HRN 513: 🤹‍♂️Walk-ski Talk-ski ⛷

Gary K4AAQ just got back from a week of skiing 🤹‍♀️ with Cyndi KD4ACW out in Park City UT. David W0DHG has been busy, so not much show prep (good thing we’re not trying to make money off this show🤑). But Gary had a little radio operation (and one near-catastrophy) to talk about from his trip, including a short video of the radio-laden suitcase that got flagged at TSA. And David had some Winter Field Day adventures to relate. So another shortish show.

Earlier that day, Gary did a ‘sync-test’, looking to see what might have gone wrong with a couple of previous shows that had serious lip-sync issues. Not quite a ProMore, and interesting only to… probably nobody, but we won’t speak for you. Anyway, the lip-sync looked fine, both in the test and this show. Gary says he didn’t ‘fix’ anything, but maybe he didn’t ‘break’ anything either.

And we play a bit of a rockabilly song that features Ham Radio from a group called the Royal Hounds. The song is Tune In Tokyo.

Walk-ski⛷ Talk-ski🤹‍♀️

W0DHG, K4AAQ

Download

HRN 512: Field(day) of Frost⛄

Winter Field Day, the last full weekend in January. ❄⛄🏂🎿

Field Day - the summer version - is the most popular event on the ham radio calendar. The winter version isn’t even close, but it is a thing. And many hams are passionate about it. Our guest Marvin Turner W0MET, King of Winter Field Day (so dubbed by host Gary K4AAQ) tells us all about it.

The weather is kind of an upside-down, of course. While summer Field Day is more or less pleasant in the northern US and Canada, it’s hot and muggy in the southeast, and just hot in the west. Late January can be serious winter in the north, and more temperate as you head south, though ‘summer-like’ may be reserved for Florida.

Winter Field Day isn’t just the winter version of it’s summer event. Some rules are the same, but many are different. For one thing, ‘Winter’ Field Day is worldwide (with half the world actually being ‘summer’, but who’s counting). And it may be a bit more emcomm focused. Marvin tells us all about it.

Field(day) of Frost⛄

W0MET, W0DHG, K4AAQ

Download

HRN 511: Leave the Plot Behind

For a short while, the ham radio world was abuzz with comments on a shot at the very end of the Netflix movie Leave the World Behind, about a NYC couple who rent a house on Long Island for a weekend getaway. The world quickly goes to hell, though they only get vague signs of it as TV, cable, internet and cell phone service goes out. Then weird things start happening around them. SPOILER ALERT At the very end of the movie, there’s a bunker with an elaborate ham station, receiving a digital message about cities being under attack and elevated radiation, advising anyone receiving the message to take shelter. The movie got fairly favorable critic reviews, but terrible audience reviews.

Gary K4AAQ and Cyndi KD4ACW were among the ‘terrible review’ contingent. David W0DHG hadn’t finished the movie yet, but after hearing Gary’s review, he was eager to see how bad it really was. Oh, and Gary plays a few clips to demonstrate what was so bad, and to show that ham station. Also… no Netflix takedown (so far).

But first… David and Gary look at an NBC TODAY Show clip of an Erie PA area high school ham club (actually an Advanced Technology Group) completing an ARISS contact. All ARISS contacts are special events, particularly for the groups and schools involved. What made this contact unusual is that 1) the students did all the work, and 2) it made Network level news. They also made the local news, and they have their own YouTube Channel with their own play-by-play of the event, and other group activities.

Here’s the link to our ARISS Playlist, including that 1992 SAREX contact.

Leave the Plot Behind

W0DHG, K4AAQ

Download