Random Wire 163: Ramblings, what's on the bench, amateur radio on GitHub, Kenwood NX-1302 handheld radio, UPS for Quadra HamClock, and more
January 2, 2026: Welcome to the New Year!
Welcome to 2026
I have to chuckle a bit. It is New Years Day and I have Sling TV bringing me college football games. At the same time, I’m resetting a stubborn Dell 7050 micro PC that hasn’t been working smoothly with Windows 11 Pro. It’s noon and I just remembered: I need to finish Random Wire issue 163! I don’t often let myself get so distracted that I forget my publishing schedule.
Watching the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, and other games brings back memories of my father. He was a football player back when helmets were made of leather. Dad loved to watch college ball and that meant I got to watch a lot of it, too, with his experienced commentary adding depth to the games. My wife is with me in this, because her father also liked to watch football and she spent many afternoons sitting with him. Now, my wife and I watch football together, and it is a great comfort as it reminds us both of our fathers.
Some things are more important than amateur radio. There, I said it. It’s important to remember this is a hobby. While it is often a central driver in our lives, it isn’t the only thing that grounds us and brings us joy. Having said that, I’ll close this opening with my tag line: remember to touch a radio every day! Amateur radio brought me much joy and solace in 2025 and I expect 2026 to be just as rewarding.
New at EtherHam
Hit the links to reach the content at EtherHam.com.
Ramblings: New Years week touches on the iMac 27 (I should have acquired the 24-inch iMac), tiny GS ground stations, things coming soon to the mini server rack, common network protocols, DJI responds to drone blacklisting, attacks on the EtherHam site, a web browser dashboard, and more thoughts on the C. Crane earbuds.
End of year: What’s on the bench? A companion to the Ramblings piece is an end-of-year summary of projects on my workbench.
Popular amateur radio projects on GitHub. One of the premiere amateur radio projects on GitHub has to be HamPi, but there are many great projects and informational resources available.
Is it new? Kenwood NX-1302. I tried to program the NX-1302 to work in the 70 cm ham band but failed. I have not given up hope but my hopes are dimmed for getting this NXDN radio working with one of my hotspots. I may need to explore a different model.
How about a UPS for your Quadra HamClock? Spoiler: I ordered one. It is very affordable and offers a great way to help avoid corrupting the microSD card in your Quadra HamClock. I also ordered some barrel-to-USB adapters to see if I can use the UPS with a Raspberry Pi.
How to easily check your network for bots. We are all at risk from bad actors. This is an easy way to see if your network address is a known bot host.
Over at the EtherHam Wiki, I added a page to capture links to resources that don’t offer an RSS feed. This will grow with time and from your contributions. Be sure to hit the EtherHam Feeds page for a very long list of recent articles about amateur radio and technology.
Short stack
Experts Warn The Internet Will Go Down In A Big Way — And You’d Better Be Ready. This is an interesting read, even if the concerns presented are a bit dark. I haven’t thought deeply enough about what happens if the internet goes offline for an extended period of time (days, weeks, even months). There are other concerns, too, and some actionable tips provided in the article.
Stop buying Raspberry Pis: Why a cheap used mini PC is the better choice. This echoes what David Gleason NR9V said in his Ham Radio Workbench Podcast episode. While I have several RPi’s, most of my devices are mini PCs.
Build your own WireGuard home server with two GL.iNet routers. I think this will be the guide I use as I try to create a WireGuard tunnel between my home network and my 44net IP block.
5 things you didn’t know you could add to your RSS feed is an interesting read if you use RSS, watch conversations on Reddit, follow some GitHub projects, or prefer to avoid YouTube’s algorithms.
6 reasons 2026 could finally be the year of desktop Linux—for real this time. We’ve heard this many times before, but this time, end-of-life for Windows 10 is bringing many people to desktop Linux. Related: Zorin OS says Windows users drove nearly 1M downloads, so I installed it to see why. I installed Zorin on an older MacBook Air and it works very well except for wifi, and that need is met with a tiny USB dongle.
Sainlogic Weather Station SA6 Plus Review. I’m looking for a reasonably priced home weather station that will also feed major weather services. This model is near the top of my list.
How about an easy-to-use wire antenna design site? Portable-antenna.com gives you many choices, each with a calculator so you can dial in exactly what you want. “Welcome to portable-antennas.com! - a collection of easy-to-use tools developed by a radio amateur for use by anybody with an interest in designing and building their own lightweight portable wire antennas for the HF amateur bands.” A helpful antenna visualizer is also provider (screenshot below from portable-antenna.com website):
Reflections on 2025
It’s safe to say I’ve had better years. I think the last time I experienced so much trauma was when the helicopter I was in fell out of the sky in 1985. We were three degrees south of the equator in one of the most remote regions in the world, on a search-and-rescue mission for an overdue worker, and the tail rotor contacted the top lip of a cliff. I ended up with life-long pain from crushed vertebrae that healed out of place.
2025 saw trauma touch us again when my wife suffered not one but two major cerebral hemorrhages. We’ve spent half the year working on her recovery and learning how to manage her health to reduce the risk of future brain bleeds.
And yet, we are blessed. We are alive and appreciate being alive. We have family and friends. We enjoy spending time together. This month, my wife burst out laughing several times in response to things happening on the TV. I had not heard her laugh since May and this unexpected behavior was an unlooked for delight. A friend called these “micro moments” and that is exactly how it feels. A brief smile, a slow eye blink, or a chuckle is enough to light my whole day. We are blessed.
I hope 2026 will be a better year for us, and for you. May your heart be light and your spirit bright, filled with gratitude and serenity.
Closing
Here we are. It’s a new year, with all the joys and challenges a new year brings. I put my resolution into practice in November and December when I worked to separate the newsletter (Random Wire) from my published content (EtherHam).
I did one smart thing when I set up the Random Wire newsletter by using a custom domain name. I can migrate the content without changing the URL. Of course, that sounds simple but in my testing in 2025, it proved to not be simple at all. I tried several different products from vendors and was not happy with any of them. I ended up using WordPress since it is a tool I know very well. Is it perfect? No, but then, none of the online systems seemed perfect to me.
The other thing I plan to accomplish in calendar year 2026 is invest more time in topics that touch on the intersections of amateur radio and the internet. This subset of our huge hobby is evolving rapidly. (If you made New Years resolutions, you might be interested in an app to help you track them.)
There is no better time to become a licensed amateur radio operator or renew your ham radio activity than right now. Maybe a summary of all the different things you can do in amateur radio would be a good future article. Every time I think about this, I am amazed at how wide and deep amateur radio is. If you’re reading this newsletter, I’ll bet there is some special topic in amateur radio that you find especially interesting.
I hope you find joy and peace through 2026, and that you’ll remember to touch a radio every day!
73,
