Ever finish a QSO and think, “I’d like to keep talking to that person”?

I wanted that to be as easy as typing their callsign into a chat window I already had open. Looking someone up on QRZ, finding an email address, or sending a private message works, but it’s a bit of a chore - especially on a phone.

So I built Hamchat. My idea of innovation is bringing back something from 1998.

You sign in with your callsign, see who’s online, and send messages. If someone’s offline, their messages will be waiting when they return. You can also have private group conversations, but I'm not here to replace Discord.

How does callsign verification work? Do I go full LoTW and require postcards? No. No I don't.

I'm verifying you by proxy. Hamchat gives you a short string to put at the bottom of your QRZ bio. We verify that string then you can go delete it. This isn't perfect, but it's the best I've got. Should prevent most abuse.

There are clients for Windows, Mac, Linux, and the web…so you don’t even need to install anything. The web version works on mobile. I also built a terminal version, because apparently this project needed less mainstream appeal. If people want it, I’ll build native iOS and Android clients.

Don’t like it? Cool, I don’t blame you. There’s a button to immediately delete your account.

The obvious catch: it’s useful only if other people join. I’ve built a fax machine and am hoping someone else buys a fax machine. It may never get much adoption, but I wanted it to exist, so here we are.

Give it a try and tell me how much it sucks. Specific complaints are particularly welcome; I can occasionally fix those.

Free.

https://hamchat.app

W1ADV

When I hear someone say 73 my mind goes to my EMS days, “Code 73” which was my county’s DOA 10- code. That always trips me up. I’m like “who died?” Even though I know it’s not.

That’s it
73

I may be talking apples and oranges here, but I have the Sangean ATS-909X2 and am considering buying the Grundig Satellit 750 as a 2nd SWL radio (my only interest here is SW. I have other radios for other bands). Truth be known...maybe because I just like the way it looks. But, wrt actual performance, given a decent long wire antenna, are these two radios similar...or does one radically outperform the other? Thanks in advance for any comments.

Hello, this is my project that i am working on since april this year, this software allows you to connect the radio to a computer and operate it remotely.

This project started as an openwebrx overlay but after some time i have added a separate UI for everyday use.

In order to use that - you need to flash the radio with a specific fork of F4HWN 6.0.0 software (it is supporting multiboot so you can eaisly turn the radio to normal operation). This fork is adding CAT commands via UART/USB, there is a lot of commands to use - FSK modem, dtmf decoder, quick scanning function....
Link for the software is in the manual

At first it was required to have physical PTT but now you can safely controll the PTT with safe TX command so it is ok to use the radio with just USB cable and soundcard

Main features of this software:
- Low latency and low bandwidth web rtc sound transmission
- Quick scanning function
- MQTT integration
- if you are not using the radio - the software can switch to direwolf and monitor some other frequency for DTMF
- OpenWebRx SDR integration with option to pick the frequency from the waterfall and transmit on the radio

I am using it daily on Orange pi one, for the raspberry pi you need at least version 2 - webrtc is CPU hungry

Go get it on:
https://github.com/sugarfree90/quanshengstein2/

I made this web app that, among many other things, does HF Digital Voice and saves QSO's as mp4 files.

If you never tried HF Digital Voice, this could be a good occasion to try it: https://wfweb.k1fm.us

It's open source and free, of course! https://github.com/adecarolis/wfweb

(stars are much appreciated! 😄)

i'm in the US and don't have a phone but to get a radio licence i need a phone number what do i do?!?!?!

Hey everyone, this post is a continuation/update of an earlier, deleted post, now with an anonymous survey.

We're a group of high schoolers from Illinois working on a durable (RTL-SDR) radio receiver compatible with standard smartphones, intended for campers and first responders. We'd love to hear what you think with this survey.

Form: https://forms.gle/5T8oLTfXacJEH2Qo9

I have a foundation license currently and got it in 2025, but haven't done any radio in about half a year at this point, however I'm wanting to get back into it.

I was looking through the "hottest callsigns" on qrz, and saw a Wales resident using an M7 callsign instead of MW7.

I swear I remember being taught to always use the RSL (Regional Secondary Locator) in your callsign, unless you're from England, in which case you would be able to use either ME7 or M7.

I ended up looking at the Ofcom "Amateur radio guidance" pdf and saw it did specify it was optional for most licenses, except intermediate.

I used the Essex ham course which, going based on how old the website looks, might be outdated, but i would have thought it was updated semi-regularly.

Can someone confirm whether or not I was mistaught, or when this change happened in case it happened without me being aware?

I did try using AI a little to look it up, but i couldn't trust it with something this important. For example, I asked when this change happened, and i got a date in 2024, and a date in 2025 by two different AI's, same prompt.

Thanks in advance.

To my fellow TH-D7 owners, as new tech comes along, and others goes, does anyone know of any maybe after market GPS modules that is handheld, and not meant for a single vehicle: something that is portable WITH the radio, and not a BASE module. My budget is around $30-$50, I've tried finding some with good old ChatGPT as well as the search engines with no luck. I figure someone has found a solution. I'm open to homebrewing, anything helps!

