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Standing in the snow with a brand new radio Catching
the ISS satellite Repeat her down the street
Yes, it's the time of year for the radio jingle,
thanks to Emily, the harmonic of AndrewKE8FZT.
But good evening, everyone. It's HamTalk Live,
episode number 239, the holiday wish list, recorded
live on Thursday, December 10th, 2020. I'm your
host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in.
To this episode of HamTalk Live, tonight we're
joined by Steve Molo, K -I -4 -K -W -R, and we'll
take your calls live a little later in the show.
Last week, Brian Tarasko, KG5HVO, was here to
talk about December Yoda Month. which will continue
on through the 31st. So if you missed that show,
listen anytime at HamTalkLive .com or on your
favorite podcast app or on YouTube. You can also
catch the rebroadcast on WTWW 5085 AM. That's
out of the Nashville, Tennessee area and that's
Saturday afternoons at about 3 30 p .m. Eastern
Time and Had a nice talk with Ted WB 8 p .m.
At WTWW last week so Thanks to them as always
for running the show Do you want to take just
a moment here? I was actually in Echo Mic 58
today. I was over in Mount Vernon, Illinois.
And my aunt Wilma Hayes, KA9JJX, unfortunately
passed away. She had a stroke here a while ago.
And you may remember me talking about her son
that actually passed away just about a month
and a half ago. It's been a little rough on the
family and the Hamm family here, but just want
to take a moment to remember Aunt Wilma and very
grateful for all that she's done for the family.
Well, get your questions ready to go. If you're
listening to us live on Thursday night, you can
call us after the interview by telephone at 859
-982 -73. You can also tweet us. It's at HamTalkLive
on Twitter and we'll give out the phone number
again later on. It's not time to call just yet,
but you can write it down, have it ready to go,
punch it in. It's 859 -982 -7373. Alright, I'll
be back with Steve right after this word from
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to HamTalk Live. Welcome back to HamTalk Live.
Tonight, Steve Molo, KI4KWR joins us on the Orlando
Amateur Radio Club and the Hamcation Zoom line.
And thanks to ICOM America for sponsoring the
show tonight. Check them out at icomamerica .com
slash amateurs. Well, in past years we've had...
DX engineering and ham radio outlet for our shopping
shows and this year it's giga parts turn at the
holiday wish list show So Steve is with us. He
is a brand ambassador with giga parts Which is
an amateur radio and computer store with locations
in Huntsville, Alabama and Las Vegas, Nevada
Prior to that Steve was their lead chat expert
for customer service. So Steve welcome to the
show Good evening Neil. How is everybody doing
out there and especially you know Neil? How are
you doing? I? I am doing okay. It's been kind
of a long day with a lot of driving but I'm here
and ready to go and and ready to hear about some
some ideas for some ham gifts and not that not
that my wife has as Purchase things that are
mentioned on this show before hint hint hint
hint But You may want to just share this, you
know with someone who you know might be looking
to find a gift for you and Or maybe you want
to you want to buy one for yourself. So Steve
is here to give us some ideas. So What are some
of those gift ideas that you have for us tonight?
