🇺🇸 KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog
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A Media Guide to Amateur Radio
KB6NU has produced a PDF guide that explains amateur radio terminology and the hobby to journalists, prompted by frequent errors in press coverage such as confusing transmitting with broadcasting. It is being sent to ARRL officials and media outlets.
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Videos from Mastodon
KB6NU shares three videos from Mastodon: a Veritasium explainer on a widely misunderstood design chart, a demo of a deep-learning CW decoder, and a tour of a giant Collins discone antenna.
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A completely different picture of Wayne Green, W2NSD (SK)
A blog post reflects on Wayne Green W2NSD (SK), founder of 73 and BYTE magazines, and points to an archive.org document that tells a different story of his life than the one he told himself.
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Videos: What’s next for POTA, ham radio helps rescue man trapped in cave
A video covers upcoming changes to Parks on the Air. The post also notes a cave rescue in Alberta where QRP-Labs QDX-M transceivers on 2200m and JS8Call reportedly carried text through rock to a trapped man.
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Free electrical engineering books from the University of Michigan
Michigan Publishing Services offers free PDF downloads of several electrical engineering books. The post highlights texts on digital communications and electromagnetics, relevant to readers wanting deeper theory behind digital modes, transmission lines and antennas.
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My one-day Tech class “bag of tricks”
A ham instructor describes the collection of physical props he has carried for 20 years to illustrate Technician exam concepts in one-day classes, such as a ceramic capacitor and a length of shielded cable. He notes some items match retired exam questions.
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Videos from HOPE: Hackers and hams, HERMES, 3d printing
KB6NU shares three talks from the HOPE conference: hackers and hams, HERMES secure long-distance HF data communication from Rhizomatica, and the role of open source in 3D printing.
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The EMF Explorer: A badge for ham radio?
KB6NU builds the EMF Explorer, a simple op-amp circuit with inductor pickup coils that turns nearby electromagnetic emissions into audible sound. A kit is sold by Make magazine, and the author considers it a possible ham radio badge project.
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You know POTA. You know SOTA. How about BOTA?
Bunkers On The Air is an awards scheme, like POTA and SOTA, in which hams activate and chase bunkers. The US national representative explains that the US program started this year and that civil defense sites count.
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Making hams of hackers
KB6NU describes teaching one-day Technician license classes at hacker conferences, funded by an ARDC grant. At DEFCON in Las Vegas, 66 people fit into this year's class, run with Ham Radio Village.
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Recent SKs: NU2J, K3SHD, K7AJM
KB6NU notes the passing of three amateurs: Marc Toussaint NU2J of New Jersey, Vic Bak K3SHD, a retired Air Force communications officer, and Jim Movius K7AJM of Montana.