QSO Today Podcast - Interviews with the leaders in amateur radio

Jay Slough, K4ZLE, has over 60 years in the amateur radio hobby and still enjoys CW as his primary operating mode. An accomplished DXpeditioner, having operated in over 40 DX entities including South Sandwich Island. Always ready to extend the hand of friendship, either by knocking on the doors of houses with amateur antennas or sharing his own station through RemoteHams. K4ZLE is my QSO Today.

Andre Hansen, K6AH, and his team of open source developers have taken amateur radio mesh networking to a new level with AREDN, that allows commercial low cost WIFI routers and access points to be used to build out local and regional broadband networks in the amateur bands above 2 GHz. Andre and I discuss this technology and its possibilities for the amateur radio community in this QSO Today.

Kristen McIntyre, K6WX, is the president of the Palo Alto Amateur Radio Club, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley,  and an ARRL Pacific Division Vice Director. Trained as an MIT electronic engineer, she was an entrepreneur for many years in Japan.  Kristen is a much sought after speaker at amateur radio conventions and forums. Antenna design, digital modes, and just getting on the air is k...

Richard Dillman, W6AWO, is the founding member of the Maritime Radio Historical Society, where they preserve the skills, traditions, and folklore of maritime telegraph operators, from the California Bay Area coastal station, KSM. The "Summer of Love" brought Richard to California, in the Sixties, to pursue broadcast engineering and a 30 year career with Greenpeace.  W6AWO is my QSO Today.

Dan Gravereaux, N1ZZ, began his ham radio story as a kid leading to a career in electronics, a stint at the CBS Labs working on quadraphonic sound, and later founding West Mountain Radio creators of the Rigblaster interfaces for HF digital modes.  West Mountain Radio also popularized the ubiquitous Anderson Power Poles that we all use now and love. N1ZZ shares his ham radio story and expertise in...

Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ, is the creator of perhaps the Internet's oldest ham radio resource, QRZ.com. With over 700 thousand subscribers, QRZ.com is the goto place for hams wanting to look up other hams in its call sign database.  It does however, have a large number of other resources available to amateurs that Fred and Eric, 4Z1UG, discuss in this QSO Today.

Ray Waldemar, WA6NVL, was an early adopter of electronic technology that found its way into amateur radio including the first Apple 1 computer, first instances of D-Star, and now DMR.  Active on HF, VHF, UHF, and Microwave, from SSB to satellites. Ray just likes it all to the technical challenge and the social connections made from almost 50 years in the hobby. WA6NVL is my QSO Today.

George Zafiropoulos, KJ6VU, is the the co-host of the Ham Radio Workbench Podcast, one of the more popular ham radio podcasts.  George has a long and interesting ham radio history as well as he is accomplished home-brewer, builder, operator, and high tech executive. We touch on a few of my favorite subjects that include repeaters and repeater controllers, the Cactus Intertie, DMR, and building wit...

John Raifsnider, W8JER, shares his ham shack with this wife, Micky, KE8ASK, and likes to rag-chew on DX. His signal is boosted by a new 70 ft tower and Mosley beam antenna, allowing him to extend his amateur radio circle that he has built up through the years.  Consistent attention to building his amateur radio skills combined with the hobby's social dimension, has made W8JER a successful ham.

Jonathan Naylor, G4KLX, pioneered the opening, to amateur radio operators, of D-Star and later other digital repeater modes including DMR and Yaesu system fusion by writing software that could be implemented on Arduino and Raspberry Pi hardware for the creation of multi-mode repeater and hot-spot controllers.  G4KLX shares his ham radio story with Eric, 4Z1UG, in this QSO Today.

AMSAT, the Amateur Radio Satellite Corporation, has launched over 95 satellites into space since 1961.  Keith Baker, KB1SF, former President and now treasurer of AMSAT speaks and write on amateur satellites, what is happening now, how to get started, and how to get involved.  Keith shares is wealth of satellite knowledge in this episode of QSO Today.

Joel Wilhite, KD6W, who has a long history in amateur radio, telephony, and amateur radio TV.  As you can imagine, amateur radio TV has advanced from the slow scan memories of the early 1970s to high quality digital television delivered by repeaters and internet linked networks.  Amateur radio digital TV and microwave roving are a few of the topics discussed with Joel, KD6W, in the QSO Today.

