Thanks for tuning in. Hamtalk Live will be on
the air shortly. Please stand by. Thanks for
tuning in. Hamtalk Live will be on the air shortly.
Please stand by. This episode of HamTalk Live
is brought to you by Tower Electronics. For connectors,
cables, and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit
pl -259 .com. And by ICOM, heard it, worked it,
logged it. Visit www .icomamerica .com slash
amateur for more information about ICOM radios.
Good evening, everyone. It's time for HamTalk
Live, episode number 129. What's up with? Please
copy. Recorded live on Thursday, August 23rd,
2018. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9 VPG. Thanks
for tuning into this episode of HamTalk Live.
Tonight we're joined by Ward Silver in Zero AX.
and we'll take your calls live in just a few
minutes. Last week on the show, Val Hotsfeld,
NV9L, was here to talk about computer logging
options. And if you missed that, you can listen
anytime at HamTalkLive .com. or on your favorite
podcast app or on YouTube. So get your questions
ready to go about some of the things that we
do that may or may not be efficient. We're going
to talk about those a little bit and see. Maybe
there's some some things that we're not aware
of so we're gonna Take a look at that and after
the interview you can give us a call that phone
number is eight one two net ham one That's eight
one two six three eight four two six one or you
can Skype us at ham talk live. You can also tweet
us We're at ham talk live on Twitter and I'll
be back with Ward right after this word from
tower electronics right here on ham talk live
in the PL -259s? 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. 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. Buy nine solder -type
PL259s. 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 PL -259? Tower Electronics, PL
-259 .com. Or call 920 -435 -2973. Do we sell
PL259 connectors? What's that call sign again?
WB9VPG. That's right, Delium 9 -Bainte Pterodactyl
Nat, right? You are listening to HamTalk Live
with Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Good to see Scott and
Jill down at Huntsville at the Hamfest there
this last weekend and they will be at Shelby,
North Carolina coming up on August 31st through
September the 2nd. Findlay, Ohio on September
9th and Peoria, Illinois the Superfest at the
15th and 16th of September or you can visit them
online anytime at PL -259 .com and thanks to
them for sponsoring the show once again tonight
and our guest tonight is None other than Ward
Silver, N0AX, first licensed at age 16 in 1972
and worked professionally in the broadcasting
and product development engineering fields. Ward
is an avid contester and DXer and was one of
the founders of the World Radio Sports Team Championships.
He is currently the president of the YASME Foundation
and he is the lead editor of the ARRL Handbook
and Antenna Book. He's authored many others such
as ARRL license guides, Ham radio for dummies
now in its third edition and a book on station
grounding is one of his more recent ones and
many many articles he was the 2008 Dayton amateur
of the year and in 2015 was inducted into the
CQ contest Hall of Fame and he's a long -time
instructor at the Dayton Contest University which
is one of the reasons he's with us tonight so
Ward welcome back Well, thanks, Neil. Glad to
be back. Yeah. I ran into this conversation right
after field day and I thought, you know, maybe
this would be a good topic to do. And, and I
walked in on actually a couple of very similar
conversations, the same thing, same kind of thing.
And it was basically. If I hear one more person
say, please copy. I'm going to throw this radio
across the field." And there were so many different
reactions. Some people didn't understand why
the op was frustrated, why he would care if somebody
said, please copy. Others were saying, I can't
believe he's, you know, he's that way because
it's, it's courteous to say, please copy. And
so, you know, we should be saying, please copy.
And then another one said he didn't understand
why it was offensive. And I'm like, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, hold. Nobody said it was offensive
and so I decided maybe we need to talk about
please copy and some other fillers that people
often say and when and if they are appropriate
and maybe it's you know, but Sometimes it would
be and other times, you know, when time is more
valuable, maybe it wouldn't be. So, um, you know,
I was talking to Val before the show last week.
She commented that she kind of went around and,
and asked some people and people didn't understand
why somebody would be irritated about, please
copy. And so I thought, well, you know, maybe
we can talk about it a little bit and, and see
why that would take place at least and and I
didn't think about it for a long time my contesting
experiences started like a lot of people at field
day and I heard it and that's what I did and
I thought I was being courteous and and I've
done that for I did that I should say for over
40 years and then I went to contest university
and I heard speakers like like yourself that
We're saying, Oh, please copy. You know that
if you're looking for a way to raise your scores,
you need to make more contacts per hour. And
so when you, you say these things that, that
cuts into that. So, um, one of my goals this
year was to not say, please copy during field
day. And I caught myself doing it twice. Oh,
it's a hard. It's a hard habit to break, isn't
it? It is. It is. I caught myself doing it and
I got mad at myself because I did it because
I'm trying to break that habit. So I wanted you
to come on as a resident contest university instructor
and talk about it so that people understand,
you know, are these people just, you know, old
guys saying, get off my lawn. Yeah. Get off my
frequency, right? Well, you know, let me ask
you this. If you were going to operate in a contest,
and let's say you were going to make 500 contacts
during a contest, and I made you stop at the
beginning and say, please copy 500 times before
you could start operating, you might... You might
go, well, gee, why am I wasting all this time?
