Wago Terminals Make This Ham Radio Dipole Light And Packable

For the amateur radio operator with that on-the-go lifestyle, nothing is more important than having your gear as light and packable as possible. If you’re lugging even a modest setup out into…

Junk Box Build Helps Hams With SDR

SDRs have been a game changer for radio hobbyists, but for ham radio applications, they often need a little help. That’s especially true of SDR dongles, which don’t have a lot of select…

Schooling ChatGPT On Antenna Theory Misconceptions

We’re not very far into the AI revolution at this point, but we’re far enough to know not to trust AI implicitly. If you accept what ChatGPT or any of the other AI chatbots have to say …

Hackaday Links: October 20, 2024

When all else fails, there’s radio. Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction through Appalachia stripped away every shred of modern infrastructure in some areas, leaving millions of resid…

Is That Antenna Allowed? The Real Deal On The FCCs OTARD Rule

The Hackaday comments section is generally a lively place. At its best, it’s an endless wellspring of the combined engineering wisdom of millions of readers which serves to advance the state …

CW Not Hard Enough? Try This Tiny Paddle

For a long time, a Morse code proficiency was required to obtain an amateur radio license in many jurisdictions around the world, which was a much higher bar of entry than most new hams have to pas…

Coax Stub Filters Demystified

Unless you hold a First Degree RF Wizard rating, chances are good that coax stubs seem a bit baffling to you. They look for all the world like short circuits or open circuits, and yet work their ma…

Tiny Transceiver Gets It Done With One Transistor

When we first spotted the article about a one-transistor amateur radio transceiver, we were sure it was a misprint. We’ve seen a lot of simple low-power receivers using a single transistor, a…

Going Ham Mobile On A Bicycle

It’s said that “Golf is a good walk spoiled,” so is attaching an amateur radio to a bike a formula for spoiling a nice ride? Not according to [Wesley Pidhaychuk (VA5MUD)], a Canad…

UV-K5 All-Band Mod, Part 2: Easier Install, Better Audio, And Two Antennas

OK, it’s official: the Quansheng UV-K5 is the king of hackable ham radios — especially now that a second version of the all-band hardware and firmware mod has been released, not to ment…

A Super-Simple Standalone WSPR Beacon

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: being able to build your own radios is the best thing about being an amateur radio operator. Especially low-power transmitters; there’…

Passive Diplexer Makes One Antenna Act Like Two

Stay in the amateur radio hobby long enough and you might end up with quite a collection of antennas. With privileges that almost extend from DC to daylight, one antenna will rarely do everything, …

Matchbox Transceiver Pushes The Spy Radio Concept To Its Limits

The Altoids tin has long been the enclosure of choice for those seeking to show off their miniaturization chops. This is especially true for amateur radio homebrewers — you really have to kno…

Open HT Surgery Gives Cheap Transceiver All-Band Capabilities

Watch out, Baofeng; there’s a new kid on the cheap handy talkie market, and judging by this hardware and firmware upgrade to the Quansheng UV-K5, the radio’s hackability is going to kee…

HF In Small Spaces

Generally, the biggest problem a new ham radio operator will come across when starting out on the high frequency (HF) bands is finding physical space for the antennas. For a quick example, a dipole…