Some of the things are what we've done this week
is come up with an actual part of the webpage
which is stocking stuffers and What we've done
is we brought it down to Price category so we
have one for under $10 under $20 under $50 and
under $100 So what I'll do real quick is I'll
hit just, you know, like one or two items in
each and I'll start at the bottom. And on our
webpage, you know, under the, it's on the top
of gigaparts .com. You got the kind of flashes
every like three or four seconds. And one of
them says stocking stoppers. So a couple of things
we have in there is the JetLube SS30 NICs and
ThreadLuber Kint. i've actually been using that
myself for my tower rebuild with a classic 33
and i'm putting back up on a 40 40 foot tower
a couple other items in there are the extreme
tape self -using silicone tape i'm definitely
going to use on the coax to protect the uh connector
there we go uh coax seal and what i'm noticing
a lot here Local here in the store a lot of people
like The rescue tape it comes in handy not for
just amateur radio, but garden hoses Running
over their garden hose or they pierced it on
the side of their house So that's you know a
couple of the options under the $10 option When
we come to the under $20 option one of the most
popular items that I see selling a lot between
the store and online is our custom carrying cases
we've got them in six different colors i'm thinking
five five colors so the black orange yellow red
very good for camping qrp to carry your batteries
your microphone maybe a small qrp antenna the
new uh dry bags that we're offering so if you
know if you go camping want to keep stuff dry
we have a gigaparts bag dry bag and under the
$20 item I would say for everything we list the
most popular is the qrp nano morse code key from
cw morse it is no bigger than a quarter in I
don't want to say diameter but in size very small
very portable and for the price and the reliability
of it it works Other options getting up into
the $50 level we have Let's see, I'm trying to
think of popular ones here. I kind of joke when
I when I see it on here Of course we got bigger
dry bags the universal guiding system from chameleon
a Lot of people call in to the stores both stores
and even on our chat portal on gigaparts .com
What can I use this universal diving system for?
And the first thing I always tell them, especially
on the chat side, for putting up your dive pole
out doing a poda, a little expedition at your
park, or as easy as hanging something, it's very
portable, very small for that. Another very popular
item is the shark mag mount. the 48 -inch whip
shark mount or shark mag mount. It's listed for
2 meters, 6, and 70 centimeters. What I told
a customer today actually about that product
especially is you can't necessarily use it on
all three at the same time. So if you want to
use it for 6, you kind of have to trim the stinger
for 6 and 70 centimeters. But 2 meters, it is
ready to go. And let's see. Right now the very
popular stocking stuffer area under $100 is the
$50 mystery package. I don't even know what's
in them. I just see them being put together by
the warehouse and boxed up and raided the ship
out or sell out of the store. Something we offer
that It's listed as a flash sale item is the
pocket meter It looks very small, but the capabilities
for a lot of the makers groups around here in
Huntsville It has meters built -in tools to test
things all by using your phone be a app you download
either for iOS or I almost said Apache but Android
there we go And last on that list, something
that I think we all need as amateurs are dipole
antennas. And the ever so popular radio waves
DX80 antenna, I use one here in my station here
at home. We use one at the store in Huntsville
for testing, you know, for anybody that wants
to try out a radio in the store. The most popular
I definitely will say is the DX80 for a stocking
stuffer. Now, I know I mentioned stuff under
$100, but something that if you're poking around
gigaparts .com starting today, you'll notice
if you go to, I'll use the ICOM 7300, we list
something there where you can finance the radio.
And yes, I've had two people call in today and
go, Steve, I noticed that I could Get the radio
and make 12 payments with 0 % interest. Yes Gigaparts
is now offering the option of using PayPal credit
and Making payments under $100 a month for 12
months with 0 % interest meal Well, there you
know now that's the way to get a hold of the
7300 if you if you don't have the money in hand,
that's what's a great way to To do that and and
you know the the mystery packages you meant you
mentioned the mystery packages It brings back
a couple of memories one was is my mom she would
Get stuff, you know and wrap it up and and sell
it at her famous rummage sales and they always
went over well and people ended up liking them
and then I remember, you know the old Radio Shack
days where you could go in and get the mystery
box and then they were usually pretty good stuff
so so that's that's intriguing the mystery box
i like i like that the mystery box yes um we
did it in 2019 uh my first principal ham fest
here and they kind of asked me what do you want
to put on the counter by the register nice mystery
boxes so we came up with three different versions
of a $20 mystery box. And for someone out there
that may have been at Huntsville Handfest and
bought one of those $20 ones, I snuck in an older
HT that was sitting on what now I call my used
and open box shelf in the store now warehouse
here. I stuck in, it was sitting in a box. And
I'm like, you know what, I'm going to put this
in this and give somebody a project. It worked,
but it just, it needed to be that mystery box
of I paid $20 and got it handheld. Yeah. So you
just don't know. So, you know, it's a, it's a
The curiosity, I think of that, but there's only
some some good stuff in those. So I like your
I like your thought process there on those. Well,
we've talked about some of the things, you know,
the stocking stuffers and some of the more inexpensive
things that I know that that's probably what.
