Thanks for tuning in. HamTalk Live will be on
the air shortly. Please stand by. This episode
of HamTalk Live is brought to you by Tower Electronics.
For connectors, cables, and more, call 920 -435
-2973 or visit pl -259 .com. And by ICOM, heard
it, worked it, logged it. Visit www .icomamerica
.com slash amateur for more information about
ICOM radios. Welcome to Amtopi Calling Let's
Talk Neil's your guy Amtopi Good evening everyone.
It's time for ham talk live episode number 251
Open lines Thursday recorded live on Thursday,
March 18 2021 I'm your host Neil rap WB 9 VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of ham talk
live tonight. It's open lines Thursday So whatever
you want to talk about give us a call tonight.
We're gonna leave the phone lines open Throughout
the show at eight five nine nine eight two seventy
three seventy three. So if you have something
you want to talk about we're gonna give that
a try tonight, but I did want to get something
in here and So Matt Deutsch in zero RGT the chief
engineer at WWV Will be with us here in just
a minute and we're gonna find out about some
news about some upgrades going on at WWVB and
We'll take your calls live in just a few minutes
Last week here on the show Lou Maggio, you know
to see Sally Rosado k2ryd and John Amadeo a 6j
a we're here to talk about the last man standing
special event which starts on Wednesday March
24th. If you missed the show, you can listen
anytime at HamTalkLive .com or on your favorite
podcast app or on YouTube. And you can catch
the rebroadcast of HamTalk Live on WTWW. That's
5 .085 a .m. Saturday afternoons at about 3 .30
p .m. Eastern time is when it runs over there
on WTWW. And thanks to them for rebroadcasting
the show. So get your questions ready to go and
your comments if you're listening to us live
on Thursday night. You can give us a call. I'll
give you that phone number again eight five nine
nine eight two seventy three seventy three You
can also tweet us. It's at hem talk live on Twitter
and and you can type in the comments here tonight
on Spreaker if you like and that's kind of like
a chat room kind of thing. So we'll be looking
forward to hearing what you have to say tonight
and We'll also like I said talk to Matt here
for just a couple of minutes here at the beginning
of the show to find out what's going on over
at WWV. So I'll be back with Matt right after
this word from Tower Electronics right here on
HamTalk Live. Hey honey, have you seen the PL259s
anywhere? No I haven't. Come on kids, let's go!
There's just one place to go for all of your
connector needs. Tower electronics. A giant warehouse
of connectors and adapters for every occasion.
Thousands to choose from in every shape, size,
and color. And they have antennas, soldering
supplies, cables, meters, and more. Where do
you go if you want to buy a connector at a fraction
of retail cost? Tower electronics. And this weekend
only, take advantage of our They make great Christmas
presents. And what better way to say I love you
than with the gift of a PL 259. Tower Electronics.
Tower Electronics. Tower Electronics. I'm Scott,
KB9AMM of Tower Electronics. I like the PL259
connectors so much, I bought the company. Tower
Electronics, coming to a hand fest near you,
or online at pl -259 .com. And we're on the yellow
pages under amateur radio connectors. My, wherever
did you get that lovely PL259? Tower Electronics,
pl -259 .com. or call 920 -435 -2973. Do we sell
PL259 connectors? At HamTalk Live, we have a
million dollar request guarantee. You give us
a million dollars and we'll do a show about whatever
ham topic you request. Guaranteed! Welcome back
to HamTalk Live. We'd like to thank Scott and
Jill at Tower Electronics for sponsoring the
show tonight to help bring you HamTalk Live.
They're gonna be at Fort Walton Beach, Florida,
March 19th and 20th. That's this weekend. And
then Fort Payne, Alabama, March 27th. And then
coming up, Sandwich, Illinois, Newberry, Michigan,
and Monroe, Michigan a little later on. But you
can visit them anytime at PL -259 .com. So welcome
back to the show. Deutsch N0RGT joins us on the
Orlando Amateur Radio Club and hamcation line.
