HamRadioNow

Dick Norton N6AA remains kind of a renegade ARRL Director, part of a minority of Directors who oppose the League policy of muzzeling Directors who disagree with Board decisions. His presentations at ARRL Forums are always more interesting than the average recitation of facts and figures. This forum doesn’t get into the disputed territory so much, but there are some enlightening moments, as well as the chestnuts about dues, needing more young people… but no one brings up incentive licensing (this may be a first, and if you’ve never heard the term…. good for you!).

We recorded this episode 14 years to the day after HamRadioiNow Episode ONE was released to an unsuspecting public. A hat-tip to that, and we move on. Our first stop, Gary complains about his newest radio acquisition, a TYT MD UC 390, a waterproof dual-band DMR handheld. The problems: too loud at the lowest volume, and a dim screen (but remember, Gary is slowly going blind).Then a comment about the previous episode on MARS and its 100 year anniversary, and on to a version of A Ham’s Night Before Christmas, recorded by Ashley Bernard (formerly KC1CPS - license expired). She recorded it back in 2014, apparently unaware that Gary had his own video up a few years earlier. Also unaware that Gary existed, as the poem was performed without credit. But we’re glad she even noticed and took the trouble to record her own version.Next, hams in eastern Ohio (in the Charleston WV TV market) got on the news for helping out during the big east coast ice storm a few weeks ago. Then a note about the two major Hollywood movies out this year, apparently all about Ham Radio: Hamnet and Tron ARES. We’re looking forward to seeing them. No spoilers, please.Finally, a look at the radio communications aspect of an NTSB final report on the midair collision between an Army helicopter and a commercial jet in Washington DC last year. There were many contributing factors. Among them was the problem that the ‘copter was on a military channel, and the jet was on the regular aviation frequency, so they couldn’t hear each other. A YouTube guy who calls himself Captain Steeeve - a recently retired American Airlines pilot - reviewed the incident on his YouTube channel. Gary excerpted the radio-specific comments, but you can see the whole program here. He also talks about the problem with the antique AM radio system used by aviation, and the problem with what hams call ‘doubling’, and pilots call ‘blocking’.

Ya know that 'MARS MOD' you use to jeep your radio so you can talk on GMRS? Well, it's really a thing. MARS, the Military Auxiliary Radio System, turned 100 last year. It's changed some over that time, but it's still all ham radio operators providing public service communications in affiliation with the Army and Air Force. The 'Army guy', Paul English WD8DBY, and the 'Air Force guy', Dave Antry WD9HBA, were at the 2025 Dayton Hamvention®, and they talked to East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ about what MARS is today.If you’re interested in the history, Gary found this PDF article while he was digging up the QST articles.

Way back in 2015, the World Radio Conference allocated a worldwide ham radio band at 60 Meters. Here in the US we are finally getting that band. A whopping 15 kHz wide, with Phone, RTTY, data and CW permitted, and a whole 9.15 Watts ERP power limit.Of course, we’ve had 5 descrete ‘channels’ available on 60 for 23 years, initially for USB only, and later adding CW and data modes. One of those channels is in the middle of that new allocation, and it ‘disappears’ into the new band. But we keep the other four, at their cuttent 100 Watts ERP.In this episode, hosts David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ (eventually) discuss the details of the new band. Gary reviews some of the history, including several HRN programs tracing the inception and progressof the band. Find the programs in this HamRadioNow Playliston our YouTube channel.The band becomes available 30 days after the new rules are published in the Federal Register.Oh, and yeah, Gary had the wrong episode number. We docked his pay.

When you walk in the main gate at the Hamvention, the first exhibit you encounter is an outdoor collection of vehicles outfitted to the gills with ham radio. The banner says 'EmComm Vehicle Display', and some of the vehicles are truely that, sponsored by organizations dedicated to emergency response. Others have diffeent purposes: contests, rovers, or just the ability to escape a poor home QTH and get to a better operating location, and they are personal projects. In this episode we'll meet some of the hams responsible for these impressive rolling ham shacks, and take a look at what they've built. About this episode Last May, the HamRadioNow Mobile Production Unit (that's Gary K4AAQ, a handheld camera and a couple of wireless mics) shot some TOURS at the Hamvention, which the HRN Editorial Unit (also Gary K4AAQ, using DaVinci Resolve on a 13 year-old Windows PC) promptly edited and posted. The MPU also shot a bunch of interviews at the 'fest, which have been languishing on the editor's hard drive ever since, while life went on. Now, somehow, Gary found a few spare minutes to slap one of those segments together. There are a bunch more. Apparently Gary could use some encouragement 👏 to spend time slaving over that hot editing computer. Perhaps you can make some comments. Or just tell him to burn the drives🔥 and forget the whole thing 😒. Either way.

