Ham Radio Now

Jon Poland N0WL reviews ways to keep track of just about everything in your ham radio life with tools on the Internet.

From the ARRL & TAPR 2017 Digital Communications Conference, Sept. 15-17, St. Louis, MO.

Did you know the Boy Scouts Jamboree on the Air has been around for 60 years? So that's why Old JOTA. But our panel of hams — Scout leaders from around the country — keep the discussion fresh.

Gary and David welcome Bill Stearns NE4RD, Brian McDaniel N4AE, Mike Crownover AD5A and Jim Wilson K5ND to the show to talk JOTA, the annual Scouting on-air event that's coming up October 20-22. 

If you or your club are interested in hosting a JOTA event, it's not too late to get involved (assuming you see this in early October). Here's a good place to start, but you'll have to dig a bit to volunteer: https://www.k2bsa.net/jota/. The guys give more tips during the show.

This show is (a lot of) talking heads, so the Radio Rating is A. If you want to know who's who in the graphic, the top row, left to right, is David, Mike and Brian, and the bottom row is Bill and Jim. 

In Part TWO of the 2009 Hamvention SDR Forum, FlexRadio's Gerald Youngblood K5SDR and Elecraft's Lyle Johnson KK7P square off on the two company's different approaches to implementing SDR.

At the time, neither Flex nor Elecraft did 'direct sampling' - they both used analog heterodyne stages and did their A/D conversion in the IF. The big difference was that the Elecraft radios looked like traditional ham equipment, with lots of knobs and buttons. The only Flex interface was a computer screen. Since then, of course, Flex has advanced to direct conversion, and added an option for a somewhat more traditional front panel. Elecraft has expanded their line of radios, but still uses analog conversion ahead of their SDR stage.

Both presentations have some useful slides, so the Radio Rating is B-.

Oh, geez, what to say about this 'episode.' In quotes.

This was just a Facebook Live session to let fans see how David W0DHG was progressing in his quest to duplicate Gary KN4AQ's ARVN Studio.

We would say this is hard to do, if Marty Sullaway KC1CWF, who busts in halfway through this episode, hadn't done it himself practically overnight. But that's the kind of thing that makes Marty the Newsline Young Ham of the Year (and our late friend Bill Pasternack WA6ITF should be in that title somewhere).

So there's a lot of screwing around, and a lot of reference to the video (really... shouldn't this all be just audio, and wouldn't it be a lot easier?), so a Radio Rating is hard to pinpoint. Somehow we continue this ramble for more than 90 minutes. And it really is just for diehard fans of the show. And it's here in the audio feed only because we've got the bandwidth here at the end of the month, and we don't hold anything back.

Quickly trying to use-it-before-we-lose-it data quota with some archive material. Just couldn't get any of the DCC shows completed before the deadline.

This is Part ONE of an SDR Forum from the 2009 Hamvention®. Yes, there was SDR back in 2009. Michelle Thompton W5NYV will talk about the Microwave Engineering Project, and CQ's Doug Grant K1DG gives and early look at new rules for contesting that all the new capabilities of SDR necessitated. 

Michelle and Doug have only a few slides each, so this is a Radio Rating of B.

In Part THREE of the 2009 Hamvention SDR Forum, Scotty Cowling WA2DFI updates the state of the HPSDR Project. Then former ARRL President Joel Harrison W5ZN looks at SDR from the operator's perspective.

The HPSDR talk will probably be a little arcane.. ok, a lot arcane.. unless you're into that project. HPSDR was.. still is.. a set of boards that TAPR and HPSDR developed as kits that eventually built an SDR HF transciever. This was full direct sampling SDR before any manufacturer was doing it (years before). The boards included a receiver, transmitter, power supply, amp, audio I/O, control, a back plane, etc.

The system progressed over the course of almost a decade, and every year at TAPR forums and conferences, Scotty updated the progress until a whole radio was complete. Lots of slides with some text and some pictures of the boards. That part of the show gets a Radio Rating of C-, which you'll say is too generous if you're not into HPSDR, but you might say doesn't respect the historic nature of this forum if you are into it.

