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. Here
we go, welcome to Amtok Live Call in, let's talk,
Neil's your guy Amtok Live, here we go No, ladies
and gentlemen It's not the 877 cars for kids
jingle. It's the ham talk live jingle Good evening,
everyone This is ham talk live episode number
200 Celebrating 200 episodes recorded live on
Thursday February 20th 2020 we've got all kinds
of 20s going on here. I'm your host Neil rap
WB 9 VPG Thanks for tuning in to episode number
200 of ham talk live tonight. We're doing something
different. We're going to take your calls all
throughout the show tonight and I'm gonna play
some of my favorite moments from the first 199
episodes and during each segment I'll switch
over to answer the phones and we're going to
ask a trivia question so if you've been paying
attention to the show then maybe you'll know
the answer and if you haven't been paying attention
to the show you can always go look it up or If
you listen to the clip you might just hear the
answer so Maybe you just pay attention. But anyway,
we're going to give away Some prizes tonight
and the first person to call in with the correct
answer on each Clip tonight will win a prize.
So thanks to icon America for giving us three
icon swag bags to give away tower electronics
gave prize packs with their famous PL -259s and
a pack of power poles and all kinds of helpful
parts and tools. And then LDG Electronics is
giving away a $200 tuner in honor of the 200th
episode. So thank you LDG for making that happen.
They have been wanting to sponsor the show and
we haven't had room. They decided to get involved
with the giveaway tonight, so we thank them for
that. And we will take your calls. in just a
few minutes. Well, last week here on the show,
Dustin Thomas in 8RMA was here to talk about
the 2020 State of the Hobby Survey. And if you
missed that show, you can listen anytime at HamTalkLive
.com or on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube.
Or you can catch the rebroadcast of the show
on WTWW. That's 5085 -5085 AM. Saturday evenings
at about 630 p .m. Eastern Time. So if you're
listening to us live on Thursday night, you're
going to have a chance to call in and win. So
let me give you the phone number so you can have
it on speed dial. As soon as you know the answer,
you can give us a call at 859 -982 -7373. Again,
that new phone number is 859. Before each clip
we'll ask a HamTalk Live trivia question and
if you call in with the correct answer You'll
win. So we'll be right back to do this right
after this word from ICOM America right here
on HamTalk Live. Get out and be active with ICOM's
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icomamerica .com for more information about ICOM
radios. I think I could listen to that bumper
music 50 times a day. Welcome back to episode
number 200 of HamTalk Live. ICOM has graciously
donated some swag bags. We're gonna start with
one of those. We're gonna give away one of those
if you can answer the trivia question correctly.
So again, this is how this works. I'll ask a
trivia question from a previous episode of HamTalk
Live, and then I'll play a clip from that episode.
And while that clip is playing, I will take phone
calls at 859 -982. seventy three seventy three
and uh... the first person to call in with the
correct answer will win the prize now if you
don't know the answer keep listening because
you you may well get a hint uh... if you listen
so uh... the first prize is going to be one of
the ICOM swag bag so uh... be sure to call in
at eight five nine uh... you can't call yet i
haven't asked the question yet So, 959 -982 -7373
is the phone number. So, if you know the answer,
then give us a call and we'll try to manage that.
It's a one -man show here, so I've got to try
to manage all of this myself. Well, if you're
listening to us on WTWW or on the podcast edition,
I'm sorry, but... This has been recorded on Thursday
night. So you're not going to be able to call
in and win. So my apologies for that. And let's
see here. Well, you know, the show started. with
a demo episode. My best friend Eric Bonham in
9KDB was on the show and we did just a short
show just to have something online and kind of
talk a little bit about some things going on
and we talked about you know a little bit of
this and that and then I asked Dr. Scott Wright
KZOMD to be my first guest on the first official
episode and he had a chance to get to know me
a little bit better because We got to know each
other pretty early on in life and in ham radio
He was a teenager, and I was probably nine or
something and You know it gave us a chance to
get acquainted a little bit, but on the second
episode Don Wilbanks a e5dw came on the show,
and we we played a game show I think it was the
first time we ever had a ham radio game show
on but it was called would you rather so here's
the question here's the trivia question how did
don answer would you rather get hit by a live
turkey dropped from a helicopter or your city
attacked by a monster lizard so which one did
don answer did he say he'd rather Get hit by
a live turkey drop from a helicopter. Of course,
this is a WKRP in Cincinnati reference or Your
city attacked by a monster lizard as soon as
you know the answer give us call it eight five
nine nine eight two Seventy three seventy three
and now here's dawn with would you rather on
episode number two? We're gonna do this and this
is something I've been looking forward to all
week. So right now ladies gentlemen for the first
time and ham radio media history at least that
I know of we're going to play a game show you
are so star for entertainment since Don is so
much fun when he doesn't have to be serious and
he's probably the only guest that I'll ever have
that's crazy enough to do anything this silly
it's time to play the ham talk live version of
would you rather oh lord All right, let me strap
in. I don't think I'm ready. Strap in, strap
in, and here we go. Okay, so here's the first
one. And by the way, if you play along at home,
you can do this on Twitter. My assistant, Nick,
is standing by on Twitter to post this on Twitter
so you can vote. Just look for Hand Talk Live
and you can vote on some of these. So would you
rather get an RF burn or an electrical shock?
