Tag Archives: amateur radio

Lithium Batteries vs. The World!

      23 Comments on Lithium Batteries vs. The World!
storage batteries

Battery envy. I recently received a very nice email from Mike in Missouri where he described converting his home off grid system to lithium batteries, at a cost of over $7000.00 USD! My own home system is still on old school flooded batteries because I have not recached a point… Read more »

The Flame Goes Higher: COMMENTARY.

      10 Comments on The Flame Goes Higher: COMMENTARY.
amateur radio politics.

The frog in the soup pot. I believe the average Off Grid Ham reader has above-average intelligence. They also have a good grasp of what’s going on in the world. While this blog does not often delve into amateur radio politics (and even then we tread lightly), every now and… Read more »

Off Grid Christmas Wish List.

      8 Comments on Off Grid Christmas Wish List.

It’s closer than it seems. Off Grid Christmas Wish List.  We live in strange times. With many products out of stock and long lead times for the stuff you can get, it’s not too early to think about what you’d like to give (or get) for Christmas. An off grid… Read more »

Don’t Let Ham Radio Become A One-Trick Pony.

      15 Comments on Don’t Let Ham Radio Become A One-Trick Pony.
emcomm

Guilt trip. I came across an interesting discussion on an internet ham radio forum. The author, a ham, had misgivings because after being hounded (his term, not mine) to join an local emergency communications (EMCOMM) group, he finally had enough of the nagging and told them to shove it. Afterward… Read more »

Summer Roundup & Ham Radio News.

      8 Comments on Summer Roundup & Ham Radio News.
ham radio news

Greater than the sum of its parts. Along the summer I’ve collected bits and pieces of topic suggestions and ham radio news. Any one of them by itself is not worthwhile as an entire stand-alone Off Grid Ham article, and a few are not even directly ham radio-related. But collectively… Read more »

Revisiting Inverters.

      9 Comments on Revisiting Inverters.
ac inverters

It’s been a while. It’s been quite a while since I did an inverter article. Inverters have not changed a lot since then, but there’s still some new material to go over. It’s also a good opportunity to review older concepts. Most hams know what inverters do but don’t know… Read more »

Getting Out of the RFI Maze

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RFI

One of the hardest problems to understand. Amateur radio is full of difficult challenges, but few of them approach the hair-pulling level of radio frequency interference, or RFI. It’s a hard issue to address because there are so many variables. For example, sometimes moving a piece of equipment just a… Read more »

Buying A Ham Radio? Good Luck!

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USED RADIO

Everyone is asking. buying a ham radio As I roam the internet keeping up with others’ thoughts about ham radio, the number one theme that seems to come up, by a very large margin, is “I want to get into amateur radio, but I can’t afford it!”. The sentiment is… Read more »

Requiem For Radio Shack.

      11 Comments on Requiem For Radio Shack.
radio shack

Special author’s note: The March 19 Off Grid Ham article mentioned Radio Shack only as a minor side story. So many readers commented about their experiences with the fabled electronics retailer that I thought it was worthwhile to address the topic in more detail. I wrote the following article for… Read more »

Be Your Own Radio Shack…Because You Have To.

off grid supplies

The halcyon days. As early as middle school, before I was a ham and still into CB radio, Radio Shack was my haven. They had pretty much anything a teenaged electronics experimenter and ham could ever want. With thousands of locations, they were everywhere. I know I’m dating myself but… Read more »

The Comedy and Tragedy of Wind Power.

      10 Comments on The Comedy and Tragedy of Wind Power.
wind energy

It’s not a comedy if you’re living through it. Bad news out of Texas gives us an opportunity  to look at what can happen when energy policy and weather conspire to pull the grid down. If you live in the upper Midwest USA like me, or New England, or for… Read more »

Your Friend, The Voltage Regulator.

      6 Comments on Your Friend, The Voltage Regulator.
voltage regulator

An old concept. The voltage regulator has been around since the days of the vacuum tube. Modern radios are especially dependent on them. What are they, and why do they matter? In electronics, current can and does vary but voltage usually does not, or should not. Radios generally do not… Read more »