Ham Radio Now

John Ronan EI7IG travels from Ireland to present a talk on using APRS to track vehicles and bikes on a big bike race.

John has several pictures, maps and charts, so another Radio Rating of C.

John gave a talk at the 2014 DCC in Seattle on using D-STAR's 1200 MHz 'high-speed' data for public service in HamRadioNow Episode 121.

Sterling Coffey N0SSC and Marty Sullaway KC1CWF from the Phasing Line Podcast join HamRadioNow's David Goldenberg W0DHG and Gary Pearce KN4AQ for an Epic Episode Mashup.

Do they talk about anything significant? Solve all of Ham Radio's problems? Advance the Radio Art? Or just goof around for nearly two hours?

What do you think?

Whatever it is, it's for sure 98% Talking Heads, and that means a Radio Rating of A+++ (and yes, that's the kind of show it is).

Those knuckleheads are on http://PhasingLinePodcast.com

Mark Griffith KDØQYN's goal for this project was to design and build a super-simple, ultra-portable system for using Amateur Radio to send and receive email in disaster situations when all else fails... without carrying in a wheelbarrow full of equipment and wires and taking a "two days" to set it all up.

The result: PiGate, a tiny Raspberry Pi-based Winlink gateway.

Most of Mark's slides are text or simple charts, so the Radio Rating comes in at a B - you'll get it from the audio.

Brian Hoyer K7UDR from NWDigitalRadio reviews a method of authenticated remote control using APRS Messaging... and more... from the 2016 ARRL/TAPR DCC.

As usual, lots of slides, though many are text. Radio Rating C.

IPv6 is the brand new addressing scheme for the Internet that will solve all the problems of running out of addresses that IPv4 will run into... um... yesterday. It will provide enough unique addresses to assign one to approximately every molecule of matter on the planet, or at least all the Internet of Things things that Scotty Cowling listed in HRN 289. And by brand new of course we mean 20 years old. And in Internet years, that's old.

We learn all this from Bryan Fields W9CR at the 2016 ARRL & TAPR DCC in St. Petersburg FL. Bryan was a local host for this DCC. He's made presentations the 2015 and 2016 Hamvention® TAPR forums.

And as Bryan explains, this topic affects Amateur Radio in a couple of ways. One is the HamWAN project, a wide-coverage, high-speed data network on 5 GHz. Bryan runs the system in Tampa, and it uses IPv6 addressing. The other is that ham radio has one of the few remaining large blocks of unused IPv4 addresses. And they're worth some money (real money).

Bryan's talk has a lot of slides, of course, but most of them are text 'headlines' for the topics he's discussing. This earns a Radio Rating of B, but as always, you decide if you need to go to the videotape.

Links:

2015 TAPR Forum (HRN 207) https://youtu.be/eAzkSP2nt0M
2016 TAPR Forum (HRN 254) https://youtu.be/IFcESjoWSP8
2013 DCC HamWAN Seattle (HRN 128) https://youtu.be/Vhj9bS8n9jM

The always entertaining Scotty Cowling WA2DFI has been working on a tiny corner of the Internet of Things, so he goes into that corner in detail at the 2016 ARRL & TAPR DCC. His little corner expands to fill the available space.

Scotty does have a lot of slides, graphs and charts. See what you can glean from the audio, as he describes them pretty well. Up front, Gary does a little video wizardry to get rid of the Christmas decorations (you'll hear the finger snap, and you'll imagine something far more impressive than what you'll see in the actual video.

Still, the best we can do is a Radio Rating of C+.

Last Man Standing is a hit, prime-time TV sitcom on ABC starring Tim Allen as Mike Baxter, a husband and father of three girls, employee of Outdoor Man (an outdoor-everything store like Carbellas or Bass Pro Shop) and ham radio operator KA0XTT. Ham Radio appears in the background of every show, with a fully functional shack in Mike's Outdoor Man office. Two episodes have put ham radio right in the spotlight as a major part of the story.

Last Man Standing co-Executive Producer John Amodeo NN6JA has often told the story of how ham radio came to be part of this TV show. If you missed it on other ham media, he'll repeat it here, but then go in far greater depth about how ham radio does and doesn't fit into it, ham radio in general media (and why most shows get it 'wrong'), John's personal history (he thought he was going into the ski industry), and a little on ham radio's own new media.

John says that he appreciates HamRadioNow for our long-form programs. He'll really like this one, not (just) because he's on it, but because it's over 2½ hours of in-depth one-on-one with KN4AQ.

This is an extra-long, mostly talking-head show, and it's earned our first Radio Rating of A+. There are a few video clips, but you'll miss almost nothing.

We've reviewed Last Man Standing episodes twice before when they aired those episodes that put ham radio front and center. Here are links to the YouTube videos (sorry, not available as audio just now):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXFUgQK8qI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzS-SjS_k8

TAPR's John Ackermann N8UR details this little Arduino based device - he calls it a stopwatch - that will measure time to the trillionths of a second. Why does anyone need that, when, according to Star Trek, it's possible to give verbal start-stop commands controlling spacecraft going faster than light? Aaaaand... Go! But we digress. 

This is a fully assembled device, not a kit (Gary will make that mistake in the intro).

There are lots of charts and diagrams, so the Radio Rating is D+, though if you're already conversant with the material, John's description might carry you through. If not, enjoy Gary's diversion for the first 8 minutes, then skip to YouTube.

http://tapr.org/kits_ticc.html

HamRadioNow.tv

Author Jim George (JK George) N3BB talked to Gary about his (relatively) new book Contact Sport at the 2016 Dayton Hamvention®. The book takes you deep into the world of the participants of the 2014 WRTC (World RadioSport Team Championship), perhaps the most elite contest in Amateur Radio. Jim was embedded with one of the teams, but got lots of additional detail through interviews (and spies?). As a former WRTC competitor and referee, he knew what to look for. And as a writer, he knew how to tell the story.

Lots of background noise, recorded in a busy exhibit hall, and we're maybe a little more fun to watch talking, but still a talk show, so Radio Rating of A. If you get the thumbnail picture with your podcast, pretend the mouths are moving and you'll have it.

LINKS:

• JK George website
• WRTC website
• WRTC 2014 Video

Emcomm Extra co-host David Goldenberg W0DHG reviews a hospital Emcomm drill that he participated in a few weeks ago.

Then Army MARS Program Manager Paul English WD8DBY/AAA6B introduces us to Air Force MARS Chief Dave Stapchuk KD9DXM/AGA5C, and they review the MARS/Ham Radio Interop Exercise A Very Bad Day.

We've got a few graphics, but mostly this is talking-head territory, so it gets the Radio Rating of A, and it's almost two hours with, so happy listening!