HRN 336 'Episode Name' (Facebook LIVE title test)

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This was not supposed to be an Episode.

It was just supposed to be a quick test on Facebook Live, checking out the work I'd done in Wirecast to be able to add titles to the video 'live' as I'm recording the show, rather than later in 'post production' (editing). We're tending to do most shows on Facebook Live as we record them, so we needed a title upgrade.

But I'm a wind-up toy. Put me in front of a mic and camera, and I perform. The 'test' ran over 20 minutes, and one of the clever viewers on Facebook said, "It should be a show." So it is. 

The title of this show, Episode Name, came from the 'generic' title I'd built as a placeholder so I could just fill in the title of whatever episode I'd be doing. I was planning ahead... just not for this to be a real episode. And it's still open to debate over whether or not it is a real episode. But at least the placeholder had the 'correct' episode number (336), if not a real date. And if you look carefully at the picture here, you'll notice that there is no drop shadow around the 'Episode Name' title. Wirecast's title maker keeps unclicking the shadow button. Eventually it seems to stick. 

AUDIO: Now the key word here is video. Except for the picture that some of you see in your podcast apps, the titles don't mean squat to you audio listeners. But I don't want you to feel left out. And in an earlier show I wrote that an episode would get a Radio Rating of F only if there was no sound at all. And I am talking here. And there are even a few sound effects. So this is a solid Radio Rating of D.

Scared you there with that bold F, didn't I?

- Gary KN4AQ

HRN 335: Fix It! with AC4ZO

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Co-co-hosts David Goldenberg W0DHG and Jeff Wittich AC4ZO join Gary to talk about troubleshooting techniques, centered on a problem Gary had with his ICOM 7000 mobile HF/VHF/UHF transceiver. And toward the end, David recounts an ARES drill that dovetailed with a real activation

In this episode, Jeff refers to a compound called bismuth that will lower the melting point of solder, making it easier to remove components from circuit boards - especially surface-mount components. Jeff and Gary visited the properties of bismuth in a previous episode, HamRadioNow #166, when Jeff swapped the driver transistors in Gary's Icom 756PROIII. Jeff will talk about it in a terrible online connection, followed by a telephone connection. Here's a link to Chip Quik. They make up their own name (Chip Quik Alloy), but that's probably bismuth.

Radio Rating? Well, this is a studio show, with Gary's new 3-way split-screen. But Gary set up a working radio in front of Jeff, and took a bunch of still pictures detailing the repair, and you kind of need to see them to really understand what they're talking about.

But that's maybe 30% of the show, leaving you 70% that you'll get fine by audio. Still, we'd feel a little dishonest with a Radio Rating greater than C. Not even C+. We'd like to, but we gotta sleep tonight. 

Below are the pictures Gary took while Jeff worked on the radio (the same pictures you'll see in the video). You can zoom in by right-clicking (or maybe Option-clicking on a Mac, or press-and-hold on a mobile device) to open the image in a new tab.

HRN 334: Field Day TOUR

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Gary joined NC Section Manager Karl Bowman W4CHX for a tour of 10 Field Day operations in western North Carolina. In between the site visits, they operated as 1C mobile. 

This show is basically a video documentary... a television show. So how much can you get from just the audio? Well, maybe more than you (we?) think. Theater of the mind? We were going to ding this show with a really low Radio Rating because of how long it too to edit the video, but after listening to a lot of it, you know, it's not such a bad radio show. So the Radio Rating is B-. Couldn't see our way clear to a solid B.

HRN 333: The HamKid

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Sam Reynolds KM4WDK is The HamKid.

The what now? Who says?

Well, he does, based on producing a couple of episodes of his new YouTube show The HamKid, being a ham, and being... well, a kid. Sam is 13, but he was licensed almost a year ago, when he was 12.

We'll talk about how he got into ham radio and YouTubing (is that technically podcasting?), scouting and stuff. And Gary will demo a side-by-side comparison of his PR-40 and a much cheaper Audio Technica mic, the ATR-2100 that all the podcasters are flocking to (at least those who don't have $350 to spend on a Heil mic). 

As a Skype show, there's not a lot to see besides our smiling faces. Radio Rating: A.

HRN 332: SNARS

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SNARS is the Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society, and literally yesterday (as I type this) their President, Tony Marcin W7XM, invited us to speak via Skype at their next meeting. Well, the next meeting was today, and while Tony was really thinking about some future date, this meeting happened to be open, so David and I jumped on it.

Of course we recorded it, and put it on Facebook live, and here it is! 

I present a lot of my history leading up to creating ARVN and then HamRadioNow, and David describes how he got involved in the program. Then I talk a little about the 'new media' landscape, and we take a few questions from the audience.