Last July, East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ/WRPG652 posted a QLog Entry about a GMRS ‘Travel Channel’. after repeatedly answering the question “Is there one” on GMRS Facebook and Reddit forums. He linked to that essay when encountering the question several more times, and even got a few ‘good answer’ responses 😀. So we made it a show, because why not?He invited GMRS users on Reddit and Facebook to join the show. Nobody bit, so Gary and West Coast Host David W0DHG/WROT234 rambled around and then went through Gary’s essay to exhausively overanalyze the subject. As we do. Oh, what’s a ‘Travel Channel’. For details, watch the show and/or read the essay, but briefly, it would be one of the GMRS channels that everyone agrees to monitor when they’re out on the highway, so if one of them transmitts (simplex) looking for a contact, others in range will hear them and respond if they’re interested in a chat while motoring along🚗.And… spoiler alert ⚠🚨… Gary says “There isn’t one, but there could be” and suggests GMRS channel 20 (462.675) — not channel 19 — and explains why.

HRN Hosts David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ had just finished recording an episode of the show about how Everybody Wants a Handneld (and why they shouldn’t), and they tried hard to keep it on topic and fairly concise (and almost succeeded). But the pent-up ramble had to explode someplace, and that place was here, recorded immediately afterward. It ended up mostly being about David leaving his ARES affiliation to concentrate on volunteering with ‘real’ emcomm. Gary did talk about some of the stuff that’s kept him from producing more HamRadioNow. There could have been more, but David had other stuff to do, so we leave it for next time. Stay Tuned🎙

In both Ham Radio and GMRS, there's no doubt, almost everyone starts out with a handheld radio. After making basically the same points about that - over and over - while answering questions in multiple Facebook and Reddit forums, HamRadioNow East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ/WRPG652 wrote an essay in his QLog blog on the HRN website. Now he can just link to the essay and go on with his day😉 (that has actually worked, and he’s had a few positive responses. Go figure). And now it's a podcast episode. Even better, because West Coast Host David W0DHG adds his experience on the topic. And we tried very hard to stick to the subject and not ramble.

This episode wraps up our TOUR of the 2025 Hamvention®, but not our coverage. Gary still has a hard drive full of interviews to edit, and those will come out over the next few weeks. And maybe a live show with David W0DHG?This episode includes both Saturday and Sunday, and just a little more pork chop. There are a few fun callbacks, to one of Gary K4AAQ’s Ham Nation episodes and his pre-HamRadioNow video on programming D-Star radios, and Riley Hollingsworth K4ZDH’s One Big Knob presentation at the 2007 Dayton Hamvention.

The Dayton Hamvention® is open all day Friday and Saturday, and a half-day on Sunday. East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ returned for the first time since 2017, and found it a bit more crowded. He expected to see other YouTuber media everywhere, but not so much... he did find some of them all in a pack in the flea market. But the star of the show? No, not the equipment (the other guys cover that in depth). It was a pork chop. You have to try it. And he found a 'HamRadioNow Audio Simulator'. We don't call it that in the episode, but you'll know it when you hear it. 🦆

East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ made it back to Dayton for the first time since 2017. Has much changed? Can he even remember (not really). This is a quick look at the tail end of Thursday, setup-day, before the fest opens Friday morning.

Richard "Dick" Norton N6AA, ARRL Southwestern Division Director, talks about the state of the ARRL at the Orange (CA) Section Convention.

The biggest hamfests are growing - Dayton, Orlando, Huntsville. Many smaller hamfests are struggling, or have closed down. Some clubs have had trouble finding a chair person and staff to put on shows that have been around for decades. Facilities are only getting more expensive, while attendence and income are falling. The 'RARSfest' - coming April 5 and hosted by the Raleigh (NC) Amateur Radio Society - is hanging in there, maybe even growing a little. It has a robust flea market, and good array of commerecial vendors, and even attracts one of the big ham radio stores, plus a variety of activities. It's been a while since any major manufacturer had come to show their wares at any but the biggest shows. RARSfest Chair Nancy Torborg KB2TNR joins host Gary K4AAQ to talk about how she picked up the event when RARS was struggling to find a new chair, and what she's done to keep the show going. (David W0DHG was working for this mid-week recording session).And this being Gary’s ‘old home’ hamfest, we’ve done some shows from there before. Here’s one.

