n0mql.com

@n0mql.com

291 Followers 155 Following

Radio Amateur since 1992. Mostly Yaesu. Pronouns they/them/he/him. https://www.teepublic.com/user/kelvind

Screenshot from GridTracker2, of the map, centered on Utah/Wyoming corner, roughly. A chunk of Alaska is yellow in the NW corner. The SW corner shows Hawaii pink. Center East, Massachusetts is also pink.
Tightly-cropped screenshot of my fork of openhamclock where I've clicked on a East (but not coast) station's dot on the map. It says From N0MQL by N2HQI FT8 @ 3.574 MHz SNR: -3 dB
Tightly cropped screenshot of my modified openhamclock, where I've clicked on an East Coast dot and it shows From N2XK FT8 @ 7.077 MHz SNR: -7 dB
Tighly cropped screenshot of openhamclock.com showing that I've clicked an East Coast station, and it says N0MQL FT8 @ 7.077 MHz SNR: -6 dB
Tightly-cropped screenshot of just the "Live Spots" section of HamClock, wherein 160m 0 80m 0 60m 0 40m 19 30m 19 20m 116 17m 0 15m 102 12m 105 10m 161 6m 0
Close up photo of 4” ferrite (mix 61) rod, wrapped slightly loosely about 57 turns with 23AWG magnet wire. The pickup is 2 turns of 18AWG, & is halfway between the bottom end of the primary coil (oriented vertically), and the bottom end of the rod.
ANT1 (Vertical) Decodes: 63 Avg SNR: -17.9 Max SNR: -7 Unique: 3 Max Dist: 1445km Local (<1km): 37 DX (>1km): 25 ANTR3/2 (Ferrite rod): Decodes: 1 Avg SNR: -27.0 Max SNR: -27 Unique: 1 Max Dist: 635km Local (<1km): 1 DX (>1km): 0
I’ve built this antenna several times, the past 2 times successfully. There are 2 differences from the previous to this one. This uses 18AWG, where the other was 34AWG. And because the bigger wire makes a bigger coil, I had to glue 2 rods together. It may be that a more interesting A/B test will be comparing the 2 ferrite rod antennas, to see how much better this one is.
More of the same, but now it also calculates/estimates... Max Dist Count of "Local (<1km)" vs "DX (>1km)"
Another screenshot like the previous post. Ant1 (Vertical) Decodes: 795 Avg SNR: -21.4 Max SNR: -8 Unique: 129 Ant2 (Ferrite rod) Decodes: 257 Avg SNR: -21.6 Max SNR: -10 Unique: 93 Yeah, the outdoor, full quarter-wave (with ground radials) vertical out-performed. But for a 4" long ferrite rod indoors on my workbench at ground level, I'm pretty impressed with it.
Described well enough in the post.
Ham Radio operator cartoon, holds a classic microphone, ponders his radio equipment. Text above him reads: The Only AI is Antenna Impedance
I still need Hawai'i on this band, and I see the band appears open, so I CQ for HI stations to call me. Some dude NOT in Hawai'i calls me back. App is set to auto respond to whomever calls first, and I shrug my shoulders & let it go. But dude is not actually hearing me. I'm at 30w, & I'll bet you he's running QRO.
I could be wrong. For the love of all things good and just, I HOPE I'm wrong. But this email rubbed me the wrong way right out of the gate. The 13-star Old Glory used to conjure up pure, patriotic feelings (remember how most of us felt in 1976 during our nations bicentennial?). But now when I see it, I immediately think, "Oh, you mean like back when white people owned black people, and thought that was OK?" Grr.
Screenshot from an FCC PDF on Low Power Non Licensed Transmitters. Someone tell me what that math means. I don't get it.
I took a screenshot of the FindMy map every time the AirTag icon moved, over the half hour from 7:37 (when she texted "I'm heading out") to 8:07. There's zero evidence that she took Peterson Trail to Fox Run, which goes East-West below Tracie McBride Park.
Screenshot from aprs.fi showing the EMMET COUNTY EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER. I have attempted to inform them that the whole word "EMERGENCY" does not need to be and SHOULD NOT be in that beacon text, because many radios and APRS software systems have an emergency reaction (alarms, etc.) when that word is found in APRS beacon text, and this presents a "cry wolf" situation. But they do not respond to email, or have not understood the ordeal. A station in the St. Paul, MN area does not need to be ALERTED that there's an EOC in Michigan that is not currently experiencing an Emergency, but merely is there, existing, on an ordinary day. Side note, if you go hiking in Michigan, and think that if you get lost/injured & change your beacon text on your HT to say "EMERGENCY", nobody will come find you, because they have all shut off their APRS alerts because these dimwits are doing it wrong. Also, if you're a Michigan Ham, & you know these people, please explain to them that everybody who needs to know what "EOC" means, already knows, & it is very important that they fix this.
Screenshot of The Holy Cluster. Station WW1L in NE US is absolutely POUNDING Europe on 6m.
Map of the Petoskey, MI area, with an APRS object (red house icon with “EOC” in white) shown.
Me, displaying both a handlebar mustache and a lousy attitude.
Screenshot of pskreporter.info map showing 6m stations heard in Minnesota (EN35) over the 24h of 11:00 UTC 3 JUN 2025 to 11:00 UTC 4 JUN 2025. The map is thickest with pins on an arc from Maine to Texas, but includes some pins as far away as Puerto Rico.
pskreporter.info map, showing that my MN station can hear and/or is heard by stations in an arc from Maine to Texas... ON SIX METERS!
My #HamClock with 6m activity shown in Live Spots pane.
Holy Cluster showing 6m spots all over the place. Indicative of a major #SporadicE opening.
The chat/qso interface of FreeDATA, with iPad in vertical orientation. Notice that the “Start a new chat” button is visible.
