HRN 300! On the Road: Orlando 2017 (Parts One, Two and Three)

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I didn't intend this to be a two-part episode but it worked out that way... There might even be a Part Three (or Two-And-A-Half) coming soon from a chance encounter in the parking lot...)

PART ONE

I've received a lot of requests to provide some details on my mobile installation. You've seen the radio stack, and some of the antennas in one show or another. But as I prepared to get on the road to head to the Orlando HamCation, I decided to start with a tour of the whole thing.

And I almost succeeded! Here's that "tour," but conspicuously missing will be the 'heart' of the installation - the mounting bracket from RAM MOUNTS. I fat-fingered the camera's record button, and ended up missing the footage where I described that. I'll fix that in Part TWO.

PART TWO

This part begins with that RAM MOUNT tour. Then I get on the road.

Turns out the RAV4 has two motors. One is under the hood. The other is just above my jaw ('motor-mouth,' if you didn't get it. There's quite a monologue here without a lot of operating until the end.)

PART THREE - Impromptu Show

In the parking lot of my hotel in Orlando, I ran into Phil Mc Elrath K5BBC. Phil had 5 antennas on his roof (same as me), but not as many scattered around the rest of his vehicle. So I was winning the mobile contest until he showed me his super-clean installation. Put me to shame. 

Phil is also involved with the Emcomm-1 vehicle, a privately owned truck equipped (mostly with ICOM stuff) to be an Interop bridge - connecting any RF to any other RF, in the field, where it's needed. It's based in Florida. We talk about it some and I got some B-Roll video, but we'll go in depth later on Skype. David Goldenberg W0DHG will want to get his hooks into that episode, I'm sure.

HRN 299, EmComm Extra 6: HamNauguration (plus NPOTA)

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Jeff Dahn KB3ZUK, President of W3HAC, the HacDC Amateur Radio Club, is our guest. Jeff helped with communications for the National Park Service during the Presidential Inauguration and the protest Women's March in January. He was invited because of his extensive participation in the ARRL's National Parks On The Air program last year. Jeff activated most of the parks in the Washington DC area.

In this episode, he'll talk about the NPOTA activity, then his work during President Trump's inauguration.

Meanwhile, Jeff's club, the W3HAC HacDC ARC, provided communications for the Women's March on Washington the next day (while Jeff was still at the NPS comm center). We hope to have that story on HamRadioNow in a couple of weeks (the Orlando HamCation is getting in the way). 

Hosts: Gary Pearce KN4AQ, David Goldenberg W0DHC

HRN 298: Boy Scouts and Ham Radio

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HamRadioNow's newish co-host David Goldenberg W0DHG wears many hats. One of them is Scoutmaster for Troop 22 in Woodland Hills, CA, where he introduces his Scouts to Amateur Radio, among many other life skills.

Scouting is one of the most effective connections between Amateur Radio and young people. In this episode, David and Gary KN4AQ explore that connection with Jim Wilson K5ND. Jim also wears many hats with the Boy Scouts. He's Chairman of the National Radio Scouting Committee; National Jamboree on the Air Organizer; a member of the World JOTA-JOTI Team; and President of the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association.

(Gary made it to Cub Scout Webelo).

Jim has appeared in two previous episodes:

HRN 297: Frontiers in Wireless - 2016 DCC Banquet

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Brennan Price N4QX is the former Chief Technology Officer for the ARRL (now with the EchoStar satellite company). He spent the past few years mostly in the international arena – the ITU and the World Radio Conferences – helping Amateur Radio acquire new spectrum and defending the spectrum we have now.

Here he gives the 2016 ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference 'keynote' talk at the Saturday banquet. He'll address the new technologies and millimeter wave spectrum that will be so important to Amateur Radio's Future.

Brennan has appeared on three previous HamRadioNow programs:

 

HRN 296; EmComm Extra #6: Red Cross in Depth

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Do we really need to add in Depth to the title? After all, this is HamRadioNow. 

Be that as it may, David and Gary talk at length with Jim Piper N6MED. Jim is the Liaison to Amateur Radio with the Volunteer Disaster Health Services of the American Red Cross, Gold Country Division (that's the territory roughly around Sacramento, CA). They learn what the Red Cross' mission is, and how Amateur Radio can help.

All of the Emcomm related episodes are gathered together on a Playlist on the HamRadioNow YouTube Channel.

HRN 295: Public Service + APRS + IoT from the 2016 DCC

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John Ronan EI7IG travels from Ireland to present a talk on using APRS to track vehicles and bikes on a big bike race.

John also gave a talk at the 2014 DCC in Seattle on using D-STAR's 1200 MHz 'high-speed' data for public service in HamRadioNow Episode 121.

HRN 294: DV4 Server from the 2016 DCC

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The dream: (Gary's dream, anyway) – a VHF/UHF digital voice radio that handles all the DV modes. 

The bridge: Servers and reflectors that transcode from one mode to the other, so D-STAR users can talk to Fusion users can talk to DMR users....

Wireless Holding's Uli Altvater AGØX is building both the radio (the DV4mobile) and the bridge.

Uli also appeared in HamRadioNow Episode 263, Learn More about DV4

HRN 293: PhasingLine Podcast Mashup

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Sterling Coffey N0SSC and Marty Sullaway KC1CWF from the Phasing Line Podcast join HamRadioNow's David Goldenberg W0DHG and Gary Pearce KN4AQ for an Epic Episode Mashup.

Do they talk about anything significant? Solve all of Ham Radio's problems? Advance the Radio Art? Or just goof around for nearly two hours?

What do you think?

Those knuckleheads are on http://PhasingLinePodcast.com

HRN 292: PiGate Emergency Winlink Gateway, from the 2016 DCC

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Mark Griffith KDØQYN's goal for this project was to design and build a super-simple, ultra-portable system for using Amateur Radio to send and receive email in disaster situations when all else fails... without carrying in a wheelbarrow full of equipment and wires and taking a "two days" to set it all up.

The result: PiGate, a tiny Raspberry Pi-based Winlink gateway.

HRN 291: Authenticated Telecommand using APRS, from the 2016 DCC

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Brian Hoyer K7UDR from the DCC

HRN 290: IPv6 in Amateur Radio, HamWAN Tampa Update from the 2016 DCC

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IPv6 is the brand new addressing scheme for the Internet that will solve all the problems of running out of addresses that IPv4 will run into... um... yesterday. It will provide enough unique addresses to assign one to approximately every molecule of matter on the planet, or at least all the Internet of Things things that Scotty Cowling listed in HRN 289. And by brand new of course we mean 20 years old. And in Internet years, that's old.

We learn all this from Bryan Fields W9CR at the 2016 ARRL & TAPR DCC in St. Petersburg FL. Bryan was a local host for this DCC. He's made presentations the 2015 and 2016 Hamvention® TAPR forums.

And as Bryan explains, this topic affects Amateur Radio in a couple of ways. One is the HamWAN project, a wide-coverage, high-speed data network on 5 GHz. Bryan runs the system in Tampa, and it uses IPv6 addressing. The other is that ham radio has one of the few remaining large blocks of unused IPv4 addresses. And they're worth some money (real money).

Links:

2015 TAPR Forum (HRN 207) https://youtu.be/eAzkSP2nt0M
2016 TAPR Forum (HRN 254) https://youtu.be/IFcESjoWSP8
2013 DCC HamWAN Seattle (HRN 128) https://youtu.be/Vhj9bS8n9jM

HRN 289: The Internet of Things (Control Anything from Anywhere) from the 2016 DCC

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The always entertaining Scotty Cowling WA2DFI has been working on a tiny corner of the Internet of Things, so he goes into that corner in detail at the 2016 ARRL & TAPR DCC. His little corner expands to fill the available space.

HRN 288: Amodeo Unplugged

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Last Man Standing is a hit, prime-time TV sitcom on ABC starring Tim Allen as Mike Baxter, a husband and father of three girls, employee of Outdoor Man (an outdoor-everything store like Carbellas or Bass Pro Shop) and ham radio operator KA0XTT. Ham Radio appears in the background of every show, with a fully functional shack in Mike's Outdoor Man office. Two episodes have put ham radio right in the spotlight as a major part of the story.*

Last Man Standing co-Executive Producer John Amodeo NN6JA has often told the story of how ham radio came to be part of this TV show. If you missed it on other ham media, he'll repeat it here, but then go into far greater depth about how ham radio does and doesn't fit into it, ham radio in general media (and why most shows get it 'wrong'), John's personal history (he thought he was going into the ski industry), and a little on ham radio's own new media.

John says that he appreciates HamRadioNow for our long-form programs. He'll really like this one, not (just) because he's on it, but because it's over 2½ hours of in-depth one-on-one with KN4AQ.

