HRN 325: Amateur Television

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This episode was recorded in the SIB* at the 2017 Dayton Hamvention, thunderstorms and all!

Mel Whitten K0PFX brought over Mike Collis WA6SVT, editor of ATV Quarterly, the magazine for Amateur Television, and that's what we talked about.

This is as general a conversation as a bunch of geeks can have, which means it lapses into the jargon and details of ATV now and then. But if you're not one of the ATV ops (and odds are strongly that you're not), you'll still get the flavor of this niche mode that everybody seems to mention when they tell the general public about ham radio ("Oh, and we have television!").

The big thing in ATV these days is the transition to digital. While FM voice operators can argue the merits and demerits of the digital voice modes (D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, etc.), Digital ATV is all upside. But there is still a lot of analog out there.

This show is 99% talking heads, so the Radio Rating is a big fat A. The only thing that robs is of a + is how loud the rain gets in the middle. 

You know, since this is all about television, you'd think Gary would have slugged in a bunch of ATV video as Mike and Mel talked about it. And while there is a lot of it on YouTube, Gary couldn't find any that came from the guys we were talking about. So if you want to see it, head to YouTube and search for Amateur Radio Television ATV. (Just plain "Amateur Television" will get some interesting results, but not what you're looking for).

*Studio In a Booth

HRN 324: TAPR Forum at the 2017 Hamvention

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Here's the TAPR Forum from the 2017 Dayton Hamvention.

And here's the breakdown of the segments, with links to the specific points in the YouTube video:

  • 00:00 Studio introduction by Gary KN4AQ
  • 9:20 Opening remarks by moderator Scotty Cowling WA2DFI and TAPR President Steve Bible N7HPR
  • 17:25 Low Cost, Open Source Spectrum Monitoring by Michael Ossmann AD0NR and Dominic Spill.
  • 40:39 Advanced SDR Algorithms for Noise Blanking and Noise Reduction by Warren Pratt NR0V.
  • 1:07:08 Introduction to RTL-SDR: Ultra cheap software defined radio by Carl Laufer.

AUDIO ONLY? This is a typical forum with Powerpoint slides. This group had more graphical slides than usual (so less 'just reading the slides'), which is good for the audience and the video, but it means you'll miss some useful stuff as you listen. They are generally well described. So as usual, go fill in from the YouTube video if you need it. Radio Rating: C.

By the way, sorry about the background noise. The lectern was right in front of a massive air conditioning intake, and it was pretty loud.

HRN 323: Hamvention Wrap-Up (or, Here's Mud in your Eye)

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Gary, David and Marty (the podcast wannabees) review the recently concluded Dayton Hamvention and Mudfest. 

This episode included a little more video, mostly of the mud, and an interview with Hamvention spokesperson Michael Kalter W8CI.

Spoiler alert: we declare it a (slightly qualified) success. And we'll be back next year.

AUDIO ONLY? Radio Rating: A- (the minus is because the mud video is pretty good). You can subscribe and get audio downloads to your phone. We're available on iTunes and pretty much any podcast app.