I’ve discovered a lot of high quality newsletters in the last couple of weeks (for example The Dork Web), and while I don’t think I’m ready to take things as far as making one myself, I do find a lot of interesting links to share while I’m busy being lazy. So, this is issue one of Rad[io] Links, an unordered list of interesting things I’ve found on the web, expect radio, electronics, tech productivity, programming and anything else I find that’s interesting. If I can, I’ll do this regularly.

Hot Iron

Hot Iron is an opinionated and always interesting quarterly magazine/newsletter about ham radio. This pulls bits and bobs from around the web, combines it with reader submissions and the result is a bit like a cross between SPRAT and POC||CTFO.

To sign up, you need to send an email (yes, but do it). Details are at https://www.walfords.net/ordering.htm.

Simple low current mini-whip antenna

Everyone loves project blogs. I love just how much information there is in this post about a little glowing active antenna. It uses an LT1818 opamp, instead of a JFET/BJT. This has the advantage that the IC is in production and costs about £1.74 in low quantities, and has a wide bandwidth.

The 3D printed case and LED look great together, and the schematic is super simple.

N7DDC Automatic ATU boards

These ATUs look like they’re relay switched blocks of inductors and capacitors. The github repo doesn’t do the best job of listing features but the schematic shows 5 caps and 5 inductors, and is that an SWR bridge on the bottom left? I guess it must be for this to be automatic. Kits are readily available on eBay and AliExpress, just search for “N7DDC”. I have ordered one but it’s stuck at work, and I’m not able to go there (🦠).

Hackaday

Finally, I was browsing hackaday.io and found the ham radio tag interesting. Here’s are a couple of nice projects:

Bye!

I hope you like this little list. Please feel free to leave a comment if you’ve got something cool I should see.