#hamradio — Public Fediverse posts

ICYMI: POTA On the Road to Hamvention #hamradio #pota #hamvention https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jgwIJ-VtJNw?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

𝗦𝗩𝟴/𝗗𝗙𝟴𝗔𝗡, 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗶ó𝗻 𝗜𝗢𝗧𝗔 𝗘𝗨-𝟬𝟳𝟮 https://buff.ly/XClk0qR #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗦𝗩𝟴/𝗗𝗙𝟴𝗔𝗡, 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗶ó𝗻 𝗜𝗢𝗧𝗔 𝗘𝗨-𝟬𝟳𝟮 https://buff.ly/XClk0qR #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗦𝗩𝟴/𝗗𝗙𝟴𝗔𝗡, 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗶ó𝗻 𝗜𝗢𝗧𝗔 𝗘𝗨-𝟬𝟳𝟮 https://buff.ly/XClk0qR #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗦𝗩𝟴/𝗗𝗙𝟴𝗔𝗡, 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗶ó𝗻 𝗜𝗢𝗧𝗔 𝗘𝗨-𝟬𝟳𝟮 https://buff.ly/XClk0qR #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗧𝟴𝟴𝗥𝗥, 𝗣𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘂 https://buff.ly/gNWzJbk #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗧𝟴𝟴𝗥𝗥, 𝗣𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘂 https://buff.ly/gNWzJbk #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗧𝟴𝟴𝗥𝗥, 𝗣𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘂 https://buff.ly/gNWzJbk #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗧𝟴𝟴𝗥𝗥, 𝗣𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘂 https://buff.ly/gNWzJbk #hamradio #dx #hamr

HF Band Report – 2026-05-14 04:00

https://proe.whimm.ing/hf-band-report-2026-05-14-0400/

From AD0WE's QRZ page, I found The Art and Skill of Radio-Telegraphy by N0HFF, which is the first Morse Code learning resource I've read that recommends a practice that I started doing naturally: vividly imagining morse as a learning technique.

Sit quietly in a chair, close your eyes, relax, and imagine you are hearing each letter sound (just as you heard it), taking them one at a time, and immediately recognizing it or writing it down with a pencil. Make the picture as realistic and vivid as you can, even to imagining the "feeling" the pencil writing on the paper. Feel a sense of satisfaction of doing it right. Three to five minutes practice this way at any one time is probably enough. You can then repeat this kind of mental practice with each new group of characters as you learn them, and it will greatly strengthen the habit you are trying to build.

I practice both sending and receiving code with vivid imagination. To this day, I have trouble with D/B and B/6, and I have improved by vividly imagining hearing them and speaking (rather than writing) them, but I do this practice with all symbols. I also vividly imagine sending. I'll use memorized text, and imagine sending the whole thing, down to imagining feeling the particular key I'm imagining that I'm using between my thumb and fingers.

I have found this practice helpful.

#HamRadio #MorseCode #CW

In my newest slightly chaotic video, I briefly show how to use FlexPacket with TFKISS and Bluetooth.

