HRN 375: Ham Radio - The Best 1000 Hobbies - 2017 DCC Banquet

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From the title, you might expect 2017 DCC Banquet speaker Tom McDermott N5EG to just list all the specialties that make up ham Radio, from ATV to DX, Repeaters to QRP. But that's not the direction he takes. Tom's looking at the leading edge of technology as it applies now, and will apply in the near future, to ham radio. 

And that makes this talk depart from the usually non-technical DCC banquet presentations. He probably left some spouses behind, but even if you're a non-so-technical ham, eventually you'll catch up.

Radio Rating: C. You might need some of Tom's slides to help you keep up. Many of them are just headline text, but there are enough pictures and charts, and a few comics, that you'll miss the context here and there. As usual, if listening leaves too many blanks, watch the video. (The radio rating does not measure the quality of the talk. It is for the audio audience, indicating our estimate of their ability to understand the talk without being able to see all the graphics.) 

And this completes our series from the 2017 ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference, held September 15-17 in St. Louis, MO.

HRN 374 / EmComm Extra #19: (Chicago) Marathon Man

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The New York Marathon. World's biggest, right? And Ham Radio is huge there.

The Boston Marathon. Ham Radio is big there, too. And it's, what, #2? 

Nope. Worldwide, it's not even close. In the USA, it's #3 (as of 2015, anyway, the last year a quick web search had stats).

So who's #2. The Marine Corps Marathon in DC? Nope. (But ham radio is big there, too).

#2 is Chicago. The perpetual Second City (even though Los Angeles took that USA title a few decades ago). And yes, even though you've never heard of it, nearly 150 hams pitch in to help it run smoothly.

Rob Orr K9RST has been the lead ham for the Chicago Marathon for the past decade, recruiting from a coalition of radio clubs and individual hams to provide communications for the medical side of the event (similar to the ham's mission at Boston). And as you'll hear, he really has a handle on it all.

Host David Goldenberg w0DHG leads this chat, as Gary KN4AQ hides behind the scenes (mostly). And note that this is the usual in-depth interview, but the show really runs about 95 minutes, and the rest is the 'post-show party' (aka The Best Part of the Show).

Radio Rating: A+. Rob provided some stills that give you a flavor of the event, but you'll get the complete story from the audio.

HRN 373: IMPROVING Citizen Weather from the 2017 DCC

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This is Part Two of the Sunday Seminar at the 2017 TAPR DCC.

Part One was in HRN Episode 372 (immediately preceding this episode), and both are on the topic of the Citizen Weather Observer Program - all those weather stations that you and your friends have.

In Part One, Gerry Creager N5JXS described the station components, what data they generate and how NOAA uses it, optimal positioning of the components and stuff. 

Here in Part Two, Gerry is looking to TAPR and hams to help improve the CWOP. There's a lot of detail, but it boils down to two elements:

  • Better Data
  • Lightening Reporting

These are two action items, and at the end of the talk, TAPR President Steve Bible recruited two TAPR members to lead the effort to identify what new data the CWOP needs, then figure out how to generate and forward it (APRS is a big part of data distribution, but it was never designed for this), and look into methods and maybe hardware for providing lots more rapid, detailed lightning strike data. Yes, we are making the sausage here, and you can grind some if you like.

The effort is just getting started, and as you'll hear at the end of the episode, when we produced the video, we didn't have all the contact data for hams who want to participate. We'll update it as we get it at the bottom of this episode page.

Radio Rating: B-. If you're a podcast listener, Powerpoint is not your friend (is it anybody's friend?), and there are lots of slides. Many are text headlines that Gerry covers. Some are graphs and charts that he describes fairly well, but you miss relationships. 

Links: 

PROJECT CONTACTS:

Paul Cecil KA5FPT
ka5fpt@tx.rr.com
(cell) 207-798-2107
Alt email: paulcecil@yahoo.com

Gerry Creager N5JXS
gerry.creager@noaa.gov
(C) 979.229.5301

Dave Witten, KD0EAG
2322 Deer Creek Ct,
Columbia, MO 65201
wittend@wwrinc.com