Radio News

Winter Field Day 2026

In an effort to encourage more ham radio field operations the following After Action Report for Winter Field Day 2026 is posted. We operated “off grid” on Mt. Diablo (CA) […]

Heathkit HW-8 CW Transceiver

Here is a quick post regarding my Heathkit HW-8 CW Transceiver at N6CC. They were first sold in 1976 for around $140. I built this kit about 50 years ago […]

Military Radio Field Day 2025 FTX

“Military Radio” Field Day 2025 was another Field Training Exercise that I did on Mt Diablo, CA. As usual, I operated only military radio equipment in this national emergency communications […]

Winter Field Day 2025

UPDATE: 3/5/25. The following After Action Report for Winter Field Day 2025 is posted in an effort to encourage grid-down emergency communications exercises with rugged, reliable equipment.. Why? Communications infrastructure […]

End Fed Half Wave Wire Antennas

Updated: 6/9/2025 – A work in progress. End Fed Half Wave wire antennas must be great. Everyone is selling them! Meh. The antenna engineer’s axiom: You can have high gain, […]

Mil Radio Ops at FOB COVID 2020

July 2020: The following is a brief After Action Report on Military Radio training operations at Forward Operating Base COVID, July 2020. Scheduling difficulties required delaying from the June 2020 […]

Military Radios @ ARRL Field Day 2024

ARRL Field Day 2024: In an effort to encourage more off-grid, portable field radio operation and exercises the following After Action Report is posted: I used some of my usual […]

A Communications Forward Operating Base

Updated 4/29/2025: Members of the West Coast Military Radio Collectors Group deployed a Communications Forward Operating Base at MVCC Camp Plymouth for the April 2025 event.  The intent was to […]

MIL COMMO FTX: Field Day 2023

UPDATE 7/9/2024 In an effort to encourage more field operations by Hams, especially with military field radio gear, the following After Action Report is posted. This was my Military Communications […]

The Russian Woodpecker Revisited

UPDATED 14 April 2024 A signal I couldn’t avoid hearing with my trusty BC-348, S-120 or HA-350 receivers was the Russian дуга Over The Horizon Radar (OTHR) that they had […]