Tootfinder

I 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.

My #HamRadio #POTA fun today was activating US-1904 Myakka River State Park on 20m and 17m, with 5W CW, on my new edition o…

It'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

Here 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…

#amateur or
#hamradio #blogs
https://mastodon.radio/@k8vsy…

For 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:

• An aluminum stem/spigot that fits…

The 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…

I made a #HamRadio antenna that I really like, and wanted to share the design and process so others can do it too. It's a carefully-tuned linked dipole that is light and has served me well for #POTA activations. It's now in its second iteration and so far I'm very happy with it.
…

In my #HamRadio #POTA adventure today, I got my inverted-V linked dipole caught in twigs today and it died. The silicon wire winds easily around a tight radius, which is nice for putting it on the winder, but also winds around twigs easily, and that fine wire breaks easily. Easier than…

Today's #HamRadio #POTA (Parks On The Air) adventure. Absolutely gorgeous, couldn't-be-better fall weather on a Saturday, so that it was a little surprising that we found parking space and that all the picnic tables were empty. Used my spiderbeam push-up mast to hold my inverted-v link…

I decided to try to participate just a little in this weekend's #HamRadio ARRL sweepstakes CW contest to stretch my tyro skills. In a busy contest, I decided to set up not1mm and configure my radio for sending from a contest logger to try to reduce wasting time with nervous keying failures. Took three really broken exchanges (the first ones hand-sent) that made me feel bad for the other…

There are plenty of #HamRadio CW operators who, as a politeness, greet you by name when you have a QSO, even a POTA QSO. But they also see "Michael" and send "Mike" because "Michael" takes a long time to send.
I get it, "Mike" is shorter, but... I just don't go by "Mike"
I do go by "MKJ" — I used that for decades on IRC, and now at work there are so many Mi…