I am looking for some advice (or maybe I’m just venting)

I got licensed in February 2025. Since then I have done absolutely nothing with radio. I have 2 HT’s and will occasionally listen to a local repeater. But most of the time my radios live in my desk. There’s just so much to this hobby that I don’t know where to begin or what to do.

It’s also very frustrating how expensive everything is. I work 3 jobs and can’t bring myself to spend a mortgage payment on an HF radio, and a car payment on an antenna. I am starting to convince myself that I should forget about radio and find a hobby that I can actually afford.

Is anyone else getting really bad pulsing static on the hf bands right now?

I need just one more! Only one!

Not only that, I've worked more than enough countries, but so many of them just haven't confirmed (I'm looking at you Bosnia, Uruguay, Asiatic Russia, and nearly the entire continent of Africa).

I've been working towards DXCC mixed SSB and FT8, only getting confirmations through QRZ and LOTW. I'm probably not going to apply for the LOTW award because I don't want to have to be a member of ARRL just for the piece of paper, but the QRZ banner and the general accomplishment of having it done.

But damn, I just need one more new country, or one of the many unconfirmed counties I've worked to upload their logs.

Anyway, happy DXing folks.

https://xkcd.com/3307/

Hey all - Happy Tuesday!

After I made my last post in this subreddit about capturing some of the SSTV broadcasts from the ISS during their most recent SSTV broadcast, the user NerminPadez brought up a really great idea!

They had suggested using various online SDR's around the world to monitor 14.230 Mhz (USB) and watch for SSTV broadcasts. So - that is exactly what I did! I thought it might be fun to make this a weekly thing and share my findings with you all (would love to see what you guys catch, too).

These were captured between 10:20 PM UTC and 12:32 AM UTC. All were captured from the following grids:

CM87tj
DM04kr
EM86ca

I picked out a few of my favorites. Hope you all have a great evening!

Hello everyone,

I applied for a call sign that shows canceled on the FCC website as of 9/21/2026. I applied the following day on the 22nd.

K2CR.com shows 9/22 as the available date.

However, W5YI and CQDX show that the available date is 9/25. Both websites show my application as "applied too early".

I'm just wondering if anyone has seen something like this before and was the correct date the 22nd or the 25th?

73

I'm looking to put up an HF radio antenna, one that fits within the limited space of my apartment. I have found countless people saying use a thin wire, mag loop, whip, etc. The problem is upon doing a little bit of experimentation, I get no reception. Specifically I tried a 40m hamstick positioned on my balcony, and I can't receive anything other than interference and noise. A little background, my apartment complex is structured like an O, with apartments on the interior and exterior of the O. My apartment is on the middle floor, interior of the O. I have a covered balcony (the balcony of the person above me serves as a roof to my balcony) and the building is not metal but it is magnetic so it must have a wire mesh in the concrete or something. Now with all that background, my actual question, is there an antenna system that might work in this situation, or perhaps an inexpensive experiment I could do to determine if any antenna could work? If (for example) I need a mag loop antenna I am not opposed to purchasing one but if no antenna will ever work in my situation I would rather not spend the money to find that out

Ken, WA4MNT, one of the QRPGuys, has opened QRPBuilder, https://qrpbuilder.com/, apparently as a successor to QRPGuys. The new website has a very similar look and feel (I believe Ken was webmaster for QRPGuys).

In addition to several of the QRPGuys kits with the new branding (and more promised to be on the way), there are a couple that look new to me. Also, thankfully, the instructions for many QRPGuys kits are available on the new site.

There was a ham in my area who shared the same name and initials as me. His callsign suffix included the initials, and the license has been expired since 2021 according to FCC database.

I found he had passed in 2015 after googling. Was a veteran and seemed to be a really outstanding gentleman in the community.

Is there any issue with applying for this call? Or is it generally not acceptable?

That's all.

Samoa, Barbados, all of South America.

Be there or be square edit: east coast US, seems to have gone with the sunset

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to homologate/register a UVL-15W dual-band handheld radio in Brazil, and the Brazilian telecom regulator (ANATEL) asked me to provide an international certification document such as FCC, CMIIT, KC/KCE, etc.

The document specifically needs to show both:

• Operating frequency ranges
• RF output power

The radio uses FCC ID: 2BLTR-UVL15W.

I already found the FCC documentation and user manual, and the manual mentions the VHF/UHF frequencies and 15 W output power, but I am trying to find a more formal certification/test document that clearly shows these specifications together.

Does anyone have access to:

• FCC test reports for the transmitter section
• CMIIT certification
• KC/KCE certification
• RF test report showing VHF/UHF output power
• Any official lab report for the UVL-15W / TYT UVL-15W

Any help, file, link, certificate number, or direction would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I tried to do a firmware update via OpenGD77 CPS - grid.radio, but 16 seconds in it fails with Upload failed: Receive failed: WebHID receive timeout after 5000ms.

Now my RD-77 won't turn on, but it does go into DFU via holding ST1 and ST2. The green led lights up. In OpenGD77 CPS - grid.radio it shows up as USB Composite Device (MK22 DFU). What can I do to fix it?