In episode 255 of the Foundations of Amateur Radio podcast, Onno VK6FLAB, discusses a fundamental aspect of out hobby.

The activities that our community places under the banner of amateur radio are many and varied. I’ve referred to this as a thousand hobbies in one. If you look at the surface, you’ll find all manner of activities that readily attach to our hobby.

Activations for example are invented at any opportunity, from parks to peaks, light houses, bridges, trains, boats, lakes, roads, locators and countries. We pursue contesting, making contacts using different modes, different power levels, we pick the frequencies on which we operate.

If you dig a little deeper you might consider investigating propagation, or antenna builds, electronics, physics and more.

It occurs to me that there is an underlying activity, one that any amateur can participate in and most do at what ever level they choose.

It’s the act of being curious. ¹

In this episode of ARRL’s biweekly Eclectic Tech podcast: “a discussion about key clicks; eavesdropping on aircraft; artificial intelligence and ham contesting.”¹

Compare your signal strength—and voice quality—to your fellow operators with this recording from the April 19, 2020, Sunday Night UHF/VHF Net

This recording was made from the VHF side of W0ILO, Moorhead, and was edited to include only unique participant check-ins. Duplicate check-ins were included only where there was a substantial difference in signal quality.

Check-ins missing (a portion of) the first word indicate that insufficient time was allowed between the operator pressing their PTT button and starting to speak.

Tim Duffy, K3LR, has announced that Contest University (CTU) USA 2020 will be held online via Zoom on Thursday May 14, starting at 1245 UTC. CTU 2020 is free. The CTU course outline has been posted online. Connection details to the CTU Zoom bridge will be posted on the Contest University site one week prior to CTU. Sessions will be recorded for viewing any time after May 14. Slide decks will be posted on the CTU website as well. At the end of CTU 2020, Dave Siddall, K3ZJ, will present the 2020 CQ Contest Hall of Fame awards. ¹

In this episode of ARRL’s biweekly Eclectic Tech podcast: “a new distance record on 122 GHz; digital meteor scatter with MSK144; the promises – and potential problems – of Wireless Power Transfer technology.”¹