Understanding dB, aka go easy on your HF amplifier!
I was listening to a couple of guys on the 20m band today and they were discussing amplifiers… “Yeah, this amplifier will do 1500W. The last one I had would only do 1000W so...
More Adventures with Icom TX Audio
There are a bunch of posts on this blog which detail my experiments with transmit audio on the IC-7300. Since then I have switched to an Icom IC-7610, which seems identical in the TX...
Icom IC-7300 & IC-7610 “Built-In” Tuning Pulser
Overview A tuning pulser is a device which generates a series of short-duty cycle tone bursts which are applied to the audio input of a transmitter. Instead of tuning up a tube linear amplifier...
UR6QW EQ V.7
Please read about how you can help UR6QW in Ukraine here It has arrived! The new version 7 of UR6QW’s processor. Thank you to Sergey for getting it to me incredibly quickly! This is...
Antenna Materials & Efficiency
You can not make a very good antenna using insulators like PVC tubing, drinking straws, or nylon rope. I think we can all agree on that. Why? Materials like plastic are electrical insulators, and...
Noise & Receiver Performance
In this article, I’m going to cover Noise Figure, Noise Factor, Noise Power, Receiver Bandwidth, and how they can affect overall radio receiver performance. Contrary to popular belief, these metrics have nothing to do...
Charger Radiated Emissions
I usually have a respectable HF noise floor at home, for which I count myself lucky in today’s sea of cheaply made switching power supplies. However, we were expecting some severe winter weather a...
Baofeng Cemetary
As of the date of this post, you can get a Baofeng UV-5R for $28, or buy two for $50. Dirt cheap. I bought my first Baofeng UV-5R back in 2012 when they were...
UR6QW Processor with Dynamic Microphones
While this post is written with the UR6QW processor in mind, it contains information which is widely applicable. There is some concern about connecting dynamic microphones to devices which commonly use electret condenser microphones....