*We've reviewed Last Man Standing episodes twice before when they aired those episodes that put ham radio front and center. Here are links to the YouTube videos (sorry, not available as audio just now):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXFUgQK8qI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzS-SjS_k8

Because this is an extra-long show, we remind you that it's a good candidate for our audio podcast version  - that's just the audio lifted straight off the video and presented as a classic  podcast on your favorite app. Or just download or listen to it right here.

HRN 287: The TAPR TICC - from the 2016 DCC

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TAPR's John Ackermann N8UR details this little Arduino based device - he calls it a stopwatch - that will measure time to the trillionths of a second. Why does anyone need that, when, according to Star Trek, it's possible to give verbal start-stop commands controlling spacecraft going faster than light? Aaaaand... Go! But we digress. 

This is a fully assembled device, not a kit (Gary will make that mistake in the intro).

HRN 286: Contact Sport

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Author Jim George (JK George) N3BB talked to Gary about his (relatively) new book Contact Sport at the 2016 Dayton Hamvention®. The book takes you deep into the world of the participants of the 2014 WRTC (World RadioSport Team Championship), perhaps the most elite contest in Amateur Radio. Jim was embedded with one of the teams, but got lots of additional detail through interviews (and spies?). As a former WRTC competitor and referee, he knew what to look for. And as a writer, he knew how to tell the story.

LINKS:

HRN 285, EmComm Extra #5: A Very Good Day

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Emcomm Extra co-host David Goldenberg W0DHG reviews a hospital Emcomm drill that he participated in a few weeks ago.

Then Army MARS Program Manager Paul English WD8DBY/AAA6B introduces us to Air Force MARS Chief Dave Stapchuk KD9DXM/AGA5C, and they review the MARS/Ham Radio Interop Exercise A Very Bad Day.

HRN 285 EmComm 5 Really Good Day POSTER SQUARE.jpg

HRN 284: Hi-Def Digital ATV in YOUR Hamshack

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Mel Whitten K0PFX leads this double-length session to show how practical High Definition Digital Amateur Television is for you, today. Great picture, lower bandwidth, and affordable equipment available now.

Download a PDF of KN4AQ's VHF/UHF Band Chart: PDF

HRN 283: A Ham's Night Before Christmas — 20th Anniversary LIVE version

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Gary wrote A Ham's Night Before Christmas back in 1996, and performed it live at several radio club meetings that December, and over the next few years. Then it found new life on the web as text, audio, and finally video. In this episode, Gary recreates the live performance, blended with the classic QST December covers and ads from the original video.

And here's a link to some background and the TEXT.

Here's a version with just Gary's voice - no music. You can play this over the air, on repeaters, etc.:

One more thing… Gary has produced four slightly different video versions of A Ham’s Night Before Christmas. The ‘original’ in 4x3 ‘Standard Definition’, an ‘ARRL’ version of that (replacing the ‘Wayne Green’ line), the High-Def ‘Special Edition’, and finally this ‘live’ version. He’s collected them all in this YouTube Playlist… for those who can’t get enough.

HRN 282, EmComm Extra #4 - SKYWARN Recognition Day 2016

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Tampa Bay NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist Dan Noah WX4DAN joins Dan and Gary to talk about SKYWARN Recognition Day. The Special Event will see 24 hours of ham operation from dozens of National Weather Service offices from 7 PM Friday December 2, to 7 PM Saturday (Eastern Time). 

SKYWARN is well known, but needs lots more participation from hams, especially in rural areas.

HRN 281: Your Repeater; Your Rules (FCC's Laura Smith at Pacificon)

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We haven't heard a lot from FCC Special Counsel Laura Smith lately, but she spoke at Pacificon, a large ham conference in the San Francisco area, last October. Her talk was recorded by Bob Miller WB6KWT and his son Robert KA7JKP, and Bob gave us permission to use the talk for HamRadioNow.

Gary adds a long intro, with a summary of the talk's highlights and a few comments, along with a status report on the Amateur Radio Parity Act, before we play Laura's talk in full. 

The title is a bit of click bait. Laura does actually talk about repeaters and uses that phrase, but she talks about a lot of other things, too. The headline should probably be about the plan to have ARRL Official Observers work closer with the FCC on initial investigations of complaints. We've put time-links to each of Laura's topics in the YouTube description so you can zero in on those if you want to.