I had a great time volunteering with @HamRadioVillage@defcon.social at #defcon. I tried to do all of the things so I spent time as a VE, at the contest table, the GOTA station, and answering questions in the village.
SSB wasn't working great but we had good results doing FT8. If you made a contact with K3K over the weekend, thank you!

#amateurRadio #hamRadio

(1/x)

mastodon.radio

Troy - KD3BTG @KD3BTG@mastodon.radio

· 1mo ago

I am on the air for the next hour or so. (Currently 16:40 UTC) if anyone wants to try to have a not very fast CW QSO, reply back

Troy - KD3BTG @KD3BTG@mastodon.radio

· 2mo ago

I’m at #defcon #defcon34 helping in the #HamRadioVillage

Set your ham alerts or watch your spotters for out GOTA station #K3K. You can help a potential new ham make their first contact on the air, including younger hackers from the #DCNextGen program.
We will be running SSB from 1700 UTC to 0100 UTC on Aug 7-8 and maybe for a few hours on the 9th as well.

Looks up on QRZ for more details and give us a call! You might even hear me for a couple hours on the 8th.

mastodon.radio

Troy - KD3BTG @KD3BTG@mastodon.radio

· 1mo ago

It seems like it might be pretty easy to put a #hamradio #amateurradio #aprs or perhaps #lora tracker on my son’s bike to be able to track where he is on a race course but I am having a tough time figuring out what I would need to do that.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a good how-to?

mastodon.radio

Mastodon.Radio

Troy - KD3BTG @KD3BTG@mastodon.radio

· 1mo ago

RE: @HamRadioVillage@defcon.social

I am proud to have been a part of this

defcon.social

Troy - KD3BTG @KD3BTG@mastodon.radio

· 2mo ago

RE: https://ioc.exchange/@flyingsaceur/117011857542955774 Co-signing this. Yes antennas can be simple and inexpensive and easy to build. But when I bought my HF rig this year I also bought a commercial antenna so that I could have some assurance that everything should just work and if it doesn’t it’s not because of a faulty piece of homebrew equipment. Now I have a “known good” baseline where I can experiment with different antennas (or radios or feedlines or …) and compare the result.

Quoting

AN/CRM-114

@flyingsaceur@ioc.exchange

Advice I wish I didn’t get with my General #hamradio ticket: Random wire antenna This should not be your first HF antenna. To use it you need an antenna tuner, and many starter SDR rigs have an ATU built in. In myself and others around me, the ATU gives a low SWR and the appearance of perfect operation, but you have no intuition for how much of your transmit power comes out as RF energy vs. heat At that point there are a thousand points of failure you don’t know to check, so the first time you call CW to the void you have no idea if yuure holding the mic wrong, your rig is misconfigured, or if the band is closed Work to minimize unknowns by making as many parts of your kit known quantities. This is why I wish someone told me to just get a pretuned 40m EFHW out of the gate

Open quoted post

ioc.exchange

AN/CRM-114: "Advice I wish I didn’t get with my General #hamra…" - IOC.exchange

Troy - KD3BTG @KD3BTG@mastodon.radio

· 1mo ago

RE: @va3fwe@mastodon.radio

Similarly: Anyone know a #cw #MorseCode learning app that does random strings of words with a configurable # of words?

Random letter blocks of increasing length was very helpful to me, and I'd like to do same with whole words but all tools I have are either random single words OR entire sentences/QSOs/news articles.

I'd like something where I can start with two random words and build up.

I use iOS and web apps but if you know an Android app feel free to mention for others.

mastodon.radio