This episode began as Audio Only. Gary and wife Cyndi KD4ACW recorded it while traveling about 200 MPH EuroStar high speed train between Paris and London. Once home, Gary added pictures from the 15 hours of footage he shot with the camera glued to his hand.
Gary considers usurping the 100 Watts and a Wire show name because nobody on the show runs 100 watts and a wire anymore. But he tempers his hostile takeover because co-host Katie Allen WY7YL has taken a new job, and it look like she won't be able to participate in the show (but Katie, you didn't even say good-bye!). Gary's HF rig can't even muster 100 watts anymore, so he settles for 85.. and he's legit on the wire thing.
Next he reviews the new HamRadioNow.tv web site (with a real URL!), some news stories he won't be covering because of 1) Time; 2) Inefficiency; and 3) a vacation. He'll see you at Dayton (and probably squeeze in a show or three before that).
Finally, the Missouri House has passed it's version of the Amateur Radio Parity Act. It's in a Senate committee. Gary's got the audio of the House 'debate' that's kinda odd (but all's well that ends well?).
Is NTS, the National Traffic System, stuck hopelessly in the past, or is it leading the charge into the future? In this conversation with North Carolina Section Traffic Manager Dave Roy W4DNA, we find the answer is somewhere in the middle. Most traffic is still passed (laboriously) by voice or CW, but some... mostly in the middle of the system where messages transit from one region to another... flows quickly by HF digital systems (RMS Express, Pactor 3).
Gary challenges Dave about whether hams do what we claim we can: send health and welfare messages on behalf of people in disaster areas who are cut off with friends and relatives unable to reach them. And he asks if the system could really handle thousands of messages flooding in at once in a mass disaster if hams actually succeeded in originating them.
This episode was recorded at the RARSfest- the Raleigh NC Hamfest on April 2, 2016. The opening celebrates the event of the 250th episode with a couple of unsolicited testimonials from fans who approached Gary as he wandered the aisles taking pictures.
