SolderSmoke Daily News -- Ham Radio Blog

  Hall of Fame member Steve WD4CFN in Tennessee fired up his 40 meter Mchigan Mighty Mite (above) and made contact with ND4K in Georgia. FB ...

I have made 11 contacts using the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion receiver.  Ten of the 11 were after June 3, 2025. This was in very casual op...

Today Hack-A-Day has an unsually good report on Britain's Voluntary Interceptors. I was especially touched by the story of the guy who p...

At around 0630 EDT on June 7, 2025 I heard K1OA calling CQ on 7030 kHz CW. This was exactly where I had a crystal.  I called him, but he did...

I nspired by K1OA and KA4KXX , I put the SolderSmoke DC receiver to work on the CW portion of 40 meters. At first I used a very (perhaps ov...

T his goes to prove what we have been saying all along:  this receiver is not a toy!  It is capable of operating as part of a real 2-way ham...

It is always good to be reminded that someone out there is listening and reading,  especially when it is nice folks like Hamilton and his fa...

This is obviously not the style of construction that we would recommend for new builders.  Thus the "Honorable Mention" category. ...

Ken W4KAC tells me that the tuning knob that he used to minimize hand-capacitance effects on his PTO started out as a gear in a leaf  blower...

As you guys know, here at SolderSmoke we are all about tradition.  Things like homebrewing, thermatrons,  crystal radios,  April 1, and even...

  I make it a point to go back to Wes W7ZOI's web site every once in a while.  That is always a good idea. This time I found myself look...

I made the video above to show postential builders how useful our Direct Conversion receiver really is.   Late in the video (starting at 11:...

  Michael AG5VG finished this receiver last weekend.  He hopes to build a CW transmitter using an output of the Si5351.  Obviously I defer t...

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/09/fixing-up-old-homebrew-rig-barebones.html A question this morning from Scott KQ4AOP caused me to Go...

Rogier PA1ZZ sent me this today.  I think I may have seen pieces of it before, but this restoration  is really nice.  But ham radio seems to...

This old QST article caught my eye, largely because my father was also in Hollandia on that  Christmas day in 1944.  He was in the Navy hos...

FB Helge.   This is really cool.  I didn't realize until I saw the schematic at the end that he was on 3579 kHz -- that is the old color...

  Ed W4YWA is far too modest -- he has built a very FB homewbrew transmitter.  Congratulations Ed.  I think your original plan to use a Web ...

  FB Chuck, very cool.  Please send us more reports on this rig.   Chuck has been on the blog many times, with many projects:  https://solde...

This is for CW fans, or for those wishing to improve their CW skills.  You can now listen to the entire H.G. Wells book in CW, thanks to Chu...