Danny Davis KD5W

I like building things slightly more than I like operating them. Most days that means a workbench covered in wire, test gear, and radios that I swear I am going to tidy up tomorrow. I grew up glued to shortwave radios and that habit never went away. Broken Signal is where I share the experiments, mistakes, and occasional wins that come out of that curiosity.

I try to keep the tone light. If you are going to wrestle with RF, filters, and strange firmware bugs, you might as well laugh a little while you do it.

Professional background

By day I build enterprise applications in C#. I have been working with .NET for years, designing and shipping software that has to run quietly in the background and just do its job. That experience shapes how I approach projects on Broken Signal. I like clear steps, repeatable results, and practical solutions that you can actually deploy at home, not just talk about on a whiteboard.

On the air as KD5W

I hold an Amateur Extra class license with the callsign KD5W. You will often find me on 20 meters, and this past summer I had a lot of fun chasing openings on 12 meters. I run FT8 quite a bit, but if there is a choice I would rather run FT4. Fast contacts and quick feedback fit the way I like to operate.

Even with all the digital gear, I still love classic shortwave listening. There is something relaxing about tuning across the bands and seeing what random signals show up on a quiet evening.

Real-world radio experience

I am also a ham radio operator holding the highest level license, the Amateur Extra class, with my call sign KD5W. I have been licensed since 2004, so there is more than twenty years of time on the air behind the projects and explanations you see here. When I share results, they come from real stations, real contacts, and the same kind of gear many hams actually use.

Projects I am proud of

One of my favorite recent projects was a video where I invited two experienced hams to a local park and asked them to build HF antennas out of what was basically garbage. We spent the day digging through junk, hanging wire in trees, playing radio, and filming the whole experiment. It captured what I like most about the hobby: friends, problem solving, and not taking ourselves too seriously.

Topics I write about

Most of my articles aim to give you something you can try this weekend. If you enjoy mixing radios, code, and DIY projects, you should feel right at home here.

Away from the bench

When I am not writing code or chasing a strange signal, I like being outside. Fishing, gardening, and general DIY work around the house keep me away from the screen and give me new ideas for future projects. There are too many hobbies to list, which probably sounds familiar if you are reading this.

Where to go next

If you are new to the hobby, start with the guides in Getting Started. For antenna builds and test results, jump into Antennas. If you like combining radios with microcontrollers and code, you will probably enjoy the projects under Projects and the coverage in Meshtastic.