This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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we go, welcome to Amtopi Calling let's talk,
Neil's your guy Amtopi, here we go Hey, good
evening, everyone. It's time for Ham Talk Live.
It's episode number 276. HamFest challenges recorded
live on Thursday, October 14th, 2021. I'm your
host, Neil Rapp, WP9BPG. Thanks for tuning in.
To this episode of HamTalk Live, tonight we're
joined by Michael Coulter, W8CI, Michael Colley
with this new call sign, W4ORL. and Mark Brown
in for BCD and we'll take your calls live a little
later in the show. Last week, Dr. Scott Wright,
KZeroMD was here to talk about how to get started
in contesting. So if you missed that show, you
can listen anytime by going to hamptalklive .com
or you can find it on your favorite podcast app
or you can also listen to it on YouTube and you
can catch the rebroadcast. Ham talk live every
Saturday afternoon at about 3 30 p .m. Eastern
time over on WTWW shortwave that's five zero
eight five on your am dial and so thanks to them
for carrying the show and Here tonight if you're
listening alive You'll be able to give us a call.
So get your questions ready to go for these three
I'll give you the phone number here in just a
second so you can write it down, type it in,
have it ready to go, but we'll talk to them for
a little bit first. That phone number is 859
-982 -7373. Again, 859 -982. You can also tweet
us, it's at HamTalk Live on Twitter and you can
comment on Spreaker as well if you're logged
in there and I'll be back with Michael, Michael
and Mark right after this word from Icom America
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This is your announcer Andy Morrison, K9AWM.
Why else would I be talking like this? You're
listening to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Welcome
back to HamTalk Live. Tonight, Michael Coulter,
W8CI, Michael Cawley, W4ORL, and Mark Brown in
for BCD. All join us. On the Orlando Amateur
Radio Club and Hamcation hotline, Michael Coulter,
WACI, is the official spokesperson of the Dayton
Hamvention. Michael resides in Zeno, Ohio and
is past president of the Dayton Amateur Radio
Association and former Hamvention general chairman
back in 2011 and 12. He is currently the treasurer
and a board member of DARA and the finance chair
for Hamvention. Michael Colley, W4ORL, is the
chairman of the Orlando Hamcation. He served
for seven years as the tailgate chairman, six
years as the IT chairman, and a year as finance
chairman. And he's been doing the general chair
for quite a while here now. And Hamcation, of
course, is sponsored by the Orlando Amateur Radio
Club. And Mark Brown, N4BCD's chairman of the
Huntsville Hamfest. Mark works at one of the
high -tech government contracting firms there
in Huntsville, Alabama. And he's been the president
of the North Alabama DX Club, the Huntsville
Amateur Radio Club, and is a member of both the
Tennessee and Alabama Contest Group. So guys,
it's great to have you all back again on the
show together to talk a little bit about some
HamFest. So good evening. Good evening, Michael.
And, uh, Michael and, uh, and Neil. Yep. Good
evening, everyone. Just evening. So, yeah, we,
we just do Michael squared. I think is we get
both of them in here. Well, we're going to start
off with Mark, uh, because Huntsville, uh, did
take place, um, in August. And so. Uh, that's
kind of the latest news. So we're going to start
with Mark. So, so I know, you know, there were
more challenges, uh, the, uh, the, uh, variants
of, of, of COVID -19, uh, the virus that causes
it, I should say, uh, Have been kind of up and
down and and so kind of caught a bad time there,
but you were able to still Go ahead, so tell
us how things went and and What were some of
the challenges of making that work? Well Neil
thanks for thanks for having us all on the show
tonight we we had a We had an interesting year,
all of us, as far as HamFest. We started back
in January. Normally, we start much earlier than
that, but with COVID and everything. Back in
January, we had more questions than answers.
And so we queried our Vaughan Braun Center and
Embassy Suites, our partners, and a non -binding
survey of the vendors. The indicators that we
heard back, the answers we heard back from the
VBC, the Von Braun Center, the indicators were
positive. There was pent -up demand by the vendors,
by the visitors. The vaccine rollout was occurring
nationally. The infection rates were going down.
