Outreach according to us.

Inclusiveness is all well and good, but we feel ham radio outreach should emphasize the brutal inevitability of our hobby's glorious world-wide hegemony.

Everyone who's not a ham must and will become a ham.

And they will enjoy it.

That's not a threat, not a promise, not a given, not an axiom, not so much as a Law of Thermodynamics.

Sorry sweethearts, it's Book 'em Dano Time.

Trust us. We'll brook no belly-aching, no whining, no idle promising to take the Tech test, just as soon as Iron Chef is over and the garage is clean enough to lick bad mayonaise off its floor.

H. A. M. Three letters. One word. One world wishing itself absolute very best DX to you and your family.

Might as well, huh?

Could be worse.

A ham, his horse and his KX3 coming soon to your mailbox?

KF5OEF recently came to us for a western-themed custom QSL design and we were delighted to oblige. After a bit of back and forth we settled on a rough design and Mitch cowboyed-up with some snapshots to help this greenhorn sweat the details just so.

Have your own custom QSL in mind?

Start us sketching for $25 dollars up front via PayPal, and we'll deliver a design proposal, reasonable back and forth included. If you approve the proposal, remaining work is billed at $25 dollars per hour for finished, QSL printer-ready high resolution digital art files, plus web-resolution files specifically for posting online.

How much does a custom QSL design typically cost?

Usually $100 or less. If we need to purchase a special font, that's extra at cost. Our on-hand font selection is large, so the extra cost is unlikely.

What about the QSO report form?

We recommend putting that on the back of your card, along with awards, rigs, and other personal details. Most QSL printers offer a wide variety of reverse side formats in customizable styles. The expense is not much more than a single-sided card, and allows maximum, uncluttered space for your custom design.

How about custom ham logos, letterheads, etc?

Works same as the QSLs.

Whatever ham art you have mind, eMail us! The initial consultation is free.

What else have we done?

A browse around Dashtoons.com is probably the best way to get a sense of our style and sensibility. It's generally cartoony, but we can mix it up and do so on occassion.

In addition to my internationally known Dash! The Dog-Faced Ham cartoons, books and merchandise, I've created high-profile amateur radio graphics for:

Alpha Amplifiers
2012 Dayton Hamvention booth display

Insubria Radio Club, Regio Insubria North Italy
"Il Mondo Nella Mia Antenna" logo

K9YA Telegraph's latest book publication
The Art & Skill of Radio Telegraphy

New York Shortwave Performance Artist David Goren
Shortwave Shindig logo

Rockwell Collins Amateur Radio Club
B-29 Project website

I've played radio and drawn cartoons since I was a kid and I'm too OM to change. See what I can draw for you!

Contact

Not a Pledge Week.

Just a reminder that Dashtoons is all about value.

Our anticipated appointment as National Public Ham Radio Cartoonist fell through the Capitol cracks, so we're back on our heels and desperately currying sympathy, otherwise known as a torrential revenue stream.

So click our Dog-Faced Little Match Girl and consider helping keep this crazy dream alive, while treating yourself to radiosporting art collectibles already gracing some of the most important shacks, libraries, and wardrobes in our amateur world.

Oh, we could petition National Endowment for the Arts, not that there's anything wrong with that, but life is perpetual junior high school right? And what do Art Kids and Drama Kids think of Radio Club members?

Roger-Roger.

So it's us then. That quirky lot, the ones who made their own fun Saturday nights, rocking out with a twenty dollar acoustic guitar and ten dollar Lafayette Radio pickup plugged into the auxilliary jack of a sixty dollar Lafayette reel-to-reel.

So it's us then. The drummers who played practice pad drums and Erector Set cymbals. The vocalists who wired their Heathkit Twoers into portable PAs.

No, we were not Devo.

We were better.

We were amateurs of a certain sensibility, a certain fatalistic joie de vivre that sustains us yet today, forever ham.

All things Dash! celebrate that spirit and we hope our site, no matter how ridiculous, somehow keeps it real.

To us, my friends.

73

599 55 73 QRZ.

