HamRadioNow

On the heels of Hurricane Beryl, Bob Inderbitzen NQ1R, ARRL Director of Marketing and Innovation was interviewed by The Weather Channel about ham radio. It was a great shot in national media, which means that East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ needed to take it apart to see how it could have been better, while West Coast Host David W0DHG pulled Gary back to reality.

Well, back in his younger days, Gary was no novice in the PR world, and he’s got some legacy video to prove it:

Gary's Field Day Interview (Studio): https://youtu.be/vkH21ERvp7I?si=8JP1U...

Gary's Katrina Interview: https://youtu.be/yC0u42MnMdM?si=USDdI...

Gary's Field Day Interview (Field - we didn't play this one in the episode): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyTcy1hFYQY.

As (barely a) Hurricane Beryl approaches landfall on the Texas coast, East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ welcomes ARRL South Texas Section Emergency Coordinator Jeff Walter KE5FGA to the show to talk about Amateur Radio emcomm in his area.

It may have been the longest DAY of the year, but it was still a long NIGHT for K4AAQ

Gary edited a little home movie of this year’s Field Day operation. Then a look at some of the media from this year. Finally some thoughts on the GMRS linking controversy.

Links to the News Stories and stuff:

Our Field Day Playlist

Tell Josh to 'Approve' of us

Hey, it really was Escambria, not Escanaba. I blame my reading glasses:

WLOX TV story

KPLC TV story

Lakawana News 16 story

WAKA TV story

Reddit GMRS thread

Our guest, Dr. Johnathan Kramer, ESQ, is a lawyer dealing in ‘dirt’ - no, not Stormy Daniels. Real Estate. We’ll learn about his career and a bit about putting up antennas in HOA territory.

We had some technical trouble with the live stream this time… and with the local recording. Between the two, we recovered most of the show, with a few minutes missing in the middle. You won’t even know… but it might be a little confusing for those who watched live on YouTube, or came to the YouTube channel late, but before we replaced the video (it takes hours to do that. Now you know.

For the past 10 days, ARRL’s Logbook of the World and online courses have been down. Something slowed down QST production (the print version) for a day or two. But the website and email forwarding service are working.

What’s happening? ARRL is only saying that “a serious incident involving access to our network and systems” has occurred. Is it a fire in the engine room? Malware? Ransomware? Somebody didn’t pay the ISP? All those and more are filling the information vacuum. So are we 🙄😕

Meanwhile, we opened up the Zoom to viewers, and one - Dave VE3KM from… yes, Bastard, Ontario, clicked the button. Turns out that Dave is an avid VHF/UHF ham, among other things (actually, pretty well rounded in ham radio overall). So before we get started speculating (and Gary whining) about the ARRL infogap, Dave gives us a lesson in Aurora propagation. Yes, when a big dose of plasma from the sun 🌞 shuts down HF, VHF goes wild.

Do we solve the ARRL’s data issue, or even provide some useful insight? Nope. Nobody has. But we… maybe just Gary… feels better.

Episode 524 - New England Correspondent Marty NN1C takes us to the Hamvention, holds out in the pouring rain to see the rush of equally drowned hamfesters pour (too literally) through the entry gate at 9 AM, and then waits out ICOM’s BIG REVEAL of… circuit boards😕, with East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ anchoring from Fort Mill. West Coast Host David W0DHG got up early to join in.

Episode 525 - Gary K4AAQ goes solo, checking the feeds, and reviewing HamRadioNow (and ARVN)’s extensive catalog of Hamvention videos, going back to 2007. Find it all in this YouTube Playlist.

Gary K4AAQ is back from vacation, and we’re back on the air. A (relatively) short show - David W0DHG had some stuff to do, so just an hour. We do the usual ramble around a few topics. Gary shows his broken (and extracted) tooth (so be glad this is just audio) and a home movie from Hawaii to wrap things up.

In theory, we’re on hiatus until May, but we had a few minutes to chat about the Hollywood Hills, David’s Emcomm deployment (no hams were harmed in that deployment), and a bit of eclipse.

Gary's Q-Mobile - now 17 years old and 230,000 miles long, is running fine. But the ICOM 7000 HF rig developed a hiccup on 40 meters. Put a little RF to the Tarheel 200 antenna, and it shut down. He finally gets around to fixing it.

David W0DHG told him how in a previous episode. Gary K4AAQ had to do it the hard way.

https://HamRadioNow.tv

For the next few weeks, East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ and West Coast Host David W0DHG have a bunch of family and other activities, so we’re goona take a break from the show. David may gin up some shows solo (Gary will be gone lots longer)… we’ll see. But sooner or later we’ll be back… tanned and rested (or dragged ot and exhausted).

See ya on the other side!