HamRadioNow is a general discussion show about the world of Amateur Radio. We’re US based, so US centric, but we cast an eye around the world now and then.
As Hurricane Idalia worked it’s way across the Southeast, HamRadioNow East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ (on the edge of the outer rain bands near Charlotte NC) talked to two of his South Carolina neighbors about Emcomm operations. John Gendron NJ4Z is the South Carolina Section Manager, and Gordon Mooneyhan W4EGM is the SC Public Information Officer.
East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ had a guest spot on his friend Martin Brossman KI4CFS’ s YouTube show, talking about GMRS for HAMS. Here’s how Martin described the show: Relating GMRS to FRS and Amateur Radio. Thanks to Gary Pearce for joining me today to discuss GMRS for Ham Radio operators and people considering getting into it. Gary's website Ham Radio Now TV https://www.hamradionow.tv/ and YouTube channel / hamradionow The list of GMRS frequencies https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... For peop...
My Facebook feed reminded me that 6 years ago, I was headed out to Wyoming to view my first ever Total Eclipse, along with Jeff AC4ZO (SK) and Bobbie KD4ZVW ( Cyndi KD4ACW took her dad, Mac W4PVT (SK) down to the Columbia SC area, also along the path, but 'iffy' for clear WX. We all got lucky with clear skies). Later that month, we did a show to review the experience - HRN 343 "Totaled". So as David W0DHG battens down the hatches in preparation for Tropical Storm Hilary in Los Angeles, we did a ...
Gary just rambles a bit letting you know we’re on summer vacation. Back next week… or anytime.
Gary K4AAQ begins reviewing the ARRL comments on RM 11953 , the request to modify the HF side of Part 90 (commercial radio regs) to allow high power, wider bandwidth data to be used for “High Frequency Trading” on the various stock exchanges. The ARRL says this has a clear potential to create significant interference in the ham radio bands and for other HF users. After a bit, Ria N2RJ joins the show and, well, makes it more interesting. David W0DHG and Jim NO1PC have the week off. So we modify t...
The ARRL has increased dues… no surprise considering inflation. The shocker is that they also divorced the printed magazine from basic dues, and made it a fairly expensive add-on. We review the changes. Gary K4AAQ has a short slide show of his trip to DC (not much ham radio in it). And in the post-show, Jim NO1PC explains that he is the ‘mystery’ Redditor who created a HamRadioNow sub-Reddit. Meanwhile, David W0DHG tries not to melt in his non-air-conditioned studio, as he waits for winter....
David W0DHG anchored this episode from his un-air conditioned West Coast Studio during an LA heat wave. Gary K4AAQ was in Witless Protection in an undisclosed location somewhere near Washington DC (with a cameo from Cyndi KD4ACW ). Jim NO1PC wasn’t complaining, but we kept the show short, anyway.
Junie N1DUC , along with her feathered flock of friends, is the ball of energy behind a new YouTube channel Ham and Quackers . Junie has only been a ham for a few years, but she’s dedicating the channel to helping even newer hams learn about the hobby and get comfortable on the air. Meet Junie and Mochi🦆 in this episode… then go watch their show !...
It started with Wouxun , one of the first brands of inexpensive Chinese radios to hit the VHF/UHF FM ham radio market in the US and around the world. We pronounced it like we saw it: Whax-on. Until somebody checked and learned it was more like ‘Ocean’, sort of. Some of the brands that followed seemed more anglicized: Baofeng… we came close. BAY-oh-fang. Gary K4AAQ favored BO-fung. Then recently, his YouTube surfaced an eight-year-old video with a guy pronouncing many of the Chinese names , inclu...
West Coast Host David W0DHG and East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ (K4AQQ?) didn’t have a show planned, and were going to just log in and say ‘hi’ for a minute. 2 hours later…
It’s all over but the endless shows reviewing what we did: Field Day 2023 is in the can. Here’s our endless show.
