Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween!



A picture of my neighbors house.
Double click on picture to check it out.

Happy Halloween!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Future ARRL Kits

Just in from my weekly ARRL Letter:

The ARRL will be offering two new kits, first is a Morse Code Oscillator by MFJ. I think this would be popular with clubs and new comers to the hobby.

The second is a PIC Programming type kit. This looks more like a mini training course if you pick up the ARRL's PIC Programming for Beginners book. The kit includes all parts for a microprocessor controlled CW key er.

I have never gotten into the PIC type builds, still old school with basic transistors and digital TTL type stuff.

As always the more kits available the better!

Friday, October 22, 2010

WSPR & QST

My November 2010 QST just landed in the mailbox with an intro article "Find the Right Path with WSPR".

I am looking forward to trying out this new mode, been reading about it on the other blogs for sometime now.

Its always great to get some new reading material heading into the weekend!

Happy Friday!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

On This Day: Edison Invents Electric Light

Every morning in my email I receive from The New York Times "Today's Headlines" and this caught my eye.

On this day Oct. 21, 1879 Thomas Edison invented a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ.

Here is link to original newspaper cover and article.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1021.html

Now if we can just find a way to get our kids to turn off the lights when they leave the room.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Free Antenna e-magazine

This past week I came across a site called ANTENTOP which puts out a free e-magazine devoted to Antennas and Amateur Radio.

http://www.antentop.org/

They also have a free e-book for downloading, Ideas and Projects for QRP.

Some good reading for the colder months ahead.

Thanks to Antentop!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Crystal Sets To Sideband

I came across a helpful free online book by Frank Harris, K0IYE,

Crystals Sets To Sideband, A Guide to Building an Amateur Radio Station.

This book offers a great introduction into the world of home brewing with a simple easy to read format. I especially like his idea of picking up an ARRL Amateur Radio Handbook from the 1980's for the more do able projects. The newer editions have tougher projects that I have passed up on. The book link is listed below.

http://www.qsl.net/k3pd/book.html

Frank's station is also 100% home brewed!

A very nice read!!