Matt has been the chief engineer at WWV and WWVB
for the National Institute of Standards and Technology
in Fort Collins, Colorado since 1989. From 1979
to 1991, he was an electronics technician. for
the Coast Guard and Matt became a ham in 1992.
So if you have a question about the changes here
at WWV give us a call right now at 859 -982 -7373
or you can tweet us at HamTalk Live. Now we're
changing that around a little bit normally we
wait for the calls but we're taking calls right
now at 859 -982 -7373. 73 or again tweet us at
ham talk live and if you're listening to us on
WTWW or on the podcast edition You won't be able
to reach us because we're doing this on Thursday
night. So Matt Thanks for coming on the show
here on short notice and telling us a little
bit about Some exciting stuff going on at work
Well, thank you Neil. It's good to be back Good
evening. And yeah, just to reiterate this is
a an upgrade that's going on at WWVB, which is
a 60 -kilohertz station here on the WWV site.
And yeah, we're upgrading some of the equipment.
It's going to be transparent to the users, but
we are increasing our reliability. Well, I just
finished recording this week's amateur radio
news line, and there was a story there. about,
you know, it may be down to one antenna and the
power might be reduced and there might even be
a few outages and those will be noted on the
website and all that kind of thing. So tell us
what you're up to on this 60 kilohertz, 60 kilohertz,
right? Yes, 60 kilohertz station. This is, it's
a binary coded decimal. Actually we have two
modulation types on the carrier but it's a 60
kilohertz carrier modulated by amplitude modulation
and then a phase shift modulation also and there
are clocks available out there for both types
of modulation and the people are probably mostly
familiar with the use of the signal with radio
-controlled clocks hang on your wall and wristwatches
and such that people have my mother -in -law
has a talking radio -controlled wristwatch which
is fairly new, I guess. But yeah, there's no
audio on this carrier. It's just all, just a
modulated carrier. And what we're doing is improving
the reliability. We had some money granted to
us to upgrade the, what we call our matrix primarily.
And what we have is three transmitters. antennas
and a dummy load and what we can do is put we
have two transmitters on the air at any given
moment one going to our north antenna and one
to our south and then the third one can be put
in the dummy load if we need to test or operate
in a dummy load to figure out some problems but
right now we manually have to switch between
we can match you know transmitters to to certain
antennas and that's all done through the matrix.
We have to do it manually and what we're doing
is improving our reliability by doing a motorized
matrix built by Contronics that will be able
to be controlled remotely so we can, like I said,
improve the station reliability in the sense
that if there's a problem with a transmitter
during a storm or such and we just had a really
bad two foot snow storm and windy conditions
this past weekend. But what we'd be able to do
is if there's a problem with the transmitter,
we could switch transmitters on the air onto
different antennas rather than having to come
out here and do that manually. That's a big improvement.
Especially if you're the one that has to go through
two feet of snow to get there. We did have a
big storm as I said this last weekend and we
did have a power transfer problem and one of
the technicians and I had it come out. He had
his four wheel drive pick up and we still got
stuck in some big snow drifts, had to walk the
rest of the way into the station. So if we can
do that, you know, switching around from the
comfort of our homes, that'd be much improved.
And there is another project coming up. Next
month, we're actually going to replace the automatic
transfer switch, the one that goes between commercial
power and generator power. We are upgrading that
also. So, yeah, not exciting stuff, but if you
like reliability, it's exciting to us and being
able to avoid downtime, which we always like
to do is improve our uptime. So through the rest
of the month here, there may be a few quick outages
and some signal drop and that kind of thing.
