PART ONE of the Sunday Seminar from the 2016 ARRL/TAPR DCC.

Michelle Thompson W5NYV talks spectrum and cognitive radio. She expects technology to really disrupt the radio art in the near future.

That's just the warm-up act, getting ready for Bob McGwire NY4H to really shake things up in Parts TWO and THREE (coming tomorrow). If Bob's crystal ball is accurate, it will be the End of Ham Radio As We Know It. 

Yeah, we've hear that before, but this time... if we're going to have a new generation of hams... it just might have to happen.

Michelle has some slides, but you'll get most of it from the sound track, so this gets a Radio Rating of B+.

In the intro, Gary mentions a pair of TV shows that have a significant ham radio component:

Before MARS

Frequency

http://HamRadioNow.tv

Another classic HamRadioNow clickbait title. We're really talking about the fall 2016 Ham Radio/MARS Interop test, this one titled "A Really Bad Day". Gary and David talk to Army MARS Program Manager Paul English WD8DBY and get detailed about this exercise that starts TONIGHT (if you get this in time - 11 PM Eastern on Sunday, October 30). If you're just a little late, it goes on thru Monday, ends Tuesday.

Radio Rating of A. All talking heads.

Gary KN4AQ and new Co-Host David Goldenberg W0DHG launch the HamRadioNow EmComm Extra with Episode 2, because Episode 1 was a rush job during the onset of Hurricane Matthew. 

This time they talk to two hams who participated directly in ARES activity as Matthew roared by. Scott Roberts KK4ECR is an Assistant EC and PIO for Clay County ARES, just outside Jacksonville FL. Linda Selleck KJ4EVV is the EC for Berkeley County ARES, next to Charleston SC. 

Before the interviews, David and Gary talk about what they'd like the EmComm Extra to be. We're not going to hold them to it, but it'll give you a clue.

This is 95% Talking Heads, minus a few maps, a little TV video, and some pictures and video Linda shot of her operation. And because it's over two hours long, it gets a Radio Rating of A.

HamRadioNow.tv

FEMA Chief Technology Officer Ted Okada K4HNL addresses the 2016 ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference. Unlike most DCC talks, this is not highly technical, but Ted does conclude with a challenge to develop digital tools to advance the art of preparing for and responding to disasters.

Ted does have a lot of slides, but audio listeners should be able to keep up pretty well. Radio Rating B.

HamRadioNow.tv

When is an episode not an episode? When I say it isn't. And I don't give it a number.

Getting young people into our aging hobby is hardly a new or original idea, and best I can tell, we haven't come up with any one gamechanger. There probably won't be. If we are to keep our avocation alive through the next several generations... when our current demographic bubble has "moved to a higher band" as Don Wilbanks says... the key(s) will probably be a lot of smaller things, and probably more at the local level than anything generated on Mount Newington. And I think they'd agree up there.

Well, this show... not a show... seeks your ideas so I can use them in the next 20 TAPR DCC videos as one of the "Corporate Sponsor" messages. So they need to be short (30 seconds). The pitch can (must?) lead to something bigger, and hopefully something you've done yourself that worked.

In this not a show I mug the camera and point to a web page now and then, but it's mostly a monolog, so it gets a Radio Rating of A, if not an A+. 

This... well, the second half of it, is TAPR President Steve Bible N7HPR's welcome to the hams assembled in St. Petersburg FL for the 2016 DCC. The first half is Gary talking about the video production. So nothing critical here - just an orientation to give you an idea of what the DCC is like if you attend in person.

There are some slides, but again nothing critical. Most of the upcoming DCC talks will be more graphics intensive, so head's up. This one, though, can get a Radio Rating of B. Maybe B+.

We've been hearing about a Geosynchronous satellite for the Western Hemisphere for a while now, but not many details. In this episode from the DCC, project leader Bob McGwire N4HY fills in a lot of blanks. There's no launch date yet, and maybe not quite enough info to start building your ground station (a 'Five & Dime' setup - 5 GHz up, 10 GHz down), but you can start thinking about it.

There are a lot of supporting graphics, but you'll probably get a good idea of what's coming from the audio. Radio Rating of C+.

With Hurricane Matthew bearing down on Florida, Gary conducts an Emcomm Bull Session with LA area EC David Goldenberg W0DHG (David will be a regular Emcomm Extra co-host) and Ham Media Gadfly Marty Sullaway KC1CWF (Chicken with Fries). 

This isn't your typical Emcomm discussion. It's the HamRadioNow version. And good news for audio listeners, this one's mostly talking heads, so it gets a Radio Rating of A. 

The US House has passed HR 1301 (the Amateur Radio Parity Act), and we're awaiting (some of us hoping, some not) for passage in the Senate. We've never been this close.

This process didn't begin in 2012, but that's the year we took a big step... backwards, it seemed at the time. The FCC had declined to issue rules overriding HOA covenants on its own. At the ARRL's urging, Congress directed the Commission to do a study on the actual effect the restrictions had on hams.

We were at that point when Gary interviewed then ARRL CEO Dave Sumner K1ZZ to find out more. This is Episode 8 of what was then a very new podcast! This was just a Skype talking-head show, so it gets a Radio Rating of A.

And yes, we're at the end of the month, so we're using up our allotment of storage. We'll pick one more tomorrow. Maybe two.

HamRadioNow doesn't do 'unboxings', and we don't do product reviews per se, but this time we do both. A new BaoFeng UV 5x3 tri-band handheld (144-220-440) caught his eye, and at about $80 he thought 'why not'. He needed to learn more about this wave of cheap Chinese radios, and very few radios include the 220 band. 

The main rap on the Chinese radios is that they're hard to program. Gary finds this one different than the Japanese brands, but not necessarily more difficult. And it programs easily with free Chirp software.

Harmonics have been an issue. This episode includes an interview and demo from ARRL Lab Product Review Engineer Bob Allison WB1GCM from the 2014 Hamvention, where Bob was testing ham's radios on a spectrum analyzer. 

There is a lot of video involved in this episode, but also some discussion of the issues, so if you can't get to YouTube, it's probably worth a listen. We'll give it a Radio Rating of C.