...The radios we'll always remember

The radio man listening to the world from the Arctic


BBC World Service

Ham Radio History 0 Comments 12/359/2022 


Posted By: Robert Nickels (W9RAN)
Posted on 12/359/2022

DXing from the ultimate location!

Mika Mäkeläinen is a radio enthusiast who listens to stations from around the world in a remote corner of Lapland, 400km north of the Arctic Circle.  He and a group of fellow hobbyists have set up 14 wire antennas in the forest to capture weak signals from low-power stations, thousands of kilometres away. Mika explains why Lapland is a perfect place for listening to distant radio stations and how his hobby continues to inspire him 40 years after first discovering it as a child.


   If you're a long-time ham you might know what the smeary figure-8 pattern is....Back in the Novice era,  many used crystals purchased from suppliers like JAN Crystals who purchased large quantities of military surplus crystals and reground them for the ham bands.   That's why they were cheap, but also why you couldn't get a specific frequency as they'd grind by a formula and is long...  READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (W9RAN)  Posted: 01/22/2024 
   Ron K5HZ has been building equipment since he first got his ham license in the early 60s, and while he has other transmitters, all it took to build a new one was finding a "free to good home" power transformer at a hamfest.    It also gave him a chance to try using a couple of Compactron tubes that had caught his eye - the 6T10 dual pentode and the 6GE5 beam power pentode that was d...  READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (W9RAN)  Posted: 12/364/2023 
   If you build almost anything electronic, chances are good you've purchased parts from DigiKey Electronics.  But did you know that DigiKey - now one of the world's largest electronics distributors - started out as a ham radio company?"More than 50 years ago, a digital electronic device designed to generate uniform Morse characters and spaces was made available for sale by amateur radio enthusi...  READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (W9RAN)  Posted: 12/341/2023 
   Electronic Design magazine published an excellent interview in 2020 with Chas Gilmore W8IAI, former Heath engineer, manager, and executive.   Anyone with an interest in Heathkits will find this interview to be well worth the time to read. You can read it for free without registration here at the ELECTRONIC DESIGN WEBSITEThe photo below was borrowed from W8IAI's QRZ page, and shows h...  READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (W9RAN)  Posted: 11/332/2023 
   Upon examining a DX-40 given to me by a good friend, I was surprised not to find the usual fused plug on the AC line cord.   I thought maybe Heathkit realized the error of their ways and had put one inside - but no.  A check of the schematic confirmed that fuses were never a part of the DX-40 design.    This needed to be corrected but after first considering hogging a...  READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (W9RAN)  Posted: 11/320/2023