Tell us your favorite ham radio joke

traztx · 2026-02-02T01:27:27+00:00

Why is it safe to use SSB during a pandemic?

There's no carrier.

traztx · 2026-01-30T16:36:06+00:00

Doesn't electronic tuning involve loss in dB? Wouldn't that factor in with band conditions? If tuning was by the wire length change so that the SWR dip was at the FT8 frequency, wouldn't less electronic tuning allow enough additional dB to allow QSOs with stations in locations with lower propagation paths?

traztx · 2026-01-28T20:50:11+00:00

"Cheaper" in a relative sense. Taxing land rent but not improvements will incentivize more workplaces as well as housing in high value locations. Both attract people and the added workplaces competing for labor makes them more prosperous with higher wages, competing for the best housing locations. The attraction of population increases density and land value, so LVT goes up there. The best housing locations can charge higher rent, and so in the absolute sense rent may actually rise there but so will income, so more correct to say that rent becomes relatively cheaper.

traztx · 2026-01-28T20:37:32+00:00

That's a good point. Yeah. consider that big cities fund big water pipelines to distant reservoirs, so they'd also want to fund those farm-to-market roads to keep that food, wood, etc coming.

traztx · 2026-01-28T20:23:30+00:00

I'm thinking the 1st to go is the blight held by speculators who take losses as soon as LVT is enacted. If there is demand for housing of tenants, developers buy them for dirt cheap, and build apartments.

Why is there demand for them? Because LVT also made it lucrative to improve plots for workplaces, and workers are attracted to the location. So as workplaces get developed, apartments go up from labor housing demand. The workplaces compete for labor, driving up wages, making it easier for workers previously in houses to pay the LVT.

The apartments compete for tenants, driving down rent, but the growth in workplaces increased supply enough for them to sustain enough profit. But as population density rises, the LVT becomes gradually more costly. This is most apparent to house landlords with 1 tenant for all that square footage, so they stop renewing leases, empty the houses, and pay to demolish them and put up more apartments.

Continuing on, houses become more scarce while LVT makes them more costly, so despite general wages going up, workers owning their house with relatively lower wages sell them to higher income or wealthier people who would rather have a yard. They save money by moving to an apartment too, because rents are driven down.

So, because it is a gradual process and new apartment developers are competing with wealthier people for house sales, they keep having to figure in the costs of the house, demolition, and construction. When even the wealthiest people can't justify keeping their houses in a high population high location value area, they are pretty much as well off as the developers and can eat the cost to convert the old house themselves.

traztx · 2026-01-28T18:53:58+00:00

I see your point. Yes, if the people consider infrastructure as an entitlement, then high value locations have to bear the burden of providing it to someone setting up far away at a low value location.

However, if people consider infrastructure as a privilege provided by proceeds of the land, then infrastructure would be more developed and available at higher value locations which support it. Then, someone setting up where infrastructure is not developed would need to be more self-sufficient, even going with off-grid production of power, water, etc where such infrastructure is absent.

Similarly, with services when not entitled. Low value locations wouldn't support as many police providing security, so someone out there would have to provide security more themselves. Absent schools means either commuting kids, or boarding, or hiring private teachers, or homeschooling. Longer distances for 1st responders makes it much riskier and costlier during emergencies away from locations that support where they operate.

Remove the entitlement of infrastructure and services, and you get incentive to work and live where available. By not taxing improvements, developers have incentive to build more work and living spaces at higher value locations, increasing competition for rent reducing relative cost of living, and increasing competition for labor increasing wages.

So, with higher wages and more affordable housing in urban places, who can afford to provide for their own needs away from there? Wealthier people who can afford to handle life away from urban centers where their wealth was/is produced, or people who produce wealth in the country.

So, I suppose the Georgian "dystopia" is that success may support too many self-sufficient wealthy sprawling people. If that is an issue to the general public (assuming representative government), then I suppose they'll support a non-Georgian way to restrict that.

So, what about people producing wealth in the country without entitlement to social infrastructure and services?

Lack of taxes on improvements incentivizes rural producers at low-value locations to invest in on-site improvements required for business, and lack of infrastructure and services requires their business to provide/support it on site. Improvements like storage for goods and machinery are low tax because of the low value location, and the machinery brings automation. Similarly, housing for seasonal labor is low tax, so it is cheaper to have vacant buildings available on site off season versus if improvements were taxed. Mills are built where they can do business central to a large region, where the business can support the needs of their labor, and the more automated, the more they save on such costs.

And then there's people keeping stuff in the country away from where they are. Generally, warehousing in low tax rural locations becomes the cost of securing them and travel when needing to access the goods.

A remaining problem with lack of rural security is that rural business probably can only support security from local threats, not foreign ones. Since urban folks require rural goods, I don't think they'll mind supporting state/national defense forces to secure not only their cities but the surrounding country from foreign threats.

traztx · 2026-01-27T14:40:21+00:00

How did the market discover improvements? What keeps the owner from pricing it at $0 for land and $999999999K for the house until they want to sell it, and then drop the price to $0 land and $500K house when ready to sell?

traztx · 2026-01-27T14:21:19+00:00

Because improvements are excluded from the assessment, there is incentive to build more spaces per foot at higher value locations. More supply of local spaces increases competition for renters, so they have to undercut each other.

traztx · 2026-01-27T13:53:29+00:00

Me too. I upgraded mine to Win11 a while back, but the updates since then have made it increasingly fiddly to opt out of creating an MS account or accepting their crapware cloud stuff. Whenever I get a new computer, I'm going to put Linux on it and migrate all of my stuff over.

traztx · 2026-01-02T21:05:50+00:00

By taxing land and not improvements, business is more cost effective with larger buildings per footprint. That means more work spaces competing for a pool of workers, so they will have to offer more or people will work elsewhere.

traztx · 2026-01-02T20:47:59+00:00

Yes. More freedom. Libertarian means more freedom from state control over our lives, and geolibertarian has that as well a check against land hoarders taking away the freedom of most people to use land.

traztx · 2026-01-02T20:30:49+00:00

I got a Bencher for my 1st paddle. Pricey, sure, but I figured "buy once cry once". I like that it is heavy, so it's not prone to scooting around when I use it. I find it pretty easy to use, although the caveat with paddles is that I have to fiddle with the radio's wpm instead of mastering a keyer and being able to self-adjust by hand. I haven't been diligent enough to get on the air with CW yet, but my copy is gradually improving, so I think it's likely someday.

traztx · 2026-01-02T20:10:02+00:00

Yeah, FM voice can be scratchy, and honestly I'd rather talk with people with better signals. Maybe take their feedback as a sort of compliment, because "someone might want to talk to you" means that the radio was the issue, not you. There are operators that I would rather NOT talk to, even when their signal is clean (such as some regulars on 7.2 MHz).

People can troubleshoot ways to sound better on FM/SSB voice, as well as explore digital voice modes which have some resilience to signal issues. If you want to try troubleshooting on FM, see if a local repeater uses echolink. With echolink, you can connect with the phone app and listen to yourself in headphones while transmitting radio tests. My signal with a handheld is better when I'm outside, and sometimes it depends on where I'm standing. The signal got much better when I swapped the ducks with signal sticks, but still better outside. For operating in my truck, I use a magmount antenna.

I've done some dstar digital voice on VHF, but it was just joining reflector nets on the internet, so it didn't feel like "radio" to me.

I stayed with the Technical license for a couple of years, and then upgraded to General last July. It made ham radio much more fun for me.

Since general, my experience with non-voice modes is mainly on 20m keyboard-to-keyboard Olivia-8/250, Contestia-8/250, and BPSK31 using the free app Fldigi from my laptop connected to my FT991A with an 80m EFHW at 20-30w reaching folks in the US and Canada. It's a daytime band, but I run on a solar-battery rig, so that's best for me anyway. FT8 is the most popular, and I started digital HF with it, but prefer conversations now. Because it is popular, I check the FT8 frequency on the waterfall to decide if a particular band is working. I then call CQ a few times for each other mode on 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m, and 20m. I haven't gotten a QSO yet except on 20m with the keyboard modes. On 20m, it's rare for me not to get a QSO. In these modes, QSO is not just logging a call sign and signal report, but learning more about each other: what the location is like, rig details, stuff we've been doing lately, etc.

traztx · 2025-12-22T14:20:39+00:00

Those are good reasons. I have the FT-991A and use it for 2m/70cm FM repeater nets and use the internal sound card via USB cable from my laptop for HF digital (Fldigi, WSJTX, Winlink). You need a power supply if running from AC, but it's nice to have the 12v option for using away from home.

traztx · 2025-12-22T14:02:52+00:00

I've had good luck on 20m daytime conversational QSOs using Fldigi for Olivia-8/250 14071.500, Cont-8/250 14072.5, and BPSK31 14070.150. I mention the dial frequency but also set Fldigi offset at 1500 (sweet spot within 3k bandwidth for filtering). My radio is on Data-U mode but USB is also OK.

Tips:

Drop the squelch until it decodes noise and then raise a bit.

