What better way to spend a hot, humid Sunday Brooklyn afternoon than checking out Buzz-A-Rama, a 1960’s era slot car parlor in Kensington? Inside this unassuming storefront are 4 or 5 large twisting tracks, where children and adults race cars…
QRSS is a term used in ham radio to mean “very slow speed morse code”. QRPp means “using a very low power radio transmitter”. What happens when you combine these concepts? Small, simple, radios that can communicate over thousands of…
Inspired by the upcoming 2010 ARRL Field Day event, we finally got off our duffs and set up a real amateur radio station at the resistor clubhouse. We now have a 60 foot long dipole on the roof, an antenna…
How do you keep an iPhone running for long periods of time when you are off the grid? You can’t change the battery in the phone, so carrying a spare isn’t an option. Devices like LadyAda’s excellent MintyBoost use AA…
I recently stumbled across a video podcast series on iTunes called EEVblog. It is a simple, low budget affair — just one guy with a camera set up on a tripod in his workshop, but the content is great. The…
On the way home from work today I stopped by 269 Electronics in Chinatown. From the outside this looks like a typical Canal Street junk store, with a big spread of knockoff watches, perfume, mp3 players, etc. on display. However…
This weekend is the Adventure Radio Society‘s annual Flight of the Bumblebees event. Amateur radio operators will be using portable low power stations from mountaintops, beaches, trails, parks, picnic tables, and backyards across North America. Many participants build their own…
Last weekend I threw my ham radio gear into a backpack and carried it to the top of South Beacon Mountain in upstate New York, along with with my friend Tom Tumino, N2YTF, and we spent several hours at the…
A friend and I had dinner in the little Hudson River town of Beacon NY last night, after a day hike on nearby South Beacon Mountain. As luck would have it, Beacon is home to the Retro Arcade Museum. Despite…
Check out this little gem: a ham radio store in the heart of New York City! It’s called Barry Electronics, and you’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of it, since they don’t have a website, or a sign, and…