AmateurRadio.com

If you’re into podcasts, you know that among the half-billion or so out there – everyone on the planet has one, and most of us have two, kind of like repeaters – there are dozens or more that are part of networks devoted more or less to technology and “geek culture” (computers, phones, Internet, games). TWiT, Revison3, Frogpants, Geek’s Life, GFQ, TechCrunch, the Verge are a few names that come to mind quickly, but the list goes on and on. I only consume a few, though I hear the hosts and guests talk about many more that I haven’t made time for.

What I never hear is any mention of ham radio.

The only references I ever hear outside of our own shows are a few by Leo Laporte outside of Ham Nation, and Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak on No Agenda (both are hams). Otherwise, at least in the shows I listen to, we don’t exist.

We hams are geeks too, and proud of it, no?

Ah, but we’re mostly old geeks. The people – hosts, guests and audience – on these shows are the 20 and 30-somethings we keep saying we need in ham radio (and that’s why you’ve never heard of these shows!). They are interested in technology. Some of them would be interested in some aspects of ham radio, if they knew we existed. I think many others would at least be interested in hearing about us, the way we’re interested in hearing about other things even if we’ll probably never do them ourselves.

So would it help to get some ham visibility on these shows? I know we’ve got lots of our own shows, but they barely touch the general ‘tech’ audience.

And if we got some hams on those shows, what would they talk about? DX on 20? Mesh? And who would they be? Me? I’m 65. Bob Heil? He’s in his 70’s. We’re cool and all, and they’d be polite to us, but would they relate? I don’t think so.

And while you think about that, here’s HamRadioNow Episode 211: Adventures of a Hacker Turned Ham. (The video is at the bottom of this story. The link will take you to the HamRadioNow web page – same video, more links.)

It’s Michael Ossmann’s story, as he told it at the TAPR/AMSAT banquet last may in conjunction with the Dayton Hamvention®. Michael invented the HackRF SDR board, which got him noticed by TAPR, which reintroduced him to ham radio, and he’s now ADØNR. Embedded in Mike’s story is the theme where is the next generation of hams coming from, which kind of ties into my topic above.

Also at the banquet, AMSAT slipped in a short presentation about an upcoming geosynchronous satellite with an amateur radio transponder. Big news… for the Middle East, Europe, Africa and western Asia, as the satellite is owned by the Qatar Satellite Company, and it’s main mission is TV and communications for the Middle East. The ham transponder will have as wide a footprint as possible, but it can’t see North America, Japan, coastal China, Australia, and all but a little peek at South America. OK, so American hams can’t play, but we’re excited for hams on the other side of the globe, and it’s a foot in the door of the geosync satellite community. Oh, and it’s going to be 2.4 GHz up, 10 GHz down, so expect that to spur some radio development.

And I lead off with a pitch for the KICKSTARTER I’m running to fund me making video of the ARRL/TAPR DCC in Chicago this October. It was successful in 2013 and 2014, and it’s chugging along, with a deadline of July 31, and a goal of $10,000. That makes about 20 programs covering all the main sessions of the conference. I’m especially looking for support from small ham businesses that can afford a $500 ‘corporate underwriter’ pledge to get their name and product or service before the TAPR audience. Details in the KICKSTARTER.

And if you don’t have time to sit and watch (hey, this is already TLDR), you can subscribe to the HamRadioNow audio podcast (just an audio rip from our videos, but many of them make good ‘radio’ shows). You’ll have to manually enter the RSS address in your podcast app:
http://HamRadioNow.tv/hrnrss.xml

Once you’ve done that, you can subscribe and get the new shows as they’re produced, usually before they’re on YouTube or announced anywhere else (audio is so easy… why do I do video?).

73, Gary KN4AQ

Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, is the host of HamRadioNow.tv. If you enjoy this and other HamRadioNow programs, help keep them 'on the air' with a contribution. Contact him at [email protected].

Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

I think this video will spark memories of what brought you to ham radio. Click on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxU1ZhINaHk
 
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

I think this video will spark memories of what brought you to ham radio. Click on the link below.
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The summer propagation doldrums, as well as my roof reshingling projects, received a short respite this week with the arrival of a new DXCC QSL for 160m. The K1N card (Navassa Island Expedition) was received for my CW QSO this past winter. The card brought my 160m DXCC total to 155 worked and confirmed while adding one more to my overall all-band total of 336 / 336.


Sunday afternoon brought a rare and welcome 2m sporadic-E opening. Signals on 6m towards Colorado quickly rose from a normal 'S9' to ear-shattering S9 + 30-40db with one signal putting the S-meter of my IC-756PROIII hard against the right pin and completely blanking the bandscope's lower regions ... I have only seen this happen once before, when beaming semi-local VE7XF while he is running high-power.

I immediately activated my Es MUF receiver (Icom R-7000), tuned to an empty FM frequency and squelched. Not long after, the squelch broke with a strong signal also from Colorado and several more throughout the band. It is difficult to ID FM signals as they rarely identify except at the top of the hour.

After several CQ's on 144.200 (9el yagi and 150 watts) aimed to the SE, W9RM in Colorado popped-up briefly with an S9 signal and was quickly worked before he faded. Unfortunately, either due to lack of activity or fast-deteriorating conditions, his was the only signal heard. In terms of 'quality' of the opening, it was poor, but any 2m Es is always exciting.

I once had a two-hour 2m Es opening to southern California and worked 32 Californians on 2m SSB before conditions faded ... it would be nice to see that once again. One of the fellows I worked that night had just set up his new 2m transceiver and, not being familiar with 2m propagation, told me 'I'll look for you again tomorrow night'. I told him that he could look for me for the next 20 years and he'd likely not hear me ... that opening was 32 years ago!

Let's hope we get some more 2m Es before the season ends as it is one of the most exciting propagation experiences there is.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

This rig was designed and built many years ago. It spanned some impressive distances and worked well. The receiver was a direct conversion and the gain adjustment was before the mixer, so RF gain could be reduced easily which helped strong signal handling. No RX-TX offset was needed as this was just about right anyway. For quite a time it was the main rig used and every QSO felt like a million dollars! It was written up in GQRP SPRAT a very long time ago (30 years ago?). It is hard to get much more fun than using something this simple and working a long way regularly with it.

Before I had crystals for the CW part of the band my very first QSO was a USA SSB station that I called that was located near Chicago some 4000 miles away. I nearly fell off the chair when he replied.  After than I knew anything was possible. I really should rebuild it someday.

It crossed the Atlantic many times. I even used a 10/15m trap dipole (very low) occasionally and never used anything bigger than a low wire dipole. Output power was 800mW, quite enough I found for solid CW QSOs.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/15m_pipit .

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.