History
Adventures in Strange Lands
In 1954 I was working in Greenland at an Air Force base called Sondre Stromfjord. Built during World War II it was given the code designator “BLUIE WEST EIGHT or BW-8” The base was about a hundred miles up a long, deep fjord on the western (Baffin Bay) side of Greenland. The airstrip itself was […]
Morse Code: The original “texting”
Morse code is a very strange type of communications. At first glance it appears as simply a substitution of dots and dashes for the letters of the alphabet. But then, as you get into it, Morse reveals all the twists and side tracks and inconsistencies of any foreign language. And, let me tell you from […]
Alaska Adventures: Getting Wheels
There are many little adventures that I barely remember about my ham radio and other activities in Alaska. Here are a few of them. Charlie Bellman, whose call I think was W9KMH, was in charge of the motor pool. He and I had one good adventure. Now understand that no one had a private vehicle […]
Alaska Antenna Adventures: Beer Cans and Moose!
My adventures in Alaska were a great introduction to “home brew” construction. Antennas are a big “do it yourself” area. You build it, you adjust it, you re-build it, you make it perfect, and in the next ice storm it comes down!!! That was in 1948. I find myself going through the same cycle today, […]
The Oculus
We designed the inside of our dome as an upside-down house. The downstairs would be divided up into two bedrooms, a utility room, and a large bathroom. The kitchen and living areas would be upstairs––the small kitchen in the center. Mark’s ham shack would occupy a quarter of the pie, at least as much as […]
Alaska 1948: Stove Cold!
That stirs up some memories — thinking of my adventures in Alaska in the late 1940’s. My ham radio station was built in a Quonset hut which I lived in and shared with 3 other guys. This is a sheet steel half tube some 16 ft across and 32 ft long resting on 4 ft […]
The Small Dome
We just closed up the “small dome” for winter. It doesn’t take too much work. We make sure the windows are all shut and locked, that the kitchen sink drain gets blown out, and that anti-freeze is poured into it as well as into the toilet. We sweep up a bit, wipe off the counter […]
The Ups and Downs of Sunspot Cycles
The good news is that the 10 meter band is wide open. The bad news is that I have low power (100 watts) on 10 meters and no antenna. Wait! Wait! The good news is that my vertical antenna for the 40 meter band loads up swell on 10 meters. And you can go around […]
The Land Has Spoken
After we bought our property we still had no idea what type of house we’d build. We’d speak of the “mountain house”, but with no grand vision of how it would look, or how big it would be. It would just be for get-aways and therefore probably a fairly small place. Nothing fancy. After all, […]
Putting the “human” back into human interfaces
In the latest QST, Frank Columbus, WA2KWR, writes the following: “— I find the current lot of handheld and mobile Amateur Radios to be overly complex.” Frank goes on for a page describing the failure of modern radios to provide a workable human interface. His words echo mine of a decade or so ago. Those […]