Author: stephenrapley
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Ultraportable Elecraft KX3
UPDATE: Steve G4GXL’s 10 minute YouTube video of Wayne N6KR’s quick overview of the new KX3 is available from http://qrparci.org. Also there are early photos on Twitpic here – courtesy of Jeff Davis KE9V including this one: Under the tantalising subject line “Something *really* new at Dayton from Elecraft” and while en route to Dayton – Elecraft’s Wayne Burdick N6KR announced…
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Winnie the war winner
The other day I noticed a very interesting photo on a fellow Australian ham blogger, Peter Mark’s site. The blog entry was titled a “Radio nerd’s tour of Canberra“. The first photo is described as ‘a transceiver with a nifty antenna tuner’. But the instant I saw it I sensed there was slightly more to it.…
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QRP at Bamarang
Last weekend I had a great time playing radio. Along with half a dozen other families and all our kids we went to spend the Easter weekend at the “mud brick mansion” at Bamarang on the Shoalhaven River, a few km west of Nowra on the south coast of New South Wales. Courtesy of the…
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Monitoring Odyssey Dawn
One of the most memorable DX programs was Radio Nederland’s Media Network presented by the energetic and innovative Jonathan Marks. Both the program and the presenter live on in different guises. I remember being astounded to hear intercepted military signals from the early hours of the Falklands War being broadcast on the program. Long before…
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Egypt old tech
The people power demonstrations in Egypt over the last week were probably fueled just that bit more by the government’s decision on 27 January to cut mobile phones and the internet. The deteriorating situation in Egypt is currently sharing top news position here in Australia with the monstrous tropical cyclone Yasi due to hit major population centres of far north…
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SDR needs more UX
Spotted a very interesting post from Tobias, DH1TW on his blog ‘Contesting & SDR‘ titled Does SDR really suck?. He wonders out loud if the performance, flexibility and cost of SDR is so excellent, why hasn’t it taken off? What possible barriers might there still be to it assuming a place matching its promise and achievement?…
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Heathkit Genesis
Last week at the Waverley Amateur Radio Society monthly meeting there was a fascinating and well-prepared talk from Justin Lavery VK2CU on the history of the Heathkit company. The scene at the front of the clubroom was not unlike this great shot from the website of Fred W1SKU. Only there were more pieces of equipment on display! Justin’s…
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Arctic DXpedition
Over the weekend sunspot 1112 erupted and produced a strong solar flare. Now according to space weather sites there’s a 25-35% chance of high latitude auroras on 19-20 October. And right now a group of four Norwegian friends are enjoying their annual DXpedition to Kongsfjord – well and truly in the high latitudes – at 70°43′N 29°21′E at…
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And they’re racing!
Interesting thread on the softrock40 email list about how easy it is these days to get a good sense of how well your station and the ionosphere are performing in an almost ‘hands-free’ way. Increasingly modes like WSPR and tools like SDR have enabled us to let the radio do its thing and in a short amount…
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LCWO on iPad & iPhone
Great news for owners of Apple portable devices who want to access Fabian Kurz DJ1YFK’s brilliant lcwo.net site on the move. LCWO stands for “Learning CW Online”. If you don’t know the site and you want to learn morse code or improve your code skills, this is one of the best destinations available – and it’s totally…
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Arnie Coro and the Super Islander
Looking back over some older email list posts today I came across an interesting exchange of posts on the QRPp list. In early August Arnie Coro CO2KK announced latest progress on the ‘Super Islander Version 5 QRP transceiver project’. Key design criteria include using “as much as possible parts that could be recycled from easy to find sources of electronic…
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Guide to A123 battery packs
Charles Preston, a member of the Buddipole User Group email reflector has just posted links to two clear and useful guides to using the A123 Battery Packs available from Buddipole. While the Buddipole site links to documents about the batteries there’s very little practical information available about how to nurture these batteries. Similarly the Cellpro Multi4 charger documentation is…