So if anybody is watching that, which if it were
on some of the other bands, I would probably
notice it because I'm always using WWV to make
sure receivers work. But if anybody's watching
the 60 kilohertz signal and you see some some
variation in it that's what's going on and I
know you'd mentioned that if it was a prolonged
thing that there would be a notation on the website
for that yes that's correct we do have to work
on one antenna system at a time we are Improving
some of the the tuning controls also we're going
from an AC motor to a DC motor in the in the
helix houses where the Tuning goes on when the
antenna ice is up or when it's windy we in the
antennas large variometer inside the helix houses
and we're replacing the control equipment and
so Like I said, we have to work on one antenna
at a time. So we'll be switching just to a single
antenna for certain periods back and forth, and
then also some testing of the software and such
that's going to be controlling a lot of this.
So we will have some brief outages every now
and then. And I know there are people out there
that do follow the signal, you know, AMS and
other radio enthusiasts that use the signal for
propagation or whatever, and you can go to our
wwwvb webpage and there's a status of a grid
or a chart that shows signal strength and how
will the signals be received in La Crosse, Wisconsin
and then in Athersburg in Maryland. If people
are interested in propagation or just knowing
if the station's up or down they can check those
sites too. All right, very good. Well I know
you said The crew just took off and you're about
ready to go home, so I don't want to keep you
much longer here tonight, Matt, but thanks for
telling us about what's going on there, and you're
expecting to have this all done at the end of
the month, or is that going to go on into April?
The deadline, I think, is April 2nd for the Matrix
project, and then the... As soon as that's over
we're going to start the automatic transfer switch
for the generator commercial power switching
and there may be a few brief interruptions also
during that but by the end of April I'd say everything's
been buttoned up and everything will be looking
better. Okay and if you want to hear more about
that generator we talked about that on a previous
episode so you have to check that out if you're
interested in the and the backup generator there
that was just upgraded. What was that, two years
ago? It seems like two or three years ago, yeah.
Yeah, okay. Well Matt, thanks so much for being
here and best of luck on the project. So I hope
Murphy stays away and we'll be talking to you
again soon. Okay, thank you Neil. I appreciate
it. Thank you for having me on. All right, that's
Matt Deutsch in Zero rgt from wwv so if you like
said if you see some fluctuations on that why
that's what's going on all right well we've got
a lot of stuff to talk about tonight but we need
some phone calls so we're going to take our break
and then we're going to come back and we're going
to take your calls and and talk about a variety
of things tonight. So we'll do that after this
word from ICOM America right here on HamTalk
Live. The great outdoors is calling. Get outside
and under the stars with one of ICOM's ultimate
SDR transceivers. Stay connected while off the
grid. The IC -705 is the perfect transceiver
for hams who enjoy both the great indoors and
outdoors. It's the perfect QRP companion. The
space station has features and functionality
at the tip of your fingers in a portable package
covering hf 6 meters 2 meters 70 centimeters
and just under 2 pounds. It has a 4 .3 inch color
touchscreen with live band scope and waterfall,
5 watts with a battery, 10 watts with a power
supply, it runs AM, FM, CW, sideband, full D
-star functions and has integrated GPS, micro
USB connector, Bluetooth, wireless LAN and micro
SD card slot, and the speaker mic comes standard.
The perfect accessory for the IC705 is the optional
backpack with a special compartment for your
705 and room for accessories. Visit the IC705
webpage to view those accessories. accessories,
and free software available for download. Or
create your own band opening with the IC9700.
This transceiver brings direct sampling to the
UHF -VHF week signal world. This all -mode transceiver
is loaded with innovative features that are sure
to keep you busy. With a 4 .3 -inch color touchscreen
with real -time spectrum scope and waterfall,
smooth satellite operation with 99 satellite
channels, dual watch operation, and full duplex
operation in satellite mode. VHF UHF World with
ICOM's IC9700. Heard it, worked it, logged it.
ICOM's IC7300 is a high -performance, innovative
HF transceiver with a compact design that will
far exceed your expectations. This innovative
HF transceiver digitizes RF before various receiver
stages to reduce the generated inherent noise
in different IF stages. The IC7300 is the radio
that changed the way entry -level HF is designed.
With RF direct sampling, 15 discrete bandpass
filters, a large 4 .3 -inch color touch real
-time spectrum scope and SD memory card slot.
