It’s not magic, it’s science. Few hams who use solar panels know how their panels work, or how they are made. Of course, it’s not necessary to know any of this in order to use them. Still, having a basic knowledge of solar panels makes one a more well rounded,… Read more »
More than just bling. Charging, discharging, watts in, watts out, current, voltage, and other values can tell you what your off grid system is doing. Having data helps you plan your power usage and forecast problems before being caught short. A DC power monitor addresses all these issues and is… Read more »
A moral imperative. On two previous occasions (here and here) this blog published editorials calling for a shortwave radio broadcast “revival” to oppressed foreign countries with censored internet and no free speech protections. Since then, shortwave broadcasts have declined even more. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia and other world… Read more »
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 »
Are you hibernating this winter? Where I live, and for most of you, it’s really cold! It seems like after the Christmas season is over no one is motivated to do much winter ham radio. It is a great time to keep going with radio activities. Of course, we need… Read more »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »