Better Living Through Amateur Radio
Why Change? I’m an Elecraft “fan boy” but the speakers have always fallen short of what I believed Elecraft should have produced. The stock speakers are narrow in range and are not of the best for CW operators. The 4-ohm speaker, while within spec for the amplifiers in the K3, is too much load on […]
Getting on 12/17M again: After replacing a Hex Beam (20/17/15/24/28/6M) with a Cushcraft A3S tri-bander, I began missing access to the 12M and 17M bands. So, some digging in the junk box and a bit of 3D printing yielded a pretty good result that I thought others might be able to use. The basic structure […]
I recently added the SVGA add-on to my Elecraft P3 Pan Adapter. (I purchased one from K6RO (Larry) who is a great source for anything K3/K3S from parts to entire stations. Check him out on QRZ). The P3 has a ton of on-board capability such as markers for each VFO, on board power/SWR monitoring (option), […]
In a previous post (Hermes Lite 2, Winlink and Vara), I published two paths for improving how Vara HF Modem works with the Hermes Lite and Thetis Software. This post is the specifics of how I connected the DigiRig-Mobile in particular, but this method could be used with any other “sound card” such as a […]
A reliable path to WinLink and Vara with HL2 and Thetis. I have found a reliable path to WinLink working with HL2 and Thetis. The Thetis software and virtual cables have too much total audio delay to allow the rapid response required for Winlink (or anything Vara HF for that matter). What I have found […]
What an Amazing Little Kit! The Hermes Lite 2 (HL2) is a fully Software Defined Radio (SDR) transceiver based on a broadband modem IC. The IC has RF amplification and a 98Mhz A/D converter that allows digitizing the antenna RF signals directly, capturing the entire HF band from 160-10M (1.8Mhz-30Mhz). I purchased my kit through […]
The good and the bad: I ordered the MFJ-1846 antenna through R&L in 2021. The kit came quickly but contained the wrong spreaders and was missing screws. After some emails and phone time with both R&L and MFJ, MFJ stepped up and supplied the correct spreaders and missing screws. About a 6 months later, I […]
Sometimes, you just gotta try things.. I have a little issue with antenna-experiment-disorder (aka AED). No matter how many antennas of various forms I try, I still fall into the trap of “could this be better?” For the last couple of years I have been using the DX-Commander Classic and was very pleased with its […]
During the winter 2021 holidays I spent some time playing in the various contests and sprints going on this time of year. I particularly enjoy the CWOPS and SST. These CW gatherings tend to be low power, brief, lasting only an hour or two, and load of fun! In these contests I started to discover […]
Toward the end of the summer I was looking to improve my vertical antenna situation. When it comes to performance, I find that is hard to beat a well-ground-radialed, resonant, quarter-wave vertical antenna. There are many-many vertical antenna kits out there to choose from. You can spend as much as you want, and get some […]