Ham Radio Now

Mel Whitten K0PFX leads this double-length session to show how practical High Definition Digital Amateur Television is for you, today. Great picture, lower bandwidth, and affordable equipment available now.

So this is a superb contradiction – an audio show about television. And Im afraid you'll miss a lot, from the graphics to the demos. So a Radio Rating of C-. But as usual, listen and see if it drives you to the screen.

Well help with one – click HERE for Gary's VHF/UHF Band Plan chart PDF.

2016 is the 20th anniversary of Gary writing A Ham's Night Before Christmas. In this episode, he'll tell the story of writing it, performing it live, then recording audio and finally the video. Then he 'performs' the poem on camera (sort of), which, of course, you miss here in the audio version. 

We're conflicted about the Radio Rating of this episode. The poem's first media was audio, so this should be an easy A. But you'll miss all the cute QST covers and ads from across the decades, so that knocks it down to a C-. 

So if you can scratch up the bandwidth, the High Def video version is only three minutes long. Listen to the story here, then go play the video: https://youtu.be/xxJpunNf5WI

Tampa Bay NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist Dan Noah WX4DAN joins Dan and Gary to talk about SKYWARN Recognition Day. The Special Event will see 24 hours of ham operation from dozens of National Weather Service offices from 7 PM Friday December 2, to 7 PM Saturday (Eastern Time). 

SKYWARN is well known, but needs lots more participation from hams, especially in rural areas.

We show some maps and web sites, but this show is mostly talk, so Radio Rating of A. Maybe A+ considering how much Dan and David's Skype video is frozen.

We haven't heard a lot from FCC Special Counsel Laura Smith lately, but she spoke at Pacificon, a large ham conference in the San Francisco area, last October. Her talk was recorded by Bob Miller WB6KWT and his son Robert KA7JKP, and Bob gave us permission to use the talk for HamRadioNow.

Gary adds a long intro, with a summary of the talk's highlights and a few comments, along with a status report on the Amateur Radio Parity Act, before we play Laura's talk in full.

The title is a bit of click bait. Laura does actually talk about repeaters and uses that phrase, but she talks about a lot of other things, too. The headline should probably be about the plan to have ARRL Official Observers work closer with the FCC on initial investigations of complaints.

This show is mostly just Laurel (and Gary) talking to the camera. Gary tosses in a few graphic elements, but it's still a Radio Rating of A. 

There is life left in P25, perhaps the first somewhat popular digital voice mode on Amateur Radio VHF/UHF. The life comes from a linking system that David Krauss NX4Y introduces at the 2016 DCC. He calls it P25NX - Network Exchange.

The P25 mode started in Public Safety radio in the mid '80's. After about 10 years, those guys say their radios are due for replacement. Hams bought the trade-ins and put them on the ham bands. But the repeaters were isolated islands. D-STAR became more popular because were linked, bringing in traffic from around the country or world. P-25 is about to have even more cheap equipment on the market as they migrate to Phase 2, and David's link system could make P25 a competitive mode in ham radio again.

There are charts and diagrams in David's talk, but you'll get the idea from the audio, so the Radio Rating is B-. Someday we'll commit to a solid letter-grade without the + or -.

AREDN Project Manager Andre Hansen K6AH details this mesh based data network that's up and running in the San Diego CA area. It uses the 2.4 and 3.4 GHz ham bands to haul data across the region, and then distribute it to local users, with a primary EmComm goal.

Andre gave this talk at the ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference in St. Petersburg FL in September 2016. There are the usual slides with text and charts that are helpful to see, so we'll give this one a Radio Rating of C.

From the ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference in St. Petersburg FL, September, 2016.

Lou Romero W4LT has been doing remote for a long time - before it became the popular thing it is today. He'll tell his story, review the options for private and public remotes, club-based remotes, Off the Shelf and DIY.

This is not super-technical talk. It's more 'what the pieces are and
how they go together.' Lou will demo his club's system at the end of the talk, and there's some good Q&A. Lou will say that he doesn't "read the Powerpoints", but he does a pretty good job of talking to them, so that doesn't matter for the text slides. But on toward the end of the talk there are some software demos and screen shots that you'll miss, so this gets a Radio Rating of C. Maybe C+.

Scotty Cowling WA2DFI details a new TAPR kit that turns a Raspberry Pi into a 20 meter WSPR beacon - cheap and easy. From the 2016 ARRL/TAPR DCC.

There are the usual Powerpointish slides, but most are text that Scotty reviews. You'll get enough to know if you're interested and want to go to the web to check out more.

http://tapr.org/kits_20M-wspr-pi.html

Bob McGweir N4YH wraps up the 2016 ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference (and the Sunday Seminar) by revealing what the Future of Amateur Radio will look like... in 5 years, according to Bob.

You may disagree! But note that the discussion begins here, it certainly doesn't end here.

http://HamRadioNow.tv

Bob McGwire N4YH begins his portion of the Sunday Seminar from the 2016 ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference. 

Bob reviews a lot of history as he lays the groundwork for his prediction of a major shakeup in communications (and Ham Radio) that he'll detail in Part Three.

Lots of text-filled slides that Bob will mostly read, and a few more detailed graphics and charts, but still mostly explained well in the audio. Radio Rating B.

http://HamRadioNow.tv