CQ Amateur Radio

CQ is the magazine for active hams, with a focus on the practical. Every article is clearly written and aimed at involving you, the reader...whether it's a story of operating from some exotic location, an article to deepen your understanding of ham radio science and technology, or a fun-to-build project that will have practical use in your ham shack. Join us on our monthly journey through the broad and varied landscape of the world's most fascinating hobby!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

CQ Amateur Radio

HAM RADIO NEWS

ZERO BIAS: A CQ Editorial • The “Young Hams Crisis” is Getting Old

NEWS BYTES

EF8R: The World’s Best Contest QTH? • The CQ World Wide DX Contest’s SSB weekend is later this month, followed by the CW weekend in November. If you’re on the air, there’s a good chance you’ll work EF8R in the Canary Islands for your Zone 33 contact. Here’s why!

On the Cover

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS • Welcome to CQ’s Annual Emergency Communications Special Here’s a look at what lies ahead

Planning Your First Amateur Radio Exercise or Event • Congratulations! You’ve done such a great job as a public service communicator that you’ve been asked to be in charge at the next event. Help!!

Backup Power When the Grid Goes Down • Ham radio keeps working when our everyday communication infrastructure fails. But even we need power for our radios. APRS developer WB4APR offers a power source that may be under your nose without your realizing it.

SPURIOUS SIGNALS

Winlink: Keeping You Connected “When All Else Fails” • “The Big One” has just hit your area. Fortunately, you and your neighbors are fine, but you have no power, no phone service, no internet. How do you tell people outside the affected area that you’re OK? WA9PYH has one solution … email over ham radio via Winlink.

what’s new

54th Edition:CQ World-Wide DX Contest All-Time Records

54th Edition: CQ World-Wide DX Contest All-Time U.S.A. Records

Sherlock Investigates: USB Connector Failure Aborts FT4 / VARA Expedition • For emergency communications as well as everyday hamming, it’s important to make sure everything is working, to test station components before deployment and to have backups whenever possible. Sherlock discovered this the hard way on a recent remote operation.

CQ CLASSICS • The Fountain of (Not Enough) Youth

Adventures With Pico Balloons Using Amateur Radio • If you want to use ham radio to help teach math, physics, meteorology, geography and more … and have lots of fun in the process … join W5KUB on one of his long-distance balloon flights – or start planning one of your own!

The HEX-BEAM® Revisited • If you’ve used a (lower-case) hex beam antenna, you may not know that it started out as the (upper-case) HEX-BEAM® antenna, designed, built and sold by Traffie Technologies. While Mike Traffie, N1HXA, has retired from the business, he’s still studying and discovering new things about his antenna design.

How’s My Audio? • A single-sideband signal with poorly adjusted audio sounds bad, creates interference on adjacent frequencies, and might even result in out-of-band splatter and harmonics. Here’s a primer on how to make your signal crystal clear and focus most of your voice energy where it can do the most good.

The Day I let the Smoke Out! • It was a well-known fact, especially back in the days of discrete components, that each of those components contained a certain amount of smoke, which was essential to their functioning. Your goal, particularly as a new ham, was to keep that smoke inside the components. K8HSY reminisces on a less-than-successful effort…

MATH’S NOTES • Another Chance at THz Experimentation

THE LISTENING POST • COVID-19 Continues Taking Its Toll on Shortwave Broadcasters

KIT...