And it doesn't sound like a lot of time, but
over a long time, it does build up. And I think
the real question here really isn't about please
copy specifically. It's about the difference
between being courteous and being effective,
and when it's important to be efficient and when
it's OK to be conversational. Sometimes it matters.
I've been in public service, I guess, almost
my entire ham career, and extra verbiage and
jargon and whatnot in a net, particularly under
emergency conditions, or if the net is crowded
like you're doing a big parade or something.
It's important to be efficient. I think the thing
is we're all trying to be effective communicators
here, and Curtius is effective, not necessarily
saying extra things like we would in a face -to
-face conversation. I've listened to big weather
nets and stuff like that, and the net control
was trying to be real nice, but the net control
would start Well, now I'd like to call, and it
just ate up many, many, many seconds. And if
the tornado's closing in from the southwest,
you don't have many, many, many seconds. So radio
discipline under these conditions is important,
and that's why we have contests, supposedly for
training. Riley Hollingsworth, the FCC wireless
bureau leader. mentioned this more than once,
it's that we need to be more effective in the
way that we transferred information. So it's
not so much that it's offensive or, you know,
an aggravating thing in and of itself. If somebody
says, please copy once, that's not a big deal.
But it's bad practice when you're in a time -limited
situation. And so we need to Look at our own
practices and I have my own little things that
I I say sometimes that I catch myself Going up
your you don't need that so we need to look at
our practices and Please copy is one of the things
that we could start by Taking out of our conversation
when we are in a contest or a net or any other
things Neil back in the day when you started
Saying please copy a field day Did anybody tell
you to say that was how did that get started?
I just kind of emulated what the good Contesters
were doing it in the club So I'd sat down watched
what they did listen to what they did and then
that's that's what I started doing and then I
started hearing it on the air, so I I, you know,
I started doing that. Well, well, please copy
my two alpha Indiana, you know, and, and, you
know, and, and, and you are, you know, you, you
are, and that would always confuse me because
I'm like, wait a minute, you are, but it's my
report. Wait a minute, but you know, you're five
nine here, you know, uh, and I kind of emulated
what I heard. Right and and that's where we all
start. I think it's a self -trained You know
avocation and our role models As we learn from
them we pick up their habits for better or worse
and I think back in the 70s or 60s there was
some kind of a common practice to say Please
copy. I don't know where it got started, but
it has just been carried through and You know,
it's not an evil thing. It's just simply a time
waster and Another you know, there's some examples
of this you are It's completely unnecessary.
I mean what else is the information gonna be
here? so you just need to say the other stations
call sign maybe and and the exchange and that's
it. So you don't need to repeat information without
being asked to. 99 % of the time your information
is received just fine. There's no point in receiving
it. It's like if you're in a line at the cashier
and they want to talk your ear off for 30 seconds
before they ring up your purchase. There's a
difference between courtesy and efficiency and
effectiveness. And so in my point of view, as
a public service communicator and as an experienced
competitive operator, I'll put it that way. To
me, courtesy is efficiency. It's not courteous
to me to waste my time, just like it's not courteous
to somebody else to waste their time in a non
-conversational situation. If I'm having a rag
chew or there's, we're just kind of. packing
around on the air or something like that. Sure,
you know, take a little extra time. All this
kind of stuff. It's not a big deal. But when
you're in a busy band, a busy channel, a busy
net, and there's some urgency involved, you need
to make your radio discipline crisp. Other things
are sending like slash QRP. Okay, I can tell
that you're not You're not strong. And it seems
like always the only characters I ever copy are
QRP out of the noise and stuff. So it really
just slows things down. It's like, I hear the
guy in there, I hear him, I hear him. And then
all I get is it always comes up and then I hear
da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da QRP
or mobile or some other thing. It's just unhelpful
information. And then we all have Collided with
the person that stretches out the digital messages
and sends a bunch of extra things and they want
to play their Bragg tape when it's not appropriate
Stuff like that my personal habits. Let's let's
You know be be fair here My my personal thing
is that I'm not consistent and I tend to say
thank you too many times or instead of Just thanks
N0AX. I'll get into this habit of saying QRZ.
It's a bunch of extra stuff. It's just not necessary.
If you look at long -distance runners, for example,
as they're running along the street doing a marathon,
they're going to run however many miles it is,
26 and a half miles. They are not picking up
their feet. Any farther than they need to just
clear the paper like half an inch. It's like
they're gliding along the pavement They're not
waving their arms around you're not you know
marching down the street lifting up their feet
and their legs and stuff They're conserving energy.
