Our guest is Jim Masarra N2EST, cartoonist, animator, graphic designer. You've seen his work in QST (including some covers), and other ham books and publications. On the cusp of resirement, we talk about his career in and out of ham radio, and how the ARRL seems to have lost its sense of humor.
Have him design a QSL card for you!: https://hamtoons.net
January 11, 1965, Amateur Radio Station WN9NSO made its first, shaky 5 wpm CW… attempt… in the 40 meter Novice band.
60 years later, WN9NSO is now K4AAQ, our East Coast Host. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, as Gary talks about what ham radio was like for that Novice, 60 years ago. No repeaters. No digital (RTTY was it). No computers. Lots of AM.
Gary opened up the Zoom and was joined by Ron K9ID, a friend from the Chicago suburbs and then WN9RPD/WA9RPD, and a newer friend, Jerry KE4TTS. Join us for a trip down memory lane.
Enough emoji in the title?
David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ discuss AI chat engines. Specifically, how Gary bullied chatGPT into correct answers about GMRS channel steps (for the record, it’s 12.5 kHz). Somebody in a Facebook group asked that question, and someone else got the answer from a confident chatGPT, but chat GPT got it wrong (they said 5 kHz). The challenge was ON, and Gary emerged victorious, with chatGPT backing down… a couple of times!
Moving on, David found a newsletter author/podcaster who experimented with AI voices (from NotebookLM) to generate a ‘podcast’ based on his most recent newsletter. The result was interesting. Then Gary found the same robot voices in a show discovering that they weren’t real!
We can retire at any time.
Finally, Gary challenged a discussion from the Ham Radio Crash Course on why repeaters are so quiet… lately. Gary’s point: it ain’t ‘lately’.
