Revisiting a classic. It’s been three years since I presented an article about the DIY portable DC power pack. It’s still one of the most popular articles here on Off Grid Ham. Almost every radio amateur has some version of this gizmo. Over the winter I had the itch to… Read more »
News Digest is an occasional Off Grid Ham series on developments and news in off grid and alternative energy relevant to radio amateurs. I’ll sort through the geek stuff so you don’t have to! If you come across a news item that would be in interest to Off Grid Ham… Read more »
Over on the Off Grid Ham affiliate Google Groups.io forum a reader asked a question about how to properly maintain flooded batteries, also referred to as wet cell batteries. We have addressed this topic before but as a result of recent interest it’s a good time for a flooded batteries refresher course…. Read more »
I’ve been wanting to expand Off Grid Ham’s outreach for some time. I thought about starting an internet chat forum, but that would involve very disruptive changes to the website and a lot of ongoing maintenance. A Facebook page was considered too. I had more or less given up on… Read more »
A mature technology. AC inverters are like other technology in that during the early years they were very expensive and didn’t work particularly well. Over time they were tweaked and improved and today inverters are better and less expensive than their ancestors. I suggest including an inverter in your off… Read more »
In a recent article we did a deep dive into assembling a portable off grid radio station that was light and minimalist enough to be carried a fairly long distance by one person, but still had enough functionality to be an effective communications tool. That goal necessarily required using QRP… Read more »
This is the first in an occasional series on developments and news in off grid and alternative energy relevant to radio amateurs. I’ll sort through the geek stuff so you don’t have to! If you come across a news item that would be in interest to Off Grid Ham readers,… Read more »
A little less than a year ago I published an article about Google Project Sunroof, what it means to off grid hams, and general observations about the initiative and its implications. You can read the original article here. At the time I could find no way to remove oneself from… Read more »
It’s always some variation of “How big of a battery do I need to run my (fill in the blank) radio?” It comes up a lot, not just in my email but also on the various forums and blogs I visit. The question is too open ended and comes with… Read more »
I do very few product reviews here on Off Grid Ham because there isn’t much that hasn’t been reviewed elsewhere a zillion times already. I also want to avoid the conflict of interest that comes from accepting free stuff in exchange for reviews. AS Tool, a small Taiwan-based operation trying… Read more »
So you’ve had your fun with small single solar panels and are ready for a larger multi-panel system that can handle beefier loads. Hopefully you’ve read previous Off Grid Ham articles and have your system all planned & spec’d out. There’s one important detail we haven’t covered on this blog… Read more »
Amateur radio is full of rules. Many of them are unwritten, others are quite clear. Some rules are not about manners or operating protocol, but instead were created for the very practical purpose of safety and standardization. NFPA-70, also known as the National Electrical Code, is the accepted standard of… Read more »