@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.infoToday's #HamRadio project was making elevated radials for an HF vertical. I have a 25' whip, a JPC-12, and some random parts I made. My idea is to have more efficient elevated radials, but unlike ground-coupled radials, elevated radials need to be tuned.
I thought this would take me 1–2 hours.
It took about 5 hours.
When you have ground-coupled radials, you have only o…
@penguin42@mastodon.org.ukIt's fun seeing the old amateur radio licensing paperwork my dad had; one of his early (not quite earliest) from 1965, from the GPO (General Post Office) - typed header and hand filled in. Later ones in the 60-70s are still hand filled in; As it moves from one ministry to another. So much hand written/typed stuff - must have been hell!
#hamradio
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.infoFor my #HamRadio tunable elevated radial project, I want to isolate them from the earth and the mast, and I'm not finding an isolating mount that goes into a normal ½" "light stand". So I've come up with this design to build. (Yay, I can't just buy it, so I have an excuse to spend some shop time!)
From 1" 6061 aluminum stock and 1" POM:
@cdarwin@c.im @mcdanlj@social.makerforums.infoThe additional spectrum on the #HamRadio 60m band for US operators, and the reduced power limitation that applies to the current channel 3, is not yet effective. Don't start transmitting outside your station privileges because you heard about the FCC releasing an order.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the amendments of parts 2, 25, 74, 78, 87, 90, and 101 o…
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info @mcdanlj@social.makerforums.infoI've seen so many excited (or annoyed) notices about the changes to the 60m #HamRadio band in the US. Many of them seemed to think that they were in effect already (wrong) and those that didn't make that mistake would just say "soon" (not helpful).
It turns out that 13 February 2026 is the day that you can use the additional band allocation on you…
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.infoMy #HamRadio #POTA fun today was activating US-1904 Myakka River State Park on 20m and 17m, with 5W CW, on my new edition o…
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.infoI post a lot here and on Maker Forums Discourse, and have kind of not gotten around to blogging for a while. But today I had time to reflect on my first full year of #HamRadio — this new hobby has surprised me in a lot of (good) ways.
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.infoHere is a complete description of the changes that are coming for the US #HamRadio Technician exam on 1 July 2026:
https://gist.github.com/taxilian/c6fca675a58fd4b165e…