My wireless experimentation hobbie

I am a FCC licensed Ham Radio and GMRS operator. It is the greatest hobbie of all time. My call sign is WP4YN, a General class licence.

This is my ham radio station

This is my ham radio set up.

To become licenced you have to study basic electronic theory, regulations, communication methods and pass a test.

Since 1991 as a Ham Radio Operator I:

  • -Use Shortwave signals to talk with other radio operators in other countries.
  • -Build my own antennas and other pieces of equipment.
  • -Use VHF and UHF frequencies to talk with others on simplex frequencies, radio repeaters and satellites in space.
  • -Use digital modes by interfacing the radio with a computer to connect with other computers for long distance chats and data transfer.
  • -Experiment with different wireless signal propagation methods.
  • -Volunteer to relay emergency messages and weather reports during hurricanes, power outages and other events.
  • -Practice my communication skills.
  • -Use portable and fixed location solar power to power the equipment during power failure events.
  • – Have a lot of fun and make friends
  • -Use software defined radio (SDR) to find and analyze interesting radio signals from long wave to UHF frequencies in digital and analog modes.

This is my SDR displayed on a PC monitor. Is uses an USB dongle that converts radio signals to a format that my PC can understand and display in the screen while it lets me hear what the signal is sending.

I also have a personal weather monitoring station at home. It consists of an sensor array installed inside and over the roof of my house to send weather measurements to a display like this.

From this WiFi display unit i send weather sensor telemetry via Internet to the Weather Underground web page.

Click here to the my live data feed shared by Weather Underground.

One of my next projects is to use a wireless router to connect to the ham radio mesh network, a system already working here in Puerto rico.