So for the longest time I thought that the Boulder BrandMeister repeater had a problem because I was seeing full-strength unmodulated-FM-carrier style interference on the output frequency of 445.050 MHz. But I did a little foxhunting 🦊 and determined the noise was coming from … inside my house. 🏠 Spooky!​ 👻

After more than a week of installation, our house finally has a new roof. It’s 24-gauge metal from Premium Panels and installed by Aspen Contracting. Here’s hoping it lasts a very long time.

The next and final step is to reinstall the solar panels.

I recently purchased a Connect Systems CS800D mobile dual-band 2m/70cm FM/DMR radio and installed it in a 2011 Nissan Leaf. Here are my initial impressions and experience thus far.

It’s a bird… it’s a… moth.

Okay, Sun, here’s what I remember:

Last Friday I came home to a gas leak 1 block away. They said it was a 3 or 4 inch line that was cut and it took Xcel a long time to locate it. There was a lot of standing around hoping that things didn’t blow up (I’m glad they didn’t). They also shut down traffic on a major road during rush hour. Lots of vehicles were trying to cut through our neighborhood without realizing that the only other way out was through the cordoned-off area.

Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) is an excellent digital mode for ham radio use, especially for HTs. It is routable via IP, so repeaters can be linked via the Internet, and inexpensive commercial radios are readily available.