The Western Washington Amateur Relay Association has adopted a plan to migrate all repeaters in their area to'Narrow FM' over the next 10 years.The idea is to increase the number of repeater channels (and the number of repeaters). The plan could nearly double the number of available repeater channels. It's mostly simple. For users, it's probably a menu setting in their radios, but OLDER radios won't have that option. For repeater owners, it may be as simple as a menu setting for more modern UHF repeaters. On two meters, it's likely also a small frequency adjustment, and trimming up a duplexer, but if the repeater is really old, it might be replacement time.Members of the WWARA Narrowband Study Committee are here to talk about it. We welcome WWARA Chair Scott Honaker N7SS. Kenny Richards KU7M, and Steve VanWambeck N9VW, They join show hosts David W0DHG, Gary K4AAQ and the return of Jim NO1PC for the discussion.

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.

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/podcasterwho experimented with AI voices (from NotebookLM) to generate a ‘podcast’ based on his most recent newsletter. Theresult was interesting. Then Gary found the same robot voicesin a show discovering that they weren’t real!We can retire at any time.Finally, Gary challenged a discussion from the Ham Radio Crash Courseon why repeaters are so quiet… lately. Gary’s point: it ain’t ‘lately’.

This week, Jason Johnston KC5HWB of the Ham Radio 2.0 show was reacting to viewer comments that there were Too Many Digital (Voice) Modes. East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ has been preaching on that topic for years, and while his Q-Mobile does have radios for D-STAR, DMR and System Fusion… and so does his belt…. he wouldn’t mind having one rig to rule them all – a 21st Century ‘Multi-Mode’. That’s his Holy Grail 🏆So Gary invited Jason on the show to talk about it, along with West Coast Host David Goldenberg W0DHG, who has a DMR radio but only uses it for FM 🤔After thoroughly wringing out that topic (and David signing off to go back to work), they move on to talk about GMRS - how it’s now kind of a gateway to ham radio and a hobby radio service itself (albeit not really intended for that by the FCC).

East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ goes solo, with a timewaster of an episode. He’s just repurposing some of his many Facebook Group and Reddit responses to newbie ham and GMRS questions. After he gets done talking about his bike helmet.

To show, or not to show… that is the question.Are we running out of gas for HRN, or just a temporary lull. Hard to tell. This is Gary’s solo thoughts on the topic, but we’ll have a conversation about it soon.Also, how to keep ham radio from turning into Fox News.

Ham Radio activity - ‘unofficial’ and ad hoc as it may be - continues in the mountains of western North Carolina. The Mt. Mitchell 145.19 repeater remains active every day. For this show, we talk to a ham who was deployed at a couple of locations last week. Steve McAtee N0JJO lives in the Charlotte NC area, and heard a call go out for hams to assist. He geared up and set out, and now that he’s back, he tells us his story.We know that Hurricane Milton hit Florida last week, and undoubtedly there are ham radio stories to tell from that event. We’ll see if we can find some hams to tell there stories from Milton in the next few weeks (contact Gary at [email protected] if you have one of those stories).

Last week, HRN hosts David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ talked about some ad-hoc ham radio nets that spun up just after Tropical Storm Helene devastated a large area of North Carolina’s mountains, knocking out power, internet, phone and cell communications, flooding towns and destroying roads. The nets appeared to have no connection to any formal ham radio emcom organization. Initially they were passing lots of incoming Health & Welfare inquiries from hams or friends of hams on 40 meters (7232 kHz) and an ultra-wide coverage repeater on Mt. Mitchel (145.19 MHz). We speculated that messages like that probably couldn’t be delivered.We even streamed a few hours of the 40 meter net on our YouTube channel.On this show we get the background. Dan Gitro K2DMG became the Net Control station on the Mt. Mitchel repeater for days on end, and he joins us to talk about how it got started and what it became as the days went by.

