Tuning Your Dipole Antenna Installation
You’ve gone to great lengths to make sure your antenna is cut for the proper frequency using the 468/MHz formula. You’ve measured twice and cut once, yet the SWR readings […]
Technical Articles
Technical Articles
Technical Articles
Operating on the Low Bands–160 and 80 Meters
There are very good reasons why you should use the 160 and 80 meter bands. They are usually the least likely to fail under adverse propagation conditions. In times of […]
Technical Articles
Ham Radio to Go: Portable Hamming
Yes, you can take it with you. Today’s smaller transceivers and accessories allow you to operate from anywhere, whether it’s a cabin at the lake, a weekend at Uncle Joe’s, […]
Technical Articles
How to Choose a Wattmeter
Got Meter? Choosing the Right WattmeterRF inline power meters, or wattmeters, are used by many hams to measure the power flowing from the transceiver to the antenna–and also in the […]
Technical Articles
Making the CI-V Connection
CI-V stands for Computer Interface V (V representing the Roman numeral for 5 ). This is Icom’s name for its rig interface to a computer or to another rig. Other […]
Technical Articles
How to Use RF Gain, Noise Blanker, and Other Transceiver Features to Improve Copy
There will always be some kind of ambient noise on the HF bands. It may be either man-made (QRM) such as pulse noises from vehicle ignitions or natural (QRN) like […]
Technical Articles
Choosing a Coax Switch
When it comes to ham radio, one radio is never enough. The same thing goes for antennas–multiple bands usually mean multiple antennas. Soon, you’ve got a maze of coax connections […]
Technical Articles
Using the Icom IC-705 in the Field
Now that summer is here and the pandemic is winding down, grab some radio gear and head outdoors. It’s the season for portable operations and finally getting out of couch-potato […]
Technical Articles
Building a Light Box for Ham Radio Photos
I enjoy sharing my experiences and projects by writing articles for several different amateur radio periodicals. All of the pictures used for my articles recently have been taken with my […]
Technical Articles
What is LoTW, Why Should You Sign Up for it, and How Do You Use it?
When I started out in Amateur Radio 40 years ago this summer, there were basically three ways to exchange a written confirmation of a contact (a QSL card): Mail your […]