HamRadioNow

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 mo...

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 t...

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 p...

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 con...

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 w...

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 K4AAQ Gary 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 Playlist Tell Josh to ' Approve' of u s Hey, it really was Escambria , not Escanaba. I blam...

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...

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? Somebo...

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 REVEA L 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 K...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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. Whil...

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...

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 YouTu...