Riki Kline, K7NJ, has a long and interesting ham radio career, from humble beginnings in Las Vegas, Nevada, as a teenage ham,  to his current QTH on over 40 rural acres in Utah. Riki also lives in Israel, part time, in the village of Na'aleh, overlooking Israel's coastal plain and the Ben Gurion, Airport.  K7NJ shares his perspective as an amateur radio operator who frequently works from either si...

Along with a successful career in California high-tech, Paul Gacek, W6PNG, became an amateur radio operator.  Finding that it challenged his mind and created opportunity to learn new things, Paul discovered SOTA, Summits on the Air, and outdoor operating.  California has over 4000 SOTA peaks, and that is a good start for W6PNG, my QSO Today.

David Malin, AA6RV, spent over 20 years working for the City of Los Angeles as its Emergency Coordinator and Emergency Administrator for the Port of Los Angeles.  Now retired, David a lot to say about emergency preparedness and the minimal steps that we should all take to be ready in case of disaster in this QSO Today.

Phil Sittner, KD6RM, has a ham radio story that goes back over 50 years, from childhood. Still living in Northern California, Phil builds his own radios and test equipment, operates CW on 80 and 40 meters, using antennas optimized for his city lot in an HOA neighborhood where antennas are forbidden. We harness Phil's extensive technical expertise and hear his ham radio story in this QSO Today.

Denny Berg, WB9MSM, has a fascination for old rigs, including the Swan 500 HF transceiver, ham shack software that enhances his on the air user experience, and a love for just getting on HF and operating.  One of the first to get DXCC operating FT8, Denny has a positive, "can-do", attitude that brings success to both his personal, professional, and amateur radio life.

In episode 33 of the QSO Today podcast, Dr. Greg Latta, AA8V, was described as a renaissance man, a master home-brewer who designs and builds the old tube rigs and fabricates the beautiful metal enclosures that encase them.  Greg is also a college physics professor who says that vacuum tubes are one of the best ways to provide to students a visual representation electrons in motion. We reprise and...

After running maritime mobile from his 40 foot sailboat for many years, Arnold Ziegel, W2HDI, switched to power boats and all of the challenges to amateur radio brought on by the new boat.  Not deterred by these challenges, W2HDI discovered remote control operation, over the Internet, from his new boat. We dive deeper into Arnold's ham radio story and remote operation in this QSO Today.

While exposed to amateur radio at an early age, it was not until Mark Rosenberg, 4X1KS, got his first license and upgraded quickly within a few short months, in Memphis, Tennessee.  In Memphis, Robert Barbee, W4AMI, became Mark's ham radio mentor driving Mark to satellite excellence. Now in Israel, Mark is active in just about every on-air activity, as well as being the consummate fixer and home-b...

Ken Oelke, VE6AFO, stepped up to the plate for his local amateur radio club and ended up making leadership in local and national Canadian amateur radio organizations the major focus of his ham radio activity.  Ken is now the president of the QCWA, the Quarter Century Wireless Association, when not operating both CW and SSB, or fixing one of his broken rigs. VE6AFO is my QSO Today.

Stephen Hicks, N5AC, is vice president of engineering for Flex Radio, is deep in to SDR or software defined radio, likes to chase grid squares in his microwave rover, and observes the growth and trends in our amazing amateur radio hobby.  From Steve's position on the cutting edge of technology, he has a lot to say in this QSO Today.

Tom Wright, NN2X, grew up in the sixties in the foster care system.  Amateur radio provided a way out of the system and into the US Army and a career in satellite communications.  Tom loves his family, the digital modes, especially the new FT8Call, and helping kids escape poverty by training them for careers in information technology. This QSO is packed with little jewels as NN2X shares his ham ra...

In addition to his may hobbies and interests, Ray Poularas, VK2GRP, restores vintage military surplus radios back to new condition by carefully tearing down the chassis to the bare metal and rebuilding, sometimes remanufacturing the parts by casting, milling, or 3-D printing.  Ray goes into great detail on his processes and also shares his time management tips that bring him success in all of his...

Mike Bryce, WB8VGE, collects and restores the old Heathkit and Drake rigs that we remember from the 60s and 70s, works QRP on his favorite Ten-Tec transceivers, and has enough solar electric power to run everything.  WB8VGE shares the background of all of these things and his current view of the state of ham radio in this QSO Today.