Gear

• 2026-09-13 — QRP VHF with the kv4p HT Android add-on — less than 1 watt through 125 feet of LMR400 and a GP9 antenna at about 20 feet reached a local repeater eight miles away.
• 2026-09-11 — Side-yard armstrong tilt rotator for ham radio, built from Marshalltown aluminum snap-button poles typically used for concrete floats.
• 2026-09-09 — Radios, hardware, and coffee is the comfort zone. The BTECH UV-PRO riding in the console, ready to go.
• 2026-08-16 — The ICOM ID-52A Plus D-STAR handheld went to auction and sold for $580, boxed up and on its way to a new owner in California.
• 2026-08-09 — First contact with the new BTECH UV-PRO, 146.520 simplex to KN4DND Tom, 18 miles out. Worked through the external Comet GP-9 at 12 feet rather than the stock antenna, so the distance says more about the antenna and the path than about the handheld. The UV-PRO is the new everyday carry radio.
• 2026-08-02 — After more than an hour trying to get HamClock to fill a 1366×768 screen on an old Dell laptop, the garage display went over to OpenHamClock too. The OpenHamClock setup guide has been verified and updated to match.
• 2026-07-27 — The original HamClock has stopped working — X-ray, Kp and weather panels all failing to connect, terrain map download failing. Time to look at switching over to OpenHamClock. See the OpenHamClock setup guide for the install that followed.
• 2026-07-26 — Cleaning up the aftermath out in the side yard: mast sections, coax and the MFJ end-fed transformers back into their cases. The unglamorous half of every activation.
• 2026-07-24 — Lunchtime ham radio, KR4DSL style: a Xiegu G90 propped on the console and a tablet decoding FT8 from the cab. Proof that a lunch break and a bit of wire are enough to get on the air.
• 2026-07-20 — One of the South Alabama POTA Posse rigs is down hard: WB4MBV’s station is out of its case and on the bench, boards and ribbon cables exposed. Part of the hobby nobody posts about as often as the contacts.
• 2026-07-20 — Wrote an article about VE6AB, SK. I admired Jerry’s trailer-hitch mast rotator online long before I found out he’d become a Silent Key. I never got to meet him, but I’ve been building on what he shared ever since — the full story is in The Mast Jerry Built: Remembering VE6AB.
• 2026-07-14 — Received as a gift: a Tektronix 2215A 60 MHz dual-trace oscilloscope, from fellow ham KW4OV. Powered on and showing a live trace right out of the box — the first real piece of equipment for a future test bench.
• 2026-07-06 — Mobile Hamradio Stuff.
• 2026-03-25 — Modified Par Electronics Six Meter Moxon.
• 2026-03-13 — Considered upgrading a Yaesu G5500 rotator for better accuracy — specifically weighing options for more precise EME moon tracking.
• 2026-03-10 — The basics of setting up your FT-891 for split operations.
• 2026-02-27 — Fixed it with a hammer — antenna switch relay #1 was stuck, tapped it, now it works.
• 2025-12-31 — Syncing FT-891, Quantum SDR, and Cloudlog through CloudlogCAT.
• 2025-12-30 — Added a PEP Kit from Matthews Watts Electronics to a Bird 43 Thruline Wattmeter.
• 2025-12-29 — Testing a QuantumSDR/FT-891/SDRSwitch/LNA/SG-500 combo with Klaus, DL3YEE, in Germany.
• 2025-12-27 — N2EME RXin/RXout SDR Switch, LNA, 3dB splitter, antenna, power supply, and transceiver connections.
• 2025-12-23 — First QSOs with an SGC Powercube 500W amplifier, discussed with W6LVP.
• 2025-08-28 — Workflow tip: a selection toggle in Ham2K PoLo Logger reformats ADI export filenames automatically for POTA submission, ending the manual renaming of every export.
• 2025-07-08 — Chasing K2G for the 13 Colonies event led to deeper use of HamClock, VOACAP, PSKReporter, propagation tools, spotting networks, and antenna performance — K2G was in the skip zone on 17m FT8, so the switch to 40m SSB is what closed it out. A fun learning experience.
• 2025-06-25 — A small shack upgrade: added a dedicated monitor for Winlink Wednesday sessions. A year into the weekly habit, still finding small ways to make it easier.
• 2025-01-26 — Winter Field Day 2025 (January 25–26), operating as N4MZ 2I AL — and it very nearly didn’t happen on schedule. South Alabama had taken a once-in-a-lifetime snowfall days earlier, with a county state of emergency and I-10 eastbound closed at exit 44. The satellite array went up on snow anyway. Highlights: an SSB satellite contact through RS-44 thanks to N2FYA (John), K4LLL running one of the N4MZ stations, and a contact through AO-07 — a satellite over 50 years old. The modified Hastings fiberglass quick-connect poles built to carry the satellite antennas worked great.
• 2024-06-10 — Tested a new 100Ah mobile power supply during a POTA activation: ran 50 watts SSB for about 30 minutes, reaching coast to coast on 20m plus a bonus DX QSO with Spain. The battery used only 3.5Ah.
• First HF contacts — Yaesu FT-891 with a Wolf River Coil, portable: worked 6 states and the Caribbean islands on the first test.
• 2024-01-29 — Winter Field Day gear notes: quiet, long-lasting generators, connectors organized in a tackle box, a Buddipole among seven-plus antennas in play. A great learning activity.
• 2024-01-28 — Winter Field Day 2024 (January 27–28) with the Baldwin County Amateur Radio Club (N4MZ) opened with a wet start in South Alabama — dodging lightning, plugging and unplugging as each wave came through. Once the weather let up I ran one of the club stations for a couple of hours, and a contact through FUNcube-1 (AO-73) went out on an Arrow antenna and IC-9700 — with FOX10 on site filming as it happened. Prep for the weekend included testing the portable station (two QSOs on 146.520) and guying a portable mast using Erik NonIdle’s method. Takeaways: quiet, long-running generators, connectors organized in a tackle box, and a Buddipole among the seven-plus antennas on site.
• 2024 — Mobile station upgraded to Yaesu FTM-300D and FT-891. First eBay project radio (ICOM IC-255A) brought online. VHF band opening reached stations in Alabama, Mississippi (246 mi), and Texas (621 mi) on 146.520 FM simplex.