Articles of interest to those who live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Avoid first-byte collisions in trace path and manual path tools MeshCore’s trace path tool is essential for understanding how packets travel through the fascinating ether of our beloved multi-hop mesh network. Trace path helps us understand not only the path but the signal strength at each hop as well. In…
MeshCore repeaters are showing up everywhere these days and I am thrilled to see it happen. As folks place these repeater nodes on high-rise rooftops, hillsides, and on ham and commercial towers, they’re discovering that the key to smooth wide-area repeater behavior isn’t just about height or terrain—it sometimes comes…
The MeshCore Trace Path tool is one of many useful diagnostic features built into the MeshCore client. Similar to how the traceroute utility provides insight into TCP/IP networks, MeshCore Trace Path gives you visibility into how packets travel through the mesh network—whether you’re checking a single station or tracing a…
For a region that’s home to Silicon Valley innovation, it’s surprising and downright embarrassing how far behind the San Francisco Bay Area has fallen in MeshCore deployment and adoption. Across the Pacific Northwest, from Portland to Vancouver, operators are building resilient MeshCore networks that tie communities together with long-range, reliable,…
The world of amateur radio gives us lots of exciting opportunities to test our skills, connect with fellow operators, and play with our toys. One such event that stands out for its accessibility and inclusivity is the Winterheat Simplex Event. Designed with simplicity and community in mind, this contest has…
This is a list of San Jose repeaters in the 2m and 70cm bands that are workable from most locations within the South Bay Area. If I have something wrong, please let me know. I don’t list DMR, Yaesu Fusion, or D-Star repeaters here. This is a simple, clean list…
Geomagnetic activity remains below storm levels through Monday. R1–R2 blackout chance: 15% today.
Forecast Details →NOAA · Oct. 24 00:30 UTC
WSJT-X has added JTTY, a new digital mode that lets amateur radio operators exchange typed messages without the fixed transmit-and-receive periods used by FT8. Available in public test releases, it combines conversational and contest operation with error-correcting techniques intended to recover text more reliably than conventional radioteletype.
Amateur radio operators in North America and Europe are preparing to make transatlantic HF contacts from mountaintops on Nov. 7, 2026, during the 19th Trans-Atlantic Summit-to-Summit event. The coordinated operating period gives portable stations on both sides of the ocean a shared window to find one another, with participants planning stations ranging from low-power CW equipment to 100-watt voice setups.
Two ERMINAZ-2 amateur satellites returned their first received signals October 3 after an earlier-than-expected deployment caught their ground team unprepared, AMSAT-Deutschland reported October 5. Reception in Bochum, Germany, and elsewhere provided the first telemetry used to assess the spacecraft after release.
