I work for a non-profit organization and over the years I have spotted more and more of our staff groups using Family Radio Service (FRS) radios as a part of their jobs. While I knew it is an unlicensed band, I also assumed that business use would have been prohibited since it was called the [...]
I’ve intended to do some comparisons between the APRS Tracker (Automatic Position Reporting System) options out there to decide which one I might purchase and use. APRS combines GPS receivers with ham radio transmitters to allow the user to broadcast their current speed, position, and altitude via radio. Other users receive those location packets and [...]
I got the phone call on March 28th from Ham Radio Outlet in Sunnyvale that my radio was back from repair from Kenwood. Having experienced a bit of “radio withdrawl” even though I don’t talk a lot on it, I ran right over there on my lunch break. Picked up the radio, plugged in my [...]
I was able to run over to Ham Radio Outlet in Sunnyvale today at lunch and asked if they had any ideas. We were going to try another cable (start with the cheapest link in the chain right?) but they only had default Kenwood cables and Mark has my serial adapter. So… we tried my [...]
I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with my Kenwood TH-F6A over the past months, been using it more to get on the air recently. I even joined ARES, Santa Cruz County Amateur Radio Emergency Service. I’d listened to their nets occasionally over the years and after I heard Cap Pennell (KE6AFE) talking with [...]
After quite a bit of reading reviews and looking through catalogs, and viewing the TH-F6A Instruction Manual, I finally settled on the Kenwood TH-F6A as my next radio. Well, actually, it’s “Ellen’s Radio” (KI6FEB) but she and I both know I’ll play with it a lot more often! Since we only had my one radio, [...]
In other radio related news, one of the cool tricks I learned last night at the San Lorenzo Valley Amateur Radio Club meeting was from KA6MAL about a system he built. He’s got an APRS infopeater in Boulder Creek and has it set up so if you send a properly formatted message to it the [...]
This morning I headed over to the Electronics Flea Market at De Anza college and it was definitely worth the trip over. I arrived a bit “late” at 8:15, apparently this thing starts at 5 am and most of the “good stuff” is gone by 7 am. Even so, it was neat to see the [...]
Not too much new going on lately in my world of radio, but tonight I made my way over to the Zayante Fire Station for the monthly meeting of the San Lorenzo Valley Amateur Radio Club to check out one of their monthly meetings. Got to see or meet several of the people I hear [...]
“You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no [...]