Tri-State Amateur Radio Group (TSARG)

05/03/2026

📡 The Magic Band summer starts tomorrow…

Six metres is one of the strangest, most exciting bands in amateur radio.

One minute it can sound completely dead. The next, Europe appears. Then maybe North Africa. Then, on the right day, transatlantic signals start appearing where you would never normally expect them.

That is why 50MHz earned its nickname:

The Magic Band.

From Saturday 2 May, the UK Six Metre Group Summer Marathon begins, running right through until Sunday 2 August. The idea is simple: get on 6m, work as many stations and locator squares as possible, and help keep activity alive through the main summer season.

And this is the perfect time to start watching the band.

As we move into May, Sporadic-E becomes one of the big attractions. Signals can arrive suddenly, often over surprisingly long paths, and sometimes with very little warning. A small beam, a vertical, or even a modest home station can suddenly find itself hearing stations hundreds or thousands of miles away.

For newer operators, 6m is a brilliant band to learn from.

You see propagation changing almost in real time.
You learn why beacons matter.
You learn why locator squares are useful.
You learn why a quiet band is not always a dead band.

For experienced operators, it is the start of the annual hunt for rare squares, unusual openings, multi-hop Es, and those short windows that make you glad the radio was already switched on.

This weekend is a good time to:

Check your 6m antenna.
Update your logging software.
Watch the beacons.
Keep an eye on PSKReporter.
Try FT8, SSB or CW when the band opens.
And most importantly, call CQ.

Because on 6m, the next opening might last hours.

Or it might last ten minutes.

That is part of the magic.

Are you active on 6 metres, or is it a band you still need to explore?

https://www.moonrakeronline.com

04/16/2026

⚠️ BEFORE YOU KEY UP — READ THIS.

Most of you saw the story. FCC agents showed up at a ham’s door in Pennsylvania and left with his Baofeng BTech UV-Pro. But here’s what a lot of people are missing —
This may not have been deliberate at all.

Here’s exactly what happened technically — and why it could happen to YOU without you even knowing it.

The operator had his UV-Pro programmed to monitor a local EMS dispatch channel on 470.4375 MHz. Nothing unusual there — a lot of hams scan public safety frequencies to stay situationally aware.

But his radio had AUDIO RELAY enabled.
Here’s what that means in plain English —
Audio Relay is a feature on wideband Baofeng-style radios that takes audio received on one channel and automatically retransmits it on another. The radio does this on its own. No PTT. No deliberate transmission. It just… does it.

Every time Allegheny County dispatched an EMS call — his radio was rebroadcasting it onto another frequency. Over and over. Without him touching a single button.

He may have set it up once, forgotten it was on, and had zero idea it was happening.
The FCC didn’t care.
They tracked the signal with direction-finding equipment straight to his front door.

🚨 HERE’S YOUR WAKE-UP CALL
If you own ANY wideband radio — Baofeng, BTech, Tidradio, Radioddity — do these checks TODAY:
1️⃣ Check your Audio Relay / Cross-Band Repeat settings
If you don’t know what they do — turn them OFF until you do.
2️⃣ Know every frequency programmed into your radio
If someone else programmed it for you — audit it. Every channel.
3️⃣ Know what bands your radio can TRANSMIT on
Monitoring public safety is legal. TRANSMITTING on those frequencies without authorization is a federal violation.
4️⃣ Wideband receive ≠ wideband transmit rights
Your ham license covers amateur bands only. Full stop.
5️⃣ The FCC has direction-finding technology
They found this signal. They WILL find yours.

Our privileges as licensed amateur radio operators are built on trust. The moment we interfere with emergency communications — intentionally OR accidentally — we put every ham in America at risk of losing spectrum.
Know your radio. Know your settings. Know your responsibilities.

HamRadio 24-7 📡

04/09/2026

🔥 Every ham radio operator needs to see this.

Are you running a vertical and wondering why your signal isn’t cutting through? Or maybe you’ve got a dipole up but the noise floor is killing you?

The antenna you choose — and HOW you orient it — changes everything.
Vertical vs. Horizontal polarization on HF isn’t just theory. It’s the difference between working DX effortlessly and fighting your own signal. It’s the difference between a quiet band and a noise floor that sounds like a city power grid.