What my wife is gonna be looking for if she's
looking if she's listening but You've got some
other stuff, you know that that's a Little more
expensive but but some really nice stuff. So
what are some of your good deals on? Some radios
and some things that are over the $100 mark over
the $100 mark Lately the most popular is the,
you know, ICOM IC705. Right now we are offering
the free ICOM lantern with it. I think everybody's
got their, they see it and they go, it looks
like a 7300 and a 9700, and it is. And, you know,
there's a lot of... Don't want to say it's uncertainty
but more of Will this work for what I want to
use it for I go it can do 10 watts if you provide
the 13 volts Because then at that point you get
the 10 watts out if you just use the battery
pack on the back That's included you only get
5 watts other options, you know one thing I do
want to stress giga parts is not just your amateur
radio store, we also offer computers. That being
refurbished laptops, new laptops, and we actually
build desktops. Some of them starting, you know,
around the $1 ,000 and below, but we also have
what I would consider the full gaming system
that is about the about the price of a couple
73 hundreds but it's the latest video card processor
ram you know everything it's nothing that's nothing
really older than three months to six months
and it's a very popular item here especially
in huntsville for the gamers the vr fans and
robotics teams A lot of robotics teams buy our
very large gaming system for their robotics team
and the VR side. You never have enough computer
power and computer space and I know I just had
to replace mine. This is the first run of HamTalk
Live on the on the replacement laptop and so
far so good. So I think maybe we've got our technical
issues taken care of. So always good to have
that around too. So you all have those available
as well. So any other any other good deals on
some stuff that that you're running right now
that you want to mention? Deals? I'm kind of
looking at the notes I made today and thinking
of the popular one item very popular right now
that was featured in QST the rfinder android
dmr fm it's a self it's half cell phone half
ht does dmr but does fm also that is a very popular
item The availability of a lot of radios right
now, you know, and that's one of our biggest
Issues with right now is the current situation
and availability of getting a lot of radios and
the accessories especially It's not just the
radio is even getting the accessories the antennas
coax Everything is affected. It's just not you
know, like a certain brand It's everything across
the board. Yeah, it's just, it's hard to find
some things sometimes. And I know that, you know,
that's part of the time that we're living in.
So glad to hear that you've been able to get
some stock in on some stuff and offer some of
these specials here. and uh... and i like the
dipole the radio waves uh... the x eighty have
one of those uh... up at school and uh... works
works very well and so i i like that uh... an
idea to here all right well it's time to take
a break so we're going to do that we're going
to uh... come back and we'll do the uh... joke
of the week and we'll talk a little more about
some gift ideas and take your calls at 859 -982
-7373 and take a look at the chat and the tweets
and all that when we come back after this word
from Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk
Live. Just imagine if you hadn't run out of PL
-259s. Just imagine if your connectors weren't
from Tower Electronics. Consider the sophisticated
quality of connectors from Tower Electronics.
Their silver -plated end connectors are so good,
they've even been used on the International Space
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other PL -259s. Mine are better. Besides, you
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Tower Electronics, the hams dime store since
1978. 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. All I want for Christmas
is to listen to another episode of Ham Talk Live.
Welcome back to Ham Talk Live. Thanks to Tower
Electronics. They're going to be at Plant City,
Florida this weekend, the 11th and 12th of December.
and then in January the tailgate in Orlando January
16th Arcadia Florida January 23rd Dalton Georgia
February 27th but you can visit them anytime
at PL - HamTalk Live is on the air every Thursday
night 9 p .m. Eastern Time right here at HamTalkLive
.com and be sure to check us out on Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram. Now it's time for the
weekly Ham Talk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week
with N9GSU. Now it's time for the Ham Talk Live
Ham Radio Joke of the Week, the part of the show
where Rick tells us a ham radio joke. The Ham
Talk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week is brought
to you by QRM Labs. Now, here's Rick Garrett,
N9GSU with today's Ham Talk Live Joke of the
Week. There's a Catholic net on 40 meters. No
matter what time of day or night I tune in I
always get immaculate reception This has been
the ham talk live ham radio joke of the week
with Rick Garrett in nine GSU Tune in again next
week for another joke from Rick. Oh My goodness
Rick, it's the immaculate reception Alright,
thanks Rick and I GSU for the joke of the week
and we're back with Steve from gigaparts and
it's time for your calls right now So call us
at eight five nine nine eight If you have a question
or a comment, give us a call right now. 859 -982
-7373 or you can tweet us. It's at HamTalk Live.
