HamRadioNow

Aka The Monkeyman Trial A 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 r...

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 remed...

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...

HamRadioNow Episode 506 is still down on YouTube, by order of Netflix. We’ve filed a ‘dispute’ via YouTube. We’re waiting. But not patiently. In this episode, David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ explain what’s happened. And that’s pretty much it… a short show.

We finally get to the real show based on the Netflix series All the Light We Cannot See . The show is a four-part mini-series about clandestine broadcasting during WWII. It’s set mostly in a small, coastal French town that is occupied by Germany, and is being bombarded by Allied planes coming across the Channel. A young woman named Marie has taken over broadcast duties from her uncle. Her broadcas...

First… I’m giving everything a new number - episodes, promos… if I far… sneeze, I’m giving it an episode number. So, we had planned to do the episode that we Promo(re)d last Sunday sometime during the week. Well, we couldn’t. It’ll be on this coming Sunday, December 3 at 3pm Pacific, 6 pm Eastern, 2200Z. We’ll be reviewing and picking apart the radio mistakes in the Netflix series All the Light We...

This episode is a PROMO for an upcoming HRN show. This one comes with homework: We like watching shows that have ham radio in them. Sometimes it’s just for the show, and sometimes it’s to pick at how much they got wrong 😒. Netflix has a new, four-episode limited series titled All the Light We Cannot See , based on a novel by the same name. It looks like it should be one of those ‘based on a true...

East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ played radio (and Pavement Police) at a local Christmas parade on Saturday with the Cabarrus Amateur Radio Society , and made a little movie of it. Before that, West Coast Host David W0DHG was playing hooky from the show, out doing a POTA event with his WaveTalkers co-host Chris W6AH . They were live on 17 meters, and after we announced the frequency, a few members of ou...

The FCC jumped the gun on releasing the Report and Order on RM-11708, replacing the old “300 Baud” data limit on the Amateur Radio HF bands with a bandwidth limit of 2.8 kHz instead. They told us it would be part of their November 15 meeting, aired live on YouTube. Instead, they sent notice of the approval in a press release two days early, on November 13. So YAY, it’s approved with no drama. But...

Not really that much going on. But David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ haven’t chatted in a while, so they did. LINKS: — The RATPAC Gift Suggestion show (with Gary’s Ham’s Night Before Christmas ) — USA 1939 movie about Ham Radio

Happy Episode 500 , everybody! And now back to work. The FCC is about to release a Report and Order abolishing the antiquated 300 ‘baud’ limit on data rates on the HF bands, replacing it with a 2.8 kHz bandwidth cap instead . The draft R&O was released last week, and Gary K4AAQ picks it apart. It should be finalized at the Commission meeting on November 15, 10:30 am Eastern, with video availab...

DXer and video producer Bob Allphin K4UEE released the K1N Navssa DXpedition documentary on DVD in 2015, a few months after the highly successful DXpedition itself. HamRadioNow’s Gary K4AAQ did the editing and voiceover for the production. DVD sales were good enough, but now it’s time to release the program to the world on YouTube, free to watch for everyone. Yep, that’s the link, right here. In t...

Gary’s Genius Plan for 60 Meters gets filed with the FCC. He reads it to you. And Gary K4AAQ notices that ICOM has added FM to their 3rd Generation D-STAR Repeaters. He thought he saw that they were doing a D-Fuzion thing, with DV/Analog IN, Analog OUT, but no… as he reads it live, he discovered that it was an either/or thing… DV or FM, but no Fuzion. So close. LINKS: File your comments here, on t...

The Chicago Marathon ran last weekend. It’s one of the Big Six marathongs worldwide, and uses ham radio extensively for communications in support of the medical crews. Rob Orr K9RST is the ham radio coordinator, and he’s one of our guests on this week’s show. And this time (because we’ve done this before, back in 2017), he’s joined by Jeff van Buren KD9IPG . Together they fill in hosts Jim NO1PC a...

Last spring, the FCC issued an ORDER and NPRM covering a lot of stuff that originated with the 2015 World Radio Conference (WRC 2015). Um… checking our calendar, we see that it’s 2023 and ¾. But who’s counting? For hams, we care mostly about the part concerning 60 meters. And apparently not all that many of us care about that, but we’re pressing on anyway. Back at the WRC, they officially approved...

On the ‘Big Show’ we’ll talk about the 60 Meter NPRM from the FCC, but this is the ProMore, with East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ talking about his experience investigating and documenting BPL in the early aughts. Cameo appearances by David W0DHG and Marty NN1C (Marty apparently butt-texted the show group, so Gary called him on the phone).

Back in 2014, East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ did a HamRadioNow show titled System Confusion , with a look at Yaesu’s new C4FM mobile and handheld radios that he had just reviewed for QST . In that show, Gary and some friends from the Charlotte Digital Radio Group did a comparison of DV modes using handheld radios on D-STAR, DMR, P25, and those new C4FM Fusion handheld radio. The episode is our most-wa...

One show… two episide entries. Gary K4AAQ did a long ‘Promo’ for HRN 495 ConFuzin’ After All These Years that was really a slide show of the vacation he just took to Utah and a Rocky Mountaineer train ride. Our web host, Squarespace, only lets us put one audio file in an episode, and we want to publish this one separately, so… two Episode entries for one… OK, we did say it was Confuzin’. All the w...

East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ here (the 👑 of HAM)… You can operate public service effectively with a single mobile radio (I recommend a dual-band, dual-display radio, though), and probably a dual-band HT. So that's why I have 5 mobile radios and a scanner, and 10 or so handhelds, all programmed and ready to go. Obsessive. Borderline compulsive. This episode is a mini-doc of my prep and some operatio...

It’s fun to see Ham Radio bantered about in the halls of Congress. At the end of a 3-hour hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee ’s subcommittee on Communications and Technology last June, Arizona Congresswoman (and friend of Ham Radio) Debbie Lesko ‘grilled’ FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel about the status of the proposal to replace the long-obsolete rules on HF data rates in Amateur Ra...

As Hurricane Idalia worked it’s way across the Southeast, HamRadioNow East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ (on the edge of the outer rain bands near Charlotte NC) talked to two of his South Carolina neighbors about Emcomm operations. John Gendron NJ4Z is the South Carolina Section Manager, and Gordon Mooneyhan W4EGM is the SC Public Information Officer.

East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ had a guest spot on his friend Martin Brossman KI4CFS’ s YouTube show, talking about GMRS for HAMS. Here’s how Martin described the show: Relating GMRS to FRS and Amateur Radio. Thanks to Gary Pearce for joining me today to discuss GMRS for Ham Radio operators and people considering getting into it. Gary's website Ham Radio Now TV https://www.hamradionow.tv/ and YouTube...

My Facebook feed reminded me that 6 years ago, I was headed out to Wyoming to view my first ever Total Eclipse, along with Jeff AC4ZO (SK) and Bobbie KD4ZVW ( Cyndi KD4ACW took her dad, Mac W4PVT (SK) down to the Columbia SC area, also along the path, but 'iffy' for clear WX. We all got lucky with clear skies). Later that month, we did a show to review the experience - HRN 343 "Totaled". So as Dav...

Gary just rambles a bit letting you know we’re on summer vacation. Back next week… or anytime.