Category: Ham Radio

While I ALWAYS had a passing interest in radio, I always had it in my head that getting an amateur radio license was too difficult for my ADD-riddled brain to deal with, especially the part about having to learn morse code. Come to find out later that morse code was dropped from the test, and really getting a Technician license in the US isn’t very hard to do. I got licensed in 2016 and now enjoy tinkering with radio from time to time, with most of my activity in the car on my commute.

Also check out the new RADIO page from the top menu!

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Kenwood TH-D74: No DR Mode for D-Star

So I got lucky over the last weekend hamfest, and scored a Kenwood TH-D74 radio. I’ve spent most of yesterday pouring through online videos, posts, and other bits of info getting overloaded on all things Kenwood. This isn’t the only Kenwood radio I have, but I will say I’m very much used to the Yaesu menus and layouts, but this D74 isn’t too bad; having a nice color screen with menus in plain English certainly helps, but I’ve already fallen into the “you messed it up” trap by downloading the Kenwood MCP (memory control program) software, and trying to program the radio for my needs and likes.

So to keep things short, I did so and at first things seemed great, but then I tried to play with the D-Star mode, and suddenly found that while I could get into it before, “DR” mode seemed to be disabled/gone after reprogramming.

After perusing several posts and trying different things, first and foremost being in VFO mode, nothing seem to work and I could only get it to DV mode. (DV is for using dstar in a simple mode, where DR is for using D-Star with repeaters.)

Lastly, I realized I must have screwed something up, so I went back into the MCP program and poked around. There it was: the “repeater list” was completely empty, and so I guess it can’t go into D-Star repeater mode without having a list of repeaters to provide you.

I ended up finding this link which let me generate a new up-to-date repeater list, which I was able to import by going to Repeater List in MCP, then click “Import Repeater List from File” at the bottom. I imported the file, and it seemed to work. (It did mention a couple entries not working, but seemed to be fine otherwise.)

From there I re-uploaded my config to the radio, and DR mode is now available again.

As always, I didn’t see this posted anywhere else, so I wanted to share it here.

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Taking your ham license test at the Franklin Institute

(Note that this is a historical article; there are no more VE sessions/ham tests at the Franklin Institute. If you’re in the Philadelphia area, please see this page for more information on VE testing: https://www.phil-mont.org/exams/)

Yesterday was “old timers” night at the Philmont Mobile Radio club meeting. Hams who have been licensed 25+ years were asked to talk about their experiences with the hobby from when they got started to present.

One thing that I always noticed is that partly due to the Philmont tie-in of the Franklin Institute Amateur Radio station to Philmont, took their test AT the Franklin Institute. Of those many if not most attributed the station display to be the motivating factor in getting their license.

I asked what the experience was like, and got the following answer:

You took the test in the cafeteria. They had 30-50 people all taking their test. The CW (morse code) portion was played out over a speaker, then if you passed that, you moved on to the written exam, which was much like the General test you take today. — Steve K3FZT

If you took your test, or were motivated to get licensed due to the Franklin Institute station, please comment below!

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Diving into the Dovetron MPC-1000R Mark II RTTY Terminal Unit

Sometimes you see something that just…you HAVE to have it. Especially if it scratches an itch regarding the interest of the week: RTTY and Teletypes. Earlier this year, I came across the Dovetron MPC-1000R(ish) Mark II and thought it looked so bad ass that I had to have it. It would add a RTTY cross display to my setup as well as maybe add some features? Anyway it came packed well, so lets dig into this thing and see what a nightm..fun time we’ll have with it.

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Added a “Radio” page to Junknet.net

I figured it was only appropriate that I add an actual radio page to my Junknet.net web site here. While a majority of what I put up here is in the blog area, there are times where I’d like to be able to refer to a few things from time to time and have a few “static” pages in place.

As such, “The Radio Page” is born! Not much there yet, but I can only type like 600 words a minute, give me a chance to build it out! At least it does explain how I got into radio.

Have fun and 73s!

(PS – Yes I know 73 does not have to be plural, but you can bet your a$$ I love the idea of saying “bestestest wisheses!”

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Franklin Institute W3TKQ Station – 1990s to 2002

As I mentioned in a previous post, a lot of my Franklin Institute… obsession?…is related to what used to be called the “Futures Center”; a massive addition to the Franklin Institute in the early 1990s that not only added on a large portion of the building, but filled it with all things modern, like computers, virtual reality, automation, space, and so on.

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Franklin Institute W3TKQ Amateur Radio Station Updated in 1962 (With Sound!!)

You may recall a previous post HERE where I show an original QST card from the original W3TKQ ham radio station, located in the Franklin Institute in 1958.

Well as all things go with technology, the station needed an update after a few years, and in May 1962, Dr. Wynn Laurence LePage, W3QCV, then president of the Franklin Institute, introduced a new, updated W3TKQ station…

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Making Ham…..Radio: Amateur Radio Kits. Projects, and Ideas

To go along with a talk I’ll be giving about “Making” and Ham Radio at the Phil-Mont Mobile Radio Club’s monthly meeting, I figured I’d assemble a list of links for various kits, kit vendors, and other interesting ham radio projects that I can simply link to here. It’s possible I may update this or make it a permanent page down the road. This page is VERY link heavy so feel free to click away! Onto the good stuff…

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Listening to the International Space Station (ISS)

While away on vacation last week, I did something that I thought initially to be a lot more difficult than it really is – I tuned in the International Space Station (ISS) and received SSTV images from it! If you didn’t know, the ISS has a ham radio onboard and transmits on the 2 meter band (145.800 specifically), and depending on the situation you may even be able to talk up to it.

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