Ham Radio Now

Sometime in the nearish future, all radios will be SDR (software defined). SDR will cease to be a feature, and it will just be a given. 

When will that be, and what will happen then? 

Gary talks about that with FlexRadio's Tim Ellison W4TME, and Flex 'booth volunteer' and enthusiast Don Baughman K7MX.

How will manufacturers differentiate themselves, and what will they be throwing at consumers in the way of data and capabilities? 

Yes, these guys are from Flex, so they've got a point of view, but they're pretty candid about this segment of the business... that's about to take over the whole business.

The Radio Rating is A+. This is a pure talker, recorded at the Orlando HamCation in HamRadioNow's famous Studio in a Booth. If you get a custom picture with this podcast, you'll see Tim (right) and Don (left) and the booth, and that's pretty much all you need to see. 

We begin by recovering from the faux press of the RECORD button to show the RAM mount Then we're on the road.

The RAV4 has two motors. One under the hood. The other just above Gary's jaw.

At least this 3-hour tour won't leave you stranded on a tropical island. It'll just feel like it.

Radio Rating-wise, the first few minutes are like PART ONE - you'll miss a lot without pictures. But after that, there's really not a lot to look at. The NC and SC tourism boards might not agree, but I-40 and I-95 are mostly strips of pavement bordered by trees (and billboards). We even failed (again) to get to the top of the Sombrero at Pedro's South of the Border. So this episode gets a Radio Rating of A-. The minus is mostly because of those first few minutes of the show, and probably somebody likes Interstate highways and trees.

I've received a lot of requests to provide some details on my mobile installation. You've seen the radio stack, and some of the antennas in one show or another. But as I prepared to get on the road to head to the Orlando HamCation, I decided to start with a tour of the whole thing.

And I almost succeeded! Here's that "tour," but conspicuously missing will be the 'heart' of the installation - the mounting bracket from RAM MOUNTS. I fat-fingered the camera's record button, and ended up missing the footage where I described that. I'll fix that in Part TWO (yet to be shot). I did record a lot of on-the-road of Day One of the drive, but ran out of time in the hotel to edit it. I'll get to it all as soon as I can. But meantime, enjoy Part ONE.

This episode is so visual that I almost decided to skip the audio podcast. But it's the start of the epic Episode 300. So Part ONE here gets a Radio Rating of D- (the lowest grade I've given!). The actual on-the-road parts, coming soon to a podcast near you, will make up for that.

We forgot to say it, but this is EmComm Extra #6 with a Radio Rating of A+.

Jeff Dahn KB3ZUK, President of W3HAC, the HacDC Amateur Radio Club, is our guest. Jeff helped with communications for the National Park Service during the Presidential Inauguration and the protest Women's March in January. He was invited because of his extensive participation in the ARRL's National Parks On The Air program last year. Jeff activated most of the parks in the Washington DC area.

In this episode, he'll talk about the NPOTA activity, then his work during President Trump's inauguration.

Meanwhile, Jeff's club, the W3HAC HacDC ARC, provided communications for the Women's March on Washington the next day (while Jeff was still at the NPS comm center). We hope to have that story on HamRadioNow in a couple of weeks (the Orlando HamCation is getting in the way). 

Hosts: Gary Pearce KN4AQ, David Goldenberg W0DHC

http://HamRadioNow.tv

HamRadioNow's newish co-host David Goldenberg W0DHG wears many hats. One of them is Scoutmaster for Troop 22 in Woodland Hills, CA, where he introduces his Scouts to Amateur Radio, among many other life skills.

Scouting is one of the most effective connections between Amateur Radio and young people. In this episode, David and Gary KN4AQ explore that connection with Jim Wilson K5ND. Jim also wears many hats with the Boy Scouts. He's Chairman of the National Radio Scouting Committee; National Jamboree on the Air Organizer; a member of the World JOTA-JOTI Team; and President of the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association.

(Gary made it to Cub Scout Webelo).

This Skype-based talker has only a few web graphics and videos to break up the faces, but that earns it a Radio Rating of A+.

Jim has appeared in two previous episodes:

• 2012 Hamvention® Tour
• HRN 83 Jamboree

Brennan Price N4QX is the former Chief Technology Officer for the ARRL (now with the EchoStar satellite company). He spent the past few years mostly in the international arena – the ITU and the World Radio Conferences – helping Amateur Radio acquire new spectrum and defending the spectrum we have now.

Here he gives the 2016 ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference 'keynote' talk at the Saturday banquet. He'll address the new technologies and millimeter wave spectrum that will be so important to Amateur Radio's Future.

Most of Brennan's slides are text, and he covers them well, so we'll assign a Radio Rating of B to this audio version

Brennan has appeared on three previous HamRadioNow programs:

• HRN 6 - WRC 2012 - Brennan Price
• HRN 131: A 60-Meter BAND? Maybe ! 
• HRN 240: 60 Meters - Let's Go Dutch 

One more to use up that storage space that expires tomorrow. Another conversation with Jeff AC4ZO, loosely around more ham media.

Jeff, BTW, is still around. He's almost never on the air anymore (even on that Friday night commute to dinner that he'll talk about in this episode. He got a new car, and didn't install a radio). So that's why his appearance on the show has become so infrequent. But he'll be at Dayton, probably in the VE Testing area helping out, if you want to say hi.

We show some of the videos we're talking about, but otherwise it's another talker, so Radio Rating is B+ again.

Here we are at the end of January with a few MB of space left to use up before it turns to dust on Libsyn. I picked this episode because it's just a fun chat between me and Jeff AC4ZO, mostly about that Thanksgiving 2013 episode of Last Man Standing that was among the topics I covered with John Amodeo NN6JA in HRN 288. 

It's a good radio show with a Radio Rating of B+, but if you want to watch, here's the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzS-SjS_k8&t=2097s

- Gary KN4AQ

Do we really need to add in Depth to the title? After all, this is HamRadioNow. 

Be that as it may, David and Gary talk at length with Jim Piper N6MED. Jim is the Liaison to Amateur Radio with the Volunteer Disaster Health Services of the American Red Cross, Gold Country Division (that's the territory roughly around Sacramento, CA). They learn what the Red Cross' mission is, and how Amateur Radio can help.

It's a talk-fest episode, with just a few web graphics thrown in, but you won't miss'em (much). So another Radio Rating of A.

All of the Emcomm related episodes are gathered together on a Playlist on the HamRadioNow YouTube Channel.

http://HamRadioNow.tv

The dream: (Gary's dream, anyway) – a VHF/UHF digital voice radio that handles all the DV modes. 

The bridge: Servers and reflectors that transcode from one mode to the other, so D-STAR users can talk to Fusion users can talk to DMR users....

Wireless Holding's Uli Altvater AGØX is building both the radio (the DV4mobile) and the bridge.

Lots of graphics and diagrams will make this hard to follow on audio, so Radio Rating of C-.

Uli appeared in HamRadioNow Episode 263, Learn More about DV4