And if you're listening to us on WTWW or on the
podcast edition, you won't be able to reach us
live. We're doing this on Thursday night. So
if you're not listening on Thursday night, we
won't be by the phone. Okay, let's see, Jill
KD8QGA is in the shack tonight. So thanks for
listening, Jill. And Troy W9KVR says, howdy from
the Flatlands of Illinois. And one week until
Christmas break. So Troy's counting down the
days. And I always enjoy break because that means
I can actually get on satellites again for a
while. So looking forward to that. I just got
to... sneak away and do that. Let's see. Let's
take a look over here on Twitter. I'm not finding
a whole lot, but we do have a call. So let's
go to the phones and it is Mark. Hi Mark. Welcome
to HamTalk Live. Thanks Neil. Good evening and
good evening Steve. Good evening mark Yes, it's
mark Brown in for BCD Thanks to the color ID.
How's it going down there mark? Wonderful wonderful
just getting ready for Christmas and I've heard
Steve mentioned his is Gifts tonight, and I wanted
to add one more that has proven very popular
for me the gigaparts offers a fifty -pack of
rare earth magnets for $12 .99. I took those
to a couple of Dirty Santa events last year with
family and office workers, and they proved so
popular that I've ordered three more packs. But
Steve, you might want to mention those and promote
those because those are a lot of fun. There isn't
a household in the United States that has enough
magnets. Hold photo that is that is true. Yeah,
and you just don't get them close to your credit
card. I Have one at school. Yeah And and I put
that thing on my desk and then tell the kids
okay pull that off They can't do it Well, these
these are little pack of it Go ahead Steve I
was going to say, the magnets, I'm being told
here via text message from a colleague at work
that those magnets are in the mystery packages.
So there's a hint for you listeners that if you
want the popular item that Mark is mentioning,
they are in our mystery boxes. Well, there you
go, you get a chance to get magnets and some
other things too, but yeah, those are those are
fun and you know at teachers Institute at a double
RL we the first thing we did was it took this
big copper pipe and a PVC pipe and a steel pipe
and and had us run one of those magnets down
each one and that started the whole discussion
of of radio and to see the differences and has
those magnets pass through there. And so it's
a great demonstration, but yeah, it's also just
a lot of fun. Absolutely. And even as adults,
we need a toy for Christmas. And even a little
one is a $13 item. It's hours of fun. Well, thanks
mark for calling in and and giving us your your
suggestion there go ahead Steve I was gonna say,
you know another another great item that uh Actually,
I used the field day this year With mark is our
20 ,000 milliamp hour battery bank. It has a
solar panel on one side and is a wireless cell
phone charger at the same time and has three
Yeah, three USB ports on top to charge any other
device. Oh, that's pretty cool. That's right.
Steve had the Gigaparts van out to the Huntsville
Radio Club's field day, and he had everything.
I mean, it was self -contained. Solar, battery
backup, the ICOM radios from Gigaparts. We were
in high cotton. Oh, I bet. That's nice when you
have have the Giga parts van just pull up to
field day that that's cool Absolutely, well guys
have a Merry Christmas and let's hope we can
get together at a real ham fest one of these
days real soon Absolutely mark, thank you for
calling in our Okay 73 Steve 70. All right. Good
night. Seven three. Good night. Merry Christmas
8 5 9 9 8 2 73 73 is the telephone number if
you'd like to call in and ask a question or a
comment or if you have an idea Like mark give
us a call. It's 8 5 9 9 8 2 73 73 or you can
tweet us it's at ham talk live and Karen Katie
to gut just tweeted and said just wanted to say
that she is going to need a bigger stocking this
year for those ham radio gifts in fact She may
have to swap the stocking out for some pantyhose.
Thanks Steve for the inspiration It sounds sounds
like you've you've inspired some people here
Steve That the pantyhose thing I'm just kind
of wondering what that could be from and I'm
hoping it's not The leaked photo of me dressed
as elf on the shelf from our Christmas party
Sunday night Well what Karen doesn't know is
that that I dropped a ham radio Gift in the mail
to her yesterday. So she just found out about
that. So So yeah, she's got she's gonna need
some some stocking stuffers. So Thank You Karen
Katie to gut the editor over at amateur radio
newsline. Thank you for for writing in here tonight
And if you have something give us a call eight
five nine nine eight two seventy three seventy
three or you can tweet us Again, it's at HamTalk
Live. All right. Well, Steve, anything else you've
got on your wish list here for all the good boys
and girls out here in Radioland? My wish list?
It's on, I think, a lot of Ham's wish list right
now. Hasn't arrived yet. but is asked about a
lot lately, the Yesu FT -DX10, their new HF 6
meter 100 watt SDR transceiver. Ah yeah, so that's
coming soon. That's coming soon. Right now we're
expecting to ship quarter four 2020, that being
of course, this time, you know, this month, we
just, you know, Haven't been given the alert
yet from the ace who wanted to be on its way
It looks very interesting to me and you know
I can't wait to test one out and do a demonstration
video for the amateurs out there All right, well
if people are interested in any of these things
Steve just In case they don't know remind them
how they can get a hold of you and the staff
at gigaparts That is very easy. Let's see the
online version is gigaparts .com and that's g
-i -g -a -p -a -r -t -s dot com. If you want
to call in your order and you don't want to order
online it is 866 -535 -4442 and one of the features
that you know I still do today, even though I'm
at Gigaparts, is we actually have a chat option
on our webpage. So if you want to ask a question,
I have on average every day about three to five
chat experts, which are volunteers that answer
questions and help you out. If you have any questions,
not only just on amateur radio equipment, anything
on the webpage, they are more than willing to
help you out with any question. or even a simple
issue you may be having with a certain item.
All right, so there you go. All kinds of stuff.
And the stocking stuffers, you have those listed
on the website, right? That's new this week.
Yes, the stocking stuffers. As soon as you go
to gigaparts .com, it is the first Then it comes
up across the flashing marquee I would say it's
the first dot and it's you can't miss it. It
says stocking stuffers click here and click there
and Everything that I listed at the beginning
the 10 to 20 50 and hundred dollar and below
options are there and of course the next one
in that flashing marquee is our weekly specials,
which is the same, you know the same thing and
and not the same thing but our weekly specials
those are while supplies last no back orders
and i stress that no back orders um that's kind
of where our you know if you're looking for something
or you're looking for a deal always look at the
weekly specials and it's always updated it's
not just a once a week we are always putting
in new things every day all right well that's
uh some Ideas for some gifts for this holiday
season for hams and Steve I want to thank you
for taking the time to come on the show and get
all this ready and thank you so much for for
being here and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy
New Year and We'll be talking to you soon All
right. Thank you new for having me on the show
and thank you everybody out there who listens
every week on HamTalk Live. All right, well that
is going to be a wrap for this week's edition
of HamTalk Live. Thanks to my guest Steve Molo,
KI4KWR, and everybody out there in cyberspace
for listening and calling in and typing in and
invite you back next Thursday night at 9 p .m.
Eastern Time and just a programming note. Thursday
is Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve this year,
so we'll be taking a couple of weeks off for
Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, but we'll have
another new show on the 6th, I believe, of January.
So we'll have a show next week and then we'll
be off for two weeks and then we'll be back.
Just check the list over at HamTalkLive .com
to see who's going to be on and when. And if
you like the show, please leave us a review.
That helps others find us faster. And so we will
say goodnight for now. This is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG,
saying 7375, and may the good DX be yours. Thanks
for watching.