We've done the 'origin' story before, but hell, Spider-Man has done what... three of them? Maybe I cover something new. In any case, it's 99% talking heads, so the Radio Rating is 'A'.

And thanks for inviting us, SNARS!

 

Links:

HRN 331, BS #9: Field Day Review

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Just David W0DHG and Gary KN4AQ ruminating about the just-concluded Field Day.

Radio Rating: A+. Just stow those cameras in the storage case, Gary. Nothing to see here. Move along....

HRN 330, EmComm Extra #12: Auxcomm... Explained

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What is Auxcom(m)? 

Well, no surprise that a somewhat generic name (and ambiguous spelling) got applied to a few different concepts in auxiliary communications. HRN hosts David W0DHG and Gary KN4AQ wondered about it aloud in a few episodes.

That caught the attention of Steve Shroder KI0KY, an Assistant Emergency Coordinator for Colorado ARES Region 8. Steve explained it to us in an email, and we brought him on the show to explain it to you, assuming you were as confused as we were.

And since that only took a few minutes, we talked about how ARES, Emcomm and Auxcomm worked in his area, in the western mountains of Colorado.

Radio Rating: A! Woohoo. Gary hits a few web sites that might leave you in the dark (he tried to remember to say what they were). Here's the one you might really want to visit:

http://www.publicsafetytools.info/training/training_auxcomm_info.php

HRN (PhasingLine) 329: No morePOTA

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Phasingline podcaST . COM

Phasingline podcaST . COM

This is officially a PhasingLinePodcast, recorded in the SIB that we shared with Marty KC1CWF (the Chicken With Fries). So if you subscribe to their show, you've probably already heard this show. All we can add is the video.

Emily Saldana KB3VVE is (was) a self-described NPOTA addict. NPOTA is National Parks On The Air, the ARRL's year-long on-air celebration of the centennial of the USA National Parks system. It was a follow-up to the ARRL's own centennial celebration with W1AW stations operating from each state the previous year. While the W1AW event stations were limited to a select few in each state, NPOTA allowed for every ham who wanted to activate a national park to get out and create pile-ups.

Emily activated 53 parks, including the Statue of Liberty and several parks in the Washington DC area. That made her one of the top activators, as well as being one of the top chasers working as many parks as they could.

Emily documented her year with lots of pictures on her QRZ.com page. Gary stuck a bunch of them in the video.

And the Rapid Response activity that Gary fumbles to remember is actually the RaDAR Rapid Deployment of Amateur Radio group. They don't have a web site per se that we've been able to find. The link is a Google Group.

This talking-head show is another Radio Rating of A+. If you go look at Emily's pictures yourself.

HRN 328: Carl Laufer's RTL-SDR (from the 2017 Hamvention)

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Carl Laufer isn't a ham (yet), but he got caught up in the RTL-SDR craze in his home town, Auckland NZ, as he was completing his PHD. He began writing about them, and selling them, on his blog at www.RTL-SDR.com, and soon discovered that the little SDR receiver dongles could stand some improvement. So he designed ways to make them work better, and contracted a Chinese manufacturer to build them with his mods. That just about doubled the price, from $10 to about $20. Yeah, big deal.

TAPR invited Carl to come to the 2017 Dayton Hamvention to talk about them at both their Friday Forum (part of HamRadioNow Episode 324) and as the main speaker at the TAPR/AMSAT Banquet.

And we got him for a conversation with HamRadioNow's KN4AQ and PhasingLine's Chicken With Fries in the SIB back in Tent City.

Podcast listener's celebrate: this is another talking-head show with just a few graphics to spoil the perfect score. Makes you wonder why Gary even bothers with the cameras, doesn't it? Radio Rating: A+.

HRN 327; EmComm Extra #12: Rick Palm K1CE

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Rick Palm K1CE writes the Public Service column in QST Magazine for the ARRL. He also publishes the monthly ARRL E-Letter, with a compilation of ARES and other public service Amateur Radio activity. In this EmComm Extra, Rick joins HamRadioNow hosts David Goldenberg W0DHG and Gary Pearce KN4AQ for what's basically an EmComm Bull Session (but we stuck with the EmComm number, not a BS number, in a futile attempt to keep it simple).

Not only is this mostly a talking head show, but Rick – brand new to Skype – couldn't get his camera going. David was at lunch in a borrowed conference room with a hard cutoff time, so we went with a still picture of Rick from the mid-90's. So the only thing you'll miss is Gary's 80's-vintage graphics at the top of the show (you'll hear what they're for, so just think crappy TV and you'll be close enough).

That yields a Radio Rating of A+. Nothing to see here... move along....

