Ham On A Bike

  Drive Thru Lines, School pick-up Lines, Bank Lines, Grocery Store Lines, Airport Lines and the lists of lines can seem almost endless.  Recently I've come to enjoy standing and waiting in what's called  "THE GRAY-LINE" or "GREY-LINE". Since I'm in the U.S., I'll use the Gray-Line spelling. What is "THE GRAY-LINE"?  For those new to Ham Radio or have not move that far along in their journey of the hobby; it can be defined this way.  "THE GRAY-LINE" is a band around the Earth which separates daylight from darkness.  Propagation along the gray line is very efficient.  The main reason is the D layer of the ionosphere, which absorbs HF signals, disappears rapidly on the sunset side of the gray line and it has not yet built upon the sunrise side.  In the YouTube below Dave Casler explains.  I've worked "The Gray-Line" on many occasions over the years but not in the last few years.  Here it is August 2025 and August is ty...

  Renowned Golfer Jack Nicklaus made this quote about fishing.  "There are always places to go fishing. For any fisherman there's always a new place, a new horizon".   I equate that quote to my portable Amateur Radio activities. There are always places to go operate Ham Radio.  There are always NEW Parks on the Air, Summits on the Air, Islands on the Air and other places to operate portable and another day or opportunity to make a QSO. During my daily Early Bird Parks on the Air activation on August 13, 2025, I decided to operate QRPp ( less than 1 Watt ) with my QRP Labs QCX 40 Meter Mini with a 9 Volt / 200 mAH battery.  Due to the excessive heat in the Ohio River Valley in Kentucky, U.S.;  I try to get out around dawn to "Beat the Heat" and recently take advantage of the morning greyline over my QTH. I don't operate QRPp often but I looked back at my previous QRPp operating and found I seem to do this when HF band conditions are questionable.  ...

  Over the last few weeks all over the planet Mother Nature has been rearing her ugly head with rounds and rounds of different types of devastating effects of Terrestrial Weather.  For some of us in the Amateur Radio community Space Weather has not been a bed of Roses either. How does this play into my Amateur Radio operating?  It leads me to an ADAGE most of you may have read about in that the MOST IMPORTANT part of your Ham Radio Station is NOT your RIG. IT IS YOUR ANTENNA. I've spent the better part of this summer checking all of my antenna for wear and tear, repairing those that needed and putting each one through their paces on my Nano NVA. Due to unpredictable Terrestrial and Space Weather conditions, my HF operating and Parks on the Air operating have been somewhat diminished during the last few weeks. That has lead me to understand that in the waning period of Solar Cycle 25, I can likely expect the unexpected as we journey on the downside of this cycle.  As ...

Earlier this spring I did a Blog about taking advantage of the warmer temperatures in the U.S. to do antenna maintenance and construction.  One of my plans was to deploy a Kite Antenna. However, weather conditions have presented wind speeds above the Kite's ratings with lots of severe weather days or days with low wind speeds. As a result, I have had to altered those plans. But fear not; that only leads me to build another antenna.  I have a saying about antenna. They are like underwear. You can NEVER have TOO MANY. As I look back over my Ham Radio years I wish I had  built more of my antenna  as a Novice. There is nothing wrong with purchasing commercial made antenna but building your own gives one a better understanding of how that antenna works and quite frankly how antenna work in general.  I have purchased a handful of commercial manufactured ham radio antenna over the years but prefer to build my own when possible. With today's U.S. Ham Radio License struc...