This year, five games were entered in the French IF Competition. In the past, the comp has leaned towards parser-based works, but I think for the first time, Twine games predominated. The games are found on the main site for...

The plan This weekend was the January edition of the ARRL VHF contest and I thought I had an unbeatable plan: to find a summit in a less-worked grid square and make both SOTA and VHF contest contacts. I set...

I was based in Madagascar from 2014 to 2018 and made a habit of posting short status updates on my QRZ page. To keep the page to reasonable length, I would occasionally move those entries over to this blog when...

My experience with the six meter band has been, appropriately enough, sporadic, but I’m planning to make it more of a centerpiece over the next few years. Past Experience The first time I ever heard anything at all on six...

Last week, I put up a new HF antenna and this week, I set the station up to operate in FT8 mode. Below, I describe a minimalist implementation using an Elecraft K3, a computer and two audio patch cords. I...

So, I should explain why a crucifix appears to be hovering about thirty feet above my house. When I got back to the US, I had a hard time figuring out how to put up an antenna at the house...

This year, I learned a few things about implementing text games in languages other than English, or more specifically, in porting a single game across three languages. My IF Comp game, “En Garde” was originally written in French for the...

The Russian counterpart of IFcomp, KRIL, went online yesterday with 25 original games, two translated games (one of them mine), and two exhibition games that will not be included in voting. KRIL has been an annual event since 2006, but...

As is tradition, with IFcomp 2018 freshly over, I’m jotting down some brief thoughts on games that I entered: En Garde and Re: Dragon, which placed 14 and 26 out of 77, respectively. First, I’d like to thank those who...

A quick post about IFcomp 2018, which launches today. Last year, I reviewed all the submissions on this blog, but will not be doing so this year as I have two games in the comp. It’s been a few years...

A brief update to bring the blog current: first, I moved back to the US at the start of August. Between packing, shipping, and visiting family, I’ve had my hands full and not a lot of time to update the...

I haven’t written them yet, but will add them here when I see the compiled project and have a chance to play it. The post Some thoughts about Cragne Manor appeared first on Dhakajack.

Well, that went pretty well — about two weeks of after-work operation on  17m FT8 with a low-hanging end-fed dipole and 25W, and I pushed my DXCC count on 17m over 100. Thanks to 9G5AR from Ghana for putting it...

This weekend, Russian-ARISS transmitted SSTV images of satellites hand-launched from the ISS. They used a high-resolution mode, PD-120 transmitted FM on 145.800. I was set up for FT8, but switched over for one pass and captured this image. My process...

The move back to the US will happen at the end of July, but I will need to pack up most of the equipment in the next few weeks. So, with time remaining, I’ve been thinking about I can get...

After I took the hexbeam down, sanded it, painted it and packed it away, I still had a G450 rotor on my hands, so I thought I would try my hand at satellite operation. Over last weekend, I literally lashed...

I arrived back in Madagascar late in the evening last week after a brief vacation in Réunion. The next morning, I fired up the rig to see what was going on in the CQ WW WPX SSB contest and rotated...

This year, I experienced the French IF comp not as a reviewer, but as an entrant. I’m ecstatic to report that not only did I survive the comp, but I came in second in a field of five thanks to...

My LNR precision trail-friendly end-fed halfwave antenna has been my go to antenna for SOTA and other field operations for several years. It is compact, easy to deploy in a tree or on a telescoping mast, and it gets good...

I had pushed for five peaks in one day, trying to break my previous record of three that I had managed last year in France. While I got into position on El Sereno and made a contact, I did not...

The fourth mountain on my tour of easily accessible peaks just south of San Francisco took me to a vineyard parking lot in Saratoga. The trail towards the peak departs from the topmost parking lot at 37.259823,-122.066786. This activation was a...

This was the third peak of the day for me.  It lies along a road that runs atop a ridge. I found a cutout along the side of the road and walked past a gate to a clearing next to...

Continuing my road trip around the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area, I headed along CA route 236 to 37.196014, -122.194314, where China Grade Road cuts across on both sides. As mentioned in another post, you don’t want...

As in previous years, after attending a medical conference that runs Thursday to Saturday, I had Sunday mostly free for SOTA. This year, I thought it would be fun to rent a car and try to activate multiple peaks: W6/NC-209,...

I didn’t make it up this mountain, but I’m posting about it to let people know why it has never been activated. In laying out the itinerary for this vacation, I considered that I’d have one day for SOTA. Consequently,...