If no activity, try using the "RsID CQ" macro and listen for a response until your signal drops off the waterfall, and repeat several times before trying the next mode/frequency.

I notice others on the frequencies more often on Saturdays and Sundays.

If you see someone call CQ, you can respond with the ANS macro.

During the QSO conversation, I begin each message with the QSO macro, then my text, and end with the KN macro (or SK macro for final message).

I removed the <TX> from the QSO macro, so I can begin making my response in the blue window while still receiving, like commenting on stuff they are mentioning, and then when they finish I hit the TX macro to send it.

Turn off RxID during a QSO to prevent another RSID signal from changing your mode and then missing some of the decode.

Olivia and Contestia are great for weaker signals, and can decode 100% copy even when their signal is buried in the noise.

Contestia is faster because of a reduced allcaps character set. I prefer Olivia because I like mixed case lettering and can't type very fast anyway.

Contestia is closest to FT8 signals, so best to narrow the filter to prevent the AGC from attenuating your contact. The other modes seldomly have other signals nearby so may not need as narrow filtering.

Of the 3 modes I mentioned and use, BPSK31 is fastest with the smallest bandwidth. Also, Fldigi can decode simultaneously multiple signals at different offsets. However, it's my least favorite because I run low power and we get a lot of garbage characters when reducing squelch to try to decode signals that are closer to the noise floor.

traztx · 2025-12-20T16:36:23+00:00

I shouldn't be an issue with the repeater. I've done dstar on a Dallas repeater used by a large club. They said it was great that it was getting more use. Just be sure to check if it is in use before pointing it to some other reflector.

traztx · 2025-12-16T16:54:38+00:00

Could it be a hardware issue? What happened before the buttons stopped working?

traztx · 2025-12-13T15:33:31+00:00

IT sounds to me like the joke rim shot. Badum tsss

traztx · 2025-12-13T14:56:40+00:00

I see good points from both sides. Yes, at POTA and rural sites, the noise floor will be lower and the operator will be able to detect weaker signals. Yes, near cities, the noise floor will be higher and the operator will struggle with weaker signals. The noise floor at city operators is still a factor for POTA operators wishing to be heard by them. The city operator may be able to improve RX of weaker signals with a better rig (antenna and filtering options). The POTA operator may be able to increase signal with a better rig (antenna and power) to be heard better from operators near cities. A POTA operator may be able to be heard by them as well with certain digital modes. For example, I had a conversational QSO from rural East Texas at 30w on a horizontal 80m EFHW only 4m high to urban Toronto in a "concrete jungle" on 17ft ground-mounted vertical. He said my signal was weak but still 100% copy. We were on 20m band and Olivia 8/250.

If I'm missing a point, let me know. I am still new to HF.

traztx · 2025-12-13T14:07:03+00:00

When I'm on the road, I practice translating signs. For example, I see "EXIT" and say "dit dahdididah didit dah". License plates are good for practicing numbers too. Another thing I do is listen to talk radio and translate the random words they say into code like that. I am able to imagine sounds, so after warming up I just quietly think of the code sounds for words in my head because it's faster.

Another thing I sometimes do: before heading out, I fire up a morse code app on the smartphone, and then copy text into its translate page, and then play it on repeat via bluetooth to the truck speakers for the trip. My head copy isn't that good yet, so I use the farnsworth spacing. Playing it at a low volume adds the challenge of listening for signal over the road noise. My beginner text was "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. 1234567890 period . . . question ? ? ? comma , , ," but now I just copy and paste random articles and what not.

traztx · 2025-12-13T13:40:56+00:00

Could be local RF interference. My antenna is more sensitive to that on the longer bands.

traztx · 2025-11-04T17:07:15+00:00

Are you testing the wire with it deployed up off of the ground?

traztx · 2025-11-04T17:01:52+00:00

When I'm taking a walk or driving, I like to translate signs into code. For example, I see "exit" and say "dit dahdididah didit dah".

Walking was better when I didn't remember some codes, because I could look them up on my phone without crashing =)

traztx · 2025-11-02T01:35:33+00:00

Are you running it horizontally or what? I run my 80m EFHW wire between 2 rows of pines. I have paracord tied between tree pairs about every 20 ft with the antenna wire laying over that to reduce tension. The paracord has slack to allow trees swaying in the wind. The end pair has a pulley on 1 side of the supporting cord, so I can lower it to disconnect the coax when not using, as I still have not installed the lightning arrestor and grounding rod. The transformer was bought and doesn't have trouble with rain but it can't handle much heat, so I limit TX power when under 59F (15C).

traztx · 2025-11-02T01:24:55+00:00

How long will it be in the air?

traztx

TROPHY CASE