https://youtu.be/VDzUPQ77V4c

#packetradio #hamradio #amateurradio #linux #opensource #ax25

HF Band Report – 2026-05-13 16:00

https://proe.whimm.ing/hf-band-report-2026-05-13-1600/

𝗟𝗮 𝗤𝘀𝗹 𝗱𝗲 𝟯𝗗𝟮𝗝𝗞, 𝗙𝗶𝗷𝗶 𝗜𝘀. https://buff.ly/KeXLKOM #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗟𝗮 𝗤𝘀𝗹 𝗱𝗲 𝟯𝗗𝟮𝗝𝗞, 𝗙𝗶𝗷𝗶 𝗜𝘀. https://buff.ly/KeXLKOM #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗟𝗮 𝗤𝘀𝗹 𝗱𝗲 𝟯𝗗𝟮𝗝𝗞, 𝗙𝗶𝗷𝗶 𝗜𝘀. https://buff.ly/KeXLKOM #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗟𝗮 𝗤𝘀𝗹 𝗱𝗲 𝟯𝗗𝟮𝗝𝗞, 𝗙𝗶𝗷𝗶 𝗜𝘀. https://buff.ly/KeXLKOM #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗟𝗮 𝗤𝘀𝗹 𝗱𝗲 𝟯𝗗𝟮𝗝𝗞, 𝗟𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗯𝗮 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗢𝗖-𝟬𝟵𝟱 https://buff.ly/Ejh3lCU #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗟𝗮 𝗤𝘀𝗹 𝗱𝗲 𝟯𝗗𝟮𝗝𝗞, 𝗟𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗯𝗮 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗢𝗖-𝟬𝟵𝟱 https://buff.ly/Ejh3lCU #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗟𝗮 𝗤𝘀𝗹 𝗱𝗲 𝟯𝗗𝟮𝗝𝗞, 𝗟𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗯𝗮 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗢𝗖-𝟬𝟵𝟱 https://buff.ly/Ejh3lCU #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗟𝗮 𝗤𝘀𝗹 𝗱𝗲 𝟯𝗗𝟮𝗝𝗞, 𝗟𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗯𝗮 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗢𝗖-𝟬𝟵𝟱 https://buff.ly/Ejh3lCU #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝟵𝗧𝟬𝗠𝗗, 𝗥. 𝗗. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗼 𝗗𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 https://buff.ly/45mDgXv #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝟵𝗧𝟬𝗠𝗗, 𝗥. 𝗗. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗼 𝗗𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 https://buff.ly/45mDgXv #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝟵𝗧𝟬𝗠𝗗, 𝗥. 𝗗. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗼 𝗗𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 https://buff.ly/45mDgXv #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝟵𝗧𝟬𝗠𝗗, 𝗥. 𝗗. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗼 𝗗𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 https://buff.ly/45mDgXv #hamradio #dx #hamr

Spectral Filth: Clean Up Your Signal or Shut it Down

1,563 words, 8 minutes read time.

The spectrum is a finite piece of territory, and right now, you’re squatting on it like a man who doesn’t know how to clean his own house. Amateur radio used to be the domain of builders—men who understood that every watt of power was a responsibility. Now, the bands are crawling with appliance operators who treat their rigs like smartphones. They buy a cheap, unbranded box from overseas, hook it up to a sub-par antenna, and start spraying RF across the band like a broken sewer pipe. This isn’t just a technical oversight; it’s a failure of discipline. If your transmitter is throwing spurious emissions, you aren’t a radio operator. You’re a source of pollution. You are the high-frequency equivalent of a neighbor who lets his trash blow into everyone else’s yard. It’s time to stop making excuses, stop blaming the ionosphere for your lack of reach, and start looking at the cold, hard physics of what is actually coming out of your feedline.

THE GUTLESS REALITY OF NON-LINEAR TRASH

When you push a signal through an amplifier, you’re engaging in a fight with physics. If that amplifier isn’t biased correctly—if you’re driving it into saturation because you’re obsessed with the “100W” glowing on your meter—you are creating harmonics. These are the bastard children of your fundamental frequency. You think you’re sitting pretty on 7.150 MHz, but because your hardware is junk or your settings are sloppy, you’re also screaming on 14.300 MHz and 21.450 MHz. This is non-linear distortion, and it is the mark of a man who hasn’t mastered his tools. A real operator knows that the “final” in his radio is a delicate balance of current and voltage. When you push it too hard, the peaks flatten out, the sine wave turns into a jagged mess, and the resulting spectral splatter is an embarrassment. You aren’t just taking up more space than you’re entitled to; you’re stepping on the weak-signal guys three states over who are actually trying to do something meaningful with their license. If you can’t run a clean signal at full power, back the gain off. Mastery isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room; it’s about being the most precise.

SHIELDING, STRAY INDUCTANCE, AND THE COST OF LAZINESS

RF is a restless beast. It doesn’t want to stay on the copper traces of your PCB. It wants to radiate from every unshielded wire, every loose screw, and every poorly grounded chassis. If your hardware looks like a bird’s nest inside, you have already lost the war. Spurious emissions aren’t always harmonics; sometimes they’re parasitic oscillations—high-frequency ghosts born from the stray inductance of long lead wires and the lack of proper bypassing. When you skimp on the build quality, or when you use a switching power supply that hasn’t been filtered for common-mode noise, you are inviting filth into your signal. You wouldn’t drive a car with a leaking fuel line, so why are you operating a radio that leaks RF from its own casing? Every milliwatt that doesn’t go out the antenna port as a clean fundamental frequency is a milliwatt that is working against you. It creates RFI in your own shack, it trips your GFCI breakers, and it makes you a nuisance to your neighbors. You need to understand the mechanics of shielding. A chassis isn’t just a box to hold the components; it’s a Faraday cage. If you’ve compromised that cage because you were too lazy to tighten the bolts or use proper EMI gaskets, you are the problem.