HRN 326: What's Coming from D-STAR (from the 2017 Hamvention)

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Robin Cutshaw AA4RC (left), co-inventor of the DVDongle, DVAP, and the D-Plus networking system for D-STAR, and John Hays K7VE, co-founder and Marketing Director for NW Digital Radio join Marty (Chicken With Fries) and Gary KN4AQ for a discussion of digital voice radio, with a decidedly D-STAR focus.

If D-STAR is 'dying,' you couldn't tell it by these guys.

Radio Rating: A+. Oh, it's kind of fun to see Gary scrambling to pick up the power cords as a thunderstorm rolls by, and watch as the tent gets really dark during the peak of the storm. But otherwise this is a radio show with pictures. So plug in for your commute.

Learn how to SUBSCRIBE to the PODCAST.

HRN 325: Amateur Television

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This episode was recorded in the SIB* at the 2017 Dayton Hamvention, thunderstorms and all!

Mel Whitten K0PFX brought over Mike Collis WA6SVT, editor of ATV Quarterly, the magazine for Amateur Television, and that's what we talked about.

This is as general a conversation as a bunch of geeks can have, which means it lapses into the jargon and details of ATV now and then. But if you're not one of the ATV ops (and odds are strongly that you're not), you'll still get the flavor of this niche mode that everybody seems to mention when they tell the general public about ham radio ("Oh, and we have television!").

The big thing in ATV these days is the transition to digital. While FM voice operators can argue the merits and demerits of the digital voice modes (D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, etc.), Digital ATV is all upside. But there is still a lot of analog out there.

This show is 99% talking heads, so the Radio Rating is a big fat A. The only thing that robs is of a + is how loud the rain gets in the middle. 

You know, since this is all about television, you'd think Gary would have slugged in a bunch of ATV video as Mike and Mel talked about it. And while there is a lot of it on YouTube, Gary couldn't find any that came from the guys we were talking about. So if you want to see it, head to YouTube and search for Amateur Radio Television ATV. (Just plain "Amateur Television" will get some interesting results, but not what you're looking for).

*Studio In a Booth

HRN 324: TAPR Forum at the 2017 Hamvention

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Here's the TAPR Forum from the 2017 Dayton Hamvention.

And here's the breakdown of the segments, with links to the specific points in the YouTube video:

  • 00:00 Studio introduction by Gary KN4AQ
  • 9:20 Opening remarks by moderator Scotty Cowling WA2DFI and TAPR President Steve Bible N7HPR
  • 17:25 Low Cost, Open Source Spectrum Monitoring by Michael Ossmann AD0NR and Dominic Spill.
  • 40:39 Advanced SDR Algorithms for Noise Blanking and Noise Reduction by Warren Pratt NR0V.
  • 1:07:08 Introduction to RTL-SDR: Ultra cheap software defined radio by Carl Laufer.

AUDIO ONLY? This is a typical forum with Powerpoint slides. This group had more graphical slides than usual (so less 'just reading the slides'), which is good for the audience and the video, but it means you'll miss some useful stuff as you listen. They are generally well described. So as usual, go fill in from the YouTube video if you need it. Radio Rating: C.

By the way, sorry about the background noise. The lectern was right in front of a massive air conditioning intake, and it was pretty loud.

HRN 323: Hamvention Wrap-Up (or, Here's Mud in your Eye)

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Gary, David and Marty (the podcast wannabees) review the recently concluded Dayton Hamvention and Mudfest. 

This episode included a little more video, mostly of the mud, and an interview with Hamvention spokesperson Michael Kalter W8CI.

Spoiler alert: we declare it a (slightly qualified) success. And we'll be back next year.

AUDIO ONLY? Radio Rating: A- (the minus is because the mud video is pretty good). You can subscribe and get audio downloads to your phone. We're available on iTunes and pretty much any podcast app.

HRN 322: Hamvention Friday, Part TWO

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This wraps up our 2017 Hamvention Tour, recorded Friday, May 19. Gary checked out new stuff from FlexRadio (Gerald Youngblood K5SDR) and ICOM (Scott Honaker N7SS)... Marty was mad that Gary interviewed ICOM without him, but Marty was off exploring the hamfest.

Gary also serenaded Ward Silver N0AX, and caught up with his Indiana Stalker.

Marty returned to rant about Yaesu (no new products), then checked out some big Loop Antennas and Elad accessories.

On Saturday, we recorded four interviews in the SIB (Studio In A Booth) amid thunderstorms and small rivers under our feet. Those will be coming out soon. And with more bad weather rolling by on Sunday, we packed up and bailed out early. Tent City was not a good place for delicate electronics.

