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Today’s post at SpaceWeather.com makes the coronal mass ejections coming our way over the next couple of days sound far less threatening for those of you not operating satellites or ham radios.
Somewhere in their publications or videos this morning I saw the phrase “not the big one”, which sums it up for me. All the things I ought to do before that particular one were just more than I wanted to squeeze into today.
That is however a stark reminder that there are quite a few things that should be on my ToDo list, or rather in […]
This could be an important event to prepare for. If a massive Coronal Mass Ejection (solar flare) strikes the Earth as is a predicted possibility, electronics could be devastated, along with our entire electrical distribution system.
This might be an auspicious time to put some effort into a Faraday Cage or two … and employ them for electronic stuff you value highly.
I don’t want to overstate the warning, but I think it prudent to put some time in Friday protecting our electronics and have at least half a plan for a complete grid-down power failure.
Hope and Faith […]
Two-way radio communications is a tremendous subject that can and does carry people in many directions. Certainly among the most important are field communications to and from tactical and reconnaissance teams, particularly with some semblance of security or privacy to the information thereby exchanged.
Particularly well suited to teaching this fine art is NC Scout. He recently published a book on the subject: The Guerrilla’s Guide To The Baofeng Radio, which I recommend and am buying myself. He also has a web page covering a whole lot more range. I share the outline below, but encourage you to go […]
For my heading, I purposefully modified NC Scout’s bestselling book title that I am discussing in this post. The Guerrilla’s Guide To The Baofeng Radio goes far beyond the make/model amateur radio he recommends in it.
I and a fellow active licensed radio operator (HAM) took a local class from him a few years ago. It was extremely informative and valuable. I expect this book to have much of what we learned in that class, and quite a bit more packed into it.
I have ordered my own copy, so this is a recommendation in advance of being […]
For several months now the Corvallis American Legion amateur radio club subsection has been operating field exercises from various volunteer fire department firehalls throughout our county – the area we fondly call “The Bitterroot”.
Our long-term goal for this program is for KG7SPL to be a backup communication service for the volunteer fire departments of Ravalli County.
The VFDs are the core of emergency response in The Bitterroot. They are located in every area, have agreed-upon coverage maps and can muster 20 or more active, skilled volunteers in a matter of minutes.
Our route to providing […]
This will be the first time I have participated in the annual Winter Field Day. I suppose it sounded difficult.
It is incredibly easy for any amateur radio operator anywhere to participate at some level. Sure you can pitch a tent in the snow on some mountain-top for the weekend, but you can also sign up and run right out of your normal radio shack – or anywhere in between. All operators are welcome to join in at whatever level suits their situation and inclination.
This year the Bitterroot Emergency Amateur Radio Services group, now officially the […]
One avenue for local two-way radio communication is through the use of the 10-meter frequencies. I have not had a decent antenna for joining the conversation that is exercised most Wednesday evenings at 1915 hours on 28.350 MHz.
For visualization purposes, CB radios are just slightly longer, around 11 meters – that is, very similar in antenna requirements – a fairly tall antenna like the spring-mounted whips you sometimes see on pickup trucks.
I have had an antenna that transmits and receives ten meter okay, but it is in my little canyon (problem one) and is a horizontal […]
The beast of a solar panel was too much for the economy controllers I tried. As I mentioned in my previous article about it, solar power upgrade, I put an antique ammeter on the incoming power that I could know how much was hitting the controller and a blade switch in the line so I could cut off the incoming juice when it became too much.
This was not a system I could just leave on its own. If I was ever going to be able to ignore it, and if I wanted to absorb maximum power […]
When I set up my ham radio shack six years ago, I chose to go solar-powered 12-volt because amateur radio needs to work regardless of the grid up or grid down situation.
Last year I upgraded to second and third deep-cycle lead-acid batteries. I added other uses to the system and last winter was frequently running low on stored energy. So I upgraded the panel and controller to modern, more powerful ones. The new panel overwhelmed the new controller.
It should not have according to the specs on both, but there it was. Controller said, “Too much juice”. […]
You have-to have initials after your name to lend credibility to your projects and pronouncements. My latest creation inspired me to append “STEE” to my name. Further explanation will wreck the aura, but I’ll go ahead anyway. It stands for Shade Tree Electrical Engineer… similar to the Shade Tree Mechanic title I earned repeatedly with my auto/truck/motorcycle/tractor repair toolset.
Running a ham radio shack requires steady, clean 12-volt electricity. Handheld transceivers, HTs, or walkie-talkies if you prefer, have their own batteries. Cheaper ones use AA or AAA, but most use rechargeables whose chargers plug into standard 120-volt […]
can be indispensable in emergencies and other times normal communications tools are not working.
For my current amateur radio Technician Class students, I just bought 7 of the make/model I feel gives the best cost/benefit for ham radio operators. The TYT MD-UV390 operates on both the ultra-high-frequencies (UHF) of the FCC’s family radio service (FRS) and general mobile radio service (GMRS), it also transmits and receives on the very high frequencies (VHF) commonly used by hams, public and private agencies for regional communications.
Their MD-UV380 is the lower cost version of the same radio without the water-proofing. TYT, […]
I created a presentation for our local ham radio club to explain the environment our repeater engineer was dealing with. The problem many great sites have is that their prominence attracts multiple transmitters with each addition making it harder for the repeater to pick up the signals we want out of the electromagnetic flood. Thus the situation I describe with this Downing Mountain repeater is common to many.
I called this “Tracking A Transmission”. We follow a signal from the operator’s mouth through his radio and up to the repeater overlooking Hamilton Montana. Once the repeater gets the information, […]
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