Amateur radio

My amateur radio journey started in around 2014 when I accidentally discovered the $20 RTL-SDR TV dongle (Realtek RTL2382-U). Using GQRX, I began to explore the wonderful world of software-defined radio. GQRX has a simple but intuitive GUI. The waterfall display allowed me to see the radio spectrum and quickly tune in to the bands where there are activities.

But I soon realized that the dongle's stock antenna could not pick up good radio signals from a wide spectrum. So in my free time after work, I made a few DIY antennas, including several ground plane antennas, a discone antenna, and a QFH antenna. Later on, I added an upconverter to the dongle to sample frequencies below 24 MHz (the original RTL-SDR did not have a direct sampling mode). I made a random wire antenna and picked up HF radio stations from far away. That was my first experience in shortwave listening!

One of my radio projects was to build a ground plane antenna for the 137MHz band. Using GQRX and my laptop's sound card, I decoded the following image received from the NOAA-19 weather satellite.

After coming to the US, my interest in amateur radio died out. After a 5-year hiatus, I picked up the hobbie once again ealier this year. I obtained the Technician amateur radio license in January 2021 and upgraded to the General license in September 2021. The General license opened up a large chunk of the HF band (3MHz to 30MHz) which is where the fun of amateur radio really is.

My current shack includes a Yaesu FT-70D handheld radio for local UHF/VHF communication, a CCrane Skywave SSB radio for traveling and shortwave listening, and an ICOM IC-705 transceiver for HF communication, digital modes, and many many other things. The ICOM IC-705 is a wonderful portable radio with a vivid waterfall display, great signal processing capabilities, abundant digital features, and an intuitive user interface. Paired with a MLA-30+ loop antenna, it can pickup HF communication, SOTA/POTA activations, field day contests, and HF radio stations all over the US and even beyond. My plan for the future is to upgrate to the Amateur Extra license, improve my Morse code skill, and start doing POTA (Park-On-The-Air) activation.