The VBC told us the relaxed social distancing
rules for an indoor mass gathering were such
that we were able to plan 12 -foot aisles. One
of the big enablers was them allowing us to use
extra space in the South Hall so that we could
spread things out safely. And so when we got
all that stuff back together around February
15th, the declining curve and the infections,
we announced in a press release that we would
go for launch. And I think I appeared on your
show just a few weeks later to talk about this.
And all summer, things went really well. And
then around July 20th, the Delta variant of COVID
-19 started to rear its ugly head. And it was
a pretty steep slope and everybody was getting
very concerned. By then, pretty much the train
had left the station. So we focused on what we
could do to maintain a safe and successful event
because everybody's travel plans were set. We
had booked uh... the uh... the venue and it was
just one of those things we couldn't we couldn't
stop the train at that point and uh... it was
uh... it was a very busy a very tumultuous a
couple of weeks prior to the uh... prior to the
event uh... but you know when i stood in the
spiral staircase out outside the uh... south
hall in the in the what we call the pre -function
hallway and saw the saturday morning crowd and
uh... I thought, darn it, we made it. This is
gonna work. We had a great crowd and we opened
the doors at nine o 'clock and it was a great
ham fest. We had a few vendors that pulled out
prior to the event, but for those that were there,
they had very good sales. The forums were very
crowded. We had a bunch of YouTubers that were
there, many of them their first time to Huntsville.
And they covered the event very well for us.
The league had a huge presence. Bob Interbitsen
and several others from headquarters. I can't
recall the guys, the new president. He was there.
It was Rick Roderick was there with his wife
Holly. Several folks from the league. The Delta
Division director. The Southeastern Division
director. So we had a good league presence. So
we pulled it off. The Youth Lounge was a little
more visible this year because we kind of changed
things around and it was a huge success. We had
help from Flex Radio with a company called Remote
Ham Radio where they set up a couple of remote
stations where people could could get on the
air controlling a station remotely. And so the
youth lounge was just an unqualified success
this year because it was more visible. And that's
a lesson learned for us that we're gonna continue
to try to do that because I think we estimated
125 kids went through the youth lounge on Saturday
and Sunday. And I know, Neil, you're very heavily
involved with the... The youth youth camp for
for the kids and maybe I'll talk some more about
that But we're already looking forward to to
Orlando in February Dayton, of course, in May,
and we're already planning Huntsville Hamfest
2022. So we did take some time off afterwards
to decompress, but we just had our first meeting
a couple of days ago, and we're already planning
for 2022. Back to you, Neil. All right, yeah,
I got some live reports from the youth lounge.
Now that we've got this community of of young
hams in yoda we get live updates on online all
the time and so we saw what was going on down
there i know we sent some banners and some stickers
and some drawstring bags and some stuff to give
away down there and I know they were very happy
to put that on. Sounds like things went as well
as they could. I know, like you said, there were
some people who felt like they had to cancel
out. That's where we are right now. Hopefully
things will continue to improve. So what I want
to do right now is just kind of go around the
horn and Michael Colley, let's start with you
since since you're the next up chronologically
here about what the challenges are and you know,
you can even talk about what you did last year,
you know to during the weekend of What was supposed
to be hamcation? And then you know some of the
challenges that that you're having to plow through
here for hopefully 2022 Yeah, first let me congratulate
mark on a wonderful show hamcation was there
with a booth and he was right when the door is
open pretty much for the first I would say four
hours We were non -stop at our booth. Our booth
was actually one of two booths you saw right
when you walked in the door, so we got everybody
right when they come in. And it was very crowded,
very good show, large aisles, everybody was safely
distanced. Stuff like that in there. So it was
an excellent show around applause to mark and
his group for Actually holding probably the only
large hand fest in 2021 Thank You Michael So
as for our event we did hold a Virtual hand fest
it went very well. It was very well perceived
Everybody loved all the the forms that we did
online that we made available to everybody So
everybody loved the prizes that we give out So
that pretty much kept our game out there for
2021 But we're in full swing for 2022. It is
our 75th show and it will be the ARL National
Convention for 2022 So right now we're pretty
much getting everything booked up all the hotels
or we partner with them already. Everything is
live on the website Some of the things I know
one thing you asked some of the things that we're
running into I'll put this out there for everybody.
That's planning ham fest coming up Make sure
that you Get everything booked early They haven't
been shows for so long People are going back
to having shows now and the availability of stuff
equipment trying to get equipment in The other
big thing that our shows are gonna run into now
is availability of prizes It's very hard to get
some of these ham radios because there's none
in stock anywhere So these are things the challenges
we're gonna run into especially for our event
and I'm pretty sure hopefully it'll be a lot
better by the time Hamvention gets here but it
could be something they could run into is just
availability of everything yet. And the other
thing that you really have to look out for now
is the availability of volunteers with the virus
still out there and I don't see it being gone
by February. Just got to make sure volunteers
feel safe to come out and make sure you have
enough volunteers for everything. So, that's
pretty much it for us. There is a couple new
things that we are going to be doing this year.
One of them is we're partnering with ICOM. They're
going to be sponsoring our special event station.
So if you want to check out the new 7610 and
a 9700, that will be in our special event station
during hamcation so people can come check it
out. And one of the other big things we're doing
this year is we're partnering with hamstudy .org
and exam tools, and we will be doing 100 % paperless
exams at hamcation. So when you come in, you'll
pre -register, you'll come in, pick up a tablet,
put your information in, you will take the exam
on the tablet, everything is graded electronically,
and pretty much you leave. So that's one of two
things that's coming up that's gonna be exciting
for hamcation in 2022. Wow, that's a cool idea
to have that and makes the grading that much
quicker. and keep from passing papers back and
forth. So that's a great idea. So sounds like
things are progressing pretty well there. And
then we go to Michael Coulter, W8CEI, for the
big one, which is now just up the road for me.
So how are things coming along? I know planning
Hamvention is a year round thing no matter what.
Absolutely. Let me say a few things first. I
want to say hello and a thank you to our 700
-plus volunteers and I'm happy to be sort of
representing them on this program. And Mark,
congratulations to you and your team for an absolutely
outstanding event in the face of a whole lot
of issues when the variant was really rearing
its face there. You guys marched ahead with it
anyway. And Michael, I am absolutely looking
forward to coming down to hamcation. And it should
be another wonderful event. And it sounds like
you're really doing some new innovative things.
And Neil, to you, thanks for having us on the
program and doing this together. And congratulations
to you, Neil, on all the great work that you've
done with Yoda. Now, as far as intervention goes,
you know, we have 30 ,000 plus people usually
show up and it's growing. We have already had
several meetings doing a whole lot of things
right now in preparation for it. One of the exciting
things is, you know, there's a building there
where we have a lot of the youth activities and
presentations and that building is now air conditioned
and we worked to make that happen between the
Dayton Amateur Radio Association and the Green
County Expo Center. So we're pretty excited about
that to have some air conditioning in there.
And the lighting's been upgraded in several of
the buildings. There's some new fans. The air
movement equipment has all been updated. And
that's a big deal to move that air through there.
So I think that as we move along, there'll be
more and more exciting things that we will reveal.
And, you know, having lost Handvention for two
years is, boy, it's almost unthinkable. But it
happened. But we had to do that because there's
so much forward planning and our event is very
international in nature. And at that time, we
weren't able to have people coming in from all
over the world who couldn't even come in from
Canada. So we knew that and we knew the planning
was going to be, you know, a lot of people were
still questioning back at the time. So we had
to cancel relatively early to give people a chance
to make plans and not spend a lot of money at
that time. By the way, I also want to thank WTWW
for their work in getting your programs out,
Neil. So back to you, Neil. Okay, well, you know,
that's a great update and sounds like the fairgrounds
has taken advantage of some of the downtime to
to make some upgrades and and yeah, I know the
air conditioning was So loud in the youth form
we couldn't couldn't hear a lot of times and
so it sounds like that's been rectified now,
so that's That's great news Mark let's Mark Brown,
let's shift the focus here a little bit to 2022.
You're probably still balancing the books and
everything else. I know I just finished that
with Yoda and that was in July. So I'm sure you're
still kind of wrapping things up from last year,
but I know you've already made some progress
on next year. Yeah, Neil. we looked at uh...
how we did this year uh... we didn't lose too
much uh... as as uh... as a ham fest we try to
operate as a on a break even basis uh... what
we what we bring in you know goes out basically
to uh... to support not just the event but uh...
you know the the local clubs that uh... the volunteers
are involved with and uh... and various amateur
radio uh... beneficiaries We had a lowered attendance
this year. I think we're pleased to say that
we had 4 ,069 this year, 4 ,069 attendees versus
the 5 ,088 two years ago in 2019. I would consider
that a win, the fact that we didn't lose too
much. We're still solvent. We're able to, we've
got enough seed money to have the Hamfest next
year. And so we're happy for that. But we don't
have an exact figure yet. It's a little too early.
The financial people are still tallying up the
books. But to a comment that Michael Colley made,
we lost three out of 125 volunteers due to the
Delta variant. Their concern after signing up
to help us with the event They backed out, so
that's a metric that I wanted to share with the
other Hamvention and Hamcation planners. There
weren't as many as we feared that backed away
from helping because they really did want to
see this event succeed. And so a lot of our volunteers
did show up. They were there for the party. Some
folks wore masks, some not. It was a personal
choice. We're thankful that it was a successful
and safe event. Well, you know, there's a lot
of tough decisions and none of these decisions
have been easy. It's, you know, do we go ahead?
Do we not? And then you kind of got caught in
the middle of, okay, we're already past the point
of no return here. And so we got to go with it.
And I'm sure great efforts were taken to make
sure that it was as safe as possible. And you
were able to come up with something. And yeah,
I'd say, is that about a, I can't do the math
in my head, but the percentage there is not too.
Not too bad, really, considering what's going
on that you lost in attendance. Sounds good.
All right. Well, we're going to take a break.
When we come back, we're going to talk a little
more with these three, and we're going to open
up the phone line so you can give us a call at
859. 9827373 or tweet us or type in your comments
on Spreaker and we'll answer some questions when
we come back after this word from Tower Electronics
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Here's Neil rap with more ham talk live. Oh Yeah,
you're talking ham radio, baby You're listening
to ham talk live with Neil rap Welcome back to
Am Talk Live. Tower Electronics will be in Chickasaw,
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November 6th and 7th. Fort Wayne, Indiana, November
13th and 14th. Montgomery, Alabama. Ocala, Florida
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Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time, right
here at HamTalkLive .com. And be sure to check
us out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Open
up the phone lines, it's time for the Ham Radio
Joke of the Week. Now it's time for the HamTalk
Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week, the part of
the show where Rick tells us a ham radio joke.
The HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week is
brought to you by QRM Labs. Now, here's Rick
Garrett in 9GSU with today's HamTalk Live Joke
of the Week. I like to log my contacts on Logbook
of the World, but since I live on a farm, sometimes
it's difficult. However, I go next door to my
neighbor's horse farm because there's always
a stable connection there. It's a stable connection.
All right. Well, thank you, Rick, for the joke
and we'll hear what he has to come up with again
next week. All right, so it's time for your calls.
If you have a question for the HamFist crew here,
give us a call right now. The number again is
859. 9 8 2 73 73 or you can tweet us it's at
ham talk live on Twitter and if you're on Spreaker
and logged in you can type in the comments and
But if you're listening to us on WTWW or on the
podcast version of the show You won't be able
to reach this live since we're doing this here
on Thursday night so We want to talk a little
bit about how, you know, these three groups are
kind of supporting each other and helping. But
I know Michael Colley, W4ORL has, and I'm still
trying to get used to not saying W4MCA, but has
something else to announce about hamcation. So,
Michael, take it away. Did forget to mention
actually we Actually partnering with the fairgrounds
and actually making an investment in fairgrounds
are still at Central Florida fairgrounds by For
all of our RV visitors that come in Most RV is
the newer ones take 50 amp connections for power
and we're actually partnering with the fairgrounds
to double our Capability of 50 amp connections
for this year And so currently we had around
33, 35 of them. And we're actually going to double
that to above 60, 50 amp connections. All the
info is on the website. And what we're going
to actually do every year until we max out our
connections, we'll be adding more 50 amp connections
every year. So you have a choice of 30 and 50s
that you can actually get it. The other thing
I had was with the national convention on that
Thursday, they will actually be doing training
tracks at a hotel locally. So if you want more
information about that, you can go to arrl .org
slash expo. That should be live by November 1st,
where you can actually register if you want to
take the training tracks. And one of the training
tracks I do know, and I can mention it, will
be Contest University, that they actually do
at Hamvention. They're bringing it to Hamcation
this year for the ARL training tracks. Okay.
