The FCC, FEMA and NOAA are going to be conducting a nationwide test of the EAS system, November 9th, 2011. Mainly to be sure, that it works, as a national test has never never been done. While states have done local tests on a weekly and monthly basis, no one is sure if an alert on a national scale was to go out, that it would 100% work.  Read More →

With Halloween just a few days away, the Pumpkin Patrols will be rolling out. Here’s a few tips to keep in mind if this is your first one. If you’ve done PP before, feel free to post other tips based on your experience. Hopefully this year will be “uneventful” but in a good way!  Read More →

Rich here again, as Kim needs to travel. This post is going to be quick, because there is a lot for me to do. This episode is all about movies! Those coming out in the theaters and those coming out on DVD. Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed  Read More →

I have never been off the continent before, and the only other country I have been to is Canada. So I think my travel experience is kind of lacking. But I can live through Randy, K7AGE, vicariously! Randy went to China some time ago, and he posted a video on his YouTube channel.  Read More →

I can’t believe I missed this. I’ve written about Summits on The Air before, but Andrew, K2FR hiked up Hunter mountain in the Catskills for S.O.T.A., Summits on The Air and made some contacts when he reached the top. While hiking up, he made a video. This is of course that video.  Read More →

From the “Oh, How Cool is That?!” department, is a video to round out a week’s worth of Ham Radio videos, showing an iOS device, (iPhone,iPod Touch,iPad) decoding an SSTV signal. I have seen a bunch of Ham Radio apps on the iTunes App store, but I seemed to miss this one.  Read More →

So I was trolling YouTube again, (I know, it’s getting to be a habit..) and came across a nice video of a 20 something woman named Angelica, in Springfield, M.A. making her first Amateur Radio contact. Remember the first time you cracked a mic? Were you nervous or scared or excited? All three, or calm or just business as usual?  Read More →

The title sounds like my life before I met Kim. See what I did there? Huh? Yeah. I went there. ‘Cuz I loooove Kim. But, yes, we are back for another episode. Kim was supposed to write this episode up, but she’s traveling again and work has been busier then normal, so I am taking care of it. Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed  Read More →

With Heathkit‘s recent announcement of them getting back into the kit building business, and Amateur Radio is one of those category of kits coming back, I thought that this little video look at Heathkit’s first Amateur Radio kit would be a good way to celebrate that.  Read More →

A few months back I posted a story about getting a bicycle and looking up way to attach a radio to it to do some mobile work. While the summer has been busy and that project is on the side for the winter, I came across this video from KH1JH, of his Motorcycle mobile.  Read More →

This weekend is AmiWest. An annual event held by the Sacramento Amiga Usergroup. I was honored to be sent by listeners of Amiga Roundtable back in 2007. And since then, I was asked to try and go again to report back. A couple of times, I have tried to raise funds to go, but have fell short. This year again is the same. With the economy the way it is, and money and budgets tight, it’s hard to... 

According to a report from the ARRL, the number of Amateur Radio operators in the U.S. has grown over the past 12 years. From 677,000 in 1999 to a new all time high of 700,000 operators in 2011 according to ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM.   Read More →

Fire up your sat tracking software, because the ISS will be live for Jamboree on The Air. An article at Southgate Amateur Radio Club’s website reports that Astronaut Mike Fossum, KF5AQG, will be participating in Jamboree on The Air from the International Space station this weekend, using the callsign NA1SS. Mike is also a scout master.   Read More →

Here we are again, another week and we have another episode. This is becoming a habit. Bad or good, is still debatable. Hopefully your past week has been good for you. Kim is in the process of traveling for work the next few weeks, so production of the show has been thrown off kilter. But as you can see, we got this one out with no problems. Although, both of us were a little tired. Podcast: Play... 

I don’t know if anyone has ever asked this question before, so I will ask. And if someone did and there is an answer, could you direct me to it. And if there isn’t, maybe someone from one of the modern Amateur Radio manufactures can answer it. Why isn’t there USB on modern rigs? What’s the catch to getting it added?  Read More →

Mikej over at Amiga.org has posted in the forums as well on his website, that he is ready to start taking orders for his FPGA Arcade board, that is capable of emulating classic Amigas. Not only is this a light at the end of a long tunnel, but a welcome bit of news in a community hungry for hardware.  Read More →

ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! That is what you will probably hear a lot of when the Zombies attack. And with Zombie attacks on the rise, Scouts are preparing for the worst this Halloween season. They’ll be working with First Responders as well as public safety communications professionals and Amateur Radio operators to earn their radio merit badges as part of scouting’s world-wide... 

If you’re wondering why I am posting this instead of an Amateur Radio story, then please read the full article and you will understand. But for now, I am posting a clip and a link to my full article on the Q103Albany website, and it has already been picked up by the station I used to work at in Utica as well.  Read More →

So here we are – Episode 15 already. I’m pretty impressed that we made it this far. Even with our busy schedule we’ve made time to record weekly. What can I say – we’re dedicated! As mentioned in the episode title we kind of rag on one of Rich’s co-workers*. You’ll hear why. This past week was kind of a slow week for us – lots more rain on the already... 

Southgate Amatuer Radio has a great article about iHAB-7, which is a high altitude balloon that carried Amateur Radio as well as record HD video of the flight. It went up to a little over 85,000 feet and took some stunning images.  Read More →