THE GATEKEEPERS: BUYING VS. BUILDING YOUR DEFENSES

If you’re running a high-power station—pushing a kilowatt or more—you don’t play games with homebrew experiments unless you have the lab equipment to back it up. At those levels, the heat and reactive power in a filter are enough to turn cheap components into shrapnel. You buy a commercial Low-Pass Filter (LPF) from the outfits that build them like tanks—Bencher, Barker & Williamson, or DX Engineering. You’re looking for a heavy-duty, shielded enclosure that guarantees at least 50dB to 60dB of attenuation at the second harmonic. This is your “Master Gatekeeper.” It’s the insurance policy that keeps your high-power harmonics from bleeding into every television and radio in a three-block radius. Buying a filter isn’t an admission of defeat; it’s a strategic decision to use a tested, calibrated tool to protect the integrity of the bands. However, if you want to call yourself a master of this craft, you eventually have to build. For low-power rigs or specialized band-pass needs, building your own filter is where the theory becomes reality. You don’t use junk-box parts. You use precision-wound toroids—T50-2 or T60-6 powdered iron—and high-voltage Silver Mica or NP0 capacitors. If you use cheap ceramic discs, your filter’s cutoff frequency will drift as soon as the components get warm, and you’ll watch your SWR climb while your signal turns back into trash. Building a Chebyshev or Elliptic filter forces you to understand the relationship between inductance and capacitance. It’s a rite of passage. But remember: you never put a homebrew filter on the air without verification. You use a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) to sweep that circuit and prove it’s doing its job. You verify the insertion loss and you confirm the stopband. If you can’t prove it’s clean on the bench, it doesn’t touch the antenna.

Whether you buy it or build it, the responsibility for what leaves your shack stops with you. You wouldn’t drive a truck with no mufflers through a quiet neighborhood at 3 AM, so don’t be the operator who thinks it’s okay to spray wide-band noise across the spectrum because you were too lazy to install a filter. A clean signal is the signature of a disciplined man. It shows you respect the physics of the medium and the rights of every other operator on the air. If you’re too cheap to buy a filter and too lazy to build one, do the world a favor and stay off the mic. The airwaves are a shared resource, not your personal dumping ground. Every time you key up, your reputation is on the line. Are you a technical asset, or are you just more noise? Real operators don’t guess; they measure. They don’t hope; they verify. Master your hardware, tighten your shielding, and for the sake of the hobby, clean up your signal. If you can’t operate with technical integrity, you shouldn’t be operating at all. Solder the solution or shut it down.

SECURE THE SPECTRUM: LOCK DOWN YOUR SIGNAL INTEGRITY NOW

Stop being a spectator in your own shack. If you’ve spent more time looking at the price tag of your rig than the spectral purity of its output, you’re part of the problem. Your license isn’t a trophy; it’s a mandate to maintain technical excellence. If you aren’t checking your footprint, you’re just another lid adding to the noise floor.

Here is your mission:

• Audit your signal: Stop trusting the factory sticker. Put your rig on a dummy load, grab a VNA or a spectrum analyzer, and prove to yourself that your second and third harmonics aren’t bleeding into territory where they don’t belong.
• Kill the noise: If you find filth, fix it. Solder a low-pass filter, choke your lines with real ferrites, and tighten every screw on your chassis until that Faraday cage is airtight.
• Educate the soft: When you hear an operator splashing across the band with a dirty signal, don’t just complain about it on a forum. Direct him to the physics. Demand better from your local club.

The grid is fragile and the noise floor is rising. We need operators who are assets, not liabilities. Clean up your signal today, or pull the plug. The airwaves don’t owe you a thing—you owe them your discipline. Own your frequency or get off it.

