This is a companion website to my main blog at k4fmh.com. I put products of research on amateur radio under Hamography. Some articles and other publications are located here as well as supplemental material. My Social Circuits column is also located on this website. The Ratings and Reviews tabs are under development. Previous retired projects are now moved to the Other tab but maintained for future reference. The podcast that I’ve been part of for over a decade now is under the ICQ Podcast tab with other info about me is under About. I’m easiest to reach via email (see Contact tab).
I’ll post latest stuff below…
The full report on my analysis of the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) Survey for 2021 involving ham operator practices is now complete. It’s available on a page under Studies for Canada: https://foxmikehotel.com/amateur-radio-in-canada/. Bit and pieces of this full report are scheduled to appear in The Canadian Amateur over the next few issues. I am available for club talks by Zoom upon request. See my QRZ.com page for email.
The three-part series of articles in Practical Wireless magazine on transmit noise is now complete! Additional analytical tools for the data are here. I am scheduled to give a talk on this study at the Denby Dale ARS sometime this summer. Others may inquire for this subject via email shown at my QRZ.com page.
Rob Sherwood noted that transmit noise has not been examined very well, even in QST tests with only a “fuzzy graphic” display. These three articles use publicly-available bench tests on a set of modern transceivers to describe how they differ, sometimes dramatically, from radio to radio. And at what price difference? Do any radios get top scores on both TX and RX (using the Sherwood Performance Index)? These questions and more are addressed in this three-part series.
After my article in Practical Wireless was published (March 2023 issue, see below), I did more work on HF loop antennas. The Sutton & Cheam Radio Society in South London was kind enough to invite me back for another talk, this time on optimizing the HF loop antenna. They are a great group to visit with. I liked them so much from a couple of earlier talks that I joined the club! They’ve published this talk on their Youtube channel, linked below:
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My research on transmit quality in modern HF transceivers was featured in a talk I gave to the Norfolk Amateur Radio Club. A very hospitable group with wonderful technical staff for hosting such talks! David and Tammy are exceptional hosts for NARC Live! Here’s the video from their Youtube channel.
Getting Loopy over Loops? Don’t do that…read Practical Wireless!
CQ Magazine in the January issue contains an article I wrote about the Sherwood Tools page on this website. Didn’t make the cover but it’s on page 50! It will introduce the reader to these new tools to further utilize Rob Sherwood NC0B’s test suite of bench measurements on over 50 years of radios.
The Ham Radio Network in the UK invited me to give a talk about Solar Cycle 25 from the two RadCom articles with Dr. Scott McIntosh. Great group of blokes! I may be giving another one to them later in the year. (No, I’m not frightened in the picture…it’s just the screen capture that Youtube chose to include…HRN isn’t scary at all!)
The Denby Dale Amateur Radio Society was kind enough to have me back once again as their monthly club speaker! They are a marvelous group, kind in their reception, and very engaging in their questions and comments. There was even a PhD in solar physics in the audience! Stuart asked some great and intriguing questions for me. It’s always exciting to just discuss topics of interest to a group of radio amateurs such as those in the DDARS. Here’s their Youtube Channel posting of my talk from last week:
I was invited to kick-off the year of HamSCI seminars with my two-part RadCom articles with Dr. Scott McIntosh (see below) as the predicate. I serve as a university scientist for the HamSCI group. Here’s the Youtube link for my talk:
RadCom’s August issue contains Part 2 of my article with Dr. Scott McIntosh on the potential scientific revolution in understanding the cycle of Sunspots. This part contains more insight into the McIntosh team’s path-breaking theory of the Terminator Event and the factors that shape Cycle 25. The comparison of competing paradigms—here from the NASA/NOAA Panel’s declaration of a Cycle 25 prediction without any disclosure of methods or theory used versus the McIntosh team’s peer-reviewed papers—is likened to the one a century ago between the classic Newtonian view and the upstart Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
Who now reads Newton for science, except for history?
Howell and McIntosh, RadCom, August 2022
As the history of science shows, it was the upstart Einstein challenging the classic paradigm of Newton who brought the newspaper headlines, “Revolution in Science.” We can watch monthly updates of this modern comparison in a special website discussed in our August article.
This part of our paper contains the forecast of the Sunspot numbers and the Solar Flux Index over Cycle 25. See the August issue of RadCom, the journal of the Radio Society of Great Britain.
The article, On the Cusp of a Scientific Revolution?, coauthored with Dr. Scott McIntosh, is the cover story in the July issue of the RSGB’s RadCom magazine. Another great editor (Elaine G4LFM) to work with! If you don’t subscribe, join the Radio Society of Great Britain. This is Part 1 of an article that outlines the McIntosh team’s new theory, model and predictions for Cycle 25 sunspots. It’s right now much closer to the observed SSNs than are the “official” sunspot predictions by NASA-NOAA. See my blog post at k4fmh.com for details. Part 2 will appear in the August issue.
My article, Bandpass Filter for Crowded Setups: Build, Buy or a Little of Each?, appears in the June issue of CQ Magazine. Rich Moseson is an easy editor to work with!
The Sherwood Tools are available! Click here.
The Golden Quads List of Radios Now Available (plus data)
New! Take a stroll through transceiver time with an illustrated time line of the Sherwood Tables.
Solder on, Garth!
My article describing my artisan-built soldering platform, fit for SMD duty, appears in the May 2022 issue of Practical Wireless. Based on a 12″x12″ sheet of steel, all attachments are with magnets so it’s a blank slate for you to quickly set up the platform for your next soldering project whether it’s a wire splice, a cable connector, or circuit board. An inexpensive USB microscope facilitates SMD work, too. I created it for my own workbench but extras I built have made it into Labs at the University.
Don is a great Editor and works very well with authors..check it out at radioenthusiast.co.uk:
Is Your Attic a Faraday Cage? Mine’s Not…
My article on attic antennas, WSPR and the Faraday Cage in the February issue of The Spectrum Monitor is now available here:
Howell_AtticDipole_TSM_Feb2022-2Want to know about the Maxim Mythology?
And who taught him about the wireless? And who actually first organized amateur radio operators in the United States? You won’t hear about this in QST. Listen to the Lost Tribe, the Pied Piper and the Executive feature on the ICQ Podcast. See my article from the October issue of The Spectrum Monitor which is available here: