Continuing a tradition from Treasure Coast Ham News, Short Takes are links to useful, entertaining and educational web pages of interest to hams. (For ease in identifying new content, future additions to this list will always be added from the top.)

STEM Students Launch Weather Observation Balloons – Students in Upper Deerfield Township, NJ launched and tracked weather balloons equipped with electronic payloads that the group had assembled. Read the full story here: STEM Weather balloon launch

Amateur Radio & Amplifier Repairs – Radio or amplifier problem? Here is a useful list of repair facilities known to be in business as of late 2025. Also included is a list of companies known to no longer be in business. Amateur Radio Repairs

Extreme Antenna Farm – Amateur licensee K0UO takes the idea of an antenna farm to the extreme. Check out his QRZ.com page for stories and photos. https://www.qrz.com/db/K0UO

Solar Conditions and Propagation – Learn more about the impact of solar storms on HF radio propagation. This web site does a great job of documenting solar conditions in an easy to understand format – and the data is maintained current. https://solar.w5mmw.net/

Baofeng, Wouxun and other Chinese Handheld Radios – Do you have a Chinese HT? If so, you may want to check out the many NotaRubicon Productions videos about these low cost radios. Not only are the videos informative and educational, they are also quite entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/@TheNotaRubicon/videos

The International DX Association, Inc. (INDEXA) – Learn about the International DX Association, an amateur radio organization dedicated to working DX and making DX possible. The Association is incorporated as a non-profit organization and has been managed by volunteers without compensation since 1983. In its many years of service to the DX community it has sponsored hundreds of DXpeditions to rare and semi-rare countries. Learn more and consider joining: https://www.indexa.org/

Make a Vertical Antenna with Elevated Radials. Vertical antenna are becoming all the rage for operating portable, especially for POTA activations. Here’s a short video by Brian, ZL3XDJ explaining how to build a 17-meter elevated vertical antenna with radials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoQr3lJbhkA

Weather Radio in Cars? With recent talk of eliminating the AM band from car radios, a Radio World reader suggests NOAA weather radio should be added to new vehicle infotainment systems. See the letter to the editor here: Letter: NOAA radio in cars

HamAlert – Check out HamAlert. It is a system that combines the services of PSK Reporter, the Reverse Beacon Network, DX Cluster and others. From the website, you can set triggers, which will allow you to receive an alert whenever a DXCC country, POTA park, or callsign you specify is seen by any of the spotting networks. Consider giving it a try. Click for HamAlert.

Amateur License Statistics – Check out AE7Q’s website. Your will find statistics about everything you could possibly ever want to know about United States and Canadian Amateur licenses. Statistics are updated daily. There are even charts of available 1×2 and 2×1 vanity call signs. An impressive website with lots of charts. Click here.

Frequency Allocation Chart – The official radio spectrum allocation chart published by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) is available for free download. A large 36″ x 48″ copy of the chart can also be purchased from the Government Printing Office. NTIA spectrum chart

The DX Mentor Channel on YouTube – Per the home page, the purpose of the DX Mentor channel is to recruit, educate, and retain amateurs who have some level of interest in DX. The site hosts some interesting podcasts. The DX Mentor – YouTube

Determine a Call’s CQ Zone or ITU Zone – Some DX programs offer awards for confirmed contacts in CQ or ITU zones. Here’s a useful website that will return the CQ and ITU zone when you enter a station’s grid square. (The station’s grid square can usually be found on their QRZ page.) Results are displayed on an interactive Google map. https://zone-check.eu/

City Data Website – Here’s a site that provides an assortment of demographic data for virtually every city and town in the country. It even provides a list of Amateur Radio Licenses registered in each city and town. (Please note: We question the completeness of some of the amateur radio information, but it is an interesting site none the less.) City-Data home page; amateur radio page.

Featured DXPeditions Timeline – DX-World.net provides a convenient calendar style chart listing DX opportunities for the next several weeks. Print a copy and keep it near your rig. View chart here.

Having Trouble Connecting to a Web Site? – Here’s a useful tool that will determine if the web site is down, or if there is a connection problem is at your end: Is it down for everyone or just me. (Here’s an example that checks Logbook of The world^® status: LoTW^® Status.)

Signal Identification Guide – Provides sample sound and waveform files for all manner of digital signals encountered by hams. Click here.