Thanks to the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club for hosting me Sunday, March 11 for a presentation on grounding and bonding for the average ham. You can find links and resources here, or via the menu to the right under Presentations.
Solar Eclipse QSO Party
The total solar eclipse that traversed the continental United States on August 21 was a golden opportunity to study the effects of the eclipse on ionospheric radio propagation. A rather new organization, the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI), sponsored a QSO Party on that date to collect data to investigate what happens when the sun goes away for a few minutes.
From all accounts, the experiment was a success in that it confirmed the expected outcome – nighttime propagation conditions appeared, and then disappeared, in the middle of the day.
I took the day off from work and participated by setting up a portable station on my backyard deck. Continue reading “Solar Eclipse QSO Party”
How about a .radio domain name?
The European Broadcasting Union has been appointed the official distributor of one of the newest Internet top-level domains – .radio. (A top-level domain is the last part of a domain name. You’re probably most familiar with TLDs like .com, .org, .edu and the like.)
One of the provisions in the EBU’s pitch to hold the keys to .radio is that they plan to require some sort of radio affiliation by the party registering a domain under that TLD. One of the affiliations they specifically list is “Radio Amateurs”, which means that soon you will be able to get YOURCALL.radio as a domain. Continue reading “How about a .radio domain name?”
Dayton Hamvention 2016
This year’s Dayton Hamvention® is in the books, and it was a great time. Lots of equipment to see and many people to meet and talk with. The event is so big that it’s difficult to take in everything, even in three days, and adding Thursday’s activities stretches it out even more.
Saturday’s interesting QSOs
Saturday resulted in an all-time-new-one and a QSO with a friend I haven’t worked in several years.
After answering a CQ from an EA7 and having a short QSO on 17 CQ, I checked the spots on DX Heat, hoping to find VP8SGI while I still could. In doing so I stumbled upon 3B8HC calling CQ on 12 meter phone. Continue reading “Saturday’s interesting QSOs”