Hurricane Helene 🌀 left a lot of destruction in its wake, especially in western North Carolina. Power, phone and internet were down over a wide area. So, ham radio stepped into the gap, right?Sort of. HamRadioNow send requests for participation in our Sunday live show to statewide ARES officers in Northern Florida, Georgia, South and North Caroliona, with narry a peep in response. Instead, we monitored some ad-hoc nets that sprung up on 40 meters and on a wide coverage 2 Meter repeater in the NC Mountains, carring mostly inbound welfare requests that mostly couldn’t be delivered because… well, who was going to deliver them? These nets had no local infrastructure or a cadre of hams who might be able to pick their way around roads closed by flooding and debris to find the people who relatives so desperately were trying to reach. But yet the nets persisted, hour after hour.We did listen to a 75 Meter NC traffic net that actually passed an outbound message - the way it should be, except for how long it takes to send this kind of traffic by voice. So David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ discuss the efficiency of sending this traffic as data… which they admit may well be going on, but who could tell? Another problem.Gary’s griping may not be popular – there’s much back-patting and self-contratulating over this activity. And it may have actually gotten a few messages through… hard to tell. This, while any more official activity took place in shadows.Sort of. HamRadioNow send requests for participation in our Sunday live show to statewide ARES officers in Northern Florida, Georgia, South and North Caroliona, with narry a peep in response.Instead, we monitored some ad-hoc nets that sprung up on 40 meters and on a wide coverage 2 Meter repeater in the NC Mountains, carring mostly inbound welfare requests that mostly couldn’t be delivered because… well, who was going to deliver them? These nets had no local infrastructure or a cadre of hams who might be able to pick their way around roads closed by flooding and debris to find the people who relatives so desperately were trying to reach. But yet they persisted, hour after hour.We did listen to a 75 Meter NC traffic net that actually passed an outbound message - the way it should be, except for how long it takes to send this kind of traffic by voice. So David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ discuss the efficiency of sending this traffic as data… which they admit may well be going on, but who could tell? Another problem.Gary’s griping may not be popular – there’s much back-patting and self-contratulating over this activity. And it may have actually gotten a few messages through… hard to tell. This, while any more official activity took place in shadows.

Last January, a repeater group in Harrisburg PA had some special guests at their monthly club lunch – a half dozen representatives from the FCC, and a couple of ARRL officials stopped by to talk about ham radio and GMRS, and answer questions from the assembled club members. Just your average club luncheon.Fortunately, the whole thing was recorded and ended up on YouTube. However, it was nearly two hours long, and some of it was kind of rambling (we’re looking at you, K4AAQ). So, we cut it down to just the essense, about 30 minutes worth. We still recommend watching the whole thing – there are some stories and anecdotes that we cut out that are pretty entertaining. Maybe this edited version will whet your appitite for more.

David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ banter about a big FCC-ARRL 'luncheon' last January, alterntives to saying 'Zero' in call signs, and GMRS linking.

Ham Radio Comm, in search of any Emergencies that might need our help. Well, West Coast Host David W0DHG and East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ (BRAT? maybe…) don’t hit on that theme too hard, but it is a good question. Where’s the Em?Anyway, David spend last weekend doing some COMM at the Angeles Crest Ultra Marathon, and even though he failed to document it up to Gary’s standards, he did describe it pretty well. Gary mentions this ARRL news story on Hurricane Debby that really inspired the episode title. Yet another review of an event where all we did was stand by to stand by.Then David found a news story about an LA area ham who got help via the PAPA linked repeater system when he fell and couldn’t get up (cue the TV commercial). It was recorded, and we play it back with our usual on-point commentary.

East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ goes solo for this show, noting that he needs another HT like he needs another hole in his head. But, Prime Day and pressure from peers got him to part with a bit under $25 for the Quansheng UV-K5. Note that this review does NOT get into any of the aftermarket firmware options, and that seems to be what is getting everybody excited. That is a hot mess of options and confusion, and so maybe someday.

On the heels of Hurricane Beryl, Bob Inderbitzen NQ1R, ARRL Director of Marketing and Innovation was interviewed by The Weather Channel about ham radio. It was a great shot in national media, which means that East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ needed to take it apart to see how it could have been better, while West Coast Host David W0DHG pulled Gary back to reality.Well, back in his younger days, Gary was no novice in the PR world, and he’s got some legacy video to prove it:Gary's Field Day Interview (Studio): https://youtu.be/vkH21ERvp7I?si=8JP1U...Gary's Katrina Interview: https://youtu.be/yC0u42MnMdM?si=USDdI...Gary's Field Day Interview (Field - we didn't play this one in the episode): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyTcy1hFYQY.

