FARA February 29th Fox Hunt

000-featured_image

On a chilly February day, FARA members conducted another fun Fox Hunt.  The exercise took place the afternoon of February 29th, 2020.  This time the Fox Den was led by Bob, KN4SPL along with Garth, K4BOX, and Mike, KF4TEK making up the rest of this iteration of the Fox Den. The hunters gathered in a …

Read more

Properly Adjust Your SDR Software Waterfall

feature picture2

Here are some thoughts on one way to adjust your SDR and waterfall for “optimal” reception and viewing. This is my preferred style; there are others, but my hope is that these examples will help illustrate what each of the controls do and what the observable effects are. These examples use the AirSpy HF Discovery …

Read more

The Back-Pack-a-Tenna

pic1_ed

Summer is right around the corner and the beauty of the Virginia landscape is in full swing. The Shenandoah Mountains are a short skip from Fauquier County and are begging to be climbed, providing an excellent platform for amateur radio propagation. Summit on the Air[1] activations are a fun way of combining amateur radio with …

Read more

Jan. meeting presentation BitX20 transceiver

At the January meeting Frank W4NHJ presented information and demonstrated his BitX20 kit. This is a VFO controlled, 20m transceiver that operates USB/SSB. The radio is capable of ~20 watts output. Frank discussed several variations of the radio kit and where they are available online. If you would like to review his presentation, please click …

Read more

August meeting covers Useful Tools and 144 MHz ESkip

  At the August meeting Harv K2PI presented information on what he considers his most useful tools and accessories in his toolkit. He provided a show and tell of these items including a presentation that documented where one could acquire these and similar items online. This was a great presentation that led into a discussion …

Read more

March meeting covers J-pole antenna analysis

  At the March meeting John KX4O provided us with his presentation on “Myths and facts of the J-Pole antenna and it variants”. John modeled a typical 1/4 wave length ground plane as a reference and then provided several comparisons of various J-pole configurations. He used a combination of NEC and FDTD antenna modeling software …

Read more