I could put this old tower to good use.

I spent a couple of days on the roads in Eastern Montana. While out there, I spotted this old abandoned house with a tower attached to it.  It is just begging to be put to good use once again.  And, I would be willing to be the one to put it to good use.  I’m not sure how I could find the owner, or how I would get it across the state; but it is something to keep my mind occupied for awhile anyway.  Click on the picture to see a larger view.  John

My little treasure from Moldova.

I recently went to Moldova on a short term missions trip. While there, I found a nice 24 hour clock for sale.  It is very large with the digits nearly two inches high, and the digits are very bright.  Although, it is wired with a European 240 Volt plug on it, it works fine on our 120 Volt, 60 Hz power.  It is a nice new addition to the Ham Radio Shack.

The 240 Volt European style plug will have to be changed.

I don’t normally copy posts from other blogs, but I thought this one was worth mentioning.  This is from the ARRL web site at http://arrl.org

Click the picture to see more.

I enjoy collecting old radios of any kind.  I came across this little gem today at a garage sale for only fifty cents.  It is a simple transistorized AM radio with a leatherette case that snaps closed on the back.  It runs on 110 Volts or with batteries.  The only marking on it is “Passport”; and I can find no model number or brand and internet searches come up with nothing.  It is a cute little radio that includes 6 transistors and 2 diodes.  I thought it was clever that they even listed the two diodes in their count of solid state devices.   Click the picture to see more pictures of the radio.

See http://www.transistor.org/ for a real nice collection of transistor radios.

I enjoy viewing each episode of AmateurLogic.TV when they come out. Episode number 21 has been out for a few weeks and I finally made some time to watch it.

AmateurLogic.TV is made by a group of three Ham Radio Operators, two here in the United States, and one in Australia.  They talk about most anything technical, and geeky; and of course much of their subject matter if from Ham Radio.

From their website:

Episode 21 features part one of a tour of the very interesting Australian Army’s Signals Museum. Tommy gives us a quick look at editing video. George introduces the MFJ-259B Antenna Analyzer and some of it’s capabilities. And Peter attends the Wireless Institute of Australia’s annual general meeting in Broken Hill where he also visits the “School of the Air”, the “Flying Doctors” and more.

It’s 1 hour and 10 minutes of Ham Radio entertainment.

Check out AmateurLogic.TV HERE.

Desire’ and I volunteered at the Governor’s Cup marathon race again this year. The races were on Saturday, June 6.  The Capital City Amateur Radio Club provides race communications each year.  Desire’, Lynn – K7WGR, and I – K7JM were stationed near Mill Road in Helena.  As you can see from the pictures, it was very cold and windy for us that were not running.  Some runners had almost nothing on, while others were bundled up pretty well.  We froze! John

Here are some photos of a simple power meter, and a QRP receiver and transmitter that I built in March and April of 2007.  All of them were from “Experimental Methods in RF design“.  I actually made a contact with another Ham Radio Operator using the setup exactly as shown in the photo with Morse Code.

I am testing out some video capabilities on this site. Here is a little entertaining clip. If you know how I love Ham Radio, you might get a chuckle out of this.

The February issue of QST arrived a couple of days ago. I have not had a chance to barely look at it; but it looks like there are some good articles. I also received the bi-monthly edition of QEX which is a publication for Ham experimenters put out by the ARRL. Hopefully, in the next couple of days, I will have some time to sit down and enjoy perusing these great magazines.