Have had both and The RF burn lasts longer. So
I would rather have the jolt than the burn Yeah,
that that's I ran this by some of the kids and
they said the same thing. So yeah Would you rather
be locked up in a room for an entire day with
Bob Hile or Gordon West? Wow see now that's As
much as I love Gordon, I think it would probably
probably be Bob because some of Some of the coolest
moments or periods of time I've spent, one of
them was in Huntsville, Alabama last year, went
out to dinner with Bob. It was me, Bob, and Joe
Eisenberg, K -0 -N -A -B. And when you get Bob
by himself... I mean, you can see Bob at Hamfest
and it's cool and everything, but you're in the
middle of a human pile -up. When you can get
Bob just by himself, school is... In session
all the stories from his rock and roll days and
his and talking about You know Clipsch his mentor
and just everything just oh my god now taking
nothing nothing away from Gordon because Back
in was it 99 2000 so my cat one of I think it
may have been 2000 my second trip to Dayton I'm
talking to Gordon and he's like, well, I'm going
to be in New Orleans like in a couple of months.
If you want, I'll I'll do one of my one of my
my stage shows. If you want to put that together
and find a venue, I'll do it for free since I'm
going to be there for business. And I said, sure.
So I put together the the Gordon West appearance
in New Orleans. And so I got to spend some good
quality time with Gordon to actually drove around
in my pickup truck with a cassette recorder.
And I interviewed him for Newsline just driving
around. in the truck. Gordon came to my house
and met Don and Tyler. Tyler was not quite a
year old. And then we took Gordon, myself and
two or three, four people from the Ham Radio
Club, we took Gordon out on a swamp tour where
Gordon fed Marshmallows to alligators, so I've
had I've had some cool one -on -one time with
both of those guys But I got to tell you it's
so special to just sit alone with Hile and just
listen Especially for an audio guy and a you
know a rock and roll guy like myself. It's just
it's it's golden All right, we're running out
of time, so we're gonna have to go rapid -fire
here, so I know I'm long okay Here's the next
one hit by a live turkey dropped from a helicopter
or your city attacked by a monster lizard As
God is my witness exactly WKRP. Okay drop by
a turkey or my city attack you know I could.
I would probably be mesmerized by the side of
this turkey falling on me that I wouldn't be
able to to to avoid it but but having grown up
in Oklahoma and spent lots of time down here
I know how to run away from both tornadoes and
hurricanes so I think I'll take the lizard. Alright
go without internet for a week or radio waves
for a week now radio waves includes Wi -Fi Well
Wi -Fi internet would be the same thing so well,
yeah, oh man do I have to I Don't know I'd probably
just have to sleep Okay, get cut by a Harry's
razor or take the wrong person's pill pack. Oh
I've never been cut by Harry's razor So probably
take the wrong person's pill pack because that
would Well, you know, I mean you don't want to
you don't want to mix It's just like being pulled
over by the by the policeman and and he says
sir Have you been drinking and your friend over
in the shotgun seat says are you insane? Do you
think this man is dumb enough to mix alcohol
and drugs? You know take a sledgehammer to a
TS 2000 or an IC 7100 The 2000 would be a bigger
target and I had a 2000 get hit by lightning
So I've kind of done that already so I'll say
take the sledgehammer to the 2000 because I never
did like that radio Okay, tell your wife that
you how much you really paid for your radio gear
or climb your tower in a rainstorm to replace
replace the feed line Climb the tower Oh, wow
work the sewage pumper truck at the hamvention
or the complaint desk The complaint desk no one
wants to be a rough key ranger Program all the
channels in your handheld manually or take the
extra class test over as I'm looking at my bofeng
I believe I'd rather take the extra test over.
Yeah, I think so spend an entire evening on 14
313 or 38 98. Oh god Does the radio have to be
on? Yes. How much can I drink? And what time
of the day it is? Because I want to pick the
one with the least least propagation. There you
go. There you go. Well, there you have it, folks.
It's the ham talk live version. Would you rather
would you rather and thank you, but I'd rather
not Dodd -Wilbanks all contestants on am talk
live. Would you rather do not win a new car?
Do not win a home version of the game and do
not even win a measly box of rice Aroney the
San Francisco tree Be sure to tune in next time
to ham talk live. Would you rather assuming we're
still on the air after we just did that? All
right Got it. Got it. Got to go. Coming up next
is your chance to call in. We'll try to cram
in one call here. You can Skype us at ham talk
live or give us a call at eight one two net ham
one ham talk live. Maybe back after this word.
Don't count our electronics. Oh my goodness.
That was, that was fun. Well, we do have a winner.
Paul Brown. Don't we need nine GCO knew that
it was. the monster lizard so congratulations
to paul and we'll send you an icom swag bag your
way soon and thanks for playing so uh next we
fast forward to episode number nine when once
again same theme we have another game show and
dawn was on again i i think that was set up but
um we played name that rig it was a contest and
Andy Morrison K9 AWM was the contestant and Don
Wilbanks AE5DW was was on the show again and
So this really well, there's a story behind this
we'll tell you about it after after we play the
clip, but The question here for you all the trivia
question is what was the brand of receiver? You
only have to come up with the brand that was
from the recording for name that rig So as soon
as you know the answer give us a call at eight
five nine nine eight two seventy three seventy
three and you'll win a prize pack from Tower
Electronics So here's Andy and Dawn with name
that rig from episode number nine We've got a
few minutes here and we wanted to try something
new with the show and so we're going to try to
do some some some live contests and Don, I know
you are a big fan of WKRP in Cincinnati like
I am. Yes, I am. Because we work in radio and
we realize how real a lot of that stuff is. Like,
the time that they call up and say, well, why
didn't you say that the radio station was off
the air? Well, the radio station is off the air.