📡 Vertical antennas: Low angle, omnidirectional, DX machines — but they hear EVERYTHING, including all that man-made garbage on your block.

📡 Horizontal antennas: Quieter receive, directional precision — but height is king or you’re just radiating straight up.
And here’s the kicker — crossed polarizations can cost you 20–30 dB. That’s not a bad day.

That’s a dead radio.

The best operators don’t argue about which is better. They use both.

💾 Save this. Share it with your club. Tag a ham who needs to see it.

73 de W2RE 📻

👍 Like | 💬 Comment your antenna setup below!

Drop your callsign in the bracket and post!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

04/09/2026

When alternating current (AC) flows through a conductor, it does not spread evenly across the entire cross-section at higher frequencies. Instead, it tends to concentrate near the outer surface of the conductor. This phenomenon is called skin effect.
At low frequencies (like standard 50 or 60 Hz power systems), current flows almost uniformly throughout the conductor. But as frequency increases, the inner portion carries less current while the outer layer carries more. This happens because changing current creates a magnetic field, which induces opposing currents inside the conductor, pushing the main current outward.
As a result, the effective area available for current flow becomes smaller. Since resistance depends on the area, this reduction increases the effective resistance of the conductor. Higher resistance leads to more power loss in the form of heat, reducing efficiency.
In transmission lines, this means more energy is wasted, especially at higher frequencies. To reduce skin effect, engineers use techniques like stranded conductors, hollow conductors, or special designs like Litz wire for high-frequency applications.
In simple terms, at higher frequencies, electricity prefers to travel along the surface rather than through the entire wire, which increases losses and reduces efficiency.

04/09/2026

📻 Your phone says “No Signal.” A ham radio operator just saved your life.

When disaster strikes, the systems we rely on every day crumble fast. Cell towers get overloaded or knocked out. Internet goes dark. The power grid fails. In those critical first hours — when every minute counts — most people are completely cut off.

But not ham radio operators.
While everyone else is staring at a dead phone screen, licensed amateur radio operators are already on the air — coordinating rescues, relaying medical information, and connecting isolated communities with emergency services. No cell towers needed. No internet required. Just radio waves and a prepared operator who showed up when it mattered most.
This isn’t just a hobby. It’s a lifeline.
Groups like ARES and RACES deploy ham operators directly alongside first responders during declared emergencies. These are everyday people — neighbors, teachers, retirees — who made the decision to get licensed and get prepared.

The question is — will you be one of them?
Get your license. Build your kit. Join your local emergency comm group. Because when it all goes down, ham radio operators don’t just survive — they serve. 🎙️

04/04/2026

🪵📡 The Russian Woodpecker — the signal that drove the world crazy
From 1976 to 1989, a mysterious tapping sound hammered shortwave frequencies worldwide. No explanation. No warning. Just a relentless tap tap tap tap tap blasting over everything.
Ham operators were furious. Airlines complained. Manufacturers sold special filters just to block it. 😤
The culprit? The Soviet Duga radar — a secret over-the-horizon missile detection system pumping out a mind-blowing 10 MEGAWATTS of power, bouncing signals off the ionosphere trying to spot incoming ICBMs. ☢️
The antenna near Chernobyl stretched nearly a mile long. The nuclear plant was partly built there just to power it. 🔥
Then in 1989… it went silent. Just like that. No announcement. The Soviet Union crumbled and the Woodpecker died with it. The massive steel structure still stands today, rusting in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. 👻
Cold War engineering at its most insane. 🛑

Drop a comment if you heard it! I did!

03/13/2026

Looking at the image, it actually illustrates a very classic concept in VHF/UHF amateur radio: the difference between simplex communication and duplex communication through a repeater. Let’s walk through it together in a practical, everyday way—just like an experienced operator might explain it to someone new to the hobby.

🔘Simplex: radio-to-radio, same frequency

In the top part of the image, the two stations—one handheld radio and one mobile radio in a car—are talking directly to each other on 146.520 MHz. Both transmit and receive on that exact same frequency.

That is simplex operation.

In amateur radio, simplex simply means that both stations use one single frequency for both transmitting and receiving, and they talk directly with no intermediate equipment involved.

Because of that, only one person can talk at a time. When you press the push-to-talk button, your radio transmits and stops listening; when you release it, you go back to receiving.
Think of it like a conversation on a one-lane road: traffic can go in both directions, but only one direction at a time.

