This week, visit a personal Web page where experimentation with antennas and emergency communication tools takes place.

The KB1DIG & KB1GTR Ham Page takes a look at plumbing antennas and emergency communications in a box.

The KB1DIG & KB1GTR Ham Page is the personal Web page of Steve and Kim Merrill, KB1DIG and KB1GTR, respectively. Steve experimented with antennas for 6 and 2 meters and the Merrills' Web page has a gallery of the results of his experiments, antennas that you can duplicate after a trip to buy parts at your local hardware or home improvement store.

Steve's "Outside PVC" 2-meter 5/8-wave collinear antenna is so popular that Roland Johansson, SM6EAT, translated the instructions for building it into Swedish and IW3HZF modified the instructions for 430 MHz and translated them into Italian. There are also instructions for building halo antennas for 6 and 2 meters (Be sure to check out the photos of the stealth halo antenna).

In addition to documenting antenna experiments, the KB1DIG & KB1GTR Ham Page also kicks around some interesting ideas for emergency communications. The "Go Kit" link discusses "daily emergency communications gear ideas," while the "The Box" link talks about "portable emergency communications station ideas." In these days of orange alerts and duct tape panic attacks, it is refreshing to read some intelligent thoughts regarding emergency communications.

Besides Steve and Kim's views on antenna and emergency communications, their Web page contains input from other folks who have viewed the page and have something interesting to add. All in all, this results in a diverse and useful resource where you may read something that will spark an idea in your head. There should be more personal Web sites like this.

Until next time, keep on surfin'.

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, resides in downtown Wolcott, Connecticut, and is a member of the QQCC (QST quarter century club), i.e., he has been a QST writer for 25 years. Since getting his ticket in 1969, Stan has sampled nearly every entrée in the Amateur Radio menu (including a stint as Connecticut Section Manager), but he keeps coming back to his favorite preoccupations: VHF and packet radio. As a result, he runs a 2-meter APRS digipeater and weather station (WA1LOU-15) from his mountaintop location in central Connecticut. Stan has been a long time advocate of using computers with Amateur Radio and wrote programs to dupe contests and calculate antenna bearings way back in 1978. Today, he is on the board of directors of the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR) and uses his Mac to surf the Internet searching for that perfect ham radio web page. To contact Stan, send e-mail to wa1lou@arrl.net.

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