It’s a Bill! HR 4006 is the official House Bill that contains the Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act (wait… does that mean we’re all Preppers now?). This is the bill that… if it makes it all the way into law… will give hams in HOA neighborhoods substantial relief from HOA rules prohibiting or severely limiting outdoor antennas. But it’s a long way between now and law. Without much other official action, East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ spent some time comparing the current bill with its predeces...
9 Years ago, Gary K4AAQ and Jeff AC4ZO (SK) did a HamRadioNow episode titled My Stupid Plan for 60 Meters . That was 12 years after we got those 5 ‘channels’ on 60, and the ARRL was noodling about a plan hatched at the 2015 World Radio Conference to create an actual band at 60. Turns out Gary’s plan really was stupid, but the show was a lot of fun. Well, it’s 2023, and we’re back… our Episode 477: 60 for 60 detailed the current state of RM-11785 , the FCC’s dithering proposal for maybe a little ...
Fame! There’s a Facebook group called Shit Two Way Installs . It’s a private group, so you’ll have to ask to join if you want to see it. But somebody - anonymously - immortalized Gary K4AAQ ’s Q-Mobile in what is described as a group dedicated to “those memorable two way radio installs that leave us shaking our head.” As well they should. Eat your little hearts out (and BTW, Gary is a member of the group). Before that , though, Gary, David W0DHG and Jim NO1PC have some Field Day tips, and then w...
Back in the day, 11 meter CB was a gateway to ham radio. The real Novice license existed back then, but it offered limited privileges (phone only on 2 meters), and required Morse code (5 wpm). So for many, their first taste of radio operating happened on the 23 CB channels (later expanded to 40 channels). That was Gary K4AAQ’s route. Ask ‘who got their start in CB’ at any ham club and you’ll find a lot of hands raised. But not David W0DHG’s or Jim NO1PC’s . Their route is more pure 👼. 10-4, goo...
OK, snide-boy… yes, it was Dayton Hamvention weekend. And while our principle hosts didn’t go (and neither did any of the main hosts on Ham Nation, we notice), our Midwest Correspondent Kyle AA0Z stopped by the show to tell us what we missed. Then Jim NO1PC showed off his Sand Crab antenna trailer, and we all took the ARRL Member Survey on a likely dues increase.
The FCC is finally about to act on the long-pending issues on 60 meters. In 2015, the WRC issued a set of allocations, giving hams a teeny-tiny 15 kHz wide ‘band’ and only 9 watts ERP. But in the US, the FCC made no changes to our 5 discrete ‘channels’ and 100-watt ERP power limit. Now the FCC is about to act… by asking, once again, what we want. They are more or less proposing following the WRC’s allocation, but before they do that, they want more comments from hams. Should they make that chang...
Adrian Ciuperca KO8SCA returns to HamRadioNow’s David W0DHG, Jim NO1PC and Gary K4AAQ with some awesome video of the voyage to and operation on Bouvet Island back in February, and a Powerpoint presentation with all the details you’ve been wondering about. In the ProMorePlus (a new show category that Gary invented and may never be heard from again, and perhaps just a ploy to slow down the rapidly accumulating episode count), Gary K4AAQ did a product review – something we rarely do on HamRadioNow ...
There's a 90% Eclipse coming for the western US on October 14 this year, and a total Eclipse for the Midwest and Northeast on April 8, 2024. During the total Eclipse in 2017, hundreds of thousands of people flooded rural areas across the country in the relatively narrow ribbon of 'totality' (115 miles, but everyone wanted to be at the center line). They came over the course of hours or even days, but they all left at once when the show was over (and nobody cared about the next 90 minutes of the ...
Two of them, in fact. A Partial this year, and a Total in 2024. A good eclipse can draw a huge mass of people into a fairly small band of territory, with the potential for overloaded roads and communications facilities. That’s an opportunity for hams to help out… if we’re prepared. Some areas were prepared in 2017, the last total eclipse that went coast-to-coast. We’ll learn about that, and plans for this and next year on our Sunday live show. Tune in!
