Ham On A Bike

  I hope everyone had an enjoyable and wonderful Christmas. We'll be back sometime in early 2025. Here are a  couple of Blog Posts we are working on. I don't need 1.21 Gigawatts, a Flux Capacitor or Plutonium to make a QSO Confessions from a Wanna-Be Engineer

Quail, Deer, Rabbitt, Turkey, Squirrel,  pheasant and other animals are being hunted in the U.S.   I wake up each morning and check the forecast to determine what type of fowl or other prey I might  want to pursue.   I go through all of my equipment and gear to determine which weapon I might take.  Here's the CATCH. I'm not your typical hunter.  As cold weather has descended upon the Ohio Valley (Kentucky.USA); this old body just doesn't handle the freezing temperatures like it did when it was younger. This winter I'm scaling back doing Parks on the Air activations. I've made some winter Ham Radio goals. My goals are to do some QRP radio kit building, repairing some transceivers and doing some SSB, CW, FT8, FT4, RTTY, PSK31, Olivia, and Satellite hunting operating.   Some of my  hunting equipment consists of the following: I have a several sets of firepower to throw at the Amateur Radio / Ham Radio HF bands.  Ten Tec 580 Delta,...

In early spring 2024 I had planned to spend some time reacquainting myself to constructing and testing QRO and QRP Random Wire Antennas for use with my Yaesu FT-891, Yaesu FT-817 and YouKits HB-1B. Throughout my ham radio experience, I've  piddled around with random wire antennas over the years but never really had much success with them.  Mostly because I'd never committed the time to properly construct a random wire antenna. I certainly don't NEED anymore antennas. I have plenty. But I have a saying about antenna. They are like underwear. You can NEVER have too many.  My main purpose for these Random Wire Antennas is to provide a smaller footprint. Since the Pandemic shutdown the amount of people using the Parks On The Air (POTA) sites I use has not dropped off but increased.  So in order to be safe and not intrude or disrupt other park users of enjoying the outdoors; a smaller footprint has become a necessity.  First up was the QRO Speaker Wire Random Wire wi...

    It all started with him.  Astronaut Owen Garriott - W5LFL Its been over 40 years  since  Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL fired up his rig to  became the first  person from space to communicate with amateur radio operators on Earth. He was also the first to be heard  from space by the public using simple receivers and scanners.  These communications continue today as ARISS  - Amateur Radio aboard the International Space Station, celebrates the positive impact of Amateur Radio on Human Spaceflight with the upcoming ARISS Series 22 SSTV Experiment November 11 - 18, 2024. Over the years, I've been fortunate enough to capture many SSTV images transmitted from the International Space Station with relatively minimal inexpensive equipment. From simple to a little more than simple ways I've used to capture SSTV images during all types of weather, different seasons of the year and day or night. Here are a few of those SSTV images I've capture f...