Tag: Expired Ham
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 10

Not much going on in terms of amateur radio this week other than focusing most of my free time on CW Academy homework. One week into the 8-week course and I’m having a good time.
Matthew Swint
Amateur Radio, CW, Digital, Expired Ham, FT3DR, HAM Radio, Morse Code, Pi-Star, Portable, QRP, Yaesu -
Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 9

I hope everyone had a great week this week. I know I did. I recently purchased a Mini 1.3 OLED ZUMspot hotspot from a fellow Vienna Wireless Society member and got that up and running here at home using Pi-Star.
Matthew Swint
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 8

I activated my second Parks On The Air park early this week. I managed to work from US-0712 Manassas Battlefield Park for about an hour and a half before other visitors began to arrive and encroach upon my antenna deployment.
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 7

The weather outside is becoming more and more inviting for outdoors activities. This past weekend was no exception. Sunday, I managed to get out and finally play around with my new Wolf River Coils antenna kit that I purchased recently. I also activated a park in the Parks On The Air program for the very…
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 6

Earlier this week, I posted about creating a home-brewed antenna guy ring out of a disc of acrylic. It’s not the best solution, I’ll admit, but it should work fine. I missed a chance to test it out over this weekend due to the weather, but I’m planning for an upcoming deployment and maybe I’ll…
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 5

Well, this week was a bit of a bust. Some of the first days of Spring and really nice outside temperatures around 80º and yet I didn’t get to operate outdoors at all. I did however, find a new local park that offers kayak rentals, so there’s that.
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 4

My portable antenna farm is growing. My newest addition is the Silver Bullet Platinum Take-It-Along by Wolf River Coils. I purchased the platinum version because I won’t have to have to buy another one later when/if I decide to ever use an amplifier. Also, the platinum coil is rated for higher Watts on digital and…
Matthew Swint
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 3

It seems like every day since I got my new Yaesu FT-710 has been terrible for operating on HF. I made one or two contacts on FT8 early in the week. Midweek gave us a minor geomagnetic storm which made receiving extra difficult for me at my QTH. What gives, Sun? Give me a break.
Matthew Swint
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 2

The Yaesu FT-710 HF/50MHz all-mode transceiver crosses all the boxes on my list at the moment. The FT-710 is a true SDR, has an internal antenna tuner, has a real-time spectrum scope with waterfall display, and is smaller than the FTdx10, weighs about 3 lbs lighter than the FTdx10, and is about $500 cheaper than…
Matthew Swint
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Expired Ham – Vol. 1 Iss. 1

For a while now, I’ve been interested in finding a local amateur radio club to join that would provide me with opportunities to enhance my technical knowledge of the radio hobby. One such candidate is the Vienna Wireless Society based in the middle of Fairfax county, Virginia.