As common as air. Handheld transceivers, or HT, is ubiquitous in amateur radio. For many hams, it’s their first radio. For others, they may operate only one “main” base or mobile radio but have several handhelds. And for some hams, perhaps a lot of them, it’s the only radio they… Read more »
Expand your band. One of the habits many off grid hams fall into is they operate in a silo, meaning, they hang out only on the ham bands, often the same one or two bands, and barely know what’s going on beyond that. It’s not by default a bad habit…. Read more »
Removing a barrier to entry. As it has been for, well, forever, used ham radio equipment is still a major gateway into the hobby. Many beginners, and even some old hands, have limited budgets. Or maybe an operator wants to try a new mode or band without risking a lot… Read more »
Special note: I’m taking time off to spend Christmas with friends and family. Please enjoy this personal favorite Off Grid Ham article from November 15, 2020. May God richly bless you in the new year! As basic as it gets. If you do not own at least one good multimeter,… Read more »
A buffet of options. Amateur radio has a low barrier to entry, but once in the door the learning curve is fairly steep. This may originate from the wide breadth and depth of the hobby. There are so many subspecialties, it’s impossible for any one person to truly know everything…. Read more »
It’s not all about us. As an avocation that is all about communication, amateur radio cannot be effective if it exists in a vacuum. We chatter and exchange information amongst ourselves quite effectively. But what about “everything else”? How and where do we get information outside of our observable environment?… Read more »
Two benefits for the price of one. Radio amateurs who operate off grid already know that their pastime has a secondary benefit of being very valuable in times of disaster. In some cases it’s the other way around. Many people get involved with amateur radio primarily for its usefulness during… Read more »
We live in an open book world. Anyone with even a small shred of awareness knows that there is no true privacy in our modern world. Everything about you, even things you don’t know about yourself, are archived somewhere in a database. The information may be difficult to access, and… Read more »
An idea is born. Back in May I discouraged new hams from buying the cheapest, most low end equipment possible. That article subsequently linked to a solar controller that, as best I could determine, was the absolute cheapest solar controller on all of Amazon. A few weeks and a reader… Read more »
Land of the Free and home of the radio. First of all I hope everyone who participated in Field Day had a great weekend. If you did not make it to Field Day, don’t sweat it! Remember, you can hit the airwaves any time you want and create your own… Read more »
If you just tuned in… Off Grid Ham has been reporting on the progress (or lack of) perovskite solar developments for many years now. As this OGH article from November 2024 explains, research-to-market can sometimes take decades. This may seem intolerably slow, but it aligns with the development of other… Read more »
Both sides now. Anyone who experienced even modest exposure to amateur radio has probably seen many articles and videos about how to get started, what equipment to buy, reading material, etc. Whether or not this advice is good is outside our purpose here. I recently noticed that of all the… Read more »