Simplex is often used when:

✔️two stations are relatively close together
✔️there are no obstacles blocking the signal
✔️operators want a direct station-to-station contact

On the 2-meter band, 146.520 MHz is widely known as the national FM simplex calling frequency in many band plans, so it’s a common place for hams to make initial contact before moving to another frequency.

🔘Duplex: using a repeater and two frequencies

Now look at the bottom half of the image. The two stations are no longer communicating directly. Instead, they both talk through a repeater located on a mountain.

Here something important changes: two different frequencies are used.

✔️The radios transmit on 147.720 MHz (Input)
✔️The repeater retransmits on 147.120 MHz (Output)

This is called duplex operation. In radio systems, duplex means the transmitter and receiver operate on separate frequencies, often called a frequency pair.

Here’s what happens step by step:

✔️Your radio sends a signal on the repeater’s input frequency (147.720 MHz MHz).
✔️The repeater receives it.
✔️Almost instantly, it retransmits the same audio on its output frequency (147.120 MHz).
✔️Other stations listen on that output frequency and hear you clearly.

Because repeaters are usually installed on tall towers, mountains, or high buildings, they can dramatically extend the communication range compared to direct radio-to-radio contact.

This is why a small handheld radio that might reach only a few kilometers in simplex can sometimes communicate tens of kilometers or more through a repeater.

The practical difference

So if we summarize the idea shown in the image:

•Simplex
✔️One frequency
✔️Direct radio-to-radio communication
✔️One station talks at a time
✔️Limited by line-of-sight distance

•Duplex (via repeater)
✔️Two frequencies (input and output)
✔️Communication through a repeater station
✔️Much larger coverage area

Why both modes matter

Good operators use both modes depending on the situation.

If you’re talking with someone nearby—say another ham in your neighborhood—simplex is usually the easiest and most efficient option.

But when the distance grows or terrain gets in the way, repeaters operating in duplex mode make it possible for low-power radios to stay connected across an entire city or region.

That’s one of the reasons repeaters became such an important part of VHF and UHF amateur radio.

73 from PY6CJ - João Grisi

03/12/2026

This guy is from my home town of Great Bend, KS.

Summer 1958. Texas Instruments' lab sits empty, silent except for the hum of equipment. Everyone's on vacation except the new guy who hasn't earned the time off yet. Jack Kilby is alone with his thoughts and a problem that's been nagging the entire electronics industry.

The transistor revolution is hitting a wall. Engineers are hand-soldering thousands of components together, creating massive tangles of wires that fail constantly. The more complex the circuit, the more connections, the more points of failure. It's a nightmare. But Kilby, left alone in that quiet lab, sees something nobody else has.

What if you didn't connect separate components at all? What if you built everything transistors, resistors, capacitors into a single piece of semiconductor material? No wires. No connections to fail. Just one unified circuit.

He grabs a piece of germanium and gets to work. By the end of that summer, he's done it. A functioning integrated circuit, crude but revolutionary. On this day in 1959, he files the patent for 'Miniaturized Electronic Circuits.' The chip is born.

But here's where it gets interesting. Kilby's invention catches fire, and he helps create one of the first consumer applications: the pocket calculator. Texas Instruments runs a market survey before production. The results? Nobody wants it. People already have slide rules, they say. Why would anyone need a calculator in their pocket?

They make it anyway. The rest is history.

Meanwhile, across the country, a young engineer named Robert Noyce is working on the same problem. He cracks the manufacturing code, figuring out how to make these circuits with silicon instead of germanium. Both men revolutionize technology, but only one lives to see the Nobel Prize. Noyce dies in 1990. Kilby accepts the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics alone, though he never fails to credit his co-inventor.

Sixty patents. Countless innovations. And it all started because one guy didn't have enough vacation days.

03/06/2026

01/25/2026

A Little Technical "Nugget"

If you’re listening in today and hear someone say "73", they aren't talking about their age or the temperature. In the world of amateur radio, 73 is the standard code for "Best Regards." It dates back to the wired telegraph era of the 1850s!

Pro Tip: Never say "73s" (plural).

Since 73 already means "Best Regards" (plural), saying "73s" is technically like saying

"Best Regards-es."