MAPA = Make America Poor Again! A Lame Duck is nothing more than a Left-Over Turkey!

[The posting on the Dentron HF Scout yesterday...There is one on eBay right now selling for $600. The seller thinks it is a linear amp and not a transceiver.] Real Hams can do like a friend did in the UK. He had a desire to operate 2M CW and that as a standalone functionality is simply not found as standard gear. There are many high-end radios that incidentally will do CW, but these are expensive and thus a hunt for an alternative. He went to his junk box and with a bit of noodling came up with a design using what he had in hand. It was built and works like a charm. He was able to do that because he invested the time to learn about circuitry, to learn the hardware and to learn the software. Thus, he was able to scratch build a rig to operate the mode he wanted and the band so desired. He is a real ham and those with a license should be able to do. In my designs I try hard to keep from building the same topology over and over putting it in a different enclosure and calling it a new rig...

If you were a licensed ham during the 1970's-90's, the name Dentron was synonymous with High Power Linear RF Amplifiers and Antenna Tuners. The company did try to produce a line of HF SSB Transceivers both for ham use and ones designated for the Civil Air Patrol. They were not too successful with the SSB products. Dentron as the story goes didn't really build the internal SSB hardware but were more of a repackage supplier and box builder. The Main Boards for the SSB transceivers were purchased from a Japanese supplier which employed a 9 MHz IF Topology. There is a precedent for this with CB radios. Many branded CBs all had the same internal boards.  Heathkit had the HW-18 which was a CAP SSB transceiver built using the HW monoband topology. Thus, Dentron would be a competitor. During a search of eBay, I found a Dentron HF Scout which was a multichannel crystal-controlled CAP SSB transceiver complete with a 100-watt brick. (It was toast). The radio was tuned to the 4 MHz CAP...

Just to be fair to the 99% of the hams who only operate or do contests,  I spent some time on 20M yesterday operating the Winter Field Day Contest. This is not sponsored by the ARRL. Starting 1st with my rig, I used a homebrewed Dual Filter 9 MHz IF rig with the 20X4 Juliano Blue LCD. The rig choice was a struggle since the other option was my totally homebrew 20M SDR transceiver as that would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Using a filter rig in my view was an opportunity to show off! For our new YL Extra Class Licensee's, this homebrew rig uses the "Drake Approach" where the BFO is set at 9 MHz and to achieve upper and lower sideband there are two Crystal Filters. The center frequency of one filter is designed so it will only pass the lower sideband. The other filter has the center frequency so that it will only pass upper sideband. Relay steering selects the proper Crystal Filter for the mode chosen (USB or LSB). At one time a surplus distributor in downtown Israel ...

Unboxing paperclips Our unboxing video is a think piece, a poke in the eye to the ARRL and demonstrates how absurd the US Ham Licensing Process is. No matter how you shine it... the process is still a turd! It will soon be one year since the XYL passed and it has really sunk in that she is gone... but certainly not forgotten. My way of remembering is weekly visits to the cemetery and always insuring fresh flowers for the gravesite. Yeah, real old school! What I miss the most is just the opportunity to be with her and around her. I miss hearing "are you playing with those wires again?" It would be nice to have conversations with others than myself. I catch myself saying... Self what do you think and then no response.  I have connected with some grief groups and have two that I visit at least once a month and that certainly helps. My church has a senior social group that I just joined. Then I thought I would ask Copilot about some other potential support groups.  As a lark I as...

When I lived in the Pacific Northwest, we once had a snowstorm that dumped 22 inches of snow, and the temperature dropped to below freezing. I feel your pain for the large segment of the US now undergoing a similar event.  If you want to get warmed up think about the US Senator who was spotted escaping his home state to avoid being cold or without power. I am on a crusade to eliminate the 45 Minute no license to Amateur Extra Class process. My ire was heightened yesterday when I heard a BTE (Box Top Extra) say he hoped the hum was gone from his radio as he didn't want to get off the air. LID and Idiot are two good words. I alone cannot move the needle. The ARRL doesn't want to hear about a process change or support it as their offshore advertisers would bitterly complain. It is no secret who they answer to ad it is not Joe Ham. Ditto for the FCC as then they would have to actually do something different than harass Jimmy.  Certainly, it will be difficult to energize the greate...

  Intro to 10GHz Operation Our Two idea Title is joined at the hip. Does anyone really know the real reason for establishing the Technician Class license. Well, it all had to do with encouraging experimentation at the higher frequencies, beyond HF. To not encumber these adventurers the original test requirements were the Novice Code test (5 WPM) and the General Class Theory and Regulations. The starting spectrum was 6 Meters. At one time you could hold both the Novice and Technician Class Licenses simultaneously. (I did and was issued KN3IXU and K3IXU simultaneously). Almost exactly 1/2 of the total US Ham population are Technician Class. It is doubtful that any significant percentage of those 375K US hams know anything technical. Sure, they can probably program their Baofeng UV35R but that is not really technical. Their license is the lane of 10 GHz experimentation as was the intent of this class of license. Today on 40M, I was reading the mail on a net where many of those partici...