Foundations of Amateur Radio

Monitoring radio spectrum around you

Foundations of Amateur Radio Previously I've talked about using radio spectrum monitoring to detect lightning to potentially protect your equipment. This triggered an em

Global Ionospheric Maps

Foundations of Amateur Radio In the middle of the night when insomnia rears its head, there are occasions when an idea sprouts that is still with me the next day. I imag

It's all in the community

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the weekend I had the opportunity to participate in two completely different community events, one aimed at an amateur radio audience,

Lightning in a bottle

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I heard a thunderclap and as is my Pavlovian response, immediately ran to my shack to disconnect the antennas from their respe

Radio .. for the love of it

Foundations of Amateur Radio During the week I was shown a photograph of a chalkboard standing on the sidewalk with one of those "Thought of the Day" quotes on it. Credi

Give yourself a break!

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the past weeks, actually, probably months, the push to talk button on the radio I use for my weekly discussion net has been acting up.

Emergency response reality check

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I explored the nature of amateur radio emergency response. I received a few replies providing an insight into the on the ground rea

An emergency response

Foundations of Amateur Radio Previously I've talked about one of the often lauded cornerstones of the amateur radio community, namely Emergency Response, and to be frank

CME, Wind, Flares, Flux and Geomagnetic Storms .. say what?

Foundations of Amateur Radio When the Sun burps, something that it does regularly, the mainstream media starts talking about aurorae and optionally the end of the civili

The power of patience and pacing

Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the more, let's call it challenging, skills to learn in amateur radio is the pace of the process. For many new amateurs I meet, face-

The things you hear when you least expect it.

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day a friend of mine mentioned in passing that they'd hooked their Home Assistant dashboard to an RTL-SDR dongle to listen to the

What does expertise look like?

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the years I've had the opportunity to operate my station with other amateurs in close proximity. From a community perspective, this is

Failure is a dirty word

Foundations of Amateur Radio It's a curious thing, this hobby of ours, in that the more you want out of it, the more challenging it becomes. For example, you might star

Building a new resource: How do you get into Amateur Radio?

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I was asked a question on social media. Having answered this question several times before, I admittedly .. initially .. groan

Telling Stories to Strengthen a Community

Foundations of Amateur Radio When was the last time you told a story? The hobby of amateur radio represents as diverse and disparate a group of humanity as I've come acr

Bald Yak 20: More Pi with the Soap

Foundations of Amateur Radio The thing I think I love most about the hobby of amateur radio is the challenges it represents, not in terms of life or emotional ones, thou

Bald Yak 19: SoapyAudio adventures

Foundations of Amateur Radio Previously I've talked about a piece of software called SoapyAudio. It's part of the toolkit called SoapySDR which in turn is part of a whol

Why not use LoTW?

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I witnessed a fellow amateur attempting to guilt another into using LoTW with comments about how their QSO partner would appre

Some days are like running in place ...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I discovered that the antenna that I had connected to my WSPR or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter beacon was not a 40m antenna, ins

Keeping track of your adventures

Foundations of Amateur Radio About a year ago I set upon a new adventure, to determine if the dummy load I own, traditionally seen as a device that doesn't emit any RF,