Well, big news there, so. Thanks for letting
us know about that and I'm sure the RV crowd
will be very happy to hear that they'll have
some more opportunities to get the juice that
they need. Michael Coulter, let's talk a little
bit about... the support. I know you, you know,
uh, you, you kind of host the gathering place
there that I'm finishing for everybody to kind
of get together and shoot some ideas off of each
other. So talk a little bit about the support,
uh, between the groups. Yeah. I guess that, um,
it's not a matter of collusion. It's a matter
of trying to support each other. We don't really
talk about the financial end of things. You know,
I've been questioned and I'm pretty tight lipped
about our financial stuff as and the other guys
respect that and I respect that part of it. So
that's an important thing I wanted to get out.
But what we do like to try to do is support each
other in ideas and problems that we've had. how
we see things going because if they are successful
and we're successful that means that all of amateur
radio is going to benefit and that's exactly
what what we're trying to do as a is working
together as a team you know it's never us against
them and us against each other and it was that
way at one time but it's definitely not there
now And these guys came up with lots of good
ideas, and it's been a very good kind of working
relationship. Mark, your comments on that? I
couldn't agree more with Michael's comments.
You know, when we put on our individual handfests
as hosts, we're very busy. But a couple of years
ago, I inherited this chairmanship in Huntsville,
and I traveled to Orlando, and I happened to
stay at the same hotel as the Dayton contingent.
And in Orlando, sitting in a hotel with the Dayton
guys, with Michael, with Jack Gerbs, with Rick
and the other guys from Dayton, I learned so
much, and we shared ideas. You know, I was new
to this ham -vest thing and I learned so much
from those guys until Jack's wife kicked us out
of the room late at night. But it was a great,
great experience. And then the parallel to that
is up in Dayton, you know, the Dayton guys are
relaxed and they have extra time and we... We
talk and we gather. We gather for dinner. We
stay at the same hotels. And we share ideas.
Like Michael says, we share ideas. We don't collude.
And we adopt best practices and just brainstorm.
And out of brainstorming comes great ideas. And
I gotta say that it's just been a win for all
of us to have a close working relationship and
to know all of these guys. All right, and Michael
calling Yeah, I couldn't agree more with both
Mark and Michael it has come a long way Since
pretty much our first time up at Invention actually
sitting outside Michael's trailer he wanted to
get a little powwow of us and Mark and him and
that's pretty much what started it all And pretty
much like Mark said every year, pretty much it's
hard at our own ham fest to do this. But when
we travel around two years ago, when we went
to Huntsville, all the guys from there was there
with their booth, just like we were. And we did
the same thing. We hung out in the hotel there,
talked to them at night, trading ideas, stuff
like that. And then just like when we go to Dayton
the same thing happens there with Mark and Usually
Kelly from hamvention. We usually stay at the
same hotel and same thing happens. We just sit
around and talk about ideas Stuff that works
for us that could work for them and even stuff
that didn't work for us We share that with them
because it might work for them every ham fest
different But yeah, I mean and just like Michael
said we're not out to compete with each other
If Huntsville does good, Hamvention does good,
we do good. The amateur radio community thrives
from that. It makes everybody grow. The vendors
all grow. So yeah, it's just about sharing ideas.
And one thing we did start doing that I put out
there. for a lot of the smaller hamfests that's
trying to grow, shoot us an email. I'm open to
help y 'all. Give you ideas. I do know one hamfest
coming up that we're going to that actually did
this was Stone Mountain. And those guys actually
come to hamcation. They have a booth down there
now. They go around. They talk to my guys. Some
of them actually shadow some of our chairman
just to learn. Show that happened in Stone Mountain
actually grew because of it. They got new vendors.
They got more people going there So and I'm pretty
sure mark and Michael's also open to this to
help other hand fest even grow The more hand
fest out there the better it is for the community
All right, well the phone number if you want
to chime in is eight five nine nine eight two
seventy three seventy three we are uh... just
about done here so if you want to do that now's
the time to do it eight five nine ninety two
seventy three seventy three or i really appreciate
you know all of the work that you you all do
to make these things happen i know when i'm there
uh... i'm usually running around from here and
there and Like usual I have 20 places I got to
be at the same time and so I'm just kind of running
around but You know, it's it's so Nice to have
things well laid out predictable You know knowing
where things are gonna happen what's gonna happen
and and knowing that you all are Really putting
forth the effort to make it the best possible
experience that you can Just makes things so
much easier. And so I thank you all for that.
