Index

Two years ago—almost to the day—I wrote about making a min-solder pot to tin toroid leads. Well, now I finally have one.

Sunday, at the museum, Jim, K8ELR, brought down all of the soldering irons he’d ever purchased to try them out in building the little QRP transceiver kit he just bought. The . . . → Read More: I Finally Have a Mini Solder Pot

Some purchasers of the latest Apple iPhone have been experiencing reception problems. Apparently, the band around the phone is the phone’s antenna, and when held in a certain way, the antenna doesn’t function as well as it should.

Well, doh! Any amateur radio operator could tell you that you probably don’t want to touch your antenna while . . . → Read More: iPhone Problems Show Apple Could Use Some Hams!

As I’ve often mentioned, many of us started out as shortwave listeners (SWLs). It’s also true that SW broadcasting isn’t what it used to be. Nearly everyone, except the Chinese, have cut back their broadcasting schedules. Heck, the BBC doesn’t even broadcast to North America anymore.

So, it’s hard to report bad news concerning a long-time SW . . . → Read More: Vatican Radio: Study Says RF Levels Are Too High

Back in the day—and by that I mean before we had the World Wide Web—electronics and ham radio companies published catalogs. They were wondrous things. Paging through them, one’s imagination could run wild. As a kid, I would pore over the Allied, Lafayette, and Olson catalogs and just imagine all the cool things I could do . . . → Read More: Catalog Spurs the Imagination

Get ‘em while they’re hot!………Dan

SB QST @ ARL $ARLB019 ARLB019 Vanity Call Sign Fees to Decrease August 17

ZCZC AG19 QST de W1AW ARRL Bulletin 19  ARLB019 From ARRL Headquarters Newington CT  July 22, 2010

To all radio amateurs

SB QST ARL ARLB019 ARLB019 Vanity Call Sign Fees to Decrease August 17

On July 19, the Federal Communications Commission announced via the Federal Register that the cost . . . → Read More: What a Deal!

I’m experimenting with a new WordPress theme. Please feel free to comment here or e-mail me with any comments. The first thing that’s going to go are the nature scenes. They’re nice photos, but they’re not about ham . . . → Read More: New Theme!

I was off the air for nearly a week. I had to take down my antennas so that some tree guys could come in and take down a couple of elm trees that finally succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease.

Before I could even do that, I had to hack a path through the undergrowth to the tree . . . → Read More: Back on the Air

From the July 15, 2010 issue of the ARRL Letter:

With more than 18,000 new Amateur Radio licenses issued in the first half of this year — 18,270 to be exact — 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for Amateur Radio. So far, the number of new licenses issued by the FCC in 2010 . . . → Read More: 18,270 New Licenses Issued Through June 2010

A little over a month ago I decided to bite the bullet and get my VE certification. It wasn’t difficult to become ARRL-certified. You simply get the VE Manual (free download), read through it, then take an open-book test (the ARRL calls it an “open-book review”). It took me about an hour and a half to . . . → Read More: I’m Now a VE

Here are a couple of new web resources that I have found out about recently: