1980’s Boomboxes
Terms like “wow & flutter”, “soft eject”, “high-speed dubbing”, “CrO2“, and “auto-reverse” are retired now, gone from today’s audio equipment lexicon. Some say that’s a good thing. I still have a soft spot for...
RF Energy Exposure
Are you concerned that your Wi-Fi router is causing cancer? Worried that your smart electric meter is giving you headaches? There is a lot of pseudoscience, crazy theories, and false information out there when...
Severe Weather Apps
I use GR3 and GR2 Analyst on my PC (see “Commercial Radar Software & Apps” on the WX page), but since I’m often caught without a PC, and since we’re heading straight into severe...
Free RF simulation software
I’ve been using RF sim 99 (aka RFSim99) for over a decade, and it’s proved invaluable again and again during that time, and continues to do so. RFSim99 is a freeware RF simulation software utility....
FT-991 Hardware Upgrade Kit
Final update: See my upgraded FT-991 in action here. I bought a Yaesu FT-991 transceiver last year. Shortly after that, Yaesu decided to surprise us (me) by releasing the FT-991A, for more or less...
Handheld Power Obsession
Or, also known as “linear units in a logarithmic world”. Among the cheap handheld radio community, especially after the release of the Baofeng BF-F8HP, there seems to be this huge obsession with RF transmit...
Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
Almost everyone has heard of FM, but not everyone has heard of FSK. Frequency Shift Keying is a modulation scheme which utilizes changes in the frequency of the carrier wave to communicate data. For...
Why 50 ohms?
Coaxial cables, antennas, amplifier inputs and outputs, typically have either a 50 ohm or 75 ohm characteristic impedance. Why? It all comes down to the characteristic impedance value for maximum power transfer being 30...
Baofeng UV-5R+ Harmonics
It seems that the ARRL and a number of individuals have been taking a serious look at harmonics and other spurious emissions from various ham transceivers, including the ubiquitous Baofeng range of handheld transceivers....