Author Archives: timjneu

Running around with ham radios and 12v DC devices, knowing how much power is left in the tank can be pretty important. For simple lead acid batteries, the voltage of the battery can give you a pretty good idea how much capacity is left. But nowadays a lot of people have moved to the LiPo4Continue reading “Power usage tracking for batteries with Coulometers”

January is the home of another VHF contest. With VHF, one can benefit quite a bit from aiming antennas where people are actually listening. Unless you’re using spotting networks, most often that means that you’re aiming at population centers. It’s pretty easy to aim an antenna in a general direction. But what if you wantContinue reading “Azimuthal Maps”

I stumbled across this video that shows how to get a pully up to the top of a tall tree, without extra ropes dangling, and – get this – includes a way to remove the pulley from the treetop if you want, without climbing. The advantages of a pulley in the tree are obvious forContinue reading “Pulley in a tree”

The Anoka County Radio Club has started doing more contesting activities at the beginning of the year. We have now done 8 contests, including Field Day, with score dashboards available for people operating under their own callsigns. There are two things we’ve implemented to help us along. First, we’ve become an ARRL affiliated club forContinue reading “ACRC Club Contesting”

This year it was time to do the vhf contest. Weather was cold, and band conditions were iffy but there were occasional openings on 2m and 6m. All in all it was a productive (and cold) contest as the propane tanks emptied before the contest was over, struggling against the extremes of cold MN weather.Continue reading “January VHF contest”

Several times per year, the International Space Station transmits pictures using SSTV (Slow Scan Television) on 145.800 MHZ. It can be fun to receive them, and (if desired) upload your pictures to the online portal, for a nice confirmation certificate. https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/ Receiving these pictures is its own art. Many online guides already exist for howContinue reading “Receiving SSTV images from ISS”

Never missing an excuse to get on the air, the ARRL VHF contest was this past weekend. Many of us, myself included, have permanent VHF / UHF antennas (plural) on the roof. Don’t ask how many, we’ve surely lost count… But they’re extremely non-ideal when the polarization doesn’t match the traffic you’re trying to work…Continue reading “September 2021 VHF contest”

Early on, both of my tower trailers started out with fibre-glass vertical antennas. They have great gain, and you can get them in longer lengths to get every bit of elevation you want. I am starting to re-think that strategy. I discovered that it’s alarmingly easy for a long fibre pole to be just longContinue reading “Rethinking J-Pole antennas”

ARRL Field day is an exercise for emergency communications, and a fun contest for ham radio operators. Most clubs use software, like N3FJP to handle logging from multiple locations at the same time. This presents the need for a network to connect the server to the clients. Having done this many times in many differentContinue reading “Getting Internet access and N3FJP Logging configured at your ARRL Field Day site”

Locally here, we’re on a multi-day 90 degree or higher weather marathon. So what does that do to electronics, like Rasberry Pi devices in your outdoor tower trailers? Good question…. Well, our batteries are getting pretty well charged in the sun. This time of year, the solar panels can run mesh and small computers 24/7Continue reading “Baking Electronics”