Low-Cost RF Power Sensor Gets All The Details Right

Dirty little secret time: although amateur radio operators talk a good game about relishing the technical challenge of building their own radio equipment, what’s really behind all the DIY gea…

Tiny Three-Tube Receiver Completes Spy Radio Suite

In our surface-mount age, it’s easy to be jaded about miniaturization. We pretty much expect every circuit to be dimensionally optimized, something that’s easy to do when SMDs that riva…

Your Multimeter Might Be Lying To You

Multimeters are indispensable tools when working on electronics. It’s almost impossible to build any but the most basic of circuits without one to test and troubleshoot potential issues, and …

Arbitrary Code Execution Over Radio

Computers connected to networks are constantly threatened by attackers who seek to exploit vulnerabilities wherever they can find them. This risk is particularly high for machines connected to the …

Hackaday Links: April 2, 2023

It may be hard to believe, but it’s time for the Hackaday Prize again! The 2023 Hackaday Prize was announced last weekend at Hackaday Berlin, and entries are already pouring in. The first-rou…

Two-Tube Spy Transmitter Fits In The Palm Of Your Hand

It’s been a long time since vacuum tubes were cutting-edge technology, but that doesn’t mean they don’t show up around here once in a while. And when they do, we like to feature t…

Hams Watch For Meteors

After passing an exam and obtaining a license, an amateur radio operator will typically pick up a VHF ratio and start talking to other hams in their local community. From there a whole array of pat…

Long-Distance Gaming Over Packet Radio

The amateur radio community often gets stereotyped as a hobby with a minimum age requirement around 70, gatekeeping airwaves from those with less experience or simply ignoring unfamiliar beginners.…

Enormous Metal Sculpture Becomes An Antenna

Those who have worked with high voltage know well enough that anything can be a conductor at high enough voltages. Similarly, amateur radio operators will jump at any chance to turn a random object…

Antenna Hidden In Holiday Lights Skirts HOA Rules

For all their supposed benefits, homeowner’s associations (HOAs) have a reputation of quickly turning otherwise quaint neighborhoods into a sort of Stanford prison experiment, as those who ge…

Hunting For Space Pirates

Ever since the first artificial satellite was launched into orbit, radio operators around the world have been tuning in to their space-based transmissions. Sputnik 1 only sent back pulses of radio …

A Linux Distro For All Your Ham Needs

For anyone new to the world of ham radio, one of the things that takes a little getting used to is visiting the websites of authoritative experts in various fields and feeling like you’ve tra…

Translating And Broadcasting Spoken Morse Code

When the first radios and telegraph lines were put into service, essentially the only way to communicate was to use Morse code. The first transmitters had extremely inefficient designs by today&#82…

Hackaday Links: December 25, 2022

Looks like it’s lights out on Mars for the InSight lander. The solar-powered lander’s last selfie, sent back in April, showed a thick layer of dust covering everything, including the la…

Getting To The Heart Of A Baofeng

In amateur radio circles, almost no single piece of equipment serves as more of a magnet for controversy than the humble Baofeng handheld transceiver. It’s understandable — the radio is…

Direction-Finding With Help From The Steam Deck

Direction-finding, or fox hunting, is a popular activity in ham radio circles where a group of people armed with radios attempt to locate a broadcasting source. Besides being a hobby for amateurs, …

Making Variable Capacitors By Stretching Aluminium Cans

Sometimes when you need a component, the best way to get it is by building it yourself. [North Carolina Prepper] did just that, creating his own trombone-style variable capacitor by stretching some…

Bringing Some Discipline To An SDR Transmitter

The proliferation of software-defined radio (SDR) technology has been a godsend for RF hobbyists. SDR-based receivers and transmitters have gotten so cheap that you’ve probably got a stick or…