Joel's talk is more accessible to the 'average' ham. He's got some slides, too (text, charts), but for the audio listener, he gets a Radio Rating of B+.

Jeri Ellsworth, co-founder of the Augmented Reality company castAR (among many, many other things) had added ham radio to her list of accomplishments. She's now AI6TK. We spotted her at the Dayton Hamvention this year (AmateurLogic TV snagged the interview).

And she just attended the ARRL/TAPR DCC in St. Louis with her friend Amy Herndon KM6FZE. Over the past year, Jeri and Amy have jumped into ham radio with both feet, but even for these technically accomplished women, ham radio had a steep learning curve. We'll talk about that and lots more in this quick hour.

This is a sit-down, talking heads conversation, and while those heads are interesting to watch, you'll get 97% out of just the audio, so we award a Radio Rating of A. (YouTube?... YouTube?... we don't need no stinkin' YouTube...)

WARNING: Radio Rating — D minus...

Yeah, sorry... this show is all about the Eclipse. There's barely any ham radio in it, and the video is really important.

On the other hand, we will say that pictures of the total eclipse don't do it justice, so maybe you're better off with just the audio. 

Gary KN4AQ, Jeff AC4ZO and Bobbie KD4ZVW traveled to Wyoming for the best potential of clear skies to view the Great American Eclipse on August 21, 2017. They were not disappointed.

Thanks to Frank NF9H and KC KC9MTL, we found a site that was ideal. We also touristed around the Denver area, visited Pikes Peak, the HRO store in Denver, a hamfest, WWV, the Red Rocks Amphitheater, and a super kite shop (very little of which you'll see in Gary's highly edited video).

The centerpiece of this show is video Gary shot of... not the eclipse (though some of that is there - you see it in the poster for this episode)... but the ground, the people reacting and the area going dark. You'll only hear that in the audio. Then you'll hear Gary's reaction. And maybe that's enough. 

The Amateur Radio Parity Act drew plenty of critics in its original form (HR 1301, the early days) from hams who thought the government shouldn't stick its nose into private contracts. After the ARRL and the CAI (Community Associations Institute) arrived at compromise language, the US House of Representatives was happy (and passed it), but ham critics accused the ARRL of 'selling out'.

More recently, several hams who are also lawyers crafted their own, considerably more thoughtful arguments about to why the compromise bill (now HR-555 and S-1534) are not good for Amateur Radio.

Two of them, former FCC attorney Jim Talens N3JT, and well-known antenna law attorney, author (and contester) Fred Hopengarten K1VR, join David and Gary to make their case. 

If you want an explanation of what's in the Bill, pre- and post-compromise, check out HamRadioNow Episode 259 (Click-bait titled PokeHAM GOta).  If you want to be able to read along, the video is on YouTube. The link will take you to the spot Gary starts his review.

This episode also has some text of the bills, but we're pretty careful to read everything out loud. So we'll give it a Radio Rating of B+. 

Last time on HamRadioNow... David and Gary wondered if there was an ARES mission with the coming Total Eclipse. Something about millions of people cramming into a 70-mile wide swath of darkness, overloading the highways and cell systems, and taxing emergency services. So yeah, maybe there was. But we hadn't heard much about it. Just Propagation studies and QSO parties.

Well, watching that show were Don and Betsy Reid, W7DMR and K7BTS. Don is EC for Benton County OR ARES, and Betsy is his AEC. And they were already making plans with their ARES group to be on the air from the county EOC, running a net. 

So in this show we'll get the details. We'll also talk to the HamKid, Sam Reynolds KM4WDK. Sam and his family are planning to drive down to South Carolina from their home in Charlotte. Sam was a good foil for our concerns that, while there will be ARES activity in many areas (and especially in South Carolina), it's hard for hams who may be traveling to those areas to learn about them.

OK, we'll stop doing the whole show here in the cliff notes and let you listen. Especially since this talker gets a Radio Rating of A. That one pesky map keeps it from getting an A+.