How are we going to announce to you that the
radio station is off the air radio station is
off the air. So, so there's all kinds of great
things. Of course, the, the Turkey drop was,
was always big, but there was this one episode
where Dr. Johnny fever and Venus flytrap had
to come up with a contest. So in the spirit of
that contest, it's, it's the game show music
once again. In the spirit of that episode, it's
time to give you sort of a chance to win a special
prize just for you. It's time to play. Name that
rig. I'm frightened. So you probably should be.
Here's how this is going to work. You give us
a call. It's eight one two net ham one right
now. Give us a call and don's going to be here
and don's going to try to play this too and uh,
you can either take his guess or you can Take
your own guess. So so give us a call eight one
two net ham one And it's going to be your chance
to win So and we have a very special prize just
for you and and we do Unlike last time we did
this game show thing with with Don We do have
we do have a consolation prize this time because
last time we we said we didn't weren't even giving
away any rice oroni So, you know San Francisco
tree the San Francisco tree, so we do have that.
Okay, so you got a call Yes. Yes, you got a call.
Oh, and we have a call. Oh, no, we have a call
we have We have our contestant and I think I
know who our contestant is, but I'm going to
ask anyway. Who's our lucky winner? Uh, well,
this is Andy, uh, K nine, a W M and Indiana.
Oh, I was right. Hi, Andy. Thank you for, for
giving us a call. So, so here's how, how you
play name that rig. Okay. I'm going to play an
unaltered recording from a genuine real. Produced
not homebrew amateur radio and what you have
to do is you have to tell me the make and model
Of the receiver that they're using Okay, so you
listen and then don you're going to listen and
make your guess and then Andy you can either
take his guess or you can make your own guess
but If you get the make and the model of the
receiver correct you win your very own brand
new ICOM IC 7300 So how's that? Are you kidding?
I'm not kidding Wow my gosh Your very own IC
7300 It's the big time right here. And now the
pressure's on, Don. No kidding, yeah, I know.
No pressure. Yeah, no pressure, Will Banks. Here
we go. All right, here we go. You got to listen.
All right, here it is. OK, there you go, Don.
I'll even play it again for you. Yeah, I'll play
it again. Okay, I'm gonna go out on a limb and
I'm gonna say that is a swan 350 Okay, that's
that's Don's guess that's my ending Well since
I don't have any better guess I guess I'll jump
on the Don bandwagon here and and go with the
swan as well Oh you poor soul Okay, so Swan 350
is the final answer. Well, it's the one we're
going with. We'll go with the final answer. Oh,
I'm sorry. But I'll tell you what, you about
gave me a heart attack because you're really,
really close. Really? You are. You're really,
really close. So here's the answer. I wanted
to show a quick video of my... This is just the
600R. Wow. Wow. So I had, I had the make right.
You had the make right. You just had the wrong
one. Holy crap. Well, we were closer than I figured
we were. That, no kidding. So I started to say
500CX because I actually had a 500CX. Um, I,
I, I, and so, wow, that I'm, uh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.
That was, that was. That was close. Well, let's
see if we get we'll give you another chance to
win Andy So you can win an official ham talk
live glow -in -the -dark rubber duck not not
an antenna It's a real rubber duck. You answer
those great this question correctly. Who's the
tech CEO ham a Larry Page the CEO of Google be
Brad Smith the Intuit CEO or see John Scully
the former Apple CEO Oh my gosh, I don't know
either of them, so when you're in a doubt, go
with C. Oh, that's correct! Hey, there you go!
Wow! Yeah, John Scully, the former Apple CEO,
is K2HEP. So you're the very first winner of
the HamTalk Live glow -in -the -dark rubber duck.
So Andy, I will get that to you, and thanks for
playing the contest nobody could win. I mean,
name that rig! No, but we came close. We came
close, Andy. Congratulations on the rubber duck.
That's cool. Yeah, well, you know, you take what
you can get. Exactly. Yeah. Well, congratulations.
That's hilarious. All right. Well, hopefully
we had some fun with that. Thanks for playing
along, Andy. I'll get that to you. All right.
Well, it's episode number 200 of HamTalk Live.
and we have another lucky winner Jocelyn bro
KD8 VRX knew that it was a swan but the story
on that you know this was before ICOM was a sponsor
and then no one no one gave that radio I was
going to pay for the radio because I was so sure
nobody could possibly just figure out You know
what the radio was just by listening to it and
then Don comes on and says it's one 350 and it
was just a model off. It was the the twins Wow,
I was I was Thinking that was a thousand dollar
mistake but We got we got Andy the rubber duck.
We got his picture with the rubber duck and everything
is a glow -in -the -dark rubber duck even so
So thanks Andy for playing along with that and
congratulations to Jocelyn Bro KD8 VRX and I'll
get that tower electronics prize pack with the
PL259s, the power poles and all kinds of good
stuff your way soon so thanks for playing. Okay
we've got one more and by the way the show may
go a little long tonight just just warning you.
