By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ chases meteors at the Radio Meteor Observation Bulletin website.
Mike Schaffer, KA3JAW — this week’s guest surfer — wrote the about following meteors.
Several thousand meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these occur over oceans and uninhabited regions, and many are masked by the sunlight. Those that occur a…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ considers 3-D printing as a tool for ham radio makers.
Additive Manufacturing (AM) — also known as “3-D printing” — is the technology that builds “3-D objects by adding layer-upon-layer of material, whether the material is plastic, metal, concrete or one day…human tissue.”
According to the AM website, a computer, 3-D modeling softw…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ hears weak ones, and then identifies them the old way and the new way.
I have been having a lot of fun this winter chasing DX on the AM broadcast band. I am always surprised when I am able to log a new one that is transmitting low power. For example, on Monday I logged two traffic advisory radio stations run by the Connecticut Departm…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ repositions an airplane finder app to APRS-equipped vehicles.
I downloaded a free app for my iPhone: Plane Finder AR. You simply point the iPhone camera at an airborne airplane and the app displays the plane’s flight number, aircraft registration and distance from your location. A $ 2.99 version of the app displays more information inc…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ visits the ARRL’s Evolution of Amateur Radio Exhibit — virtually and in person.
I visited ARRL Headquarters this week and my intrepid editor, Khrystyne Keane, K1SFA, gave me a tour of the facilities. Although I live less than 20 miles away, I don’t get over to Newington that often, so a tour to see what is new was in order. I joked w…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ adds an antenna “booster” and an iPhone to the AM DXing tool kit.
I received two tech gifts during the holidays: a C. Crane Twin Coil Ferrite AM Antenna Signal Booster and an iPhone 5. I am very pleased with both gifts and thank my family (you know who you are) for their generosity.
The C. Crane Twin Coil Ferrite AM Antenna Signal Boos…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ revisits RigReference, RigPix, and Flickr and finds more radio photos (but none of Cosmophone).
Elmer Torensma, PH5E, is the ham behind RigReference.com, which I wrote about here two weeks ago. Elmer e-mailed me to mention something I missed in my write-up about RigReference: a nifty little feature of the website called “collections.”…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, the end of Surfin’ is the least of your worries.
After 622 installments of Surfin’, this may be the last.
In case you have not heard, a Mayan calendar predicted that today — December 21 — is doomsday. To mark that final event, N0D, a special event station “celebrating the end of the world” will be on the air until the bitter end.
The N0D webs…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ recalls old radios with new clarity.
Recently, I tried to build a list of all the radios I have owned, but I got stuck. I could picture radios in my mind that I had long ago, but the pictures were a little fuzzy and I could not make out the model numbers (if you are a certain age, I think you know what I mean).
Searching the Internet, …
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ explores the Internet world of online tools for Amateur Radio.
My maternal grandfather was a toolmaker. When he died, my father inherited my grandfather’s tool collection and added it to his own tool collection. When my father died, I inherited my father’s tool collection and my grandfather’s tool collection and added it to my own too…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ urges readers to share their ham radio adventures by blogging.
Do you blog?
According to www.dictionary.com, a blog is “a website containing the writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc, and often having images and links to other websites.”
Many members of the ham radio community blog about what they a…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ considers high-altitude ballooning with Amateur Radio payloads.
Some things never change.
When I was a kid, I watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to see the big balloons float down Sixth Avenue. As an adult (also known as a “big kid”), I still watch the parade to see the big balloons float down Sixth Avenue.
I also watch hot air …
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
In honor of the holiday, Surfin’ offers a ham radio horn of plenty.
Maybe I need to get out more.
Back in grade school, I remember images of cornucopia gracing the bulletin boards around the premises this time of year and I am sure that during art period, we drew a cornucopia with our crayons, but in my six decades on this planet, I have never seen a corn…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ looks at radios that are very pleasing to the eye.
Tom Kipgen builds designer radios.
You may ask, “What’s a designer radio?” It’s a radio that not only works well, but looks good.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so I direct your attention to Tom’s Designer Radios website where you can view photos of Tom’s designs (representing ten…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ considers portable power generators in the wake of another horrific storm.
Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy barreled through here Monday, but I was lucky: The tree man had done his work last month, so there was no tree damage on my property, except for a few small branches that landed without incident here and there. And my home lost po…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
This week, Surfin’ gets ready for ARRL Field Day and ISS pass-overs.
NASA introduced their all-new NASA app for iPhone and iPod Touch. It is the “first major redesign” of the app since 2009.
Being a long-time fan of what goes on in the outer space, I downloaded this free app as soon as I learned of its existence and I have not been disappointed.
For ham r…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources