Category Archives: Radio

Ham Radio

2010 Eagle Cap Extreme Dog Sled Race

Last week, Taylor and I were in Joseph, OR for the 2010 Eagle Cap Extreme dog sled race.  This is the second year that the race administration used ham radio as its primary communications mechanism.  Without us, they are limited … Continue reading

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All hail Winlink 1988!

Winlink 2000 is a hot topic in the amateur community right now.  It provides a mechanism to access Internet email over several different transports, including an Internet connection, local V/UHF packet radio, and long-distance HF Pactor.  The idea is great, … Continue reading

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NTS messages in Emacs

Passing messages via the ARRL National Traffic System (NTS) has recently caught my fancy.  If you don’t know anything about it, you should take a look at the NTS page on the ARRL website.  In short, it’s a network of hundreds of … Continue reading

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ID800 Magnetic Head Modification

The ICOM ID-800 is a very common D-STAR radio, and for good reason: it includes the digital functionality, dual-band operation, and a remote-able head.  It’s much easier to mount a small head unit in view than an entire radio, with … Continue reading

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Field Day 2009

The ARRL Field Day 2009 contest was this past weekend and I had quite a trip.  The point of field day is to get out of the house and operate the radio on emergency power out “in the field”.  It’s … Continue reading

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D-RATS covered in the D-STAR Nifty Guide

The “Nifty! Ham Accessories” company publishes a large number of quick reference guides and manuals for a variety of ham hardware and software.  I think the most popular items are the nifty guides which are pocket-sized cheat sheets for today’s … Continue reading

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Dayton Hamvention 2009

The weekend before last was the 2009 Dayton Hamvention.  I’m a week late crafting this write-up because of some work-related travel that came up unexpectedly last week.  It was a good show, but it seemed clear that the poor economy … Continue reading

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Communications Academy 2009

This past weekend, I was up in the Seattle area (again) for the 2009 Communications Academy conference.  This was my first time attending, and I found it to be quite good.  There was a lot of good information on various … Continue reading

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KD7RFI D-STAR Repeater on the air!

This past weekend I met three other hams at the Synopsys site in Hillsboro to install our group’s D-STAR repeater.  We have had the components of this stack for a while now and have been testing it at a low-level … Continue reading

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A CI-V interface box for my IC-718

This weekend, I met some local ham geek types at a restaurant for breakfast.  The group is really focused on QRP, but they asked me to come and show them D-RATS.  They’re mostly hardware-focused, and probably more interested in the … Continue reading

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