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Good evening, everyone. It's time to escape the
debate. It's Amtok Live, episode number 233,
news and views on FCC moves with CQ Magazine's
editor, Rich Mosison, W2VU, recorded live on
Thursday, October 22nd, 2020. I'm your host,
Neil Rapp. WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to another
episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined
by Rich Mosison at W2VU and we'll take your calls
live a little later in the show. Last week here
on HamTalk Live, Bruce Horn, WA7B &M was here.
To talk about the contest calendar, if you missed
that show, just head on over to hamtalklive .com
or your favorite podcast app or on YouTube. and
you can listen to that and you can always catch
the rebroadcast of HamTalk Live over on WTWW,
that's 5085 AM 5 .085, Saturday afternoons at
about 3 .30 PM Eastern Time. So get your questions
ready to go for Rich. If you're listening to
us live on Thursday night, you can give us a
call after the interview at 859 -982 -7373. I'll
give you the phone number again here in just
a minute. You can also send us a question by
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And again, the telephone number is 859. 9827373
and we'll Take your questions and comments for
rich We also have a new feature on the show tonight
that we'll have a little bit later. So we're
excited for that We'll take a listen to Rick
Garrett in 9GSU, he's got a weekly segment starting
this week, so we'll take a listen to that a little
later on in the show, but I'll be back with Rich
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That's right, DeLium 9 Bainte Pterodactyl Nat,
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and with us tonight. is Rich Mosison, W2VU, the
editor of CQ Magazine and editorial director
of CQ Communications, Inc. He's been a ham since
1970. He served eight years as the section manager
for... the Northern New Jersey section of the
ARRL and former member and past chairman of the
ARRL Public Relations Committee. He's been a
CQ staffer since 1992. He was the founding editor
of CQVHF magazine, wrote and produced the seven
introductory ham radio programs in the CQ video
library and was CQ magazine's 50th anniversary
coordinator back in 1995. Rich, thanks for coming
back on the show tonight. Oh, it's great to be
here. I never thought I'd be alternative programming
to a presidential debate. We're competing with
the big boys tonight. I'm hoping there will be
less fireworks here Yes, there will be less fireworks
here. I can guarantee that I have I have the
kill switch so So I could guarantee that one
I can't kill the other mics, but I can kill this
one. So We can definitely do that and if we if
we show up in the Nielsen ratings we're doing
well, so Yeah, we'll see Well, there's We're
trying not to not to get into the politics too
much, but we are talking about government a lot
tonight There's been a lot of headlines coming
out of the FCC lately. And so Thought okay. Let's
do a show about all the stuff going on with the
FCC. And of course, the biggie is this proposal
for a $50 fee for all amateur radio license applications,
renewals, new tests, upgrades, the whole bit.
$50 each time. The FCC says, well, it's an automated
process, but it costs money for the servers,
you know. Uh, so a nominal fee like, you know,
$50 for every application is, is reasonable and
they've kind of been charged with doing this.
So, so tell us a little more about the, you know,
the details of that and, um, we may get into
even what some of your readers are having to
say about it and, and what, uh, all kinds of
people are having to say about it. The proposal
is much broader than amateur radio, of course.
It covers every service licensed by the FCC.
And the changes are coming about because of a
law that was passed by Congress a few years ago
called the Ray Baum Act. But the purpose of the
changes is to make the fees more... reflective
of the costs of processing the applications.
And the commission has said itself in the NPRM
that there's very little cost involved in processing
most amateur applications. It's, you know, on
a new license application or an upgrade, all
the work is done by the VECs. They file it electronically.
