Thank you for these recommendations, I will check them out. Either of these seem like they would work!

Same. Started looking at an Elecraft KX2 as a result as it fits nicely into my planned missions.

8-12 week back order lol

I used PiHole for a long time, then graduated to self-hosting a VPN so I could get as-blocking when away from my home network.

Ultimately I ended up using just AdGuard DNS via the DNS profile for iOS, and hard code the DNS into my home routers.

There might be a better setup, but this simple deployment takes care of 98% of ads.

I agree. The FCC exam is a framework for learning. All my follow-on learning, including antenna building and using an NVNA have come from doing it.

If you’re on MacOS, you can run networkquality via crontab and append the results to a text file. I did this for a few months on a congested network to identify ideal times to try and do schoolwork.

E: A word.

100%

That’s wild your club makes newbies sit through such a course and refuses any kind of modernizations. OMs for sure.

Ahh ok, I’m US licensed also. Was surprised to see your club insists on such a rigid learning experience.

You’ll know best for your present situation, but I’d encourage you to just go get your license on your own and get on the air. There’s plenty of media channels to learn.

That’s disappointing to hear. What would be the fallout within your club if you were to just go get licensed on your own? Does your jurisdiction permit licensure outside of clubs?

Pirate radio ≠ amateur radio.

In the US at least, the barriers to entry to get one’s license has fallen so dramatically that there is no excuse to get the license and operate in harmony with all others.

Part of being a good amateur is operating within the very generous band plan we enjoy, so generous that everything one would do under pirate radio can be done while licensed: 135khz all the way above 275Ghz.

That the rules are a century old, with periodic revisions, is testament to their flexibility and continued pertinence; they’ve so far stood the test of time.

Are there dunces on the amateur spectrum? Certainly. There’s dunces at the supermarket, too. That’s inescapable. That “cop-brained” mentality you’ve mentioned is not a symptom of the amateur rules nor your so-called cop-brained mentality, but the natural desire to protect a privilege we enjoy.

The treatment you earned on the repeaters while operating unlicensed is on you.

Here’s your bootstrap. Assuming you’re in the US, HamStudy.org. Spaced repetition studying for the exam, no Morse code requirement anymore.

FCC exams can now be administered remotely via computer. I’ve taken all three of my exams remotely; my first while sitting on a beach!

One of the challenges I’ve long experienced with any of my hobbies is they are often niche and beyond the interest of most of the people I talk with; Amateur Radio even moreso. Nearly none of the people I interact with in daily life “get it”. They have their phones and Internet and don’t recognize the continuous marvels which constitute Amateur Radio.

I think all the -OTAs (POTA, SOTA, etc) have done a wonderful job of increasing visibility of our hobby, but to really supercharge it, every radio operator should also be willing to hang a sign which encourages passersby to come ask questions and engage. I was up at a fairly popular community park with a 200’ (~61m) span OCFD and not a single person approached. I reckon they’re unwilling because of how “official” a setup looks and don’t want to risk crossing into an area they’re “not supposed to be in”.

There’s not enough popular media which portrays the utility of Amateur Operators, which is probably an extension of the general unfamiliarity of the hobby by authors. Think of what percentage of any of the movies you’ve seen in the last 20 years and one can probably count on one hand the accurate portrayal of amateur radio communications.

These are just my initial thoughts having woken up not too long ago. I’d really be excited to hear others’ opinions.

That’s a lot of power coming straight to your radio. Does this model have an attenuator or RF gain? Try turning it on (or down the RF again) and see if there’s still splatter.

What’s your proximity to the transmitter? At least on AM I’ve seen splatter from nearby strong transmitters which don’t splatter once a reasonable distance away

By the time one becomes a senator, they are experts at fleecing money. He is disappointed because he knows all the lost revenue he could have had if he only had known about the data beforehand.

59!

And the skills to use it; they’re not plug-and-play. Get you license and get on the air to hone those skills.

A buddy experienced the exact same issue as OP just the other day. We ran diagnostics and it turns out his computer was running deprecated DNS IPs for a popular ad-blocking DNS provider.

It was DNS.

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You can listen to your heart’s content here: http://websdr2.sdrutah.org:8902/index1a.html?tune=14290usb (where this image is from).

If you want to get in on the action, consider pursuing your Amateur Radio Operator’s License. If you’re in the US, the Amateur Radio Relay League is a sufficient place to start, and you can use hamstudy.org to prepare for your test.

In the 14Mhz range you’ll see a diurnal oscillation of who you can hear because during the day this particular band tends to only get out to about 1500 miles, at night we can reach over 10,000 miles. I’ve had plenty of contacts with Japan, and on digital modes I’ve gotten out to 11,000 miles. I’ve made contacts in Indonesia from New Mexico. On digital mode (which does not use voice) I hit the Reunion Islands on the east side of Africa with only 100W and a vertical omnidirectional antenna.

Number stations are wild. There’s even more to signals intelligence, too. There are Over the horizion radars (OTHR) and bouys, wave radars, and wildly encrypted digital bursts–all of which you can hear.

This is a wonderful question! This is a spectral waterfall display of audio frequencies. The dense area on the left are the CW (Morse code) portions of the spectrum where there are quite a lot of people communicating in Morse code. The bright bands just to its right is the FT8 data mode (which also uses audio frequencies) to send and receive very short messages. The broad area on the right are people communicating via voice transmissions on Single Sideband.