We'll be doing a Skype session with Marty and a very jealous David Goldenberg W0DHG to wrap things up. That'll include a little more B-Roll of the muddy flea market and parking lots, and an inpromptu review with Hamvention spokesman Michael Kalter. So stay tuned!

And just like Part ONE, this episode is pretty visual. Another Radio Rating of C-. Hang in there. The Saturday interviews are all talking-head.

HRN 322: Hamvention Friday, Part ONE

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On Friday, Gary KN4AQ spent the morning shooting the TAPR Forum in the nice, air-conditioned forum building. He went in and set up the cameras before the 'fest opened. He emerged to a full-fledged Hamvention, already in progress.

Gary and the Chicken With Fries (aka 'the Kid') toured as much of the hamfest as they could on Friday afternoon, talking to lots of people as they went. Gary even got Don Wilbanks AE5DW from Newsline and Ham Nation to do an interview for him. Give Don a mic and you don't even need to wind him up. 

Gary edited (and edited, and edited) until the next Friday afternoon hit. At the 45-minute point of the program, he called it Part ONE and pushed the render button. Part TWO will come out as soon as he gets it done, and not a minute sooner.

So... this is a TV show. Yes, there's a lot of talking, but there's also a fair amount of look at that. Which is really hard to do from this audio file. But by now you're used to that. Hit the YouTube when you can, if you want to. Radio Rating: C-.

And the picture some of you see? Hey, if you've got Don Wilbanks on your show, you're gonna use him!

HRN 321: Dayton Setup Day

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Thursday is the day most vendors arrive and set up at the Dayton Hamvention®. And because it was in a whole new place, we showed up early, got the booth we'll share with the Phasing Line Podcast ready, and then PL's Chicken with Fries and HRN's KN4AQ headed out to take a look around.

HRN 320: The Free Dating Show*

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Gary KN4AQ had a massiveish technical failure on his Wirecast system that records and switches the video for the shows (you audio listeners don't care, but it records the audio, too...). So Marty KC1CWF (Chicken With Fries) stepped in to put the show on Facebook Live (on the HamRadioNow Group). That meant Marty took over and declared the show a PhasingLine Podcast.

HamRadioNow co-host David Goldenberg W0DHG and HamTalkLive's Neil Rapp WB9BPG joined in for this free-for-all.

There's really nothing to see except Marty's mad switching of our faces, and a quick look at the tent that the Hamvention is setting up to house Building 6, where the HamRadioNow/PhasingLine booth will be. Just a big, white circus/wedding tent, so use your imagination. And be glad you can't see Marty's mad switching.

Radio Rating: A

* This was supposed to be the Pre-Dayton Show, but Gary used voice-recognition on his phone to enter the title into Facebook, and Google decided to call it the Free Dating Show. Who are we to argue with Google?

HRN 319: Hamfest Fun... Redux

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A fairly short medley of stories from my local hamfest:

  • Packet is Back. A new take on packet networking. Tadd Torborg KA2DEW describes the 'little' packet network he's developing in the Raleigh area.
  • Smoke & Solder. Engaging new hams in a useful construction project. Justin Pinnex AJ4MJ shows how a very popular J-Pole building project has been refined over more than a decade.
  • Reddit Spy. Gary infiltrates a Reddit meetup. 

The original Hamfest Fun from 2012: https://youtu.be/jxBOOH_usOU

Radio Rated C+. A fairly visual episode. But mostly interviews with B-roll.

HRN 318: Home on the (Antenna) Range

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Antenna Testing is a big part of the various VHF conferences held around the US and the world. They set up an antenna range and compare antennas against a known reference for gain and pattern. Results are published, and while there's little head-to-head competition, there are bragging rights.

Gary KN4AQ visited the antenna range at the Southeastern VHF Society conference, held this year (April, 2017) in Charlotte, NC. He poked around with his camera for a while, then talked to the guy who's been setting the range up for the past decade, Al Tirevold WA0HQQ.

Before and after the interview segment, Gary and co-host David W0DHG talk about the niche phenomenon of SSB and CW on VHF/UHF (and above). Yes, there is more to 2-meters than FM (and DV) and repeaters! Gary's ham-history goes back to the 60's, just before repeaters filled up most of the 144 and 440 bands. He recalls that there was a little SSB and a little more AM activity around 145.0, but mostly it was vacant space.

You might have noted the word camera in the description above. So yeah, this is one of those mini-doc videos, and you'll miss some with just the audio. There's plenty to get from the talky-talk, but those 40-element Yagi's and Loops are impressive. Gary's included all the raw B-Roll footage at the end of the YouTube video.

And that leaves a Radio Rating of C. Hey, it's not a D or an F. Let us know if you think our rating was fair!