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This time of the year always gets me nostalgic for the history of radio and amateur radio in particular. Perhaps it is the long winter nights and the kinship I feel with those amateurs of late 1912 banished to "200 meters and down" as I operate on 160m that gets me in this spirit. I must admit...

Not really. In the past I used a single 11 element yagi on both SSB and FM with good results (keep in mind that on 2m, SSB uses horizontal polarization and FM uses vertical by convention). The trick was setting it at a 45 degree angle. At that point the loss was probably about 3 dB for either...

Congrats!

Well, mine is rather obvious, I think. :D

Welcome to the on-the-air fraternity. But if you put that antenna up now, it will work so much better! ;)

And that is the "self policing" aspect at work--don't get involved in the nonsense.

To a point, that is true. However, attenuation losses and impedance mismatch losses still accrue and are more critical for good RX as on TX power can be increased to compensate for the losses. Not so for RX. "You can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em." It is possible for a coax to have...

I agree completely. I am happy that we are treating service personnel an veterans with the respect they deserve. Merry Christmas to all and may 2011 and beyond be very boring for all of you in the armed services.

Nothing like a new rig for spurring some fun.

Welcome aboard. Read the study guide thoroughly but don't stop there! A good way to avoid some rookie mistakes is to get a hold of a copy of the ARRL Operating Manual. It will give you more a background of the how and why we do things on the air than the study guide will. But don't sweat any...

When it occurs immediately after unkeying, that is indicative of hearing your own signal via long path. I have heard that myself on occasion. As I understand it a radio wave takes about 1/3 of a second to go around the earth long path. So far I've yet to experience an LDE and it would...

I always cut the whip to the measured length and stick it in the ferrule. I've not had one be too short yet.

The only problem with sitting in front of someone else's radio is that they will have tailored it in subtle and not so subtle ways to their liking. While I would definitely enjoy showing my K3 to anyone who wants to take a closer look, I will back up the configuration first so I can restore it...

K3? :D Seriously, it has excellent audio with external speakers. Right now I'm on a round table on 160m and everyone sounds great through the 2.7 kHz filter. I am using a Yaesu MD-100A8X mic with it and get good audio reports. Keep in mind that I have a face for radio and a voice for CW.

I paid $600 for an FT-100D with the separation kit a year ago. This summer the TX quit but that turned out to be the SMD sense resistors which Burghardt Repair replaced. It wasn't cheap to fix it, but it works much better now, although it's sitting in a box since the work truck died and I'm...

Thanks for the review, Tim. I have a pair of Radio Shack Minimus 3.5 speakers I've had for years connected to my K3. Sometimes I find the volume control set to near 12 O'clock to achieve "arm chair" copy after backing off the RF Gain and using Noise Reduction and such. That has me concerned...

There are a variety of ways to keep a log of memorable contacts (I certainly don't log every one nor those that are routine). ARRL, CQ, Yaesu, and likely others will sell or give away log books to write the pertinent information in. I would guess that Google would turn up a few log sheets, in...

I heard ZL8X this morning on 160m. That was on an antenna that is decidedly NVIS! I'll take a listen again tomorrow morning unless the contest has them covered up.

In early 1980 we bought a number of Radio Shack 40 channel AM CBs for the farm. I remember we received the call KBPA5404 which was good for five years. After the Communications Act changes of 1982 the FCC dropped formal licensing of Part 95 Subpart D and everyone became "licensed by rule". We...

Well, that was interesting. Other than the general characterization of the Amateur Service (I don't see it quite as dire), I think you're close to spot on. 27 MHz CB is a useless waste for any sort of legal use so it should be re-evaluated. Marine radios are more common out here than CBs as...