Well We also want to mention one of our listeners
here tonight John in for JTK is actually the
one who set all this up so we want to thank John
for for suggesting the show and and getting everybody
together and and making it happen. So thanks
to John Nodden for JTK from Orlando as well.
And let's see over here on Twitter, Karen Eve
Murray, Katie2GUT says, I'm using my stable connection
to listen to HamTalk Live tonight, enjoying this
positive forward looking discussion. So. Thank
you, Karen, for listening. I knew you'd love
the stable joke. So there we go. All right. Well,
I'm looking at the clock and we've got like three
minutes left. So let me just go around for any
final comments here. And I guess we're going
to tie a bow on this one. So let's see. Let's
go back to Michael Coulter. All right. Well,
once again, thank you. And thanks to my... Hello
to John Knott down there in Florida. And really
you should be on here too. You've done so much
for amateur radio. But there's so many people
that operate in different spheres in the radio
community. And we're just a very small fraction
of it. You know, the things that you do, Neil,
and so many people who are really putting a lot
of time and energy into you know, keeping it
alive, making it even more interesting and bringing
on more people. But I'm really happy to be here,
happy to talk to you guys. And it's true, I am
good on QRZ. And if anybody has any questions
that I can help them with, or any one of us,
just send us an email. All right, very good.
Well, we're looking forward to Hamvention soon.
So that'll be great. Michael, let's go to you.
Pretty much the same thing as Michael said. It's
thank you for having us on the show. Thank Mark
and Michael for being here. And the biggest thing
like Michael always says, just don't forget about
all the volunteers out there. It takes an army
to put on these shows. from several hundred to,
like Michael's case, over 700. We're up to four
to five hundred now ourselves for hamcation.
So just remember everybody's volunteers out here.
We're all working for the same thing to make
amateur radio better. And if anybody has any
questions, please email me. And I am good on
QRZ also. And just again, thank you for everything
you've done. Neil, especially with the Yoda stuff
and also looking forward to hamcation in 2022
and Hamvention in 2022 this year Yeah, I'm ready
for all of it. I am ready to go so Hopefully
things will continue on a path where or we can
uh... get everybody together get the gang back
together again so that that's uh... something
to look forward to for sure alright mark i guess
you're going to get the last word tonight Okay,
well, thanks Neil and thanks everybody and John
too for planning and getting this rolling. I
won't repeat what Michael and Michael said, but
just to let everybody know that there's, remind
everybody, there's no substitute for these in
-person hamfests. You know, I think so much time
went on when we kind of fooled ourselves that
these Zoom meetings, these virtual events, were
a good substitute. in the South Hall when there
were 2 ,000 conversations going on among the
4 ,000 people there. It was hard to describe
the vibe, the feel. And getting a hug from Carol
Perry, who came down from New York, and the league
guys that were anxious and happy to get out of
Connecticut. Getting everybody in one place and
seeing in -person HamFest again. I'm excited
for Orlando, guys, and we'll see you in February.
Thanks, everybody, and I'll back to you, Neil.
All right, Mark. Yeah, that's it's always a must
get it get a hug from Carol. So there we go Well
guys, thank you so much for taking the time to
be here tonight. We look forward to hearing more
as the plans continue and Hoping that 2022 is
a much less challenging year for a lot of respects
So thanks so much for being here, and that is
a wrap for this week's edition of HamTalk Live.
Thanks to my guests, Michael Coulter, W8CI from
Hamvention, Michael Colley, W4, oh, I put the
wrong call sign again, W4ORL, and Mark Brown,
N4BCD and everyone out there in cyberspace for
listening and calling in and typing in and invite
you back next Thursday night, 9 p .m. Eastern
Time. And you can check out our list of upcoming
guests at HamTalkLive .com. So for now, this
is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7 -3, 7 -5, and
may the good DX be yours. Well you came right
back to my security call Your readability five
and strength nine You never once mentioned your
well -