More Than a Dot on a Map: My Journey into APRS
APRS is much more than location tracking. From my 17th-floor apartment in Brooklyn to field tests around Coney Island, I’ve been exploring how radios, GPS, iGates, DMR, messaging and plenty of troubleshooting come together—one packet at a time.
My Virtual Elmer: Learning Ham Radio with ChatGPT
ChatGPT has become my always-available virtual Elmer—a patient tutor, reference assistant, and partner in organizing what I learn. Used thoughtfully and checked against authoritative sources, AI is helping me build my station, my Operator’s Handbook, and perhaps the skills to Elmer someone else.
TALKING WITH LIGHT: Navy Signalman “A” School
In the summer of 1984, a young Coast Guard Quartermaster went to Navy Signalman “A” School in Orlando to learn flaghoist, semaphore, message handling and Morse code by flashing light. He graduated first in his class—and a couple of years later discovered, with a Radioman beside him and the captain waiting, exactly how quickly an unused skill can get rusty.
FROM BROOKLYN TO THE WORLD: The Maverick and HamSpot 5
A handheld radio, a little box beside my computer, and an internet connection have turned my Brooklyn apartment into a doorway to the world. The technology is impressive. The people on the other side of it are the point.
QSO One: The One Stop option for Digital Voice Communications!
QSO One brings AllStarLink, EchoLink, DMR, M17, and YSF together in one modern application. But its real story is the growing community of operators helping Frank, KD8JKK, build a simpler doorway into digital voice radio. Through active testing, feedback, and conversation, that community is helping shape QSO One into more than another radio app. It is becoming a shared gathering place built by hams, for hams.
Why I Like DMR - Worldwide radio, familiar voices, and the people behind the network
From my apartment in Brooklyn, DMR lets me open a door to the world with my BridgeCom Maverick and HamSpot 5. It combines radio, modern networking, familiar nets, worldwide contacts and, most importantly, the people behind every callsign. That human connection is why DMR has become such an important part of how I operate.
Where’s Waldo? Building an Incident Command System in Coney Island
In July 2017, I created and led the Coney Island SAREX, a large-scale CERT exercise built around a simulated search for a missing vulnerable senior. With nearly one hundred participants, multiple radio nets, a formal Incident Command structure, medical support, and my stepfather playing “Waldo,” the exercise turned FEMA classroom concepts into practical experience. It was hot, complicated, occasionally funny, and a powerful lesson in why ICS has to be practiced—not merely studied.
The Night New York Went Dark
During the 1977 New York City blackout, a 13-year-old in Brooklyn helped relay radio traffic for REACT and the NYPD—an early glimpse of the role emergency communications would play throughout his life.
The Contact That Started It All
A childhood visit to a Brooklyn amateur-radio station changed everything. One contact with the Falkland Islands revealed how radio could make the world feel both enormous and surprisingly small.
These journal entries are written with assistance from ChatGPT.
The thoughts, experiences, and final editorial choices are my own.