Series on W3MRB — Ham Radio & 3D Printing https://w3mrb.com/tags/series/ Recent content in Series on W3MRB — Ham Radio & 3D Printing Hugo en Copyright © 2026 Michael Bell (W3MRB). Sat, 11 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0400 Grinding for Extra: Studying Ham Radio's Hardest Exam as an Engineer https://w3mrb.com/blog/2026/07/grinding-for-extra/ Sat, 11 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0400 https://w3mrb.com/blog/2026/07/grinding-for-extra/ I passed my General a while back. Now I’m studying for Amateur Extra — the top US license class — and this post kicks off a series where I work through it in public, from the perspective of someone who’s here for the electronics more than the operating.

This first one is about why the Extra material is worth your time even if you never care about the extra frequency privileges.

]]> Teaching a Local LLM to Be My Elmer https://w3mrb.com/blog/2026/07/local-llm-elmer/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0400 https://w3mrb.com/blog/2026/07/local-llm-elmer/ An Elmer, in ham speak, is a mentor — the experienced operator who answers your dumb questions and gets you on the air. I’m lucky to have real ones. But I’m also an AI engineer with a rack of hardware running large language models in my house, so I’m running an experiment: can a local LLM be a useful second Elmer — a patient, always-available tutor for the Extra exam and the bench?

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