K0SWE Blog
Links
This is a list of resources I’ve found useful and would like to keep for reference. I hope others find them useful as well!
My Videos
- TM-D710 Crossband Repeater (15 minutes)
- TM-D710 Feature Overview (1 hour 6 minutes)
- Forester Lightning Talk (17 minutes)
- Programming Radios with CHIRP (1 hour 5 minutes)
- Winlink in a Box (18 minutes)
- Winlink Protocols and Pat (35 minutes)
- Small Rotators for AMSAT (25 minutes)
- ARRL VOTA Planning and Operations (23 minutes)
Denver/Boulder area clubs
- Rocky Mountain Radio League
- Denver Radio Club
- Denver Radio League
- Boulder Amateur Radio Club
- Longmont Amateur Radio Club
- Rocky Mountain Ham Radio - a sort of “meta club” providing services to other clubs
Other Denver/Boulder area groups and resources
- Colorado ARES R1D6 - Jefferson, Clear Creek and Gilpin Counties
- Colorado ARES R1D3 - Boulder and Broomfield Counties
- Colorado AuxComm - a program of Colorado’s Office of Emergency Management
- Army MARS Region 8
- Edge Of Space Sciences - not a ham group per se, but their scientific balloons are tracked via amateur radio, and many members are hams
- Colorado Connection repeater network - “a unique statewide two meter linked FM radio system with additional coverage into adjacent states”
- Colorado Council of Amateur Radio Clubs - Regional frequency coordinator
- Ham Radio Outlet - physical store in Aurora
Radio and Broadcasting History
- All About Ham Radio For Beginners - Thank you to Conner and Amelia for showing me this excellent beginner’s overview! It’s a great introduction, plus has links out to many other resources like a glossary, lingo decoder, and much more!
- Business Studies: Broadcasting and Its History - Thank you to Ms. Garraway and Noah for pointing this out, it’s super interesting!
- AT&T Long Lines – A Forgotten System - Many of RMHAM’s tower sites are former Long Lines sites!
Digital Modes/Networks
Voice
- DMR
- RadioID.net to get a DMR ID
- Brandmeister
- EchoLink
- Digital multi-mode low-power hotspots
- Most use the Multi-Mode Digital Voice Modem (MMDVM) firmware
- HRO Zumspot - Raspberry Pi based, and runs Pi-Star
- Shark RF openSPOT2 - standalone device
- Concise comparison by ARRL Ohio of many hotspots, dated 2016-11, but doesn’t include Zumspot
- Another comparison by
KE0FHSwith more products covered
Data
- Winlink - radio email service, used heavily in EmComm
- Pat alternative client
- AX.25
- VARA - primarily for Winlink but also has an IM client
- WSJT-X - I’ve worked a lot of FT8
- JS8Call - instant messaging using modified FT8
Radio-specifics
TYT MD-380
- md380tools and md380tools-vm: This looks like a great improvement for the TYT MD-380, but I don’t think it was compatible with the V05.01 hardware that I got. I encountered an analog squelch issue I couldn’t resolve. The md380tools repo is currently based on D013.020. I was able to get the radio working again with stock D015.001.
AnyTone D878UV
- Jim Blocker
KF5IWcontinuously updates and publishes a DMR contact list with worldwide coverage from sources like radioid.net, so you can always tell who’s talking. - Dave Casler
KE0OGhas a helpful video on setting up the AnyTone D878UV for APRS, because it’s not intuitive (at least, not as a first-time APRS user).
Software
- Since I primarily use Linux and many radio programs are built for Windows, I use Virtualbox to run
Windows as a guest within Linux. There’s a
good guide
from François Marier
VA7GPL; I had missed the point about thevboxusersgroup, and it prevented me from attaching USB devices.
Test study aids
- ARRL Technician, General and Extra license manuals for in-depth learning
- ARRL General and Extra license Q&A books for exam cramming
- Roy Watson’s Technician, General and Extra practice exam Android apps
- Practice exams on hamstudy.org
(I’m only linking the products I used personally, but most of these study resources are available for all three exam levels.)