D. Bryan King

Sources

• FCC Part 97 Amateur Radio Service Rules
• ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications
• ARRL Technical Information Service: Spurious Emissions
• Low Pass Filter Basics for Radio Transmitters
• Design of Low Pass Filters for Amateur Radio
• Microwaves101: Spurious Emissions Encyclopedia
• RF Biasing for Linear Power Amplifiers
• Analog Devices: Understanding and Eliminating Spurious Emissions
• Rohde & Schwarz: Measuring Spurious Emissions Application Note
• Keysight: Spectrum Analysis Basics
• Mini-Circuits: Intro to RF Filters
• W8JI: RF Amplifier Design and Testing
• Understanding Intermodulation Distortion (IMD)
• RF Cafe: Harmonic Distortion and Suppression
• HamRadio.me: Harmonics and Effective Radiated Power
• DX Engineering: Low Pass Filter Technical Specs
• W8JI: Station Grounding and RF Interference
• ARRL: FCC Part 97 Section 307 – Emission Standards
• VK6YSF: 7-Pole Chebyshev Low Pass Filter Design
• Nuts & Volts: Understanding RF Filter Design
• TinySA Wiki: Measuring Harmonics and Spurious Signals
• VNA for Everyone: Testing RF Filters
• OnAllBands: Low Pass Filters and TVI Defense
• G3LSW: Practical Filter Construction for Hams
• ARRL: Clean Up Your Signal – Reducing RFI
• METAS: High Precision VNA Measurements
• RF Design Guide: Intermodulation and Harmonics
• Collins Radio: Historical Amateur Engineering Manuals
• ITU-R SM.329: Unwanted Emissions in the Spurious Domain
• Amateur Radio Wiki: Low Pass Filter Theory

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. The information provided is based on personal research, experience, and understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing. Readers should consult relevant experts or authorities for specific guidance related to their unique situations.

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🏭 Rückblick: Das F60 als Notfunk-Gelände beim 4. Ausbildungswochenende – unvergesslich.

2026 geht es weiter – in Sankt Michaelisdonn!

6. Notfunk-Ausbildungswochenende | 22.–25. Mai 2026
👉 https://events.darc.de/nfawe-05-2026/ 📍

#Notfunk #Amateurfunk #emcom #hamradio #darc

🏭 Rückblick: Das F60 als Notfunk-Gelände beim 4. Ausbildungswochenende – unvergesslich.

2026 geht es weiter – in Sankt Michaelisdonn!

6. Notfunk-Ausbildungswochenende | 22.–25. Mai 2026
👉 https://events.darc.de/nfawe-05-2026/ 📍

#Notfunk #Amateurfunk #emcom #hamradio #darc

HF Band Report – 2026-05-13 04:00

https://proe.whimm.ing/hf-band-report-2026-05-13-0400/

HF Band Report – 2026-05-13 04:00

https://proe.whimm.ing/hf-band-report-2026-05-13-0400/

#CW practice continues using mostly LCWO and also the IZ2UUF Morse Koch CW app. The characters are coming back to me and I feel like I am progressing. Some days I can copy faster code than other days.

#hamradio
#amateurradio

HF Band Report – 2026-05-12 16:00

https://proe.whimm.ing/hf-band-report-2026-05-12-1600/

I've added Bluetooth support to the decades old tfkiss software. 🥳

https://github.com/andreaspeters/tfkiss

#hamradio #amateurradio #opensource #linux #ax25 #packetradio

𝗘𝟮𝟱𝗩𝗥𝗖/𝗣, 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗔𝗦-𝟭𝟮𝟱 https://buff.ly/ej4FZ2s #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗘𝟮𝟱𝗩𝗥𝗖/𝗣, 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗔𝗦-𝟭𝟮𝟱 https://buff.ly/ej4FZ2s #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗘𝟮𝟱𝗩𝗥𝗖/𝗣, 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗔𝗦-𝟭𝟮𝟱 https://buff.ly/ej4FZ2s #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝗘𝟮𝟱𝗩𝗥𝗖/𝗣, 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗔𝗦-𝟭𝟮𝟱 https://buff.ly/ej4FZ2s #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝟳𝗙𝟴𝗥𝗡𝗖, 𝗦𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘄𝗲𝘀𝗶 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗢𝗖-𝟭𝟰𝟲 https://buff.ly/soPnqtk #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝟳𝗙𝟴𝗥𝗡𝗖, 𝗦𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘄𝗲𝘀𝗶 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗢𝗖-𝟭𝟰𝟲 https://buff.ly/soPnqtk #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝟳𝗙𝟴𝗥𝗡𝗖, 𝗦𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘄𝗲𝘀𝗶 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗢𝗖-𝟭𝟰𝟲 https://buff.ly/soPnqtk #hamradio #dx #hamr

