Store and Forward

Kay discusses their trip to Lima, Ohio to Fair Radio Sales – https://fairradio.com/, one of the last true military and government surplus stores (mostly electronic equipment). Fair Radio Sales is going out of business so the owner can retire. The business and its inventory is being auctioned and everything must go including a large amount of documentation. The owner of Fair Radio Sales agreed to allow Kay and DLARC to go through that documentation prior to Fair Radio Sales’ auction. Two vanloads of ~200 boxes were transported to the Internet Archive’s scanning facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The material will be scanned and added to the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications.

In this week’s Zero Retries 0165, Steve discusses Zero Retries hitting 2,000 subscribers. Last week’s Zero Retries 0164 featured a story about his visit to the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer USS Sampson (DDG 102) during Seattle, Washington’s Fleet Week 2024 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Sampson_(DDG-102). 

Steve discusses his ongoing education about the M17 digital voice / data system – https://m17project.org/ developed as an entirely open source project and why that really matters in Amateur Radio, especially new techie Amateur Radio Operators as those getting their Amateur Radio license at DEFCON 32 this past week – DEF CON 32: Another mind-blowing experience – https://www.kb6nu.com/def-con-32-another-mind-blowing-experience/.

Steve also discusses the newest threat to Amateur Radio operations in the 902-928 MHz band which is shared between licensed users including Amateur Radio and license-exempt uses such as Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) and most recently, Meshtastic – https://meshtastic.org. 

FCC: WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU AND OFFICE OF ENGINEERING

AND TECHNOLOGY SEEK COMMENT ON NEXTNAV PETITION FOR

RULEMAKING – https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-776A1.pdf

Meshtastic – Meshtastic’s Opposition to Proposed Changes on 900 MHz Band – https://meshtastic.org/blog/meshtastic-opposition-to-nextnav-proposed-changes/

ARRL: ARRL Urges Protecting the Amateur Radio 902-928 MHz Band – https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-urges-protecting-the-amateur-radio-902-928-mhz-band

Comments on the new 902-928 MHz issue are due to the FCC by September 5, 2024 and Reply Comments are due to the FCC by September 20, 2024.

ARRL Guide to Filing Comments with FCC – https://www.arrl.org/arrl-guide-to-filing-comments-with-fcc

Steve will be following this issue closely in Zero Retries – https://www.zeroretries.org. 

Using DLARC, Amateur Radio Operators are Resurrecting Technical Ideas from the Past, Using 21st Century Tech https://blog.archive.org/2024/07/10/using-dlarc-amateur-radio-operators-are-resurrecting-technical-ideas-from-the-past-using-21st-century-tech/

Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications https://archive.org/details/dlarc

Video version of this episode: https://archive.org/details/store-and-forward-4

Our longest episode ever! Kay tells of their trip to Denver to sort through Bob Cooper’s material, and learns the story of HBO signal hacker Captain Midnight. Steve gushes about Bennett Z. Kobb’s book Wireless Spectrum Finder and “Irrational Exuberance in Amateur Radio” in Zero Retries 0162 this week – https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0162. Steve talks a bit about the weird unlicensed / Amateur Radio band at 902 – 928 MHz. 

Bob Cooper Archive at DLARC (work in progress): https://archive.org/details/bob-cooper?sort=-addeddate 

Shout out to Dan, the proprietor of Dr. Dan’s Vintage Audio Repair in Denver – https://drdanselectronics.weebly.com/#/. He worked with Kay find a good home for the electronics units that were part of the Bob Cooper collection that otherwise would have ended up in an electronics recycling bin.

Wireless spectrum finder: telecommunications, government, and scientific radio frequency allocations in the U.S., 30 MHz-300 GHz by Author Bennett Z. Kobb AK4AV https://archive.org/details/wirelessspectrum0000kobb

Primary theme of Zero Retries 0162 was “Irrational Exuberance”. ​​https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0162 

Dan Romanchik KB6NU:

Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications https://archive.org/details/dlarc

Video version of this episode: https://archive.org/details/store-and-forward-3