Articles written by: Ward Silver, N0AX

two half hitches knot tied around table leg
Technical Articles

Ham Radio Tech: Knots & Slings

Antenna and tower work are never far from our minds as hams. Most amateur loads are considered light by professional installers, but they can be heavy enough to cause injuries […]

field day ham radio station
Field Day

Effective Field Day Operating

Operating at Field Day is lot different than operating a home station—and that’s more than half the fun. It’s also one of the main reasons Field Day exists, so that […]

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Field Day

Noise Management on Field Day

Here comes Field Day and all of your careful equipment connections and filtering go out the window as the station is disassembled and hauled off to the operating site. Be […]

HAM Radio 101

Stretching and Cautions About Lifting for Ham Radio Antenna Season

As I’m writing at the end of March, antenna season is about to get underway in many parts of North America, including for the author. (Those of you in the […]

Technical Articles

Types of Feed Line Chokes

A feed line RF choke creates a high impedance in the path of RF common-mode current on the outside surface of a coaxial cable shield. The choke doesn’t affect currents […]

dx engineering pixel loop antenna radiation pattern
Antennas and Tuners

Ham Radio Tech: Simple Low-Band Receiving Antennas

The receiving antennas covered in this article are small enough to fit on residential lots or to use with a portable station. They are not transmitting antennas! Most are relatively […]

Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur Book
Technical Articles

Ham Radio Grounding and Bonding and RFI

Over the past few years, a lot of attention has been developed regarding grounding and bonding. I am pleased that my ARRL book Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur […]

Events

Ham Radio and the April 8 Solar Eclipse QSO Party

Hams being quite focused on solar phenomena, so to speak, many are getting ready for the total solar eclipse coming on April 8. This is the second of two eclipses […]

Technical Articles

CW Pileups for Beginning Ham Radio Contesters

In just two weeks (February 17-18) one of the biggest CW contests in the world will fill the bands from 160–10 meters (except for 60, 30, 17, and 12 meters, […]

Zone Map for DX Contesting
HAM Radio 101

After DXCC—Now What?

Congratulations! You’ve finally logged and confirmed country number 100, joining the ranks of radio amateurs who have gained DX Century Club status. This is a great achievement, and you should […]