When Phil’s signals were getting weaker

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While I was searching for a good topic for this week’s “Throwback Thursday, I happened upon this 2015 article. In it, the author describes his journey of discovery in finding out that the signals from his homebuilt antenna weren’t coming in as strongly as they had just a few years earlier. Was the antenna failing? Was the whole idea and physics behind it just not up to the task? I’ll leave it to you to read the article and find out. But, it reminded me that I’ve been wanting to profile the article’s author for a while.

Phil Karras, engineer extraordinaire

About eight years ago, when this blog was just months into its relaunch, I was contacted out of the blue by an antenna enthusiast named Phil Karras. Phil, who referred to himself by his ham designation KE3FL, told me he’d been blogging about radio and antennas since 1998. He was looking to offer a few articles on the subject free of charge. I agreed and published his first article in September of 2012. Since then he’s become one of this blog’s most prolific authors and our in-house expert on the really deep technical issues of antenna reception. You can check out all of the articles he’s written here.

And that’s not all, folks

Phil also operates his own site, which he has hand coded himself. Take a look at it here. In it, you’ll find even more content from Phil as well as a gallery of his adventures in the ham radio world.

All in all, Phil is a great asset to this site. I am very very glad I said “yes” to him all those years ago. I’m sure we all look forward to more great articles from him! If you have a topic that you want him to cover, leave a comment below.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.