This week, find out what everybody is talking about when you surf into the world of Weblogs.

A "Weblog," "Web log," or just "blog," is a Web site that "contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common Web page. Individual posts (which taken together are the Weblog) either share a particular theme, or a single or small group of authors" (according to WikiPedia).

A blog reminds me of a diary or journal in which the writer puts down his/her personal thoughts on any variety of topics that may come to mind on a particular day. The difference between a diary and a blog is that a diary is private--only the writer reads his or her diary (unless it is found by his or her mother), whereas a blog is public. Anyone who can access the Internet can read it.

Just as there are Web sites that cover every imaginable subject matter, there are blogs that provide similar coverage. As you would expect, there are blogs dedicated to Amateur Radio. Perform a search for "amateur radio Weblog" or "amateur radio blog" at Google and Google comes back with a bunch of ham blogs. Or go to a blog directory like Globe of Blogs to find a list of ham blogs. Amateur Radio blogs deal with topics that interest its author(s), for example, DX, contesting, home brewing, moon bounce, CW, QRP, etc. There is bound to be one that covers your interest(s).

Dan Romanchik's Blurty Entries is the Weblog, or "blog," of Amateur Radio station KB6NU.

No matter what your interest, there is a lot of interesting reading to be found in ham blogs. Take the blog of KB6NU, for example: Dan Romanchik's Blurty Entries discusses a variety of ham radio topics that interest KB6NU, but it is so well written that it is interesting and entertaining reading even if your interests are different than KB6NU's. There are a lot of good blogs on the Internet like Dan's and when you find them, be sure to bookmark them so that you can refer back to them to read future blog entries.

Reading blogs is an education, but how about being the educator rather than the educated. Yes, you can have your own blog. There is a variety of software available that allows you to set up a blog on a Web site and start blogging to your heart's content. Better still there are free or inexpensive Weblog services on the Internet that allow you to start a blog in a relatively pain-free manner. Some don't even require that you have your own Web site...the service provides the site. Probably, the most popular blogging service is Blogger, but there are others. (For what it's worth, Blogger is the first and only blog service that I have ever used and I am very satisfied with it.)

Until next time, keep on surfin'

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, spends way too much time reading blogs, so much so that he never has time to update his own blog. You can steal even more time from Stan by sending him e-mail at wa1lou@arrl.net.

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