QSO Today Podcast - Interviews with the leaders in amateur radio

Roy Lewallen, W7EL, approaches ham radio from an engineering and even scientific point of view. Roy is the creator of EZNEC, the popular antenna modeling software, and the author of many articles on radio and transceiver design, baluns, antennas, and inductors. His contributions to the amateur radio hobby and advancing the state of art puts Roy at the head of the class in amateur radio. W7EL is my QSO Today.

George Fremin, K5TR, is a seasoned SO2R contester and DXer. He has many years of experience building and maintaining multi operator contest stations in Texas. This experience with both operating the contest events as well as the practical maintenance of these stations led to an important conversation about tower safety. In addition to HF contests, George enjoys VHF and UHF contesting as well as DXpeditions. K5TR joins Eric, 4Z1UG, in this QSO Today.

Paul Stroud, AA4XX, went from being a QRO, high power operator, to a QRP operator, testing the bottom limits of power output to distance. Paul approaches ham radio now, as almost a meditative experience, where he operates from his solar powered ham shack deep in the woods near his house, under his wire antennas. Paul takes us on his ham radio journey in this QSO Today.

Richard Gillette, W9PE, is the consummate ham radio operator and mentor, IEEE speaker, and frequent contributor to our amateur radio hobby from his many articles in the ham radio magazines. His own website, w9pe.us, is an amazing resource, including his Excel based test equipment simulator for anyone wanting to teach the fundamentals of ham radio in a one day or weekend "ham cram" course. W9PE shares over 60 years of his ham radio experience in this QSO Today.

Don Beattie, G3BJ, is a former president of the Radio Society of Great Britain, past chairman of BARTG, or the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group, past president of the CDXC, the British DX foundation, board member of the RSGB, and its acting general manager for two years. The list goes on and on. Don is currently the President of the IARU, or the International Amateur Radio Union for Region 1. G3BJ is a leader in British amateur radio and is my QSO Today.

When is comes to homebrewing QRP HF radios with simple parts and test equipment, then one of the go-to guys is Tony Fishpool, G4WIF, current membership chairman of the G-QRP group in the UK, and frequent contributor to its quarterly SPRAT magazine. Tony is also a co-author with Graham Firth, G3MFJ, of Simple Test Equipment for the QRPer, and numerous articles on equipment building with attention to detail and budget. Tony believes, along with his co-hearts at G-QRP, that ham radio does not have to be expensive to be fun. G4WIF is my QSO today.

Randy Hall, K7AGE, has been a ham for almost 50 years and is well known for his You-Tube channel with his hundreds of ham radio videos. Randy is also a regular contributor to Ham Nation on the TWIT network where he works with George, W5JDX, on the Smoke and Solder segment videos. He works just about all bands and modes. Randy is a ham's ham and elmer, and a popular guest on a number of the ham radio podcasts. K7AGE is my QSO Today.

In 1954, at 19 years of age, Bob Eshleman, W4DR, and two buddies decided to put Navassa Island back on the ARRL DXCC list, the first activation of Navassa since the end of World War II. Prepared with a National Receiver, Harvey Wells transmitter, and an old generator, the three lads pulled off their first DXpedition. This would be the first of many DXpeditions for Bob. W4DR is my QSO Today where he shares his amateur radio story as a DXer and now grid square chaser.

Bob Wilson, N6TV, is a bay area contester and CW operator. Having developed his CW craft on the National Traffic System as a teenage kid, he now enjoys the North American Sprint, a four hour contest and using the latest SDR receivers to see what's up on the bands during a contest event. A professor at Contest University in Dayton and a member of the World Radiosport Team Championship, Bob shares what he know about this and more on this QSO Today.

Jeff Briggs, K1ZM, is the author of DXing on the Edge- The Thrill of 160 meters and he operates an amazing DX station on Canada's Atlantic shore. Eric, 4Z1UG, and Jeff discuss 160 meters, DXing, building a super station and more on this episode of QSO Today.