Technical Articles

ICOM IC-2730A VHF/UHF FM Transceiver IC-2730A
Technical Articles

Going on Vacation? Great Options for Bringing Ham Radio Along for the Trip (Part 4)

Summer’s not over yet, so if you’re still planning on taking ham radio along with you on your well-deserved vacation, we’ve got some more ideas for getting the most out […]

Iron balun core
Technical Articles

Powdered-Iron Cores: How Do They Compare to Ferrite?

In an earlier OnAllBands article (“What Is Ferrite, Anyway?”) I explored the use of ferrite cores for chokes, baluns, and other amateur radio applications. In recent years, ferrite-core components like […]

phonetic alphabet
EMCOMM / Technical Articles

EMCOMM: ITU/NATO Phonetic Alphabet and Numbers

Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. Numbers are mostly pronounced […]

A screw terminal pinout illustration
Technical Articles

How to Check Rotators from the Ground

If you have ever stood at the base of a tower, looking forlornly upward, wondering “What’s WRONG with that [adjective] rotator?!” you are not alone. That simple piece of gear […]

A wire antenna signal performance illustration
Technical Articles

Feeding End-Fed Antennas

“End-fed” antennas, in particular the “End-Fed Half-Wave” (EFHW), are all the rage these days, particularly for portable operation. Throw a string over a tree branch, haul up one end, connect […]

ham radio FT8 software screen shot
FT8 / Technical Articles

FT8: What is JTAlert Software and How Can it Help with FT8 Mode?

So you’re getting the hang of this FT8 thing. You have almost all of the states and are just a few countries away from DXCC. You are learning these callsigns […]

Icom IC-705 ham radio transceiver
Technical Articles

A Change of Scenery: Portable Operating for Every Ham

The convenience of having a ham station at home is tough to beat. Being able to work stations at any time of day or night, without worrying about the cold […]

FT8 ham radio settings screen shot
FT8 / Technical Articles

FT8: Fox and Hound Mode

Fox and Hound mode, often shown as Fox/Hound or F/H, is also known as the DXpedition mode. This mode is a special operating feature that enables DXpeditions to make FT8 […]

a small portable wire antenna
Technical Articles

Going on Vacation? Great Options for Bringing Ham Radio Along for the Trip (Part 3)

In our first two posts offering suggestions for vacation-ready ham radio equipment, we looked at the AlexLoop HamPack Portable Magnetic Loop Antenna System and TransWorld Antenna Packages —excellent choices for […]

AlexLoop Ham Pack
Technical Articles

Going on Vacation? Great Options for Bringing Ham Radio Along for the Trip (Part 2)

In Part 1 of our series on great gear to take along on a vacation, we looked at HF Portable TransWorld Antennas—a proven option that’s ideal if you’re operating from […]