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...
Activation Report: Prairie Spirit Trail SP (POTA K-2350)
Although technically a Kansas State Park entity, the Prairie Spirit Trail State Park is actually a 51 mile trail that connects Ottawa and Iola, Kansas and replaces the old railroad that used to link the cities. Along the way, this trail brushes up against several city...
Activation Report: Hillsdale State Park (POTA K-2340)
As the first step on my mission to activate all Kansas State Parks for Parks on the Air, I decided to visit the park nearest to my home in the suburbs of Kansas City - Hillsdale State Park. This park has numerous RV and tent campsites as well as a few day areas spread...
Activating All Kansas State Parks on Satellites
MARCH 6, 2025 UPDATE: While I haven't made any progress on this since 2020, I have decided to restart my efforts in 2025 to visit each Kansas State Park and activate it on satellites. My goal is to complete the original mission by the end of...
Raspberry Pi METAR Ticker Display
When I was still in graduate school a few years ago, my office was in the center of a building which meant no windows and no way to quickly see the weather outside. This motivated me to make a project that would display the current weather on my desk. Being a pilot, I...
Arduino-Based Intervalometer for DSLR
I originally made this intervalometer to photograph the 2017 total solar eclipse. I wanted to make a portable and simple intervalometer out of parts I had laying around. I had a small enclosure with a front panel cut out for a keypad, LED, and switch from an old...
Remote Display over USB for Kenwood TH-D74
Although I really like the Kenwood TH-D74 for its long list of features, being an HT, the user interface is not well suited to satellite operations. In particular, for linear satellites where I may need to continuously vary the tuning throughout the pass, it is tough...
February 2020 Satellite Operations Gear
To track things over time, I thought I'd do an overview of my satellite gear as of February 2020. I actually have two different setups for satellite operations: one for the FM/APRS sats and one for the linear transponder sats. Since I do FM sats much more often, I've...
Shorty Arrow Satellite Antenna
After seeing a few people on Twitter with a a shortened Arrow Antenna for satellite operations (colloquially called a "Shorty Arrow"), I decided to try to build my own. Rather than three elements on 2m and seven elements on 70cm as with the regular Arrow Antenna, the...
USB Quick Charge 2.0 Adapter for 12V Non-Quick Charge-Enabled Devices
As I got interested in roving more for satellite operations, I was looking for ways to slim down the equipment I needed to carry, particularly on trips that require a flight. While packing one night, I noticed I had a Tronsmart WC2F USB power adapter that supports the...
Ham Radio on My Trip to Peru
Back in September, I took a trip to Peru with some college buddies. Although none of these friends are hams, it seemed obvious to me that this trip had to include some ham radio, so I decided to bring along my satellite gear. I started with visiting the ARRL website...
Collegiate Amateur Radio Initiative Monthly Webinar
Over the past few years, my brother and I have been volunteering with the ARRL to help lead the Collegiate Amateur Radio Initiative. Our efforts have mostly revolved around hosting a booth at Hamvention and leading forums at Hamvention and HamCation. Additionally, we...
Welcome to my new website!
Hi everyone! Welcome to my new blog/website. I'm planning to build this site out as a repository for my projects and ham radio activities. I also may write blog posts on my various interests. More info to come!