Ham and Shortwave Radio
Is FT8 any good for Ecomms? The short answer is no, FT8 is not well suited for emergency communications because of its very short message payload size. Read on for a further explanation. In today’s world, we are surrounded by different forms of communication. From the use of smartphones, emails, and social media, communication has … Read more
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a research program that studies the Earth’s ionosphere, a region of the upper atmosphere that is affected by solar activity and other factors. The program is based at a research site in Gakona, Alaska, where researchers use radio transmitters to send signals into the ionosphere. The purpose … Read more
Cool beans! I just worked a rare DXpedition team in Benin, a not well-known country in Africa on FT8 mode using WSJT-X. This Russian team is pictured below, and I managed to capture the contact on video. It’s always fun to work a DXpedition. When I first saw this callsign TY0RU come up in my … Read more
Finally got around to exploring this cool little device – the WSPRLite The WSPRlite is a special test transmitter that sends a signal to a Worldwide network of receiving stations. When used with our web-based DXplorer system, it’s a powerful new way to evaluate antenna performance. Going way beyond antenna modeling or antenna analyzers, this … Read more
Today is dipped my toes into a whole new ham radio digital mode called JS8CALL. I recorded the transcript of the QSO below. As I did not know what I was doing, we did not get to exchange signal reports. What is JS8? JS8Call is a digital amateur radio mode that uses the modified KISS … Read more