Author: Kris – KZ7K

  • Extra Class Deep Dive: Is the Upgrade Worth It?

    Part of our Getting Licensed guide. I hold Extra, and I will tell you upfront that the honest answer to whether you need it is usually no. That is not me talking myself out of my own license. It is just accurate. Extra is the smallest practical jump of the three upgrades, and most of…

  • How to Read a Repeater Directory Listing (RepeaterBook, TravelPlus)

    A repeater directory entry is dense with abbreviations. Here is what each field actually tells you.

  • General Class Deep Dive: What Changes When You Upgrade

    Part of our Getting Licensed guide. General is the upgrade that actually changes how you operate. Technician gets you on the air. General gets you onto HF in a real way, and for most people who caught the bug on 10 meters or borrowed a friend’s rig for a POTA activation, this is the license…

  • Setting Up a Personal Ham Radio Website or QRZ Bio

    A good QRZ bio is the first thing a lot of hams see about you. Here is what actually makes one useful.

  • Your Comms Plan for Every Disaster Scenario

    Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness pillar I have written about a lot of individual disaster scenarios on this site, and I kept hearing the same thing: people wanted one place to find all of it instead of hunting through a dozen separate posts. So here it is. Every scenario-specific comms plan I have…

  • GMRS Channel Guide: What Each of the 30 Channels Is Actually For

    Not all 30 GMRS channels work the same way. Here’s what’s actually different between them.

  • How to Become a Volunteer Examiner: The Process, Start to Finish

    Becoming a VE is simpler than most hams assume, and the hobby needs more of them.

  • Remote vs In-Person VE Testing: What’s Actually Different

    Online exam sessions are real, FCC-recognized, and in some ways more convenient than driving to a hamfest testing room.

  • Diagnosing Alternator Whine and Vehicle Electrical Noise on Mobile HF

    That rising whine that tracks engine RPM isn’t your radio’s fault. Here’s how to actually kill it.

  • Take Your Ham Radio Exam Online

    Part of our Getting Licensed guide. You do not need to find a folding table at a community center on a Saturday morning to get licensed anymore. Remote testing has become a completely normal path into the hobby, and the software behind most of it is a pair of connected tools called HamStudy and ExamTools.…

  • Pi-Star vs. WPSD: Why I Switched My DMR Hotspots

    Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide. I ran Pi-Star for a long time before switching over, and now every hotspot I own runs WPSD. Both projects do the same underlying job, but a couple years of running both back to back has made the differences pretty clear to…

  • Brandmeister vs. TGIF: Comparing the Two Big DMR Networks

    Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide. If you’ve spent any time programming a DMR codeplug, you’ve run into these two names. Brandmeister and TGIF are the two networks that carry almost all of the DMR traffic hams actually talk on, and if you’re setting up a hotspot for…

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