OzarkCon is a fun and informative QRP conference held every year in Branson, Missouri. This year, the conference is being held at the Stone Castle Hotel and Conference Center on April 13 and 14th. Registration and room rates are very reasonable.
The newest trend in American communication isn’t another smartphone from Apple or Google but one of the elder statesmen of communication: Ham radio licenses are at an all time high, with over 700,000 licenses in the United States, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Ham radio first took the nation by storm nearly a hundred years ago. Last month the FCC logged 700,314 licenses, with nearly 40,000 new ones in the last five years. Compare that with 2005 when only 662,600 people hammed it up and you’ll see why the American Radio Relay League — the authority on all things ham — is calling it a “golden age.”
“Over the last five years we’ve had 20-25,000 new hams a year,” Allen Pitts, a spokesman for the group, told FoxNews.com.
I think this homebrew key by Laurent Dumas (F8BBL) is simply amazing. It’s portable, easy to make from spare parts lying about the house and can serve you well if you’re in a pinch. (Sorry, I just can’t use this pun enough).
Admittedly, I think there would be some serious operator fatigue if you tried to use this key in a contest. But for emergencies–it certainly fits the bill!
If you can’t see the embedded video below, simply click this link.
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OzarkCon is a fun and informative QRP conference held every year in Branson, Missouri. This year, the conference is being held at the Stone Castle Hotel and Conference Center on April 13 and 14th. Registration and room rates are very reasonable.
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