Why ham radio?

Occasionally people ask me a question about ham radio that could be summarized as “why?” Why ham radio? Why are you standing in a parking lot with a bunch of electronic gear hung over your body and a big antenna in your hand aimed to space just to talk to someone a few states over? […]

ARISS reception opportunity over US east coast Thursday morning

A school in Sweden is talking to the International Space Station through a telebridge station in Maryland at 11:12:55 UTC on Thursday March 15th. That’s 7:12am EDT so many people might be able to hear it on their morning commute. They will be using the Kenwood TM-D710E which puts out 50 watts, much more than […]

New page on audio cable for Kenwood HT

I made a new page (not a blog) on the audio cable I use for my Kenwood TH-D2 https://spacecomms.wordpress.com/audio-cable-for-kenwood-th-d72/

New Video! Our ARISS Contact Part 1

How I got involved with a helping a school talk to an astronaut on the ISS. Please subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/SpaceComms1?sub_confirmation=1 Custom PCs from Nordic PC: https://nordicpc.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnbrier The contact has officially been scheduled: Moore Square AIG/GT Magnet School, Raleigh, NC, direct via KG4AKV The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS (***) The scheduled […]

AMSAT-BB versus every Linux mailing list

On AMSAT-BB, sometimes people ask for someone to call them on the phone and walk them through things. And people actually do it. On Linux and other open source mailing lists, when people ask basic questions they’re told to “read the f*cking manual, noob.” [1] My first experiences in a technical field were in the […]

Just Launched AO-91 Will be a Great Bird

AO-91 is an FM repeater [1] satellite with a strong 2 meter downlink (receivable with a rubber duck) and an incredibly sensitive receive system on the 70 cm uplink. There are reports of people getting into the bird using a handheld inside a house. That is incredible. If there are no issues, this will likely […]

24 Hours Left for ISS SSTV Award

If you want to get an ARISS SSTV award for receiving the SSTV images from the ISS in July of this year you need to apply very very soon. Even though the original announcement said the window extended until the end of the year, the administrator of the program […]