AmateurRadio.com

I’ve posted stuff from Randy before, and it’s usually him talking about Ham Radio related stuff, and not necessarily about himself. This video turns that around as he is interviewed during his visit to the TWiT Studios when they first opened.I thought I had posted this before, but when I checked, I hadn’t, so I figured I would do that now. So here is George Thomas W5JDX, interviewing Randy Hall, K7AGE. Enjoy.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

George visits the Twit.tv studios and interviews Randy Hall, K7AGE. Tommy visits the Huntsville Hamfest. Jim builds an Audio Isolation Interface. Peter shows us the DATV QSO Party.

I’ve seen a couple of stories about this video already, so I figured I would post it too, and get Randy a little more traffic to the YouTube video. Randy headed to Petaluma, CA, and hung out at the TWiT Brickhouse with Bob Heil, K9EID and Leo Laporte, W6TWT, for the first day of the new Ham shack in the Brickhouse Studio.While Randy was there, he of course recorded some video and shared it with everyone else. There was also a special event station on the air for the open house, which I talked about last week. I’m curious if anyone who reads me, also worked the special event? If you did, please share in the comments. I would love to hear how it went. But now, Lights! Camera! ACTION!

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday here on AmiZed Studios.

With the new opening of the TWiT Brickhouse studios, Leo Laporte, W6TWT is going to be hosting a special event station to celebrate the opening of the new studio, with the help a few area Hams.

Photo Courtesy of Leo Laporte – W6TWT

The Redwood Empire DX Association, who have been helpful in getting the new Amateur Radio station setup in the TWiT studios, will getting part of the special event station where visitors will be able to see the new studio and the classic Collins AM Broadcast station that will be on display and available for Hams to use 10am to 7pm on Saturday and 10am to 3pm on Sunday. The news release says each day, so I am assuming this is only for the special event. But I do remember Leo saying something about the station being available for other times, during an episode of Ham Nation. I’m sire someone will clarify this info.

The special event will use the call sign W6KB, but no word on specific frequencies to watch for the station, just that it will be on 40 and 20 meters in the afternoon and evenings. If any new info comes out, I would think it’ll show up on either Leo’s Ham Radio page or on the thread discussing this on QRZ.com.

Anyone who does make a contact with the station, can QSL direct to W6TWT, P.O. Box 1018 in Petaluma, CA. 94953 .

Wish I could work these, but I still don’t have HF and will be out of the loop for a couple days because of my other job in broadcast radio. But hey, I get to hang out with some real kick ass bands this weekend. So it’s not a total wash.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday here on AmiZed Studios.

Promo:

• Ohio LinuxFest will be held September 9-11, 2011 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, OH.
• Linux in the Ham Shack promo from the Low SWR guys. Thanks!

Announcements:

• Our best wishes for a speedy recovery to MadamMoo!
• Our regular hosts are joined by Torsten, XE2/K5TOR.

Topics:

• Firefox 4 has been out a while, and version 5 beta is available at the time of recording. Our hosts discuss. The first thing Russ noted, was the increase in speed! Look for versions 6 and 7 before the end of the year. (As I write this, version 6 has been released. -Ed.)
• Kudos to The Linux Link Tech Show (TLLTS) and their interest in amateur radio. One of the hosts, Joel, aka “gorkon”, W3RAZ, has recorded a couple podcasts for Hacker Public Radio: Episode #738 is an introduction to amateur radio, and Episode #756 explains the basics of radio. Another TLLTS host, Allan, is N3MAW.
• Leo LaPorte of This Week in Tech has started a podcast about amateur radio. (It’s Ham Nation with Bob Heil, K9EID, and Gordon West, WB6NOA, under the TWiT banner and with Leo’s support and occasional participation. By the time you read this, Leo has his license and is now W6TWT. -Ed.)
• Russ describes the Linux from Scratch project that provides instructions for building your own custom Linux system, entirely from source code. Russ plans on providing more details of his experience with Linux from Scratch on a future episode of the QSK Netcast.
• Our hosts tried Ubuntu 11.04, Natty Narwhal, and discuss it, good and bad.
• Russ also tried Fedora 15, and liked the default desktop environment.
• Richard likes PCLinuxOS, and SUSE Linux.
• Linux Mint gets a mention, too.
• In future LHS episodes, look for information about svxlink, an EchoLink client for Linux, and codec2, an Open Source and patent-free audio codec.
• Torsten has had problems installing CQRLog on a 64-bit machine. Russ recommends installing the ia32-libs package to provide the needed 32-bit libraries. In Debian-based distributions, you can install that package with the command “apt-get install ia32-libs”. More information about running 32-bit programs on a 64-bit machine with Debian-based Linux is here.

Contact Info:

• Contact Richard at [email protected], Russ at [email protected], or both at the same time at [email protected].
• Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
• Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
• Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
• Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
• LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
• Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

• “Vacancy” by Assembly Line Gods, from their album Control (Volume 1).
• The music in Episode #063 is provided with kind permission by Assembly Line Gods from their recent EP release, Control (Volume 1). The track is called “Vacancy.” Follow ALG on Twitter and Facebook and buy their new tracks at iTunes. Thanks, guys!

I have been a fan of Leo Laporte for many, many, years. I even had the pleasure to interview him for NewsTek, about his Tricaster and just new media in general. And now, after many years of saying he could be an amazing ambassador for Amateur Radio, it has come to pass, as I had speculated a few months back, Leo is now KJ6QGP.

Photo Courtesy of Leo Laporte

There really isn’t much I can say about Leo that isn’t already widely known about him already. He’s a syndicated radio show host, with The Tech Guy, and he is now starting a new chapter in the TWiT history books with a new studio built on the popularity of the shows he has created and produced, which are all online. New Media’s finest example.

Now that he has him Ham Radio ticket, from what I have heard in Ham Nation Episode 8, is that Leo is planning on making Ham Radio a main fixture at the new studio for his shows. And that local Hams will be helping to get it all started. From setting up the station to helping erect antennas. According to Bob, K9EID, the station will be able to transmit HF as well as VHF/UHF. And it has also been said, that Leo is applying for the vanity call W6TWT.

If anything, I now have a goal of getting my HF back on the air, so I can try and work the new TWiT Brickhouse and get a cool QSL card. And then, there is always getting out there to actually use the station.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday here on AmiZed Studios.