One more clip here before the commercial break
with one of our most famous guests on episode
number 49 astronaut inventor builder and son
of the first ham radio operator Live from space,
Richard Garriott, W5KWQ was on the show to talk
about his new book and his time operating ham
radio on the International Space Station. So
here's the trivia question. Who did Richard's
current call sign, W5KWQ, originally belong to?
And as soon as you know the answer, give us a
call at 859 -982 -7373. We're going to give away
another icon. swag bag. So here's Richard talking
about his ham radio experiences back on episode
number 49. His new book Explore Create chronicles
his life from the early days of video gaming
through his spaceflight and to the present day.
So Richard, thank you so much for coming on HamTalk
Live tonight. Absolutely, my pleasure. Great
to be with you. And boy, it's not often I hear
somebody read the whole bio. I've had a lot of
fun in my life, as you can tell. Yeah, certainly.
You've had a great batch of experiences. And
tonight, we want to focus on your trip to the
International Space Station. And I know you could
talk about this for... weeks on end. And we don't
have that long. We have 45 minutes and they cut
me off. So, tell us a little bit about the trip
and maybe focus more on, you know, how ham radio
played a role in that. Sure, sure, of course.
You know, you mentioned my father, W5LFL. You
know, when I was young, let me back up from the
space flight and kind of introduce my journey
through ham. as well. You know, my father, before
he became an astronaut, he and my grandfather,
whose call sign I now have, W5KWQ, the two of
them went and got certified together when my
dad was high school, college age, and when my
parents moved to Houston, Texas, where my father
was an astronaut and my grandfather still lived
back in Enid, Oklahoma. The ham rig was set up
in my father's office and every other night or
so that was sort of the way we sat down and had
long talks with grandpa was with our ham rig.
And so I grew up with ham as a common tool of
the household. And so by the time I flew, my
father had already taken his, well in fact the
first, ham radio set up to space aboard STS -9,
the ninth launch of the space shuttle. And that
was the first time an astronaut in space spoke
to the general public directly. And as you obviously
know, ham radio operators around the globe could
speak with my dad, including, remember, some
of his favorites were people like King Hussein
of Jordan, the previous King of Jordan. I was
a big ham and we had a chance to speak directly
from space with him. When I began to put together
the plan for my own space flight, I was going
to be flying 25 years almost to the day from
my father's shuttle flight. I knew that as his
son and on such a good milestone, I would be
remiss if I did not also not only take ham radios
or operate ham radios when I was on board, but
try to kind of push it up a notch from the status
quo. And as many of the hams out there who do
some contacts with either the ISS or satellites,
you probably know or some of them may know there's
actually a couple of radios that have been on
board the International Space Station for many,
many years. and it's not uncommon for astronauts
and cosmonauts to use those radios. And so the
addition that I did is I took up slow -scan television.
And so I took up a handheld microphone addition
that has a slow -scan TV device in it. And that
way when I was doing other experiments and so
I couldn't be at the radio myself, I would hook
up the slow -scan television device and I could
leave it at a window sort of automatically taking
a picture every couple of minutes and transmitting
it down and taking a picture again and transmitting
it down. Therefore, the radio would be in use
as close to 24 -7 as I could and people could
get, even if there wasn't somebody live to talk
to, they could get an echo, kind of a selfie
portrait of themselves from the International
Space Station while I was up there. But I have
to tell you, one of the other things I did that
I had good fun with was because I was doing the
slow scan TV activities and I had a laptop in
the loop as well, it also meant that the day
I arrived on the station as I was just getting
all the gear set up, I brought a folder full
of images, of pre -selected images that I could
transmit down for the first few orbits around
the Earth. that I personally had fun with where
I sent down images of either test patterns from
like the old fashioned television test patterns
or a variety of eye tests and then some kind
of comical pieces like, you know, pictures of
a site of ham. or pictures of my dad speaking
from his hammer to a board the shuttle. So in
any case, I had a great time setting it up, I
had a great time doing it. But some of the most
interesting things that I remember from operating
in Ham was not only just the great conversations
I had with people truly all over the globe, but
also how impressed I was with the community when
I would do things like, it might be for the crew,
it might have been two or three o 'clock in the
morning, let's call it. I might have woken up
in the middle of the night to go to the head
or something. I would drift back by past the
ham radio that is sitting by a window. I'd look
out the window and I might be looking down at
say Australia. And it was, in the case I'm describing,
it was dark over Australia. Everyone in the ground
would have known that the crew was asleep. This
was our sleep schedule. There would be no real
reason to expect. anyone on board the International
Space Station to be communicating down. But all
I had to do was click the transmit button on
the microphone and immediately I'd be swamped
with three or four attempts at contact. And so
it was really quite amazing to just think about
the fact that when you're up there as an astronaut
and that there's still people all over the world
who just have their gear turned on, tuned in
and nearby to where if you just cycle the microphone,
they will assume that that's a live body up there
attempting to transmit, which in this case it
absolutely was, and had great 2 a .m. conversations
as I traveled across, in this case, Australia,
17 ,000 miles an hour. Alright, well that was
Richard Gehry at W5KWQ, and our lucky winner
tonight is RJWY7AA. R .J. knew that that was
his grandfather's call sign, so congratulations
and an ICOM swag bag is Coming your way soon.
So thanks for calling in RJ. Appreciate it and
appreciate the tweet earlier as well. Well, we're
running a little long tonight, but we're having
some fun. We're going to give away some more
prizes. We've got four more to do after the break.
So let's take a break right now and we'll come
back and play some more trivia and some more
clips from the first 199 episodes 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. Tower
electronics. 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. Tower electronics.
Tower electronics. And this weekend only, take
advantage of our special liquidation sale. My
Knives solder -type PL -259s get the tenth one
for just one penny. 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! Hi, I'm
Scott Cole, KB9 AMM, President of TOWER ELECTRONICS.
I like the company so much that I bought it.
TOWER ELECTRONICS, coming to a hand -fest near
you, or online at pl -259 .com. And we're in
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? We put the ham in
HamTalk Live. Tower electronics is back out on
the road. They're in Dalton, Georgia this weekend,
February 22nd. And then Cave City, Kentucky,
March 7th. And March 15th, Maumee, Ohio. That's
in the Toledo area. And then April 18th, they'll
be back up in Wisconsin. They'll be up near Madison
at Stoughton, Wisconsin. But you can visit them
anytime at PL -259 .com. And HamTalk Live is
on the air every Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern
Time. Right here at HamTalkLive .com. Be sure
to check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
And thanks to everybody for all the well wishes
and congratulations. And Jacob mentioned, let
me get, let me see if I can get Jacob's call
sign here. KG7EQN. He says, congratulations on
200 episodes. It's hard to pick a favorite. The
Long Island CW club show was one of his favorites.
And the one with Ruth Willett, KM4LAO, was some
of his favorites, but he was hoping that no one
says the B word tonight. Well actually during
the first clip, Will Banks said the B word, so
we'll get it in here. Yeah, somebody said said
the the bow thing word so we got the bow thing
in there so All right. Well, let's let's move
along here We've got some more stuff to give
away and some more clips still to listen to and
and our next favorite moment is From Denmark
at 3 a .m. Andrew and Lisa from the ham band
were on the show live from Denmark and even got
up in the middle of the night 3 a .m. To talk
about these ham radio songs that they have and
of course these are the people who did the the
ham band video from from the tower. He was wearing
a tux up on the tower and just went viral. So
if you can tell us where this ham band album
was recorded, what city did Andrew and Lisa record
the ham band album, give us a call at 859 -982
-7373 and you're going to pick up a prize pack
from Tower Electronics. So here's Andrew and
Lisa from the ham band on episode 75 but tonight
we're talking about another band they formed
and that's the ham band yes it's the people who
made that video from atop that hundred foot tower
they're here to talk with you this evening and
actually it's three o 'clock in the morning in
Denmark and I gave them a chance to do this pre
-recorded and they said no no no we want to do
it live and they may be regretting that decision
right now as they're they're loading up on coffee
so Andrew and Lisa thank you so much for coming
on the show anyway yeah but it's it's it's nice
to be here and a lot of coffee and we'll be okay
Lisa's here too Yes, and it's pitch -dark outside,
and our dog refused to come over to the radio
room, so he's still asleep in the big house.
Yeah, I'd say it's sensible, so thank you so
much for being up at 3 a .m. for the show. It's
a pleasure to have you here and a few years ago
this music video that you guys made come and
join us on the airwaves it went viral Over here
at least it was playing on a big -screen TV at
Dayton a few years ago and it's been a Big topic
of discussion in the ham radio club that I do
at my school That we always play that video and
and they always sing they're singing it you know,
half the time. And so I thought, you know, we
ought to reach out and see if if you'd come on
the show and talk a little bit about how you
made that video. But before we do that, you were
kind enough to send me a copy of your whole CD
called Seek You, of course, which that's a play
on CQ. And I had a chance to listen to it on
a drive home one night last week and I was I
was really really impressed and I've been looking
forward to doing the show because the wit of
some of these lyrics and the quality of this
CD was just so impressive and I know you guys
are fans of the Spurry Submissions band we've
had them on and they do some rock and roll parodies
but but this is some original country songs about
ham radio and some of the real struggles in hams
live so tell us about the CD and the musicians
that you used for making that recording Well
the we were in the middle of doing a recording
in Nashville and which is where we do all our
recording and I had this idea let's see whether
we can we can write a lot of songs that really
do tell the whole story of about amateur radio
and I was so lucky at the time I decided to write
the songs it was you know nothing it's not recently
but there's not a lot new happened in amateur
radio since we did the album. So it was very,
very lucky that we chose the right time and we
got the best musicians in the world playing the
music. So it turned out quite nice and I think
more than a million people have seen the video
and a few people have bought the album, not enough.
And amateur radio is not an expensive hobby at
all in my opinion. but the way we do it at Oscar
Zulu 5 Echo in Denmark, we're quite an advanced
station, we've got a lot of nice antennas and
you know, the music side of things... keeps us
happy in in the because every time we do a contest
or work dx the the the people say hey isn't that
uh andrew from uh from the hand band so i think
we've made a couple of people happy going yeah
and and these musicians from nashville tell us
some of the people they play with they've played
with in the past Well, the the owner of the studio
is is Wayne Moss and he everybody knows that
the the Roy Orbison song pretty woman and it
goes dong dong dong dong dong and the guy who
played that riff was Was Wayne Moss who owns
the studio? He didn't even play on the record
and then the bass player. I don't know if anybody
remembers that the Buddy Holly uh when his plane
crashed there was a waylon jennings and a gentleman
called um just a moment my mind is just the middle
of the night but the tommy also yeah tommy also
now tommy also played the bass on this record
and he was the guy who flipped a coin with the
Big Bopper and the Big Bopper got the seat on
the plane and he died in the crash and Tommy
Olsup lived to play the bass on the handband.
Go ahead. That's a deal there. That's a deal
to play for the handband. That's a good thing.
And then some other people. We've got a lot of
really good musicians. So the strange thing about
the record is that it is far better than you
might imagine. It sounds like a parody and it
sounds like we are not a serious bunch of musicians,
but I can tell you, we really are. And we've
got mixed reception. Few people think that it's
ridiculous to sing songs about amateur radio.
And to be honest, They're absolutely right. And
sometimes that's a good thing. Yeah, it is. Exactly.
Well, I admit, country music isn't usually my
style, even though, ironically, when I worked
in radio, I was a DJ at a country music station
for about three years. But when I listened to
this CD, It was just so entertaining and I just
kept listening over and over again and the last
song that we're going to play tonight, I don't
know how many times I've listened to that song
in the last week, but one of the jokes I always
heard about country music and Rascal Flatts even
made a song about it is, what happens when you
play a country song backwards? Do you know? I
have no idea. Tell us. You get your wife back,
you get your dog back, your truck starts running
again. Now, I didn't hear anything about dogs
or trucks, but Lisa, I did notice there were
several songs that had to do with hams that didn't
keep their wives happy because they were on the
radio all the time. So is that a real struggle?
Well, in our little family, it's actually not
a struggle because Andrew never goes off to work
and leaves me at home because we work together.
We've been professional musicians together for...
over 40 years. So we are together 24 hours a
day. So I think it's actually quite relaxing
when he goes to his radio room and gives me and
the dog a little bit of peace and quiet. So we're
probably not a very typical ham radio family.
All right, well that was the ham band, and thanks
to Chris, AA4CB, he knew that the answer was
Nashville. So congratulations, and Tower Electronics
prize pack with their famous PL259s, power poles,
and all kinds of stuff is coming your way, so
thanks Chris for calling in. So our next moment
comes from episode number 99. Now, episode number
99 is our most listened to episode. Rob Sherwood,
NC0B, actually holds the distinction of being
number one and number two in the most listened
episodes of HamTalk Live. And this episode, number
99, got over... 6 ,900 plays it's almost 7 ,000
plays and he was talking about his way to measure
radios and make comparisons and he was evaluating
a new radio that had just been out for a short
time at that point and was comparing it to some
of the other radios on his list. So if you know
what radio that was that he was on episode number
99 talking about and evaluating and comparing,
give us a call at 859 -982 -7373. And we're going
to give away another ICOM swag bag. So here's
Rob Sherwood. Direct sampling radios are vastly
different from your legacy radio. One thing I
want to explain, people get out of my website
a lot and there's a lot of information there.
They sometimes get carried away and think there's
only one number in the world that you should
look at. And that's kind of crazy. And I've mentioned
that. virtually every presentation I've made
from Contest University to all the HamFest I've
had the pleasure to speak at, you'd need to look
at the whole picture. But of course, this table
is sorted some way, you have to sort it by something,
and it's sorted by close to end dynamic range,
which is most critical for CW pileups, de -expeditions,
and contests. Now, it's kind of funny that the
top radio that's been on my website since, well,
2014, was the flex 6700 but it was only on the
top when the preamp was on and the league tested
it a few months later in the early 2015 and they
got the same result the preamp made the legacy
numbers the way we you know measure radio is
like for the last 40 years it made it slightly
better even though you really don't want to run
the preamp on the lower bands might be crazy
but then I had another sample that came in two
years later, and actually in 2017, and I was
testing it along with the Ellicraft K3S, and
for whatever reason, turning on the preamp no
longer made the numbers a little bit bigger.
So you'll see on my website that even though
the K3 or the K3S didn't change from testing
it, A few years later or on this case on 10 meters
because I was really trying to compare the two
and make apples and apple comparison so We just
have to consider that somewhat of an anomaly
doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the
6700 It's just I just say take the number with
the preamp off is the number that you should
really compare So we've got the ICOM 7851 Ahead.
Well, I would hope so. It's thirteen thousand
five hundred dollars The Hilberling is a head,
but it's not really a CW radio. It's mostly a
sideband radio. So it doesn't have all the features
you'd want, like QSK or really tight selectivity,
even though they did drastically upgrade it from
a 500 Hertz filter to a 250. But sometimes in
a contest or a pileup, you need to go down to
150 or 100. So the Hilberling with crystal filters
can't do that. And then there's the somewhat
anomaly in it. The KX3 is listed also fairly
high, but you have to consider read the footnotes.
And if you look at its opposite sideband rejection,
it's a phasing radio. The numbers are not all
that high. So you just have to say, OK, I have
to kind of get a handle on what the numbers mean
and read the white paper you can click on that
explains all that. So where did it come in? Yet
in the other companion receiver, you know the
r8600 of course, it's a DC to light radio They
came in at the same numbers at you know, 98 DB
for the close end I make range with IP plus so
Really I've said for a long time if you've got
an 85 let alone a 90 DB radio You've got a good
radio. There's Approximately a dozen and a half
radios it are going to perform well for most
people most of the time. We don't stress our
radios to the max all the time. It's a good thing
because all those radios we had back in the upconversion
only days that was like 20 years or more, starting
with the TR7 and up through like the Pro3, they
were 70 dB radios, seven zero. And they were...
sort of okay on sideband and not really adequate
on CW, but that's all we had. So luckily, I mean,
if they didn't work at all, you couldn't have
bought it. I mean, you couldn't have used them.
So most of the time we can get away with 85,
90 dB radios and the 7610 is one of those. All
right. Well, that was Rob Sherwood, NC0B from
Sherwood Engineering. And Rich WB3EGD knew that
it was the IC7610 from ICOM. So Congratulations
and appropriately enough, we have an ICOM swag
bag coming your way soon, so thanks for playing.
Well we have two more chances to win. Next we're
going to episode 121 when we talk to Don N1DG
live from Baker Island on the Baker Island De
-Expedition. So if you know what caused the delay
of getting the camp set up on Baker Island, well
the main cause of the delay of getting all the
gear set up and ready to go, give us a call at
859 -982 -7373 and we've got another prize pack
from Tower Electronics to give away. So here
is Don from Baker Island Live on episode 121.
Hopefully we'll be able to get to these guys.
You gotta dial 27 numbers to reach Baker Island.
It takes a little while and we couldn't get through
our normal way here, so. Okay, we've reached
the Baker Island Bar and Grill. We got it. Don
around? The Baker Island Bar and Grill. Hello?
Oh, hey Kevin, how are you? It's Marty. Little
hot, little sweaty, little tired. Little hot?
Dirty. Okay, is Don around? Or do I have you?
Hello, you're on the air. Hi, Don. Okay, cool.
M1DG here. You're live on HamTalk Live here,
and I hope the audience can hear you okay. Thanks
for taking a second to break in here. How are
things on Baker? We have all but one station
up and running. The first night we had one of
the, well the second night we had a very bad
squall come through. It looks like we're going
to get some rain again tonight. We don't need
to be out working and the winds are not too bad
at Long Island. Zillions of birds on the island.
I mean, I've never seen so many birds and they
never shut up. All night long. That's amazing
Don and you guys have been doing just a fantastic
job. How has the pileups been? Pileups be wrong
on that. Is using FTA due to the challenges of
phone? All right, well congratulations to Paul
Paul knew that it was the heat So congratulations,
and we'll get a tower electronics prize pack
out to you and thanks for playing. So that brings
us to our final prize tonight and it's from LDG
Electronics. You can find them at LDGElectronics
.com and they have donated a $200 tuner for episode
number 200. It's the LDG YT100, an automatic
tuner intended for use with modern Yezu transceivers.
It works with popular Yezu transceivers. like
the FT -857, 897, and FT -100. And like most
LDG tuners, the YT -100 operates automatically,
beginning a tuning cycle whenever the user presses
the tune button on the tuner. And it features
LDG's advanced memory tuning, providing 2 ,000
memory locations when tuning near a previously
used frequency. It just recalls the settings
and It's nearly instantaneous. So thanks to LDG
Electronics. They're at LDGElectronics .com for
donating the prize tonight. So here's our final
clip and it comes from episode 186 when Jerry
Ellsworth AI6TK and Amy Herndon AI6ZU were talking
about augmented reality in ham radio. And so
if you can tell me the name of their startup
company for the augmented reality glasses, give
me a call at 859 -982 -7373 and we'll get you
that LDG tuner. So give us a call and here's
Jerry and Amy on episode 186. You know this is
a piece of technology that's coming and it's
going to open up a lot of possibilities for radio
communication and we're excited about what's
possible in the form of augmentation for contesting
or just general communications alone. But for
one of the, at Visalia I brought a very early
prototype and I put together a simulation of
what it might look like if you had a four -square
antenna with four receivers and you did just
a little bit of math on the signals that you're
receiving on these four antennas and I showed
Right on the table, you saw a little house. It
was in 3D. You could actually reach up. It just
looked like you could touch it. Right next to
the house, you saw the four antennas sticking
up right out of the table, just like miniature
version. And all around the antenna, you could
see cascading in the signal strength from different
signals. What's interesting about augmented reality
is because you get that extra depth to it and
this extra interaction, you can actually reach
in and select things with your hands or with
an object. It gives you more information simultaneously.
And so on this demo I put together, you could
actually see the heading in which the signal
was coming, in which antenna you would want to
select, or where you want to point your antenna.
It's very hard to actually see that kind of thing
on a 2D screen, because you can see amplitude
poking up out of the waterfall that was coming
cascading in towards the antennas, and you could
see the heading in which direction it was coming.
So you can imagine in in contesting, you know
if you're you wanting to reach a certain part
of the world You could actually take a look at
you know, you can have your transceiver off to
the side and you can have your your tilt 5 Matt
off to the side and you can take a look at how
your antenna is performing and you can turn your
antenna you can see how your signal is getting
out in 3d and I actually like figure out if you're
aimed in the right direction if you're heading
towards that area of the world that you want
to pick up and You know, you just imagine it
take it from there, it can make it so much easier
to actually see that. When we were talking last
night with the folks on HamNation, we were saying
like you can imagine something like a Google
Earth where you can see the whole kind of globe
in front of you, you can spin it with your hand
and you can see how your signal strength is getting
out across the globe. And then how neat would
that be if the person that you just connected
with also had that ability and you could actually
Reach in and kind of interact with each other
in real time while you're making that connection
Yeah, so we have the ability to track objects
and hands and we have a wand a magic wand that
you can use to select things and a unique feature
of our system is you can actually You know our
system is based on this game board that you open
up and that's where all the images show up You
can actually take your game board sitting on
your table link it up to somebody else's game
board across the world and you have the shared
3D space. So imagine hooking our system up to
the spotting networks. You make a contact, then
automatically you could see this 3D world pop
up and you could see exactly where they are.
It could load up Google Maps with 3D view of
the terrain, the location where you're actually...
tower there, you could actually maybe see our
tower, which would be pretty cool. And maybe
see the signal strength coming off of their tower
as well. That would be pretty interesting. But
then you could take it to another level as well.
So once you've made your contact, you could actually
link your game boards together and have communication
over the internet where you could potentially
share 3D models. our glasses have the ability
that you could digitize objects. So, I don't
know, you get the new ICOM 7610 and you walk
around it and you digitize it into 3D and then
you can link up to your new friend you made and
send them a 3D model and you could be like, well,
here's where the cat port is on my new hot ICOM
rig. And we also, you know... Should I should
clarify it like a lot of this is like super early
There's got to be like clever ham radio programmers
that you know are gonna take on these challenges
and making the software tools like You know the
Joe Taylors and folks out there and and of course
we're interested in that ourselves and we're
kind of poking it as well but You know, we're
just talking basically about like this is the
future what it could be like There's a lot of
interesting things so You were talking earlier
about you're working with your school and they're
having antenna problems. One thing that I started
working on, it's not complete yet, is I wanted
to pull in NEC antenna simulations and be able
to build complex antennas in 3D. So you would
use the magic wand to drag in, in real time,
drag in antenna elements and move them around
and constantly be calculating the antenna radiation
patterns as you move elements in real time and
you could just lean in to your table and you
look at this miniature version of your antenna
and you can actually see how moving these elements
is changing and also you could bring in Google
Earth like the terrain map and you could see
like how the train is going to affect your antenna,
and you could set up like, well I know we have
high iron content, you could use the magic wand
to paint iron on the ground, or I know the roof
of my school has metal, so I'm going to put aluminum
on the top of this, and you can model your house,
and you can see how these complex interactions
actually work in a very intuitive way that's
really hard on a 2D screen, but absolutely trivial
on a 3D screen. All right, well congratulations
to Chris Bloxham. He knew that it was tilt 5
So congratulations you get the the LDG tuner
from LDG Electronics and they will be sending
that one out. So I will let them know and congratulations
Well, that's about it. We're running a little
late here tonight, but I hope you've had a lot
of fun listening, and I've had a lot of fun just
answering the phones rapid fire. That's fun.
That's what we like to have, so I hope you all
will call in some more. But the format was a
little different tonight, and we had a bunch
of prizes to give away. It was kind of fun to
answer the phones and talk to some people. while
things were going on. So hopefully we can keep
doing that. So thanks for listening and we hope
to bring you many more episodes in the months
to come. And again, thanks to ICOM Tower Electronics
and LDG Electronics for providing the prizes
for tonight's celebration for episode 200. And
it's been a lot of fun. Hope you enjoyed a look
back at the first 199 episodes. And one final
reminder here, Carol Perry, WB2MGP is now accepting
nominations. For the Young Ham Lends a Hand contest,
any young ham, age 19 or younger, who's demonstrated
basic tenets of service and volunteerism can
be nominated. They can be someone who helps recruit
or mentor other young people, assist at local
community events or help in some way with the
elderly or military, just something in their
community. So nominations can be sent to Whiskey
Bravo to Mike Golf Papa WB2MG. at gmail .com
before the end of April and the winner will be
announced at the Dayton Hamvention Youth Forum
and that's a hundred dollar prize so If you get
a chance and you know someone, nominate them
for that. There's ten days left in the Youth
on the Air Camp matching fundraising campaign.
You can make your donation count double if you
do that by the end of February. So go to youthontheair
.org and click on the donate button and we're
well on our way to our goal here to help fund
Yoda Camp this summer. Well, that is a wrap.
for the 200th episode of HamTalk Live. Thanks
to everyone out there in cyberspace for listening
and calling in and typing in. And I invite you
back next Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time
when Jim Idelson, K1IR, will be here to talk
about the Zero Falls Alliance. And for a list
of all of our upcoming guests, just go to HamTalkLive
.com. And if you like HamTalk Live, please leave
us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.
That helps others find us faster. So until episode
number 201. This is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying
7 -3, 7 -5, and may the good DX be yours. And
I didn't mention mine We talked and talked for
hours and hours I completely forgot you're a
ham I don't know your power or the height of
your tower And frankly I don't give a damn So
73's, to you and your family I'll be seeing you
further down the line You're 73's I'll be seeing
you further down the log. It's hard to believe
that you're into AD, cause you sound just like
a local up here. But why don't those whistling
Mediterranean's check if the frequency's clear?
We're warm and cozy in our shacks and we have
talked about thousands of things, about shoes.
About ships, about ceiling wax About cabbages
and kings So 73s, to you and your family I'll
be seeing you burning down the log Yeah 73s,
to you and your family I'll be seeing you burning
down the log