Yes, this website contains also a blog. I'm not the kind of person who will write very often about everything that comes to mind. Here you will find all Ham related blog items that are not about Ham related projects or the equipment I use, these can be found elsewhere on this website. In addition, there are also blog items that relate to the ins and outs of this website.
In 2022 the Netherlands part of the Thales Group is celebrating that 100 years ago its predecessor, which was last known as Hollandse Signaalapparaten, was founded. As part of many festivities a special event station was operational between 21 April 2022 and 31 December 2022. This SES was operated by a number of radio amateurs …
Continue reading Special Event Station PA100THALES
Exactly one year ago (15th of May 2020) I made my first QSO on HF, this was with Vladimir R2AL in FT8 on the 20 meter band. Since then I have made 5273 QSOs of which 3323 have been confirmed by QSL. In total I have worked 142 different DXCC entities of which 136 have …
Continue reading My first year on HF
What kind of cryptic title is this? For the process of my ADIF log, which I collect daily from LoTW, I have written a small tool. This tool uses a few standard Python libraries. One of them has been giving me an error message for the last two days, causing my tool to fail. The …
Continue reading Trouble with decoding byte 0xFA
They have found me. “Who?” you might ask. Well, the FT8 robots. At first I thought, ‘Nice, some of my fellow amateurs would like yet another FT8 QSO on this band when we already had a confirmed QSO.’ and jokingly called them ‘fans’ but now I know better. Not everyone likes the FT8 protocol because …
Continue reading QSO with FT8 robots
Tonight (24th November 2020) I finally succeeded; the ISS has received my APRS beacon. Danny PD2WR gave me the correct settings for my TH-D74 portable radio and see there, success. Danny, thank you again. The ISS came over late in the evening, the maximum elevation was just 26 degrees above the horizon. Yet this was …
Continue reading My first APRS beacon received by ISS
Right after I got the conformation my call sign registration was approved I created basic profiles on some of the well-known Ham related websites. Some of these profiles are QRZ.com, HamQTH.com and QRZCQ.com. It is wise to have a profile on the QRZ.com and QRZCQ.com websites as these two websites are often used as a …
Continue reading Creating profiles on Ham websites