Good news is good news: This morning, I took my Technician Class license test for amateur radio and passed. Out of the 35 questions on the exam, I missed 1 question (I bet it was that question about transmitting in international waters). So yeah, I passed! The examiners gave everyone in the test session the …
Category Archives: Technology
Follow Sprite
In college, I played “Hexxen” on my friends’ computers (“Hexxen” was technologically between “Doom” and “Duke Nukem 3D”). But, instead of playing the game to win, I would end up wandering around the world and following the various environmental elements, such as the random autumn leaf blowing around, until that graphical sprite no longer existed. …
First Listen with KD5RCA
This weekend, I had my first experience with a VHF repeater. Looked up the repeater operated by the Four States Amateur Radio Club in Texarkana at 146.620 MHz. Didn’t make any contacts (because I don’t have a license, obviously), but I did get to hear some actual chatter and get a better sense for the …
5232 Bad Sectors
On 10/27 at 2:30am, just 30 minutes before I needed to dial in to work to do an important maintenance, my personal computer did the worst thing possible: the hard disk shat its bed and died. Completely gone. Blindingly unreadable. I was sunk. All my data! This machine is mission-control for what I do in …
Hemisphere
There is still magic in the air. One must be a receiver to pick up on it. Right? For what it’s worth, 6060KHz is also known as Radio Habana Cuba. The magic of shortwave radio is that its broadcasts carry a long, long way. I’m able to hear broadcasts that happen in certain spots in …