Blog
2025 VP5/KD8RTT DXpedition Debrief
I am now back from my Turks and Caicos trip and settled with all my logs uploaded. It was a great vacation with plenty of beach time, exploring, and enjoying a respite from the cold Kansas City winter. While my daily update posts shed a little light on the trip, I...
2025 VP5/KD8RTT DXpedition Debrief
I am now back from my Turks and Caicos trip and settled with all my logs uploaded. It was a great vacation with plenty of beach time, exploring, and enjoying a respite from the cold Kansas City winter. While my daily update posts shed a little light on the trip, I...
VP5/KD8RTT 2/1 Update
Yesterday was a productive day for radio. I jumped on ISS FM and RS-44 passes and made a few contacts on the former. I was able to get into RS-44 just but was not able to complete a sked with a German ham as hoped. I also got on HF for about an hour and a half last...
VP5/KD8RTT 1/31 Update
Yesterday was a busy day of sea kayaking, exploring the Grace Bay shops, and checking out the Island Fish Fry, so I had no time allocated for radio. I still managed about an hour on 20m FT8 🙂 I only worked around twenty stations using a tuned wire strung up outside...
VP5/KD8RTT 1/30 Update
We spent yesterday at the beach and exploring the island. I was able to try RS-44 at 1808z, but was not able to make any contacts; while I was able to find myself on the downlink, my CQs were never full audible. There may be some interference at play. I also tried the...
VP5/KD8RTT 1/29 Update
I’ve made it to Turks and Caicos! After a relatively smooth travel day, we settled into our condo last evening. I was able to string up a quick wire on the porch and work a few stations on 30m FT8. More HF operations will happen this week in that style, likely in the...
Activation Report: Cuyahoga Valley National Park (POTA US-0020)
My brother Andy, KK4LWR, and I decided to do a quick activation of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park the day after Christmas as we were both in Cleveland visiting our parents for the holiday. My goal was to test out my FT-817, QBV 20/40m vertical antenna, and my...
Upcoming Turks and Caicos Islands DXpedition (VP5/KD8RTT)
From January 28th through February 2nd, 2025, I will be visiting the Turks and Caicos islands for vacation and will be bringing radio equipment with me for holiday-style satellite and HF operations. My main radio focus will be on satellites, FM, APRS, and SSB, but I...
Ham Shack Lightning Alerter with Raspberry Pi Pico
Our work amateur radio club, WA0RC, is very lucky in that we have been given a dedicated room for a club shack and have roof access. However, it is in what used to be a mechanical room, and as such, it is in the middle of the building with no windows. This means there...
2024 Kansas QSO Party and POTA US-2345 Report
For this year's Kansas QSO Party, I participated again as a 1x1 station, K0B, traveling around central Kansas. Unlike previous years, I decided to make only two stops and enter under the new "Expedition" category. This meant visiting one location on Saturday and a...
Replacing Antenna Switch Relay in Yaesu FT-817
I recently bought an old FT-817 with the intent of using it to get back on the linear satellites. Upon receiving it, I found that no matter which connector I set the antenna output to (front or rear), it always transmitted from the rear SO-239 antenna connector. As my...
QMX Portable Clipboard Setup
I've seen several ham radio clipboard mounting solutions aimed at portable operations like POTA and SOTA, so I thought I'd take a shot at making my own for my QRP Labs QMX, American Morse Equipment Mini-B Paddle, and NiMH battery pack (affiliate link). I took an old...
2024 Field Day Report
For Field Day this year, I participated in the Waypoint Amateur Radio Club, WA0RC, operations from the club shack. WA0RC is the club of Garmin employees in Olathe, Kansas, and has a new, dedicated shack space that was just opened earlier this year. We previously had a...