Our sarcastic take on the Ask Me Anything shows when there’s nothing to talk about. Gary K4AAQ leads off this Sunday morning show after combing Reddit and finding yet another ham asking about calling CQ on… well, in this case, it’s simplex on FM on 2 meters and 70 cm. Seems somebody got on his case about it. Ring any bells? HamRadioNow 315 comes to mind ( Do NOT Call CQ on Repeaters ). So, yeah, repeaters, but the points are valid for simplex FM, too. About this point, David W0DHG logged in and ...
Gary, Jim and David discuss repairs to to the Q-Mobile and Ham Radio News of the week….
Gary went skiing and brought along 8 handhelds…. David went to Death Valley and brought 8 radios too! Along with Jim we discuss travel, packing and interoperatility…
M17 is the new kid on the VHF/UHF Digital Voice block. You’re not going to be picking up a new M17 radio at HRO anytime soon – it’s decidedly experimental at this point. But it’s not vaporware, either. In this episode, HRN host Gary K4AAQ talks… at length… with Ed Wilson N2XDD and Steve Miller KC1AWV about what M17 is, how you can get into it, and what the future might be. At length? Well, that was a challenge. Ed mentioned that the longest show they did – and they’ve done almost all the other s...
It was going to be The David and Gary Show because we didn’t have prep, so we didn’t have a topic or theme (not that all of the shows actually stick to a topic or theme). And just before showtime, somebody smacked into a power pole down the block from the West Coast Studio, and David was left in the dark. And that’s the last we’ve heard from him (at least as I’m typing this). But the show must go on, so Gary (me) managed to vamp for about 45 minutes before wrapping things up and sending everyone...
East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ presented a forum on Digital Voice for VHF/UHF 2023 at the Charlotte Hamfest in March. Gary ‘inherited’ the forum from Roland Kraatz W9HPX , who became a Silent Key the previous December. Gary put in too many hours making ‘too many PowerPoint slides’ to just do a one-hour forum, so he recorded this Special Edition for HamRadioNow. This version clocks in at about 90 minutes. Gary had to cut a lot of the slides he worked so hard to create to bring his talk down to an hou...
The FCC has been MIA for some time in ham radio. RMs (Requests for Rulemaking) and a couple of NPRMs (Notices of Proposed Rulemaking) have been dormant for up to 10 years! We look at some of the important ones, and some that are important only to the guy who proposed them. If you want to make comments on any RM or NPRM, review any of the proceedings (read the comments), or file one yourself (please don’t), this is the place: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/search-filings...
East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ is working on a slide deck for a hamfest talk next weekend ( Charlotte Hamfest - see him live at 9 am Saturday, March 12). The topic is Digital Voice - VHF/UHF edition. Gary’s still working on the slides. He’s in the 70s. A good PowerPoint talk has maybe 30 slides, tops, say the experts. Do we have a problem? What do they know? West Coast Host David W0DHG is the audience as Gary rehearses the talk. At the one hour point, Gary was in the 60s. So close? We’ll watch the p...
A decibel is 1/10 of a Bel . By rights, this should be 1/10 of a show, but it’s at least 1/3. So bonus. Well, at least we didn’t resort to an Ask Me Anything 🙄. Instead, Jim NO1PC and David W0DHG scraped Gary K4AAQ ’s Facebook feed for Elmer questions that he answered in his usual “here’s how to build a clock” complexity. Or not! The dB answer was an attempt to simplify, to explain decibels without any math. Almost no math. Because Gary doesn’t know the math. He does it all by remembering 3 dB ...
Welcome to Ham Nation Now * Even here in 2023, most ARRL Directors are not noted for frequent appearances in the ‘independent’ ham media. Mike Ritz W7VO , however, got swept onto YouTube as he addressed a radio club to discuss the January ARRL Board meeting, and the special meeting dealing with Ria Jairam N2RJ ’s book issue. Mike found Ria ‘guilty as charged’. Ria joins us to review Mike’s video and dispute much of what he said. Then we move on to review some other items of interest from the Boa...
