There was a bit of a kerfuffle this week with the news that an airliner had been hit by space junk. The plane, a United Airlines 737, was operating at 36,000 feet on a flight between Denver and Los Angeles when the right windscreen was completely shattered by the impact, peppering the arm of one […]
Although ham radio offers a wide array of bands to transmit on, not to mention plenty of modes to communicate with, not everyone wants or needs to use all of this capability. For those needing simple two-way communication services like FRS or GMRS are available (in North America) with much less stringent licensing requirements, and […]
Remember AOL? For a lot of folks, America Online was their first ISP, the place where they got their first exposure to the Internet, or at least a highly curated version of it. Remembered by the cool kids mainly as the place that the normies used as their ISP and for the mark of shame […]
The legendary 6502 microprocessor recently turned 50 years old, and to celebrate this venerable chip which brought affordable computing and video gaming to the masses [AndersBNielsen] decided to put one to work doing something well outside its comfort zone. Called the PhaseLoom, this project uses a few other components to bring the world of software-defined […]
“Emergency Law Enforcement Officer Hologram program activated. Please state the nature of your criminal or civil emergency.” Taking a cue from Star Trek: Voyager, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency is testing a holographic police officer, with surprisingly — dare we say, suspiciously? — positive results. The virtual officer makes an appearance every two minutes in […]
When it comes to amateur radio, one size definitely does not fit all. That’s especially true with antennas, which need to be just the right size for the band you’re working, lest Very Bad Things happen to your expensive radio. That presents a problem for the ham who wants the option to work whichever band […]
The big news story of the week of course has been the wildfires in California, which as of Saturday have burned over 30,000 acres, destroyed 12,000 structures, caused 150,000 people to evacuate, and killed eleven people. Actually, calling them wildfires underplays the situation a bit because there are places where they’ve clearly become firestorms, burning […]
There’s a paradox in amateur radio: after all the time and effort spent getting a license and all the expense of getting some gear together, some new hams suddenly find that they don’t have a lot to talk about when they get in front of the mic. While that can be awkward, it’s not a […]
If there’s anything more annoying to an amateur radio operator than noise, we’re not sure what it could be. We’re talking about radio frequency noise, of course, the random broadband emissions that threaten to make it almost impossible to work the bands and pick out weak signals. This man-made interference is known as “QRM” in […]