As (barely a) Hurricane Beryl approaches landfall on the Texas coast, East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ welcomes ARRL South Texas Section Emergency Coordinator Jeff Walter KE5FGA to the show to talk about Amateur Radio emcomm in his area.

It may have been the longest DAY of the year, but it was still a long NIGHT for K4AAQGary edited a little home movie of this year’s Field Day operation. Then a look at some of the media from this year. Finally some thoughts on the GMRS linking controversy.Links to the News Stories and stuff:Our Field Day PlaylistTell Josh to 'Approve' of usHey, it really was Escambria, not Escanaba. I blame my reading glasses:WLOX TV storyKPLC TV storyLakawana News 16 storyWAKA TV storyReddit GMRS thread

Our guest, Dr. Johnathan Kramer, ESQ, is a lawyer dealing in ‘dirt’ - no, not Stormy Daniels. Real Estate. We’ll learn about his career and a bit about putting up antennas in HOA territory.We had some technical trouble with the live stream this time… and with the local recording. Between the two, we recovered most of the show, with a few minutes missing in the middle. You won’t even know… but it might be a little confusing for those who watched live on YouTube, or came to the YouTube channel late, but before we replaced the video (it takes hours to do that. Now you know.

For the past 10 days, ARRL’s Logbook of the World and online courses have been down. Something slowed down QST production (the print version) for a day or two. But the website and email forwarding service are working.What’s happening? ARRL is only saying that “a serious incident involving access to our network and systems” has occurred. Is it a fire in the engine room? Malware? Ransomware? Somebody didn’t pay the ISP? All those and more are filling the information vacuum. So are we 🙄😕Meanwhile, we opened up the Zoom to viewers, and one - Dave VE3KM from… yes, Bastard, Ontario, clicked the button. Turns out that Dave is an avid VHF/UHF ham, among other things (actually, pretty well rounded in ham radio overall). So before we get started speculating (and Gary whining) about the ARRL infogap, Dave gives us a lesson in Aurora propagation. Yes, when a big dose of plasma from the sun 🌞 shuts down HF, VHF goes wild. Do we solve the ARRL’s data issue, or even provide some useful insight? Nope. Nobody has. But we… maybe just Gary… feels better.

Episode 524 - New England Correspondent Marty NN1C takes us to the Hamvention, holds out in the pouring rain to see the rush of equally drowned hamfesters pour (too literally) through the entry gate at 9 AM, and then waits out ICOM’s BIG REVEAL of… circuit boards😕, with East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ anchoring from Fort Mill. West Coast Host David W0DHG got up early to join in.Episode 525 - Gary K4AAQ goes solo, checking the feeds, and reviewing HamRadioNow (and ARVN)’s extensive catalog of Hamvention videos, going back to 2007. Find it all in this YouTube Playlist.

Gary K4AAQ is back from vacation, and we’re back on the air. A (relatively) short show - David W0DHG had some stuff to do, so just an hour. We do the usual ramble around a few topics. Gary shows his broken (and extracted) tooth (so be glad this is just audio) and a home movie from Hawaii to wrap things up.

In theory, we’re on hiatus until May, but we had a few minutes to chat about the Hollywood Hills, David’s Emcomm deployment (no hams were harmed in that deployment), and a bit of eclipse.

Gary's Q-Mobile - now 17 years old and 230,000 miles long, is running fine. But the ICOM 7000 HF rig developed a hiccup on 40 meters. Put a little RF to the Tarheel 200 antenna, and it shut down. He finally gets around to fixing it. David W0DHG told him how in a previous episode. Gary K4AAQ had to do it the hard way.https://HamRadioNow.tv

For the next few weeks, East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ and West Coast Host David W0DHG have a bunch of family and other activities, so we’re goona take a break from the show. David may gin up some shows solo (Gary will be gone lots longer)… we’ll see. But sooner or later we’ll be back… tanned and rested (or dragged ot and exhausted). See ya on the other side!

Can the creating of a simple show jingle (using AI) drive the theme of the whole show?Sure, why not. Also, a visit to the Charlotte Hamfest for a few minutes.Also, can you guess the age of the average ARRL member? Stay tuned to find out!

