HRN 465: A Bouvet Valentine ♥

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The 3Y0J Bouvet DXpedition is over, a couple of weeks early. It was disappointing for all concerned - hams who wanted an All Time New One, the big-gun DXers who still needed the island to climb the higher rungs of the DXCC list, and probably most of all for the guys on… or near the island. Weather and rough seas prevented all but the most minimal operation, mostly cw and FT8 on 30 and 17 meters. Almost no SSB.

The big disappointment for us, though, was the behavior of far too many hams on the air and on the DX spotting web sites. Jamming, bootlegging and DIY ham police (and plenty of rookie operating errors) made the operation sound bad on the air. And on the clusters, lots of mostly anonymous comments that ran from snide to mean. Hmm. Aren’t we better than that?

Yeah, there was a lot of money involved. That’s nothing compared to the risk the crew took to get on the island at all. Maybe if your HRN hosts were more committed DXers, we’d feel your pain. We’re not. It’s not that big a deal for us. But we’re thinking it probably shouldn’t be for you. Be disappointed. Don’t be an ass about it.

Here’s our ‘airing of grievances’.

HRN 464: Superbowl Weekend Filler

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No Sunday night show this weekend because 🏈 (only the ‘Big Game’ takes us off… usually we ignore football). But we have bits and pieces. And the weekend’s not over (it’s Saturday afternoon as I - Gary - type this, so who knows?). Hopefully this will tide you over until the next big show.

But for now… I was on the phone with my original ham radio mentor from way back in the early 60’s. Back then he was Bob K9ZGT. Today he goes by his middle name, Winston (or Win), but to me he’ll always be Broken Old Bottles Bob. We talk about our early days a bit and what he’s been through. One of the chat room comments was ‘He’s an interesting guy’ - and so he is.

Then I booted up the studio, hoping Kyle could find some bandwidth down in Orlando (his phone is struggling) for a live shot. Hasn’t happened yet. We’ll be back if he can do it. Meanwhile, David popped up while working on his ARES group’s emcom trailer, so we get a quick tour. It’s pretty visual, but it’s on the podcast feed, too.


HRN 463: The China Balloon (and Ham Radio?)

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This is the PROMOre

Bill Brown WB8ELK started launching near-space ham radio balloons in 1987. I think he can tell us more about this balloon from China than we’re getting from CNN. Joining Bill is Todd McKinney KN4TPG, a Masters student in Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Todd got interested in HAB (High Altitude Ballooning), and got his ham license so he could fly balloons with APRS and WSPR transmitters. Together they have insights on the Balloon from China that you won’t hear in the mainstream media. And then we talk about what’s happening on the balloon front in ham radio.

LINKS:

Bill’s website: WB8ELK.com

Bill’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@WB8ELK