with the FCC in Gettysburg and unless there's
a red flag that pops up, that just automatically
processes the license, either an issuance or
an upgrade or renewal. There's virtually no cost
involved. They're not even mailing out printed
licenses anymore. So it makes, you know, if this
was a business, 50 bucks wouldn't be a big deal
and I think that's the perspective they're looking
at it from because most of the other services
that they license are businesses so you know
even a small station or two -way shop or something
like that that has um like a gmrs license or
something like that okay 50 is not usually a
big deal for business and they can write it off
their taxes and From a business perspective,
it's it's not a big deal and Even from our own
perspective. Hey, they're gonna say hey, it's
only five dollars a year Which isn't shouldn't
be a big deal, but of course you have to pay
it all at once for ten years worth and 50 bucks
Can be an obstacle. I mean right now you look
at it right where we are right now we we are
in the middle of a deep economic recession lots
and lots of people are not working And every
penny and every dollar is very important for
basics We're trying to get more and more young
people interested and involved in ham radio and
50 bucks for a teenager is big deal a lot of
our more active hams are senior citizens who
may be on a Fixed income and 50 bucks is a big
deal for them and and you have to you know Look
besides the the money angle of it particularly
talking about senior citizens in this pandemic.
I mean, ham radio has been a lifeline for lots
and lots of people all over the country who have
been isolated in their homes. You know, if they
particularly if they're older, if they live alone,
so many clubs around the country have either
started or expanded nets to basically operate
on a daily basis to check in. on some of their
members who may not be able to get out at all
and make sure everything's okay. And having that
license and keeping that license is a very, very
important thing for lots and lots of people.
And it just seems like the totally wrong time
to be imposing a fee like this. You know, some
people will say, well, There used to be a $70
fee for a vanity call and that's absolutely correct
But a vanity call was an option if you didn't
want to pay 70 bucks for the call you keep your
FCC issued random call and you still have your
license you're still on the air and You just
grumble about not being able to pick your own
call sign But this is applies to everything except
like an address change or something like that.
New license application, renewals, upgrades,
anything but the most minor administrative update.
And if you look at it cost -wise, the most minor
administrative update is going to incur the same
amount of expense in terms of server usage as
doing an upgrade doing a renewal. So it makes
no sense. If they have to charge something, maybe
they could, you know, do a dollar a year. And
then you got a $10 fee. And that I think most
people can probably handle once every 10 years.
That's my personal thought. Obviously, the preference
would be to continue to have no fees involved
with our licenses. And you know, in other countries,
That's a fact of life. You know, you go to Europe
and you have to pay a rather significant fee
every year to have a ham license. But that has
not been the tradition here. And the timing is
just all wrong. You asked about reader comment.
I've had just one I got today in the mail from
a gentleman in Texas. And he's addressing this
situation. He says, with 770 ,000 hams in the
USA, the FCC stands to make $38 ,500 ,000 in
installments of $43 ,800 a year. Says, you know
hams buy their own radio gear pay the sales tax.
They provide free emergency communications and
disasters They provide their own transportation
to and from disaster areas They provide their
own food and disasters some hams rent motel rooms
near disaster sites or sleep in an emergency
shelter or bring their own RV and use it as command
center And his guesstimate is that this is going
to probably have an impact on about 10 % of the
currently licensed hams, which he says, you know,
if this goes into effect, in my estimation, 77
,000 would be hams, just lost interest in ham
radio. 77 ,000 renewals won't happen. 77 ,000
upgrades won't happen. 77 ,000 vanity call signs
won't be applied for. 77 ,000 printed licenses
won't be requested. 77 ,000 school -aged kids
won't get their license and goes on. And he's
absolutely right. I don't know if the numbers
are correct, but the impact is definitely, he's
on the mark. It's gonna have a significant impact
on our ability to keep growing. We've been doing
a great job of growing steadily over the past
several years, and we need to keep up that momentum.
And this is going to be a big roadblock in that
way for all segments of our community, the young
people, people who are having economic problems,
people who are on a fixed income. It's going
to be a really big deal to have to come up with
50 bucks. And it's not even necessarily just
once every 10 years, because you're talking about
upgrades and renewals. So you know, a vanity
license call. So if you get your license now
and pay 50 bucks for it, and then six months
down the road, you want to upgrade to general,
that's another 50 bucks. And a year down the
road, you want to get your extra, that's another
50 bucks. And then you decide you want a vanity
call. And that's another 50 bucks. So over the
course of two years, it may cost you $200 in
license fees. And that's really completely outrageous.
There's so many things coming into my mind right
now. First of all, the with my school background,
you know, and getting young people into ham radio.
