back in time to an event previously forgotten. To this 
day, the weird combination of diesel fumes and barbecue smoke immediately reminds me of what it felt like to stagger walk down Magsaysay Street in Subic Bay long years ago.
While sorting through my QSL collection last night and trying to arrange them in some order, I was surprised to find Continue reading 'Radio Memory Lane – a QSL collection'»
The performance of my trusty and loyal 5BDXCC-with-wire-antenna working, pile-up-on-80m-for-3XY7C busting, head-on-collision-in-Houston surviving old Yaesu FT840 in last weekend’s CQ-WPX contest was the same as it always is in high RF environments: not too bad.
Still, it’s served its time and deserves a comfortable semi-retirement in the shack as the back-up rig. So I’m pondering – and have been for months now – which rig to replace it with: a K3 or a Jupiter.
Continue reading 'Elecraft or Ten-Tec?'»
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