Technical Articles

Class C Diesel Motorhome
Technical Articles

Ham Radio to Go: Portable Hamming

Yes, you can take it with you. Today’s smaller transceivers and accessories allow you to operate from anywhere, whether it’s a cabin at the lake, a weekend at Uncle Joe’s, […]

MFJ SWR wattmeter combo gauge
Technical Articles

How to Choose a Wattmeter

Got Meter? Choosing the Right WattmeterRF inline power meters, or wattmeters, are used by many hams to measure the power flowing from the transceiver to the antenna–and also in the […]

rear view of a ham radio
Technical Articles

Making the CI-V Connection

CI-V stands for Computer Interface V (V representing the Roman numeral for 5 ). This is Icom’s name for its rig interface to a computer or to another rig. Other […]

icom ham radio IC-7300 screen
Technical Articles

How to Use RF Gain, Noise Blanker, and Other Transceiver Features to Improve Copy

There will always be some kind of ambient noise on the HF bands. It may be either man-made (QRM) such as pulse noises from vehicle ignitions or natural (QRN) like […]

Hamplus antenna switch box
Technical Articles

Choosing a Coax Switch

When it comes to ham radio, one radio is never enough. The same thing goes for antennas–multiple bands usually mean multiple antennas. Soon, you’ve got a maze of coax connections […]

Icom IC705 ham radio
Technical Articles

Using the Icom IC-705 in the Field

Now that summer is here and the pandemic is winding down, grab some radio gear and head outdoors. It’s the season for portable operations and finally getting out of couch-potato […]

home made photograph light box
Technical Articles

Building a Light Box for Ham Radio Photos

I enjoy sharing my experiences and projects by writing articles for several different amateur radio periodicals. All of the pictures used for my articles recently have been taken with my […]

LOTW Screen shot
Technical Articles

What is LoTW, Why Should You Sign Up for it, and How Do You Use it?

When I started out in Amateur Radio 40 years ago this summer, there were basically three ways to exchange a written confirmation of a contact (a QSL card): Mail your […]

large Yagi antenna
Antenna Tech / Technical Articles

Antenna Traps—A Way to Cope With Limited Space

The downsizing of real estate these days reminds me of Halloween candy. Candy bars used to be big, but now they’ve shrunk to something they call “fun size.” Today’s properties […]

heil sound headset mic
Technical Articles

HAM Radio Tech: How Headphones and Headsets Can Improve Your Copy

Are you tired of spending time on the air struggling to copy the person on the other end of the conversation? Do barking dogs and noisy kids distract you from […]