Screenshot from aprs.fi showing a position packet that I apparently sent into the server, which came from KNFRVR (Knife River) on the North Shore of Lake Superior, SW to KD9EJA-6, SE to KD9EJA-10, W to W0PZT-1, and back ENE to N0MQL-1.
Screenshot of #HamClock
...to switch between which full-screen app is in the foreground. e.g. DireWolf, YAAC, HamClock, firefox I've got 3 of those rotating every 3 min on the #RaspberryPi and 2 of those rotating on my #AndysHamRadioLinux box. This not only makes my WFH environment a little more interesting, visually, but also reduces #ScreenBurnIn The pictured example bash script handles rotating between active screens listed in an array.
Another screenshot of a map from aprs.fi, similar to the previous, but it's zoomed further out to show faint purple squares indicating locations from which a position packet was forwarded by my station to the internet. North almost to Grand Marais. South to Austin, MN. East almost to Stevens Point. West to Paynesville. SE to LaCrosse. NW to Brainerd.
Cropped screenshot of aprs.fi website showing the stations heard directly this month (Mar, 2025) by 2-way iGate W0MHR-2, which I host at my house, atop my tallest mast. It shows good coverage of I-35E from Forest Lake, MN to Vadnais Heights. Also covers a good bit of I-35W from Arden Hills up to where it merges with 35E. #APRS #HamRadio #AmateurRadio #PublicService
Screenshot of the Loopback app, showing the input and pass-through of audio to my AirPods.
https://www.teepublic.com/sticker/71647687-only-wankers-drive-wankpanzers
https://www.teepublic.com/sticker/71981628-fuck-leon-skum
The 4 screens of my office and ham shack. Lower left is where I work my day-job. Upper left is #HamClock Upper right is #HolyCluster Lower right is my main Ham machine, running #WSJTxImproved, #flrig, #CQRLog, and #GridMaster
Still me, calling CQ in fldigi FeldHell
Tightly cropped screenshot of fldigi and me calling CQ on FeldHel on 7084kHz
2 actors in “Signs” movie wearing tin (aluminum) foil hats
Tightly cropped screenshot from QRZ.com shwing my license is... Effective 2022-05-27 Expires 2032-03-10
Puffy old ham wearing a self deprecating T-shirt, posing next to ham radio gear that he operates in a mediocre fashion.
Two extra large metal Slinkys, sitting by FTdx3000 transceiver.
T-shirt. Pic of microphone upper-left, and straight key lower-right. The text: "MIC LIKE A CHROME FIST FIST LIKE A LEAD CLUB"
Picture of a light purple t-shirt with a white graphic of a big chrome old classic microphone in the upper-left. To the right of it, text says "MIC LIKE A CHROME FIST". Below that is text that says "FIST LIKE A LEAD CLUB" next to a graphic of a straight key (for morse code).
Pic of fldigi sending CQ SCAMP de n0mql EN35 …several times. And some other words.
The Controversial Hams That Helped a French Cathedral Save Its Organ A bell tower in the Saint-Pierre cathedral hides a meaty secret. by Emily Monaco December 26, 2024 (Photo from inside a church steeple, with a few racks of hams haning in cheesecloth-like bags.) Winds from the surrounding plateaus create an ideal environment for curing ham. In Saint-Flour, a town in the Auvergne region of central France, the highest cathedral in Europe perches at 892 meters (nearly 3,000 feet) above sea level. Saint-Pierre sits at the confluence of the dry winds blowing across the surrounding plateaus, making it, surprisingly, the ideal place to age local hams to perfection.
Screenshot of a couple panels of HamClock. On the left: Live Spots, which is merely a count from pskreporter of how many stations I decoded in the past hour on each band. 160m 7 80m 31 60m 10 40m 82 30m 32 20m 56 17m 20 15m 27 12m 26 10m 5 6m 0 2m 0 The square to the right shows the moon phase. Slightly less than the left half is illuminated.
A few screenshots from MMANA software, which models antennas. it shows element lengths and distances for 5 elements, with the driven element in the center.
The 1st order keyboard for BlueSky iOS app. No @ nor # here.
Two HamClock screens and two screens for doing actual things.
Picture of a small section of #HamClock showing that in the past hour, my station heard 11 other stations on 6 meters.
Screenshot of the "Rx Frequency" panel of WSJT-x and the "Call Roster" window of GridTracker. Shows my CQ got four responses.
Foreground right, part of #DXCommander is visible. But it has an extra element wire that goes up about 2/3 of the way, then rises toward the SE, and out of frame, up to about 46 feet. Above the place where garage roof meets house roof, a mast holds a UHF/VHF collinear vertical. Also, TV antenna, and FM antenna, and WiFi outdoor mesh access point, so neighbors several houses away in all directions can see my guest WiFi SID, which changes frequently among various phrases insulting the stupidest POTUS ever. Never heard anyone mention it, but I’m hopeful that it really irritates some of the stupidest neighbors ever.
The NE corner of my QTH, where my #HamShack sits just on the other side of that window. Note the gutter and downspout. The center conductor of “Ant 2” coming from FTdx3000 & VersaTuner is connected to this downspout about a meter above the ground. The shield of same connects to an on-ground counterpoise that runs from here to the NE corner of the lot. It presents an excellent match where FT8 and 160m meet… mysteriously.
Three monitors. Two are extra wide, and a third “merely 16:9” screen suspended above the gap between the other two.