Hello again!

 Well, it's 2024 and lots has been going on. In particular I write regularly on Substack. I also have the radio show on WRMI Legends - Sundays at 10PM ET on WRMI 5050kHz. Also available wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

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The FT8 conundrum

As I sit here I am working FT8 on 160 meters. It's a great mode to kill time and get some DX, states or new friends in the log. But this mode is not without controversy. Let's explore some of the controversies and see what can, and should be done. Or not. What's the big deal about FT8 anyway? If you haven't heard of the mode, I am thinking that maybe your radio isn't working or you haven't tuned up into the digital portion of the HF bands lately. So, briefly - FT8 is a digital "sound card" mode jointly developed by two really smart people - Joe Taylor, K1JT and Steve Franke, K9AN. It's not a rag chew mode. Instead, it provides basic QSOs exchanging grid squares and signal reports. One can optionally send a short message (13 characters) but the mode really isn't for this. FT8 was born out of other similar modes such as JT65 and JT9, which were also short QSO modes, developed for weak signal work. In fact, Joe initially developed the JT65 mod...
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FlexRadio SmartSDR 2.1 is here!

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At long last the next release of SmartSDR 2.x is here. You may download it from here . As you may remember, Flex had released SmartSDR 2.0 in Summer 2017. This made the Flex-6000 series the first ever amateur radio transceiver platform that can become an internet remote base out of the box. Other systems have had remote capability but Flex was the first to do it without having to add firewall rules (for most people) and incorporated modern technologies like social login and multi factor authentication (MFA) for enhanced security. The backend for authentication is powered by Auth0 , one of the leaders in the industry. SmartSDR 2.1 is the next incremental update, and is mostly designed with new hardware in mind. That said, I don't have one of the new radios, but I do have my 6700, and for us with the previous generation of radios, we have inherited the new features that are non-hardware dependent. This includes visual enhancements like shaded panadapters and tuning guides. ...
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New video on YouTube - connector wrapup (for now)

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 I'm wrapping up the preliminary series on coax connectors. Reason being that I want to cover a few more topics, and also get a few other pieces in which can get me to do some more in-depth topics. So enjoy the last one, for now... I talk a little about my wardriving days, and wifi antennas. Remember - ham radio is a cool hobby, but it's not the only hobby radio out there! I used to be (and still am!) very much enthused by experimenting with license-free radio services. There is a certain crossover with those that I'd like to cultivate both in my  videos and in the community.  Next I'm going to cover using Linux and MacOS in the hamshack. Should be fun. :)
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