KØBG’s Mobile Ham Radio website
The ham radio website of the week belongs to Alan Applegate, K0BG of Roswell, NM (by the way, I wonder if his truck is ever mistaken for an alien ship). Alan’s website is the place to stop if you are new to the world of HF mobile ham radio (or VHF [...]
I’ve been driving for a week or so with the new HotRodz capacity hat and MM-1 auto transformer (pictured). As far as I can tell so far, the system seems to be working. Propagation has been pathetic lately, but I did get a chance to have a QSO with J79XBI on Dominica in the Windward [...]
DX Engineering HotRodz, First Impressions
A package arrived yesterday afternoon from DX-Engineering containing:
DXEngineering Hot Rodz
Hustler Safety Spring
DXE-MM-1 dual impedance antenna auto/transformer
A DX Engineering Hat
Of course, the first problem was answering the XYL’s question “You bought another antenna for the car?”.
“It’s not really another antenna… it’s a replacement for the whip on top.”
“Looks like an antenna to [...]
Yesterday I was driving to work and heard a Norwegian ham pop on to 14.178 and call CQ. It was just prior to the HiFi SSB network starting. Once the hifi guys got on, chaos ensued.
LA2: “You guys should have listened. I had the frequency first.”
HiFi Guys: “No we had the frequency first. Besides, [...]
My High Sierra Sidekick seems to be doing a decent job, but there is one hassle. Having to fold it over to go in and out of my garage. The whip portion of the antenna is just a bit too long to clear the garage door (3 ft whip). By adding a cap hat, I [...]
I was driving home from work tonight and, although the propagation conditions were terrible (SF:87 A:22 K:3), I thought I’d turn on the Icom IC-706 MKIIG and check out 20 meters. Stumbled upon PJ2/K8ND working from Curaçao Netherlands Antilles. 171 sq miles of island parked just North of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea (12.10° N [...]
I was driving home on Saturday afternoon and turned on the IC-706 MKIIG. I had known that the NAQP SSB contest was running so I thought I’d listen in. As it turned out, the ham band conditions were not too bad - so I made a few QSOs and logged them in MobileLog2. The High-Sierra [...]
I had a business trip this week to Connecticut. Extra time sitting in airports gave me a chance to make some more progress on MobileLog. In this latest version, I now have a search feature implemented (an improvement over the original MobileLog 1.X version I think), DXCC country data (indicates if the QSO is a [...]
In my 26+ years of ham radio, I’ve had several opportunities to explain ham radio to the general public. Sometimes, folks politely smile, nod and say something like “hmmm… playing with antennas and radios for fun?… different strokes for different folks I guess.”
I’ve found that over the years, analogies and comparisons to fishing work quite [...]
Had an interesting/frustrating near-QSO today that I couldn’t complete, but that was just the end of a very long day (literally). It’s too bad because I had a productive 3 day meeting in Pickering, Yorkshire, England - but the return home had some travel-headaches (which included this near QSO).
Here’s my day…
wake [...]