The other day I was thinking some more about the CW Geek’s Keyer, so I thought I’d search Amazon for 16 x 2 LCD displays. One of the displays that I came across is called the 1602 Keypad Shield, or something similar. This display not only has a 16 x 2 LCD display but six buttons as well. How cool is that?
I wonder how robust those buttons are for regular use, but the price is certainly right. You can get one of these shield for less than $10, and I’ve seen at least one for less than five bucks.
Online SWL magazine
Yesterday, at our amateur radio club meeting, Ed, AB8OJ, mentioned that he subscribed to The Spectrum Monitor, He said that it was being published by the guys who used to run Monitoring Times. Single issues are $3, a yearly subscription (12 issues) is $24, and the magazine is only available in PDF format.
I had some trouble with their online ordering system, but I finally got hold of the May 2015 issue. It’s impressive. There is a good mix of articles, covering nearly all aspects of the radio hobby. For radio amateurs, there’s an article on homebrewing, digital voice on the 220 MHz band, and a U.S. Navy special event station.
There’s plenty for shortwave listeners, too, including utility loggings, a report on a shortwave broadcaster’s conference in Oman, and even an article on VLF. All told there are 92 pages of really good content.
Elwood Downey, WB0OEW says
Just another quick nod to The Spectrum Monitor. TSM has really piqued my interest in what’s beyond the ham bands. So far I’m focusing on HF and below, but I’ll be trying higher frequencies eventually. So far I have decoded marine weather FAXes using fldigi, listened to some transpacific aircraft chatter, listened to meteor pings using a TV carrier in Utah, and started hunting VLF beacons. I mainly use an RTL-SDR dongle and the Ham It Up HF transverter from NooElec, and occasionally my KX3. it adds a great dimension to radio.