One of the things that I did a few years ago
was I switched VECs over to the Laurel VEC program
because we were able to give the tests for free
because a lot of times, you know, the $14, it
usually wasn't a problem for them to get it.
It was a problem for them to remember to bring
it. And so, I admit that a few times I switched
hats and Mr. Rapp decided to pay the fee because
they weren't, you know, they could get it but
they just weren't going to bring it and they
had to remember it and I'd just rather do it
than have to, you know, remind them all the time,
don't forget to bring your money. So, you know,
if they didn't, it got paid out of Mr. Rapp's
wallet, but you know, I know one of the things
that people have talked about is, you know, maybe
saying under the age of 26, you know, exempt
those from the fee. I agree, $50 for a teenager
is a lot, let alone an elementary kid or a middle
school kid that doesn't have a real income. It
does put some limitations there. I also think
about, you know, the what you said with the vanity
calls and I couldn't agree more that, you know,
you can still operate without a vanity call.
And so if you want a vanity call, sure, pay the
fee. But then, then I remember why they got rid
of the vanity fee in the first place. They said
it costs too much to process the $70 fee by the
time they processed all the fees. It was. They
weren't making any money off of it. So now they're
going to make money off of a $50 fee. Yes. Government
logic for you. You know, the most fearsome words
in the English language. I'm from the government.
I'm here to help. I will note that the comment
period is open. on this proceeding. It's MD docket
20 -270, I believe is the designator for it.
Comment period is open. I would encourage all
of your listeners to make reasonable, respectful
comments, but explain why this would be a burden
for you or for people you know. And the commission
does listen to comments. They read them, the
staff at least reads every comment that comes
in and they do make a difference. And we are
well known in the commission for being among
the most vocal licensees that they deal with.
uh... so we need to maintain our reputation the
vocal file lots of comments uh... and but but
explain to them the reasonably and rationally
why this is a bad idea and why the fee if it
if it can't be eliminated should be reduced to
the absolute minimum possible uh... And there's
different directions this this is gone in in
the preliminary comment So some people are saying
heck. Yeah, I'll pay it if you'll actually do
some enforcement and, you know, and let's, let's,
you know, exempt the young people and let's exempt
anybody, you know, over a certain age and, and
let's, let's, you know, let's just do the vanity
calls. And there's like 50 bazillion different
directions that all of these things are going.
Oh, it's the marketplace of ideas. Yeah. But,
uh, you know, but if, If in the comments, there's
a clear consensus that develops for an alternative
approach that will be noted by the staff and
they will note it to the commissioners as they
put together their final decision on it. So,
you know, the process does work. You may not
always get what you want. You may not get all
of what you want, but They do read them. They
do listen. They may not decide the way you want
to but sometimes they do and particularly, you
know with amateur regulations the We are kind
of a community unto ourselves. It's not like
broadcasters who are serving the general public
Our regulations affect us and except for those
that are intended to keep us from causing interference
to other services. But as far as the regulations
internal to ham radio, we're the only people
affected by it. So the commission really wants
amateurs to provide guidance and leadership to
them on the direction that we want the regulations
to go. And I've heard this from people at the
commission in the past and You know, they said
we don't want to be sitting up here in Washington
and just telling you what to do because we think
it's the best thing to do we want to hear how
you want the service structured how you want
the requirements to be and Then it's our job
to figure out how to make them fit in with the
broader picture of licensing and regulation So
I would encourage everyone to submit comments.
You can do it electronically through the electronic
comment filing system. It's really pretty easy.
And let the commission know how you feel. And
if you think that there's a reasonable alternative
that they should consider, offer it up as a suggestion.
You never know when they might say, hey, you
know. This could work Well, yeah, that's all
All good things and there's some strategy going
on too. We may talk about that a little bit later,
but we're still on quite on topic number one.
We haven't hit two, three or four yet. So we
better move along here. We've got this other
big thing from the FCC, not quite as big as this
one, but it's still pretty big about losing spectrum.
They're going to sunset the secondary use. of
3 .3 to 3 .5 gigahertz to open up space for some
new 5G, the fifth generation cell phone data
band here. Who is this going to impact and when
is this going to take place and what are you
hearing about the loss of spectrum? Well, it's
not going to impact enough of us and that's part
of the problem. because we're not making the
use that we really need to be of our microwave
bands. And I wrote an editorial about it several
months ago called the microwave or the gigahertz
imperative. And we really need to do more on
the microwave bands. We can't say we're afraid
to use microwaves. I mean, I'm talking to you
right now on a five gigahertz radio It's called
my cell phone and I'm using microwave Communications
to talk to the phone. I'm wearing wireless Earbuds
and They're using Bluetooth which operates in
the microwave. So I'm I'm sitting here and talking
to you and Using two different sets of microwave
frequencies and then saying oh well Microwave
radiation. Well, that's that's dangerous stuff.
We can't be using microwaves Excuse me, but I'll
bet you are every day You've got a microwave
transmitter that's on virtually all the time
in your pocket So it can't be not being afraid
of microwaves. It's keeping us off the bands
there. The antennas are not big. They're small.
They're microwaves. You're using a lot of dish
antennas. Getting out and operating portable
is getting to be very, very popular. Look at
summits on the air, parks on the air, and islands
on the air. all these older programs. We should
probably have a motor program, microwaves in
the air. Get people out in the same places with
a dish and get on these microwave bands. Okay,
you're not going to work worldwide DX direct
on the gigahertz bands, but... We have satellites
that operate on the gigahertz bands We have a
thing called the moon that you can bounce signals
off of on the microwave bands. So you can work
DX and microwaves There's a satellite segment
in the 9 centimeter band the 3 .3 to 3 .5 gigahertz
band that we're talking about here, but as the
FCC pointed out There are no active satellites
in Band at the moment There's lots of stuff you
can do on the microwave bands that we need to
start doing We are supposed to be leaders in
technology and A lot of us are in our professional
lives But we have to do that in ham radio too,
and we have to make much better use of these
microwave bands broadly So we've already lost
76 gigahertz for a vehicular radar 10 gigahertz
which is among the most active of the microwave
ham bands is up for review at the next World
Radio Communication Conference. And 3 .3 gigahertz
here, we're in the process of losing it. Right
now, the services that we've got there, there's
several mesh networks that are up and running
on there. And out in California, they're providing
significant backup communication service to people
fighting the wildfires their ad hoc networks
and There's a lot of digital amateur television
that's going on there. So there is it is among
the more active Microwave bands, I would say
probably the third most active you've got You
know 2 .4 is easy But we still need to be making
more use of it because is shared with Wi -Fi.
So you have all these Wi -Fi modems out there
that can be tweaked onto the ham frequencies
and do mesh networks and things like that. And
then you've got 10 gigahertz band or X band,
which is growing in popularity. And you get to
discover all sorts of very cool propagation on
these bands too. I think one of the coolest things
on 10 gigahertz is something called knife edge
refraction. And you want to talk to somebody
when you have a mountain in between you. Signals
at 10 gigahertz can go over the top of a mountain
and down. Knife edge diffraction it's called.
That's right. And these are things that you don't.
see on HF or even VHF, UHF, you can do rain scatter
on 10 gigahertz. Your average raindrop is just
the right size to absorb and reradiate radio
signals. So you can bounce signals off a thunderstorm.
There's just so many cool things you can do up
on the microwave bands that we need to do more
of and have more fun and learn more about them.
Unfortunately, we're not gonna be able to do
this for much longer on the nine centimeter band.
The FCC broke it down into two portions in the
proceeding, mostly because the Defense Department
is the primary user of the band and there are
certain uses that... The Defense Department is
not ready to give up yet and they're still working
out plans We've got I'm just looking at our news
bites column in our November issues is Focused
on the sunset of this band. I'm just looking
for details on there And So I'm just reading
that the process of making the nine centimeter
band available for 5G use will take several years,
and the FCC has yet to reach an agreement with
the Department of Defense on relocating its operations
from half the band. So the proceeding has essentially
been split into two parts. Sorry. And while a
formal removal of the amateur allocation from
the band will happen 30 days after the report
in order is published in the Federal Register,
which I believe it already has been, Current
users will be permitted to continue operating
for quite a while. The so -called sunset dates
for amateur operation will be determined in a
future FCC proceeding. The first portion of the
band we're going to lose is the top of the band,
3 .4 to 3 .5 gigahertz, which we will need to
vacate by the time the FCC begins licensing companies
for 5G operations in that band segment. It's
expected this is going to be sometime in the
middle of 2022 So we got just about two years
of usage left on there. It's unclear whether
New operations will be permitted, you know, it's
very obviously very difficult to enforce this
it's not like we're licensed to a specific frequency
in a specific location so I don't know how they
would know whether a new user is on the band
or not. But the lower band segment from 3 .3
to 3 .4 gigahertz will be closed to hams when
and if licensing begins for commercial users
in that segment. The time frame for this is not
known because the FCC is still negotiating with
the Defense Department on relocating its operations
from those portions of the band and Nobody knows
yet when or whether they will reach agreement
on it and You know Defense Department is not
easily thrown off of radio spectrum So if they
comes down to them eventually saying nope, we
can't do this We're gonna stay here then they're
going to stay there and we'll see what happens
with the secondary amateur allocation. I mean,
this is an area that the ARRL really went to
the mat with the commission on and trying to
maintain our current secondary status there.
We've been operating as secondary users on a
non -interference basis with the primary users
who were Defense Department users for years and
years without problems. There are virtually no
reports of interference issues or anything like
that. There has been basically full cooperation
and full compliance with the secondary allocation
and not causing interference and accepting interference
from the primary user. So the AWRL really went
to bat for holding onto this ban and maintaining
our secondary status and to be able to go in
between the 5G uses and things like that and
continue doing what we're doing. But the commission
didn't want to hear about it. It's unfortunate.
Yeah. Well, it is. Well, also in other news,
the FCC literally made a move with their headquarters
in Washington, D .C. They're now at 45 L Street
Northeast. uh, Washington DC 20554 and they also
implemented a new logo. Um, so you can, you can
check that out if you're, if you're interested
in the new logo, but we are behind, so we're
going to take a break and we'll come back. We'll
talk about, uh, some more of this and maybe some
CQ worldwide and some other things and We'll
unveil the new segment here after this word from
Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk Live.
Thanks for choosing Tower Electronics. How may
we help you today? We have PL 259s. We have in
connectors. We have SMA adapters. We have BNC
adapters. What can I show you today? Where's
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Ma 'am, that's the name of our company. We can't
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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. Oh, yeah. You're talking
ham radio, baby. You're listening to HamTalk
Live with Neil Rapp. Welcome back to HamTalk
Live. Thanks to Scott and Jill at Tower Electronics
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Well, we've got a new segment of the show this
week, N9GSU, Rick Garrett. from Indianapolis,
Indiana, kind enough to humor me. And we came
up with this new segment. So here we go with
the debut of the N9GSU HamTalk Live 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 I was at the ham fest the other day and
I saw a radio for sale for only a dollar but
the volume was stuck on full blast. I thought
to myself, I can't turn that down. This has been
the HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week with
Rick Garrett in 9GSU. Tune in again next week
for another joke from Rick. Well there you go.
I can't turn that down. Alright well it's time
for your call so. I had you turned off you'll
have to say it again. I said he's twisted Oh
It's time for your calls if you have a question
or comment for rich give us a call eight five
nine nine eight two seventy three seventy three
or tweet us at am talk live If you're listening
to us on WTWW or on the podcast edition, uh,
we're not here. It's, it's Thursday night. Uh,
the debate's going on and we're, uh, we're, we're
escaping it. So, uh, let's see here. We've got,
uh, we've got several things going on. First
of all, trip K five TRP says, uh, rich has been
on a podcast role this week. So, so you're, you're
making the rounds here. Yeah, I don't know why.
I don't know what happened, but suddenly when
I was on Ham Nation last night, I thought it
was supposed to be next week, but I got a note
from Bob at about six o 'clock saying, we're
ready for you. Oh, oops. And of course, I do
a regular segment once a month on Amateur Radio
Roundtable. about what's coming up in the next
issue and doing two of them this month because
on September 29th, which was the day I was supposed
to do it. That was the first debate and Tom canceled
the show that night to not get in the way of
the debate. And then he had streaming difficulties
the following week. So that didn't happen. And
I finally got on last week. And, uh, so yeah,
I'm, I'm kind of bouncing around the podcast
this month. You're getting your time in here.
Well, Brett, W Y seven B G says, uh, the current
FCC seems bound to determine to do every possible
favor for the, uh, cellular triopoly, including
booting others off. of the spectrum. Do you believe
this move is part and parcel of this? The scourging
ham radio is an excuse to repurpose the spectrum
with the, you know, the license fees and the
spectrum loss? Well, both of these are the direct
result of legislation passed by Congress. There
was the, you know, the Ray Baum act. is the law
that's regarding the fees and the 5G, I forget
the name of the law, let me see if it's in my
notes here. I think it's like called the Mobile
Now Act or something like that. Basically, Congress
directed the FCC to make available contiguous
spectrum between 3 .... three to three point
five five gigahertz to make it available for
5g services nationwide so that The companies
wouldn't have to be dealing with having some
segments available in this part of the country
and not in that part of the country and and having
to shift things around so I Don't think that
you can lay any blame on the commission itself
for this particular, these sets of actions. You
can blame Congress if you'd like, but these are
both the direct result of laws passed by Congress
directing the commission to clear the frequencies
for 5G and to remake the fee structure. I think
that the responsibility in this case is on Congress
and not the Commission. That's it. And I'm holding
back my comments about it. It's all about the
dollar, but let's see here. Jim K5ND says, greatly
appreciated Rich's recent column titled the Young
Ham's crisis is getting old. I agree with his
perspective and great quotes from 1938 and 1948.
Well, thank you, Jim. Yeah, it's you know as
as Neil knows I am one of the biggest proponents
of Getting young people involved in amateur radio
and recognizing those young hams who are doing
great things But the you know the people who
are complaining now that we're not Getting any
young hams into the hobby are the same people
who? 30 years ago were young people not getting
into the hobby because thirty years ago the same
complaints were being heard and obviously fifty
and seventy and eighty years ago this is is just
seems to be as old as ham radio itself the complaint
that we're not getting any young people in somehow
they managed to sneak in despite our best efforts
You know, I used to give a talk at club meetings
back when there were club meetings called ham
radio successfully dying for the past 50 years
Because we've been hearing the same stuff over
and over again about how this is gonna kill ham
radio that's gonna kill ham radio and ham radio
just sucks it all up and churns it over and makes
it part of ham radio but I have to Expand that
to now, you know ham radio successfully dying
for the past 80 years It's not to say that that
we should not be actively encouraging young people
to become hams we absolutely should and to get
on the air and to get active and to remake ham
radio and Their image with art the new technology
that's available to us But it's not the crisis
that so many people make it out to be because
if it was There would be no ham radio today and
there wouldn't have been for the past 40 50 years
So it's You know, I was just looking at an Article
today that I think is going to be one of our
CQ classics in November was talking about the
number of hams at different points before World
War I, there were 6 ,000 licensed amateurs in
the United States. By the time World War II rolled
around and ham radio got shut off again, there
were 60 ,000 hams. And today there are 770 ,000.
As I said, dying successfully for decades. And
our young people are there, they're growing.
And we're doing everything we can to grow that.
And on Newsline, actually anchored it just a
few hours ago. Coming out tomorrow, there's a
couple of good youth interest stories on Newsline.
And one of them is one that I'm involved with.
And I have Bryant Rascal coordinating. December
Yoda month where all these young hams get on
and made over a hundred thousand contacts last
December and they're going to try to break that
record again this December. There's more out
there now than when I was five years old and
trying to navigate the ham bands. It's growing
and maybe not as fast as we'd like, but it's
but it is growing. Well, thanks, Jim, for that.
And I think that's that's what we have so far
tonight. I know we were going to talk a little
bit and we're already over time. We were going
to talk a little bit about CQ Worldwide, because
that's this weekend. That's that's the. That's
right. So, uh, over 22 hours from now it starts.
Yeah. So what are you expecting from CQ worldwide
in the middle of a pandemic? Well, it's been
really amazing. You know, this is another example
of how ham radio is really a wonderful thing
for people. And it has been keeping those of
us who are socially isolated, socially connected.
We are very fortunate that we have these radios
that let us talk to people around the corner
and around the world, even if we happen to be
stuck in our homes or going out for very limited
excursions for like food and medicine and that's
about it. And one of the casualties of The pandemic
has been a lot of de -expeditions and trips to
somewhat exotic places to operate. But a lot
more people have been, since they've been home
without a whole lot of other stuff to do, they've
been spending a lot more time on the radio. We
have had record participation in all of our contests
so far this year. and shows no signs of slowing
down. It's not just our contest, but every contest
since March has had record participation. So
we are expecting the CQ Worldwide this weekend
to be part of that. There are going to be fewer
multipliers to be had because a lot of the people
who normally go and activate different islands
and exotic places for the contest are not making
the trip this year. We're going to have a lot
more competition in the single -op categories.
We've seen some innovation in multi -op areas
though, a lot of remote operation, a lot of hybrid,
we're featuring that in our November issue also,
hybrid remote and local operation where you have
a multi -multi station where you have one operator
at the station physically controlling one radio
and keeping an eye on the others while other
operators are coming in remotely and operating
from other locations. Our May issue featured
on the cover a totally remote multi -multi operation
with I think it was 10 or 12 operators all in
different places. um, operating remotely from
a station in Maine. And I think they won. Um,
so there's a lot of ham ingenuity going on, a
lot of innovation and a lot of activity. And
that's really great. Yeah. That's some, some
cool stuff. And I know there's a more and more
of those remotes popping up all the time and
they're going to be useful this weekend. That's
That's for sure. So make sure you get a chance,
get on CQ Worldwide this weekend. It's a great
opportunity to rack up some DXCC credits and
get some countries and have a fun time. And the
sun is starting to wake up. The sun is waking
up. Yeah. So get in there and give it a shot.
It's on the way up. Well, we've got All kinds
of stuff that we can talk about, but we're already
over time, Rich. So we're going to end it here,
but I thank you so much for being on the show
and talking about all this stuff. Great stuff.
My pleasure. I know you've got a couple of books
coming out that you're working on over at CQ2.
I'll give you like a minute here or two if you
want to do something quick on those. Well, we're
we're in the editing process on them one is a
broad brush introduction to ham radio Written
by Eric Nicholas kale 7a J who some of you may
be familiar with he's written a lot of a double
RL books and he's one of our columnists and he's
he has a really great way of just connecting
with people and Talking about technology in non
-technical terms so to bring people in and get
them interested and the other is a complete update
to our shortwave propagation handbook which is
quite long in the tooth by now and there's been
so much that has been learned over the course
of the past cycle and in terms of new satellites
and new data on propagation and solar activity.
It's all being worked into the revised version
of this book. So hopefully both of them will
be available for Christmas and they will be worth
your while regardless of when they're out there.
All right. And let everybody know where they
can find. CQ and the books and all the information
on all of that stuff and a new calendar coming
out here too. That's right. The calendar is out.
I've got one sitting right in front of me here.
I love it. It's all available at our website
at www .cq -amateur -radio .com. Okay, there
you go. You can also subscribe. All right, rich.
Well, thank you so much for being here and we
look forward to more great things out of CQ communications
and CQ magazine Thanks for being here as always
and we'll be talking to you again soon Very good.
Glad to join you and perhaps the next time you're
on every other podcast See a lot of your listeners
on the air this weekend Yep, I feel the same
way. So that's a wrap for This week's edition
of ham talk live. Thanks to my guest rich Moses
and w2v you from CQ communications and everybody
out there in cyberspace for listening and typing
in tonight and Invite you back next Thursday
night 9 p .m. Eastern time when we won't have
the excuse of getting away from the presidential
debate. For a list of all of our upcoming guests,
visit HamTalkLive .com. If you like the show,
please leave us a review. That would help us
out tremendously. So for now, this is Neil Rapp,
WB9VPG, saying 7375, and may the good DX be yours.
Thanks for watching!