The real HF fun starts here. Visit icomamerica
.com slash amateur for more information on ICOM
radios. If you're a fan of Tim Allen's TV series
Last Man Standing, you'll have a final chance
to contact the show's amateur radio club station
before it goes QRT. The week -long KA -6 LMS
radio special event starts on March 24th at 0000
UTC and runs through 2359 UTC on March 30th.
This will be an all -mode, all -band event. KA6
LMS QSL cards will be available for stations
who contact the stage directly or through relay
stations. Special event certificates, including
clean sweep endorsements, will be available via
download. For more information, go to www .gsbarc
.org slash lms. Join the conversation. Give us
a call at 859 -982 -7373. Again, the number to
call is 859 -982 -7373. Or, if you'd rather type
than talk, tweet us at HamTalk Live. Now, here's
Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live. You get a 5
-9. You get a 5 -9. Everybody gets a 5 -9. You're
listening to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Welcome
back to HamTalk Live! Thanks to ICOM America
for bringing the show your way each week every
Thursday night at 9 p .m. right here at HamTalkLive
.com and be sure to check us out on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram and tonight it's open
lines so give us a call at 859 9827373. Again,
the phone number 859 -9827373. Or you can tweet
us, it's at HamTalk Live, and if you're listening
to us on the TWW edition or the podcast edition,
you won't be able to reach us because it's Thursday
night when we're... airing this and I've got
a lot of stuff here to talk about so so maybe
this is something we'll talk about tonight and
If you want to chime in give us a call at eight
five nine nine eight two seventy three seventy
three There's Lot of people buying houses right
now And I may be one of those were getting close
to to possibly closing a deal on one and And
yes, there's an HOA and so At some point Probably
gonna have to Draw up a proposal and see you
know what I can do. So If you want to talk about
HOAs and the antenna restrictions and how to
approach an HOA and that kind of thing Maybe
that's something you'd like to talk about tonight.
So call in at eight five nine nine eight two
seventy three seventy three and we've got some
other stuff we're going to talk about but first
I know everybody's been waiting with great anticipation
for the Joke of the Week, so here it is, the
N9GSU 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, N9GSU, with today's HamTalk Live
Joke of the Week. I was having issues with the
computer in my shack so I took it apart and there
was a little man in overalls living inside of
it. Turns out I had a farmer in the dell. This
has been the Ham Talk Live. Ham radio joke of
the week with Rick Garrett in 9GSU. Tune in again
next week for another joke from Rick. Oh, there
you go. He did it again. 859 -982 -7373 is the
phone number if you're not watching the basketball
games And you can tweet us at ham talk live again
Maybe we'll you know talk about approaching HOA's
or anything. It's open lines. It's your opportunity
so give us a call 859 -982 -7373 there are a
couple of things that I want to talk about Otherwise,
that are going on. First of all, the Papa Phil
challenge, we've been talking about that. Phil
Ross, AB8PR is looking for a matching kidney
and looking for a living donor for that. Otherwise,
he will probably end up on dialysis. Be a whole
lot better for you if he didn't do that. So Christian
K zero STH and Alex W7H you are doing some stuff
on YouTube On 100 watts and a wire and w7h you
Alex. Those are the names of the shows over on
YouTube trying to find a compatible donor and
raise some awareness and you can check out the
Papa Phil website at Papa Phil can .com and they're
on the air with a special event call sign and
that's going to wrap up on Saturday so you just
have a couple of days left they'll be on 17 20
40 and 80 meters through Saturday March 20th
sharing Phil's story and Again, it's K4P is the
special event call sign. And they'll be on Sideband
and FT8. They have special QSL cards. A downloadable
digital certificate will be available and things.
So just trying to raise some awareness. So thanks
to Christian and Alex for doing that. So check
them out. Check out the special event this weekend
Also, don't forget the the big special event
coming up next week starting on Wednesday is
the last man standing and that's a week -long
special event for the last man standing show
wrapping up its production so We'll have I think
he said 50 some operators on that one including
myself. So Make sure you check that out as well
also some big news here that came in By text
a couple of days ago and is on Twitter today
Andy Malusi KK for LWR my friend down in Florida.
He's an Imagineer down at Disney president of
the Disney amateur radio club there, Dears, and
worked with him on some school club roundup items
and things back when he was at the University
of Florida. Well, he got engaged this week. So
congratulations to Andy and congratulations to
his fiance, Christie Madewell. Hope things go
really well. I've done the whole getting married
in the middle of a pandemic thing and and and
hopefully yours yours will be even better We
lucked out with with the timing on ours that
we were able to have a Fairly large ceremony.
It wasn't as big as we wanted but we were able
to do that, but it was just in the right time,
but but you all will have a much better shot
so congratulations and and hope it all goes well
and I know Andy's looking forward to to a new
house soon so Andy and Christy will have that
so congratulations all the way around and Andy's
also going to be on the camp staff for Youth
on the Air this summer assuming that that goes
ahead so Thanks for doing that Andy and wish
you many many happy years together Speaking of
Yoda speaking of Yoda youth on the air Registrations
for camp are going to close on Sunday at 2359
Zulu So go to youth on the air org and click
on the camps page there and there's a Google
form to fill out to apply for one of the remaining
spots for Yoda camp now we've got Just about
everybody coming back That had signed up from
last year. We did have one that had a schedule
conflict and So we are losing one we believe
We need to hear from a couple more But then we
had I think three open spots So we're probably
looking at around five open spots and we've already
had several applications for those but the deadline
is Sunday at 2359 so if you know a young ham
between the ages of 15 and 25 That would be interested
in this week of camp. It's at the Voice of America
Museum in Westchester, Ohio and Cost is getting
to Cincinnati and back and a hundred dollars
and We can even work out a scholarship or some
clubs are even sponsoring campers with the hundred
dollar entry fee and that's just to kind of make
sure that You know people show up So that's what
the $100 is about. The expense is much, much
greater and thanks to all the sponsors for doing
that and ICOM for putting all the equipment out
there and doing some of the DSTAR forums and
that kind of thing that we're going to be doing.
And just so many sponsors out there. That that
are taking care of that so youth on the air org
Make sure you check that out and we are looking
for a few more campers Especially looking for
some in other countries because this is a North
Central and South America event we know that
you know with the pandemic going on borders or
and air travel are kind of iffy at this point.
So we may, you know, end up with more North America
than anything this year, but it is for Central
and Southern America, too. So we'd love to have
some people come. All right. Well, again, if
you want to chime in on any of these things or
ask any questions about any things, give us a
call at 859 -982 -7373. and we can talk about
this. I mentioned the HOA thing. We have put
in an offer on a house and so we're looking at
moving here in the next few months and like I
said there is an HOA. Now this HOA which I mean
we've been looking for a year and a half for
land to build on without any restrictions on
it so I can put up a tower and do everything
right. But it's just not out there. Trying to
get a piece of flat land in that area without
any restrictions is near impossible. So we finally
decided, well, we'll try the house for a couple
of years and keep looking for land. And, you
know, eventually that's the plan is to find a
piece of land without any antenna restrictions
and put up a tower and put up a beam and some
stuff. And, you know, really looking forward
to that. We need some place in the meantime.
