Ham Radio Shack

A year ago Christmas I got my Amateur Extra Class ham radio license. I’ve been slowly accumulating radio stuff to eventually put together a ham radio station (shack).

Things have changed quite a bit since I used to sit as a young kid and watch my dad work his ham radio rig. His rig was very large, contained many tubes, had tons of dials, and a confusing amount of switches on the front.

I ended up getting a tiny, state-of-the-art, SDR (software-defined-radio) that covers many different ham radio bands. It is probably the Swiss Army Knife of ham radios.

I bought a smallish, unobtrusive, multi-band antenna and today I finally got it installed:

A small test of receive capability quickly got me listening to people from Vermont, California, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, etc.

I’ll have to try this a little more once I get back from summer vacation.