I have inherited the following collection of battery packs, which were already at least 5 years old at this time: Two battery packs should now be built from them: One as power supply for my Yaesu FT-817 during portable operation and another bigger one from the remaining cells. For this I took all packs apart, charged each cell and then measured their capacity: I also needed do order a spot welder kit for this. Read more...

I just released DXPager, a script that sends DAPNET messages to your pager if a DX station whose entity you have not worked/confirmed before has been spotted. In other words: The script checks your LotW QSL log, observes the DX cluster and pages you as soon as a new one appears. A “(L)” is added to the message if the DX station is a LotW user. Additionally, you can define a watch list of DX call signs for which you’d also liek to be notified. Read more...

Last weekend I was able to succesfully activate Waldheide Recreation Park DA-0221 as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA) program. POTA is a ham radio competition aimed at setting up ham radio stations in parks open to the public and going on the air from there. You can find more information about the program here. This was my first POTA activation and also the first time this specific park has been activated. Read more...

I have compiled a list of QRP transceivers that are suitable for portable use. It can be downloaded via the following links: qrp_trx.pdf. qrp_trx.ods. If you have any corrections, additions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

I just released a first version of ColorSpot, a command line DX cluster client written in Python. It adds the following benefits to the default telnet stream: displays the DX station’s country displays the DX station’s continent displays if the DX station uses LotW downloads your LotW QSL file and marks all lines with countries that need to be confirmed (optional) displays lines in different colors depending on the continent or band (user configurable) Code You can find the code and some more information here. Read more...

In this post I will briefly describe my build of an AllStarLink node. For this, I used the following parts: Baofeng 888s CM108 USB soundcard Raspberry Pi 4 + case two buck converters, configured 5V and 3,7V output voltage metal enclosure power poles + mounting plates ethernet jack Waveshare LCD1602 RGB Module I will not go into great detail here since all modifications are described in other places. Please consult the following links: Read more...

In this post I will explain in detail how to become QRV on M17 with the following setup: TYT MD380 Raspberry Pi / Pi-Star / MMDVM Hotspot The process will be the following: Modification of the MD380: In order to transmit M17 audio, the radio needs to be modified so the MCU has direct access to the mic without the audio being routed over the HR_C5000. Installation of OpenRTX on the MD380 Modification of the Pi-Star installation Upgrading the MMDVM firmware to at least v1. Read more...

In this article I document how I backup my servers locally as well as remotely to borgbase.com. After implementing the follwoing steps, you’ll get: encrypted backups to a local directory encrypted offsite backups alarms in the case backups fail Preconditions All these steps have been tested with Debian 10/11. You’ll need a paid subscription with BorgBase or use your own remote repository server. All commands have to be executed in the context of the user root. Read more...

UPDATE: I moved the client and the server into one repository: https://codeberg.org/mclemens/hr50-remote-display. It furthermore now supports user actions via a button. Original post: I am using my Hardrock-50 as part of a remote station so I am of course not able to monitor its display which shows the selected band, keying method, temperature, SWR, power etc. Since I need/want this information and also prefer a physical display, I made two little projects that can be combined together: Read more...

The Hardrock-50 is a very nice 50W short wave amplifier that comes as a kit. The package includes everything needed for building the amp. There were some optional modules available (QSK Mezzanine add-on board and an automatic ATU) which I decided not to order since I am very happy with my ATU-100. The Hardrock-50 includes an interface to some rigs including my FT-817 which allows automatic band selection. For this purpose, an additional but easily buildable Sub-D to Mini DIN cable is needed. Read more...