We're spearheading a movement to reduce the amount of too much information in amateur radio contacts.

After careful examination of typical QSO chatter, we've identified temperature as the datum most in need of a standardized place-holder.

Like, whatcha gonna do with somebody else's ambient air temperature? Put on a cardigan? Suck an ice cube?

OY, it makes an OM crazy!

All signal reports are 599, so why can't all temperatures be 55?

And another thing...tomorrow or the next day.

The Cozy has landed.

A cool package just flew in our shack from Japanese designer and ham artist Cozy Inoue, JH1MNZ. His work appears in the June 2013 issue of CQ HAM RADIO, Japan's premier amateur magazine, of which we were sent a copy, along with Cozy's QSL. We got to know this very talented OM in the CQ HAM RADIO Facebook group and now count him a friend.

Click here for a further look at Cozy's professional portfolio.

3 TV Channels Made Me Do It.

Back in the old days, lack of television channels drove a lot of kids to ham radio.

I recall a curious mix of resignation and idle curiousity. Ham radio was no Roy Rogers, Sky King or Beulah The Buzzer. Still it had some good points – like dials, lights, and the potential to create loud noises that annoyed other people.

Regardless of how many channels, TV was too one-way. Oh sure, you could put your finger on the screen next to Buffalo Bob's face and watch him poke himself in the eye, but come on. No matter how hard you wished, that dream had no legs.

On the other hand, ham radio seemed to offer a chance to...well, I dunno make your own noises and say cool stuff on the air I guess. Grunting like a pig, barking like a dog, asking people in many lands if their refrigerators were running, stuff like that. Of course, as a kid, you had no idea of the fascination with ambient air temperatures held by amateur radio operators the world over. That sort of understanding took time, but little white lying reception reports were a no-brainer.

All right, might as well, nothing good is on.

Once upon a time, that's how hams were made.

Inner Circle of Retail Hell.

You're invited to LIKE our new Facebook mercantile portal, tastefully discrete from our main Dashtoons Facebook page.

Fair warning, it's a hub of links to everything we sell – featuring our mugs, tees, posters, books and goodness knows what other gewgaws we might throw against the wall to see what proves saleable before the ham radio novelty bubble higglety-pigglety-pops.

Oh, we make great sport of it all, so count on entertainment value in the mix and if you find yourself beguiled by this or that item, know that your purchase will boost your humble ham cartoonist and his little dog too.

Look at those cunning shoe-button eyes.

You could click here and LIKE our very latest silly old Facebook page, right?

And if you haven't already Liked Dashtoons' main Facebook page, please do so as well, okey dokey?

Awesome.

Our Dayton is Forever.

We pledge never to close our incredible Dayton Simulator.

Oh yah sure you betcha, we'll keep adding new stuff. New rigs, new exhibitors, new snack bar specials and a steady succession of fresh-faced living floats in our simulated passing Dayton parade.

It's like having your own private Dayton implant.

Suddenly, no more waiting three hundred sixty-something days for the next Dayton. No more feeble, faltering attemps to recreate that elusive Hooters Early Bird Special Hour ambience on 75 meter phone.

It's all here, or will be, with all deliberate speed. Every bit of it, right down to the Raggle Taggle Gypsy Brand flea market parking lot patch. All Dayton, all here, all the freakin' time.

Now don't get the wrong idea.

We're not going to harp on Dayton. We'll spotlight all sorts of other funny stuff about ham radio, while supply lasts. The year 2525 is currently projected to be Peak Other Funny Stuff About Ham Radio, after which our creative descendents may be forced to harp on Dayton.

Top Dogs !

We bad. We cool.

We dominated from the K1NSS SuperShack of Solitude deep in the foothills of Catskill Mountains.

One transmitter. One hundred watts. Three faces for radio.

The few...stood against many. 

A multitude of ENY multiop single transmitter low power stations massed against a motley crew. Yet Jeff K1NSS and Paul W1GUH prevailed, despite overwhelming odds and Dash!The Dog-Faced Donut-Eating Dupe Magnet.