How to use the new “On The Air” pane and Title with HamClock 4.09

HamClock 4.09 has just been released and the familiar POTA and SOTA panes have been replaced by a single pane called “On The Air” (displayed as “On Air” if it’s set to show in the tall left panel). It adds a new organisation, World Wide Flora & Fauna, abbreviated to WWFF and has been designed […]

A tip for adjusting the Pwr slider in WSJT-X

I’ve been using WSJT-X for a very long time, since it was called JT65-HF and one thing I’ve always found a little tricky was making fine adjustments to the Pwr control slider. I often want to make small adjustments and I’ve found that clicking on the slider itself can cause much larger adjustments than required. […]

I built a Stratum 1 NTP Time Server

This is something I’ve been considering doing for years and following a recent conversation with a good friend, I looked into it again and found this guide which was posted back in July 2023. In my box of stuff, I found I had a couple of GPS modules, one Adafruit and one of exactly the […]

New RTTY contest – Friday 4th October 2024

I have been emailed details of a new RTTY contest which will run for the first time this year on Friday 4th October 2024. It’s scheduled for the first Friday of October each year going forward. It’s called the URC DX RTTY Contest and the rules are pretty standard in that everyone works everyone. The […]

That’s N5J in the log for DXCC #304

Anyone who chases DX can’t fail to have noticed that the Jarvis Island DXpedition is now on air and has been for less than 48 hours. I did have a listen yesterday but didn’t hear them anywhere. I set up HamAlert notifications specifically for N5J with the source set as G, GM and GW in […]

How to set up a HamClock for your shack

Note: this entire process was tested and re-validated on the 1st December 2024 using a Raspberry Pi 4, the ‘recommended’ version of Raspberry Pi OS and HamClock 4.10. I appreciate that the last post here was about the HamClock and I said I wouldn’t be providing a guide to building one but I’ve been asked […]

HamClock

For some years I’d been aware of HamClock and around April last year I decided to investigate further and built one using an old Raspberry Pi 3B that I had spare.If you’ve never heard of HamClock, it’s described on the authors page thus: “HamClock is a kiosk-style application that provides real time space weather, radio […]

I’ve worked 300 DXCC entities

It’s been a while since I posted any updates here, not because I’ve got nothing to say but because I’ve been busy working on the station and playing radio. My new aerial is up but I’m not going to say anything about that now, that’s for a future update. I’ve had a good year so […]

How to build a shack clock using a Raspberry Pi and a 7″ Touch Display.

Raspberry Pi shack clock

A few weeks ago I bought the official Raspberry Pi 7″ touchscreen display for a project which sadly didn’t work as intended, this left me with the unused display and a case. I started thinking about things I could use it for and settled on a shack clock. Long term readers of my site will […]

I have deliveries!

SteppIR and NN4ZZ Tilt Plate

I love it when the courier comes. In the last few days I’ve received both my new SteppIR and the NN4ZZ tilt plate from Degen Designs. Now all I need to do is wait until the weather improves and I can start the process for replacing the hexbeam and coax. Exciting times ahead.