Operating
Ham Radio Awards
By OneShack Staff
WAS, DXCC, VUCC, WAC, WAZ, WPX and more: who runs each award and how to get your contacts confirmed.
Articles
Longer reads for hams: how-tos, explainers and a bit of history. Pick a topic, or browse everything below.
Featured Writer
Bill Rinker, W6OAV
Longtime Elmer, and writer for many amateur radio club newsletters in Colorado and California.
Getting Started · Operating
Your First Contest
By OneShack Staff
What contests are, how the exchange works, how to log and send in your contacts, and where a beginner can start without pressure.
Operating
QSL Cards and LoTW
By OneShack Staff
Paper cards, the QSL bureau, direct requests and Logbook of The World: how hams confirm contacts today.
Getting Started · Operating
Your First Satellite Contact
By OneShack Staff
Work an FM satellite with a handheld and a small Yagi: find a pass, handle Doppler, and keep your first contact short and sweet.
Getting Started · Operating
Nets and Net Control
By OneShack Staff
How directed and open nets work, how to check in, and what it takes to run a net as net control.
Equipment · Getting Started
How to Program a Handheld Radio
By OneShack Staff
Load repeaters and simplex channels into a handheld, from the keypad or with free software, and save a backup before you start.
Getting Started · Operating
How to Use a Repeater
By OneShack Staff
How repeaters work, how to find them, and how to make your first call with good habits, proper ID and room for emergency traffic.
Antennas
Attic HF Antennas
By Bill Rinker, W6OAV
Covenants pushed Bill's HF antennas into the attic in 1986, and he has worked the world from there since. What he learned: stop trying to resonate anything, put up the biggest wire that fits, feed it with ladder line, and let the tuner do the work.
Antennas · Getting Started
Antennas When You Can’t Put One Up
By OneShack Staff
Covenants, a landlord or a small lot do not have to end it. What the FCC rules do and do not cover, and four antennas that work without announcing themselves.
Antennas · Equipment
Ferrites and Common-Mode Chokes: Stopping RF Where It Starts
By OneShack Staff
RF in the microphone, a meter that reads differently when you touch the radio, noise that follows you from band to band — most of it is one fault, and a handful of ferrite cores fixes it.