𝟳𝗙𝟴𝗥𝗡𝗖, 𝗦𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘄𝗲𝘀𝗶 𝗜𝘀. / 𝗢𝗖-𝟭𝟰𝟲 https://buff.ly/soPnqtk #hamradio #dx #hamr

NEVER ATTACK the #FreeSoftware / #OpenSource software community if your customer base is exclusively the #Maker community! They have a huge overlap. You might as well shutter your business instead.

Just imagine irking Jeff Geerling (@geerlingguy) and Louis Rossmann at the same time! #BambuLab

https://youtu.be/eb48MdtNaDQ
https://youtu.be/qLLVn6XT7v0

BTW, the same applies to the #HomeLab, #SelfHosting, #HamRadio, #Keeb, #OpenHardware, #DIY and any other make-a-thingy communities.

NEVER ATTACK the #FreeSoftware / #OpenSource software community if your customer base is exclusively the #Maker community! They have a huge overlap. You might as well shutter your business instead.

Just imagine irking Jeff Geerling (@geerlingguy) and Louis Rossmann at the same time! #BambuLab

https://youtu.be/eb48MdtNaDQ
https://youtu.be/qLLVn6XT7v0

BTW, the same applies to the #HomeLab, #SelfHosting, #HamRadio, #Keeb, #OpenHardware, #DIY and any other make-a-thingy communities.

NEVER ATTACK the #FreeSoftware / #OpenSource software community if your customer base is exclusively the #Maker community! They have a huge overlap. You might as well shutter your business instead.

Just imagine irking Jeff Geerling (@geerlingguy) and Louis Rossmann at the same time! #BambuLab

https://youtu.be/eb48MdtNaDQ
https://youtu.be/qLLVn6XT7v0

BTW, the same applies to the #HomeLab, #SelfHosting, #HamRadio, #Keeb, #OpenHardware, #DIY and any other make-a-thingy communities.

NEVER ATTACK the #FreeSoftware / #OpenSource software community if your customer base is exclusively the #Maker community! They have a huge overlap. You might as well shutter your business instead.

Just imagine irking Jeff Geerling (@geerlingguy) and Louis Rossmann at the same time! #BambuLab

https://youtu.be/eb48MdtNaDQ
https://youtu.be/qLLVn6XT7v0

BTW, the same applies to the #HomeLab, #SelfHosting, #HamRadio, #Keeb, #OpenHardware, #DIY and any other make-a-thingy communities.

NEVER ATTACK the #FreeSoftware / #OpenSource software community if your customer base is exclusively the #Maker community! They have a huge overlap. You might as well shutter your business instead.

Just imagine irking Jeff Geerling (@geerlingguy) and Louis Rossmann at the same time! #BambuLab

https://youtu.be/eb48MdtNaDQ
https://youtu.be/qLLVn6XT7v0

BTW, the same applies to the #HomeLab, #SelfHosting, #HamRadio, #Keeb, #OpenHardware, #DIY and any other make-a-thingy communities.

TIL that @howardu , my alma mater, had a #hamradio station back in 1934! Here’s an article about W3EKJ in the 2/23/1934 The Hilltop student newspaper. #HBCU #BlackMastodon

TIL that @howardu , my alma mater, had a #hamradio station back in 1934! Here’s an article about W3EKJ in the 2/23/1934 The Hilltop student newspaper. #HBCU #BlackMastodon

TIL that @howardu , my alma mater, had a #hamradio station back in 1934! Here’s an article about W3EKJ in the 2/23/1934 The Hilltop student newspaper. #HBCU #BlackMastodon

TIL that @howardu , my alma mater, had a #hamradio station back in 1934! Here’s an article about W3EKJ in the 2/23/1934 The Hilltop student newspaper. #HBCU #BlackMastodon