The Network Effect is when you connect a network (IRLP, AllStar, Echolink, D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, etc) to a quiet, local repeater and turn on a busy nationwide or worldwide reflector, talk group, room, whatever. The repeater isn’t quiet anymore… but who’s talking. Nobody you know.Also, Gary K4AAQ will be volunteering for a big, new (to him) event: the Assault on Mt. Mitchell. That’s a 100 mile bike ride from Spartanburg SC to the top of Mt. Mitchell in NC. With all the up and down (and the big UP at the end to the 6600’ summit), the riders will see a total of 11,000 of vertical climb. And, we lost some hams this week. Bob Heil K9EID, of course, but also David W0DHG’s friend Gary Apgar NY6Y, and Gary’s friend and local hero Danny Hampton K4ITL. Danny was Dayton Hamvention’s Ham of the Year in 2009, and founder of a regional repeater network in the Carolinas, long before the Internet came along to make it easy.

Gary K4AAQ has that new phone/camera gimble and wireless podcast mics. So he’s got to go to a hamfest. It’s been a while. No SIB (Studio In a Booth). Maybe they’ll let him sit in on the YouTuber’s Forum?Then he and David W0DHG yammer about other stuff.

The Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act is now in the Senate as S.3690. That bill joins House Bill H.R.4006, with the goal of giving hams living in HOA neighborhoods some reasonable relief in being able to put up antennas.Don’t place your orders yet 🤨. Most Congrerssional bills never become law, but if you recall your Civics class, you do need identical legislation to be passed in the House and Senate before they move on to the President for their signature. So we’re a big step closer 😀.Then surprise guest Kyle AA0Z joins us for the first time in a while for some general discussion.If anyone wants to hear a little (a lot) more from Gary K4AAQ, he’s started a new general-interest (or generally uninteresting) podcast with his brother Jay. Jay isn’t a ham, though he grew up with it blaring in the house from his brothers. Like Gary, Jay is a retired broadcaster, now finding refuge in the world of podcasting. It’s called the Jay and Gary Show, on YouTube and a podcast app near you.Equal time for David W0DHG who continues to co-host the WaveTalkers show on YouTube.

One sure path to YouTube stardom is to do a lot of unboxings. That may be why we don’t do them very often. But this time, we do one.East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ was getting jealous of all the YouTubers walking around hamfests with their phones mounted on fancy sticks, and using some kind of wireless mic gizmo to talk to people (and hear them) more than six inches from the phone. So he bought a set, and opened it up live on this show while West Coast Host David W0DHG looked on over Zoom. Next… a demo. Then… a hamfest? Dayton? Stay tuned.Here’s what he got:- Hollyland LARK Max- DJI Osmo Mobile 6 Gimbal Stabilizer

Trivia question #1: Who said that (To the Moon, Alice)?Trivia question #2: What year did Gary K4AAQ say it was when he introduced this show?We’re not answering those here. Watch (or listen to) the show.In January, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) landed a ham radio station on the moon (along with some other stuff, we’re sure, but we have our priorities). Its one-watt transmitter sent some telemetry on 437.41 MHz, along with a cleverly embedded Morse code (not cw) signal, as received by these guys in the Netherlands, and partially decoded by this guy, with help from a few other very advanced hams (read the blog and comments). Best we can tell, it was just a little more advanced than OSCAR 1’s Hi Hi Hi back in 1961. But it still counts as the first freakin’ ham station on the moon. 🌜The station has literally gone dark, as it slid into lunar night. 🌚 It’s not expected to survive, but we bet there’ll be some well equipped hams listening in a couple weeks, just to make sure.How ‘well equipped’? Well, you need to make up about 40 dB of path loss, assuming you’ve got an excellent receiver. How do you do that? Big ass antenna. Nope… bigger.Then Gary rambles on about the fate of HRN 506: How Can We Podcast With All This Light💡? That’s the show that nobody’s seen, because first YouTube, then Netflix, took it down until we fought to get it back up (and we won). And finally, he talks about South Carolina’s unusual “First in the Nation” Presidential Primary, and the chat room confirms that what we’re doing here is very confusing. And once again what we thought would be a 10-minute show ran over an hour. BTW, David W0DHG is out this week, teaching a First Aid class. We expect to be back next Sunday.

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.

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 iun 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.

For a short while, the ham radio world was abuzz with comments on a shot at the very end of the Netflix movie Laave 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 take down (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) complete an ARISS contact. All ARISS contacts are special events, particularly to 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.

