Over the last few decades, the G5RV antenna has become one of the most popular and widely used "all around" multi-band antennas in the world.  Even though it is a "compromise" antenna, it has good overall performance on most hf ham bands when used with an external tuner, and allows coax as an entry feedline to the radio equipment eliminating the need and hassle of ladder line or twinlead. It should be noted that some internal tuners just don't have enough range to "tune" it.

It was invented in 1946 by Louis Varney, whose call sign is G5RV ("SK" on June 28, 2000, age 89).  Hence the name, the G5RV antenna.

The basic G5RV antenna measures only 102 feet across the top for 80 thru 10 meter operation, and is fed at the center through a low loss 34 feet feed-stub.

The All Band HF Dipole was constructed and refined for use with my Z-Match Antenna Matching Unit at my previous residence in Melbourne, Victoria from 2004 - 2007

Despite the space limitations of a suburban block I wanted an antenna that would be suitable for all the HF amateur bands, including the so called WARC bands and ideally including the 160 metre band. The antenna system should also be useful for other HF services i.e. broadcast, military etc.

A multi-band wire antenna that performs exceptionally well even though it confounds antenna modeling software
Article by W5GI ( SK )

call sign query tools & license history

How easily particular letters are heard (or misheard) can be one consideration when choosing a Vanity callsign.

This Air Force study looked at the intelligibility of each letter when phonetics are used and in the presence of random white noise, which seems to me makes it especially helpful to determine how well the various letters can be heard thru a pileup or in rough conditions. I have pasted what i find to be the key info in the table below, to see the full study please use the link below it.

TABLE II

Intelligibility Scores of the Twenty-Six Alphabet Words (when Masked by Random White Noise)

November 91.16
Romeo 87.67
Whiskey 85.14
Sierra 80.54
Uniform 78.89
Bravo 78.58
Delta 77.62
Tango 76.55
Foxtrot 76.24
Yankee 72.89
Charlie 72.22
Lima 71.58
Pappa 70.45
Mike 69.22
Hotel 68.69
Oscar 67.86
Echo 66.98
Quebec 65.49
Kilo 62.96
Victor 62.67
Juliet 61.77
Zulu 61.67
Golf 58.06
Alfa 54.95
x-Ray 54.25
India 28.67

source:
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/404051.pdf

No more refunds. The FCC isn't getting the money. The Treasury is. And, they don't do refunds.

So, multiple applications will simply cost more to no good. Unless you consider it a donation.

Yeah. Blame That Guy with the 500 applications.

I had to go look that up. Make that Those Guys. As in more than one. The callsign applied for was K7DX.

One guy applied 232 times.

Another 115 times

Another 110 times (he won it)

Another 101 times

Another 46 times (slacker)

So, I bet all those refund requests sent up Very Star flares (rather than red flags).

KiwiSDR is hardware that uses a software-defined radio to monitor transmissions in a local area and stream them over the Internet. A largely hobbyist base of users does all kinds of cool things with the playing-card-sized devices. For instance, a user in Manhattan could connect one to the Internet so that people in Madrid, Spain, or Sydney, Australia, could listen to AM radio broadcasts, CB radio conversations, or even watch lightning storms in Manhattan.
On Wednesday, users learned that for years, their devices had been equipped with a backdoor that allowed the KiwiSDR creator—and possibly others—to log in to the devices with administrative system rights. The remote admin could then make configuration changes and access data not just for the KiwiSDR but in many cases to the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, or other computing devices the SDR hardware is connected to.

Brian F. Wruble, W3BW

w3bw@arrl.net

Two hams were among the small crew of a super-secret Cold War era submarine.

These are the 19 original tracks on the Auroral Chorus II CD, released in the year 2000 by Stephen P. McGreevy (www.auroralchorus.com)The natural-radio...

Scott Tilley, a Canadian ham radio enthusiast, used his spare time during COVID-19 lockdown to track down a signal from LES-5, an experimental communications satellite launched in 1967.

WiNRADiO Communications manufacture radio communications equipment for a very wide range of applications. Our customers include professional communications radio users in government, industry, military, security, surveillance and spectrum monitoring organizations, as well as many radio and computer enthusiasts.

Now, if you focus your eye at dead centre of the picture you will see that the voltage is always zero volts. This is because a dipole is optimally driven with a balanced voltage source (VOVO). A balanced voltage source is preferred for a dipole antenna. In fact, the voltage and electric field is zero all along the length of the green line below: -

This means you can optionally regard that green line as earth (providing the antenna is driven in a balanced way). Now if you were to cut the above picture in half you'd have a 1/4 λλ monopole driven with an unbalanced voltage source. An unbalanced voltage source is one that has typically 0 volts on one leg while the other leg does the voltage driving: -

And, not surprisingly, it has one half of the impedance presented by the half wave dipole. But, to keep the same radiation pattern you need to "force" an earth plane that does what the green line does.

Thank you to Happysat who has shared with us a useful tutorial that explains how we can run Linux only SDR programs on a Windows 10 system using the Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL) feature. WSL is a feature available on Windows 10 which is a Linux compatibility layer designed for running Linux binaries natively on Windows 10. This means that no Virtual Machine with shared resources is required, instead the full resources of your system are available.  Happysat writes: Many people using Windows 10 now since Windows 7 is EOL, and WSL is part of the system kinda 'free' so why

DRM Radio

The SBE Chapter 73' of the Air and DENVERSKYHUBLINK NET

Meets every Monday Night at 7pm Mtn time on the following linked repeaters and systems

AllStar Node 46079 Skyhub
ECHOLINK WØSKY-L Node 985839
YSF Reflector YSF 92722 US Skyhub Link - Denver Skyhub
DMR Talkgroup 310847
Yaesu Fusion Wires-X Room 46361 "DenverSkyhubLink"

Repeaters in Denver
449.450 mHz -5 mhz offset 103.5 pl analog
449.750 DMR Timeslot 1 Talkgroup 310847
448.350 Fusion digital Wires-X room 46361
"DENVERSKYHUBLINK"
449.625 Fusion Digital Wires-X room 46361
"DENVERSKYHUBLINK"

AND you can listen to the NET LIVE at:
https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/25448/web

You can link your repeater, hotspot node, AllStar or DMR repeaters or radio's into the "DENVERSKYHUBLINK System anytime. Email Jack at KE0VH@OUTLOOK.COM for information

Good software, not really… Usable software, yes. RF Analyzer and SDRtouch are two decent spectrum analyzers for Android. Both support the RTL-SDR and HackRF. There is also Avare ADSB for the RTL-SDR on Android.

Here we have the “RTL-SDR Blog v3” receiver, which is one of the most popular “next generation” RTL-SDR receivers. The plastic case has been replaced with an aluminum one that not only reduces interference, but helps the board dissipate heat while in operation. The crystal has been upgraded to a temperature compensated oscillator (TCXO) which helps reduce temperature drift. The R820T2 tuner is paired with a standard SMA antenna connector, and both it and the RTL2832U have some unused pins broken out if you’re looking to get into developing modifications or expansions to the core hardware. //

In the years since its inception, the RTL-SDR project has become the de facto “first step” for anyone looking to experiment with radio. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and since the hardware is incapable of transmission, you don’t have to worry about accidentally running afoul of the FCC or your local equivalent. Honestly, it’s difficult to think of a valid reason not to add one of these little USB receivers to your bag of tricks; even if you only use it once, it will more than pay for itself.

CHIRP is a free, open-source tool for programming your amateur radio. It supports a large number of manufacturers and models, as well as provides a way to interface with multiple data sources and formats.