You had to stick around until nearly 12:30 to find out who won the main prize, a brand new ICOM 718 which went to Larry NOBKB of Greenfield IA. Matt KBOORN won the last of 3 Baofeng UV5R x3 H/Ts given away, the type that includes 220 besides 2M and 440. . Matt ORN with […]

An ‘S’ meter on your radio receiver is the first indication that you have something better than a kitchen radio. Zenith Transoceanics and later Panasonic series of AM/FM/SW receivers had ‘S’ meters. (my Panasonic RF2600’s meter is switchable, Battery voltage or signal strength) . This meter (above in red) is on a 1980ish Kenwood 680 […]

SWIARC Field Day 2021 was held at George KDONME’s place in SE Council Bluffs. Rick KAORLR was FDay Chairman, and we ran category 4A IA. Gary KC8JOK had an impressive setup, out back behind George’s gazebo, seen here with Gary’s 2kW Honda in the foreground. Actually, Gary is in the orange tent Behind The Gazebo, […]

SPECTRUM ANALYZERs cost a ton of money, good ones go for $10k and up with brand names like HP, Motorola, etc. Geeks buy used ones for a couple k just to have one, but in reality they’re not terribly useful. A Radio Shack scanner is a good substitute for freqs we use. . It’s just […]

Joel KOOQL was first to arrive at the March 20th mini Flea Market in Council Bluffs, bringing with him a long table and twice enough stuff to fill it. That’s his 2M SSB rig in the picture, offered at $150. In the past we’ve had 20 – 30 Hams show up, this time a couple […]

Saturday Noon Swap Net featured Nothing For Sale 12/19, but we did call for pics of your rig tuned to .82 and this was the first pic received, 2 mono band Kenwoods, TS711 and TS811 for 2M and UHF respectively, each tuned to a SWIARC repeater freq. However, the guy who took the pic was […]

We’ve got nets for 2M FM, 440, one on 220 Friday night, 2M SSB 8 o’clock Sunday night but not much for 6M. We were discussing a 6M FM repeater up in Mondamin but no one knew whether it’s currently operational. . Larry WOPYA and Tom WDOBFO show up Sunday afternoon on the 6M net […]

It’s Tuesday night at 9PM on 148.82 (no PL required). Officially it’s the (OPS) Outdoor, Prepping, and Survivalism net, but we also touch on conspiracies once in a while and of course the most insidious conspiracy is inflation, engineered by the people who manage our currency. Thus the picture, a ten Bolivar note from Venezuela […]

We’re doing this 3 Saturdays a month (not the 1st one – that’s Tobey Jack’s in Manawa) from around 9AM to 11 with either 1) just a gabfest, 2) mini flea mkt, or 3) a ‘program’ as we did August 29th, or 4) some combination of all those. In case you’re seeing this on SWIARC […]

THE TUNING OF A DUPLEXER A Saga of Suspense, Intrigue, Discovery, and Accomplishment By John WBOCMC and Paul WBOGXD While troubleshooting a noise issue on the 146.82 SWIARC repeater it was determined that the duplexer needed to be serviced. John WBOCMC volunteered to look it over if it were transported to his workbench. Anxious to […]