A small Christmas Miracle (and really kind of pre-Christmas).Netflix released their copyright©claim on HamRadioNow Episode 506: How Can We Podcast With All This Light💡? Just in time for nobody to see it (it’s up to 33 views as I type this).So David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ celebrate the win🎉🥂. David is short-time, so later, Gary goes into mind-numbing detail about how he filed disputes with YouTube that got Netflix to relent. But first, they review the reaction to Episode 509: Repeater Pest Gets No-Contact Order from the Judge, which provoked strong and odd comments both on QRZ.com and Reddit.Audio listeners are in for a ‘trreat’ at the very end.

Aka The Monkeyman TrialA very wide coverage, busy UHF repeater in the Charlotte NC metro area had been plagued all year by a pest. Drunk, profane, nonsensical and relentless. Ignoring him didn’t work, so they tracked him down. The repeater owners told him to stop many times. The FCC told him to stop… twice. He didn’t. But now identified, he got his ham license: KQ4GAD. But nothing changed. The repeater was still frequently subject to his profanity, sound effects and music, and streams of nonsense. As time passed, the pest increasingly directed his rants and ramblings toward one ham, Brad O’Dell KK1LL. Brad was leading the team that hunted the pest down and revealed his identity. Ramblings became threats, so at the suggestion of former FCC Enforcement Counsel Riley Hollingsworth K4ZDH, Brad swore out a complaint in County Court, asking for a ‘No Contact’ order. After managing to avoid the process server twice, resulting in continuances, the pest, Joshua Duffy KQ4GAD, faced off with Brad in court. Duffy never spoke… at least not in the hearing. As the hearing begain, his attorney immediately offered to accept a No Contact order for one year, provided that no evidence was presented and made part of the record. Brad agreed. It was over.But our story isn’t. In this episode, we’ll talk with Brad and Ted Williams KE6QEY, President of the Charlotte Amateur Radio Club, owner of the repeater. We will hear some audio of Duffy swearing, threatening and rambling (and we’re not beeping anything out, so this episode has some explicit language). We’ll hear briefly from Duffy himself, outside the courtroom, in an interview he gave HRN’s Gary K4AAQ, who attended the hearing. And Brad and Ted will tell the whole story.Oh… The Monkeyman Trial? That comes from the monkey-like sounds our pest was fond of making. You’ll hear one recording of that. So before the hams knew who he was, they called him ‘The Monkeyman’.

He was drunk. He was profane. He was worse than annoying. He wouldn't go away, plaguing a Charlotte area repeater for months. Then he got his ham license... and nothing changed. He was ordered off the repeater (many times). The control ops contacted the FCC - they wouldn't act. Nothing worked. Then he began targeting one individual ham for harassment, and that created an opening for a legal remedy outside the FCC.Gary also previews a bill in the South Carolina Legislature that mirrors PRB-1, but would extend the protection to HOA residents.

East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ had volunteered to do radio at a local Christmas parade. As he was lacing up his sneakers, about to leave home, wife Cyndi KD4ACW called to dispatch him to the hospital where mom had been taken with chest pains. Gary had planned to do some video and interviews at the event for today’s show. Instead Gary and West Coast Host David W0DHG talk about how to weigh conflicting obligations to family and community (and Podcasting). (Mom didn’t have a heart issue, but it was still something serious. She’s OK now)David also had comments on how his favorite event, the Baker to Vegas charity run, has decided to replace ham radio with communications from Verizon (while still urging them to volunteer for other jobs). There’s more to that story, and it’s not isolated to that event. The MS Society is using ham radio less for smaller, more urban walks. And in the Emcomm arena, Auxcom leaders have been saying that hams should be cross-trained for communication on other systems. That’s something to dig into on a future show.Meanwhile, we noted that the new FCC rule dropping the data-rate restriction of ‘300 baud’ on the HF bands, replacing it with a 2.8 kHz bandwidth limit, has finally been published in the Federal Register, and will take effect on January 8, 2024. So not quite the Christmas present we expected, but Happy New Year! And a FNPRM (Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) clock is ticking for comments on how to handle data rate/bandwidth of the VLF, VHF and UHF bands. That spectrum is not covered by the new HF data bandwidth rule. Finally, no news on the Netflix Watch. HRN Episode 506, How Can We Podcast with All This Light?, is still dark on YouTube due to Netflix’s copyright complaint. Check Episode 506 for details, and listen to the audio version while the video is down.