This year’s ARRL Field Day was noticeably tinged with difficulty, problems, and loneliness. The goal of Field Day is to set up our radios with makeshift antennas and operate on emergency power while making as many contacts as possible for 24 hours. Adaptation in the face of adverse conditions is the heart of these field …
Author Archives: Shawn
Natural Log
Today I played Radio and won. Since I have a new laptop for work, I’ve been occasionally moving it from my office desk to the ham bench to mess with digital modes like FT8 and Winlink. But I’ve been waffling on getting logging software and keeping shitty paper logs of my radio contacts to manually …
Home Computer System
In high school, I’d spend my evenings toiling away solitarily at a computer, punching the keys to get a thing done. Intent on building a thing that nobody will possibly see, but by god, if they did, they’d be impressed. I guess, 30 years later, it’s good that nothing changes, right? Right?
Unexpected Ethernet QRM
I made a quick-and-dirty directional Yagi antenna out of PVC pipe and measuring tape for some future Radio Direction Finding (“fox hunt”) fun. (Instructions here) Since I spent an evening sticking it all together, I had to test it out. So I connected it to a 2-meter (144MHz) radio, tuned it to an unused frequency, …
Tunnels
In high school — a much gentler time — in the sighing hour after school let out, when I was supposed to be walking home to my nervous mother, I would sometimes dawdle around campus, haunting the hallways without need of a hall pass, breathing in the open-air spaces between buildings, poking at the toys …