Michael Burkhardt’s Amateur Radio Blog
My dad was first licensed not long after I was born, so I grew up around ham radio. I sat in the shack listening to my dad knock out QSOs in CW that flew by at what seemed like a blistering speed. He taught me about geography and propagation and “rare DX.” But my ham radio education wasn’t limited to our own basement. I also went to club meetings and Field Day and occasionally the home QTH’s of my…
From the moment we acquired the Arizona place, my plan was to set up a shack and an antenna there for HF, maybe even 6 meters too. So it came as something of a surprise when the stars aligned or whatever it is that happened that caused me to acquire a mast, an antenna, and a transceiver all in one fell swoop. It all started with the mast. It was (I thought) an benign action on my part: I took a…
I regularly write weekly posts (“Weeknotes”) — a recap of what’s been going on — over on my general interest blog. There have been a few radio-related things lately so I thought I should put those updates here on my ham radio blog instead. I probably won’t write every week, but who knows? Anyway, here goes... First, a few older stories (Week 25) I received a new vanity call sign on June 19th.…
I haven’t worked Field Day in years. I used to go out with the Ohio State club (W8LT) back in the early 2000’s, but haven't done much with it since. I didn’t have any real plans to operate this year either, but it turned out that I had both the time and the motivation at the same time this year. So I opted for lazy man’s Field Day and operated class 1D . By the Numbers I did not go out to try to…
One of the interesting things about having a 2×1 call sign is that you are one of only 26 people (or clubs) with that same format and prefix. Since I already had looked into the history of my new 2×1, I started wondering about the other 25. Here’s what I learned: All 26 NZ6 2×1’s were originally issued sequentially between March and (probably) May or June 1984. Six of the original licensees still…
You may recall that about a year ago I decided it was time for a change and I set about replacing W8MHB , a call sign I had used for almost 28 years. I successfully applied for and received a Group A 2×2, AI5MX . Since then, I found that I wasn’t loving it as much as I thought I would. It wasn’t so much dissatisfaction or dislike as it as just a sort of meh feeling. For a long time, I thought that…
Similar to the “ All the Cameras ” post I wrote last year, this post lists all the radios I’ve owned or used since I first got my license back in 1984. My Dad’s I was 12 when I got my Novice class license, and it would be a while before I could own my own gear. The are the radios I used when I was just starting out. I got my General and Advanced class licenses is 1985 and ‘86, resepectively, and…
At the end of the year it’s interesting to look back and remember the milestones. 2025 wasn’t my most active ham radio year ever, but there were a few things worth noting. New Call Sign The most significant change for me was that I applied for and received a new call sign . For a lot of folks—most folks maybe—a call sign is a permanent thing. But nothing is really permanent. My fifties have been a…
The Maidenhead Locator system is a system of encoding geographic coordinates that is commonly used in Amateur Radio. You’ll often see or hear another operator’s “grid square” as a string of either four or six characters—e.g. EN80 or EN80LB —although the latter is actually a Subsquare as we’ll see. The Maidenhead system divides the Earth into smaller and smaller rectangles of fixed angular…
This one comes in handy for securing my 1-pound arborists’ weight to a line. Instructions for tying an anchor hitch (101knots.com) 101 Knots The Bear Essentials Outdoors Co. Knotspedia
The scaffold knot can be used with or without a thimble. (I tend to use it without one.) It’s strong and adjustable (sort of) but jams easily under load. To me this is a very useful feature when hanging antennas! Instructions for tying a scaffold knot (101knots.com) 101 Knots The Bear Essentials Outdoors Co. Knotspedia Scaffold Knot from Diderot’s Encyclopedia (1762)
Instructions for tying a taut line hitch (101knots.com) 101 Knots The Bear Essentials Outdoors Co. Knotspedia This YouTube tutorial shows three different versions .
My dad had a sizeable collection of QSL cards. After he died last year, I took up the job of scanning them all. Many showed signs of age and deterioration, but on overall they were in pretty good shape. Because there were so many, I knew a flatbed scanner was not going to work well so I purchased a Brother DS-740D Duplex Compact Mobile Document Scanner. This is a small but might device that made…
After nearly 28 years as W8MHB, I decided recently to apply for a new vanity call sign. Some would say I was crazy for doing so. I thought so myself at times. But I’m at a point in my life where I’m ready to embrace some changes. Besides, nothing is really permanent. So on July 10th, 2025, I submitted an application for a new vanity call sign. I paid my $35 to the FCC and waited. After three weeks…
The first weekly assignment of the 2025 Ham Radio Challenge is to create a QSL card design. I thought it would be fun to recreate the cards I got after I was first licensed as KA8UTP in 1984. Here’s what those cards, designed and printed by George Vesely W9SKR, looked like: My original QSL card (1984) The image above is a scan of the only remaining copy of my original QSL cards from 1984. It is…
Note: As of June 2026, I operate as NZ6A . The fourth weekly assignment of the 2025 Ham Radio Challenge is to research the history of your callsign, so that’s what I did. Here’s what I found. The “W” 1×3 callsigns are among the earliest ever issued in America. After the US started licensing amateur radio stations in 1912, 3-character callsigns were used. They were made up of a call area digit…
FT8DMC Membership Certificate #19378 (2022-Mar-27) World Worked All Members 500 Stations 400 Stations 300 Stations 200 Stations 100 Stations Worked Region 2 20 Stations 10 Stations Worked All Continents Mixed 15 Meters 17 Meters 20 Meters 40 Meters Worked Grid Award 750 Grid Squares 500 Grid Squares 400 Grid Squares 300 Grid Squares 200 Grid Squares 100 Grid Squares Worked Prefixes 500 Prefixes…
My collection of print (and some digital) QSL cards is now online! It’s something I’d been hoping to do for a while, and now it’s finally done. Click here to visit the gallery Scanning Paper Cards After years of owning a flat bed scanner I knew that using one to scan my QSL cards was going to be a huge pain in the ass. So I did some searching on the Intert00bz and found Robert K3RRR’s page , which…
I hadn't worked 30 meters in a while and I was doing a little experiment to see whether I could tune my off-center fed dipole and make some contacts. I fired up WSJT-X and found the band pretty dead, but there were a few folks out there. I made a few stateside contacts pretty easily and that made me happy. Then this scrolled across my screen: There's no and , no punchline, no more to the story. I…
The last of my very first QSL cards This is one of my first QSL cards. To my knowledge, it is the last of its kind in existence. I’ve not yet found any others. My dad bought me my first QSL cards after I got my Novice class license in 1984. They were printed by George Vesely, W9SKR, somewhere in Illinois. This had been my father’s preferred QSL card printer for many years. Indeed there are several…