So we went with this and It's reading the the
HOA agreement and you know knowing that you know,
I'm probably not going to be able to put up a
whole lot It was kind of enters or interesting
this particular one Automatically allowed television
antennas and and this is something that that
I haven't seen a lot of places the only thing
they allow is a satellite dish and that's because
there's a federal regulation that says you have
to allow satellite dishes uh... so you know or
the pizza dishes as we call them uh... you know
they're the small little you know 18 inch dishes
They allow those but they got to be out of sight,
you know, you can't see them They got to be attached
to the house and all this kind of thing but but
this one says that if you can't get a signal
you can put it in the front yard or you can you
can have it visible if you can't get a Quality
signal and I thought wow, that's you know, that's
better than a lot of restrictions and then kept
reading and it says Television antennas are automatically
allowed as well that you can put them, you know
behind the house out of sight You stay under
I think 12 feet above the roof line But you know
if you can't get a signal you can put it, you
know On the side of the house or somewhere where
it can be seen and you don't have to get prior
approval for it Anything else there's an approval
process But there's so many of them out there
that just outright say no you know to everything
and So, you know, obviously that doesn't cover
amateur radio antennas so You know, I'll have
to to make a proposal on that. I'll probably
just put up a dipole or something. That's very
very low visibility Just you know to have something
on the air for a while until we can get the the
tower situation, but I was just very surprised
that The HOA was as lenient as it was because
a lot of them that I've seen just outright say
no. And that's a big problem for us hams. So
if you have a comment on that, give us a call
859 -982 -7373 or tweet us at hamtalklive. I
kind of been thinking a lot about and as if I
need another project to take on. But about ways
to promote ham radio within HOAs and make them
more aware of the benefits of having antennas
and trying to relax the rules a little bit, at
least allow something rather than just absolutely
nothing. So if you have any ideas on that. um
give us a call 859 -982 -7373 so that's that's
kind of what's going on uh life has been really
busy um in fact if you notice the the format's
a lot different tonight uh that's because i have
not had a chance to put anything together until
this afternoon so it's been a very busy time
and if this deal goes through with the house
and the move and all that stuff coming up here
in the next few months why we may take some weeks
off here to facilitate the move and everything
so we'll see how how that goes but We'll worry
about that when it gets here, I guess. Next week,
Jerry Buxton, N0JY was scheduled to be on the
show. It's his birthday next week, so happy birthday,
Jerry, by the way. found out that they're going
to be doing some celebrating. So we've put that
off until April 1st. So we've rescheduled him
to be here April 1st, but he'll be here to talk
about some of the engineering stuff going on
with AMSAT. Some of the satellites have quit
working or not working. and what's ahead and
what's going to get launched and where are things
going. So he's going to talk about some of that
from an engineering standpoint and what we can
learn from these launches that didn't go so well.
you know, fully give us everything that we were
looking for. But it's a learning opportunity.
And so we're going to talk about that. So that's
coming up in two weeks, April 1. Jerry Buxton,
the director of engineering for AMSAT will be
here to talk about building satellites and more.
Okay, well, that's that's kind of what's going
on. I got my first COVID shot today. So Glad
that I got that out of the way and looking forward
to a time when things are much more relaxed on
the COVID front. I know there's a lot of opinions
on that, not gonna get into all that, but I think
we can all agree that we're looking for better
days ahead. So that's what I'm looking for here.
Again, we were hoping that we can go ahead with
the Yoda camp right now It's looking like we're
gonna be able to pull that off in July. So Hopefully
that will happen. I know Huntsville's, you know
going full -forward for August so I hope to see
some people in Huntsville and You know, hopefully
there are better days ahead Okay, well let's
check the tweets here and see if we have anything.
I think I think I've talked it out here so looks
like we're gonna wrap things up here but want
to thank Matt for calling in and talking a little
bit about what's going on over at WWV and get
a little more detail on Just exactly what that
entailed and We'll look forward to some more
things from WWV sure glad that You know that
didn't get cut that was on the chopping block
here a year or two ago, and that was that was
not pretty so Glad that things are still going
and and they're even making some improvements
To that facility so that's a that's a good thing
All right, well, I guess we're gonna finish it
up tonight. That's gonna be a wrap for this week's
edition of ham talk live Thanks to everybody
out there for listening and invite you back next
Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern time and for
a list of our upcoming guests visit ham talk
live comm and If you like the show, please leave
a review over on Apple podcasts So other people
can find us faster. So for now, this is Neil
rap WB 9 VPG saying seven three Seven five and
may the good DX be yours