That's how we should strive to operate in a competitive
situation And that competitive situation prepares
us for when time really really does count and
that's during emergency situations when we have
to be quick, we have to be short, we have to
be clear, we have to be effective. And so, my
point is that effective operating practices are,
in fact, the most courteous operating practices,
and we just need to work on our technique. So,
yeah, if you're trying to make a lot of content,
it's aggravating to have people throw extra verbiage
into the mix. And that's basically where it comes
from. So I think it would be useful for the mentors
that are listening tonight to next time you get
a chance and you're teaching somebody how to
make a contact, listen to your own self, make
sure that you have your own radio discipline
down, and explain to the person you're teaching
what radio discipline means and when it's important
to be short, sweet. and when it's okay to be
conversational. Most people don't think about
it that way. But they're willing to learn. And
until somebody points it out to you, you're not
going to know. So that's my little monologue
on the subject. Yeah, I agree. I did it for a
very long time. And then all of a sudden, we
were trying, you know, at school to find a way
to raise our point totals, we kind of hit a,
you know, a point where we were doing about everything
we could. And it was like, okay, what are we
going to do to try to get our levels up so that
we have a chance of winning this thing? And yeah,
and school club roundup. Yeah. And it was, you
know, At Contest University, that was one of
the first things that we picked up on was, oh
my gosh, our script, we gotta cut this script
down. We gotta get this, you know, we're saying
way too much stuff and we're taking way too long
to make a contact. And as soon as we cut that
down, we won. I mean, it was a huge difference.
Well, that's positive. It makes a point and that's
a really good opportunity for when an operator
is just beginning to build in good habits. And
if you're going to have habits, might as well
be good ones. Absolutely. And one thing that
I've noticed too, you've talked about public
service. I started working satellites in the
last year or so and on satellites you have a
window of you know six to maybe 12 minutes if
you're lucky to make your contacts and you're
gonna have to shift frequencies in the middle
of that because all the Doppler shift and everything
and so sometimes you don't get all of that Six
to twelve minutes and so you're on there and
you're like you can't get in a word edgewise
because the same person is calling every five
seconds and it's like, you know if you would
you know not call once I might be able to get
a contact but Especially on vacation. I remember
I was trying to get you know, a bunch of different
grids worked and I think I got through one out
of five passes because people just kept calling
and calling and calling and calling and tied
up the satellite weren't making contacts either,
but I couldn't even make a call. And so that
kind of hit home with me that, okay, you know,
being efficient. on a satellite is the polite
thing to do because there's not much time there.
Right. Polite can mean a lot of different things
and you know it's important to get your information
out there but leave enough space for other people
when it's necessary keep your transmissions short
so that you're saying the necessary information
but not extra and that's something that you have
to be taught to do and It's the job of us who
are more experienced operators to look at our
practices and teach New hands how to operate
effectively and they'll find like you say They'll
find that effective operating is successful operating,
and they'll make a higher score in a contest,
but they'll also be a more effective net control,
for example. And I've run net control exercises
in my public service groups more than once, and
we're in and we're out in 10 minutes, and there's
none of these 20 -minute, 30 -minute nets that
go on and on and on. And that's something that
you'll learn how to do in contests. And after
people get used to it, they appreciate the fact
that you're saving them time. So if it's a conversation,
by all means, say please and thank you and how
are you and how's the weather and all that kind
of stuff and 73, four or five times and see you
down the log. That's a great ham tradition. My
my spouse called it the long goodbye. It takes
us longer to say goodbye than it does to make
the contact sometimes. But with tornadoes bearing
down on you, it's not appropriate. So we need
to know the difference. Yeah. And I think that
even goes into, you know, you're talking about
weather nets and that kind of thing that goes
into even the nets. Are you checking in that
it's raining? You know and tying up the system.
Well, if you're in a what we call here an informal
net, it's it's You know stuff is in the next
county over and we're kind of waiting on it,
you know to see what's going on Yeah, okay That
may be okay, but then when a tornado warning
comes out You've got to switch gears. You've
got to limit your transmitting time and listen,
listen, listen. And one of my Elmers always said
that the PTT button was misnamed. It should be
the RLL button or the RTL button. It should be
released to listen. You need to keep the frequency
clear and listen so that if someone does have
traffic, they can get in immediately. And that's
another use of this. Yep. It's really the job
of the net control station to make it clear when
you're shifting gears. And if the net control
says Shorten it up we need to Discipline ourselves
here, you know, however you want to say it, you
know, we need to go to a tight practices or whatever
the jargon is in your group then you listen and
comply but if he's informal and little chatters,
okay by all means by all means relax, but it's
up to the person running the show whether that's
a net control or I know the person calling CQ
or the DX station or whatever. Um, if you're
not the boss, listen to the boss, emulate the
boss and everybody will have a much better time.
Well, so some good information there. And again,
you know, if it's a con casual conversation,
you know, It's okay. You know, it's okay. You
don't have to, you know, you don't have to worry
about it. But, but there are times when it does
and figuring out when those changing gears, you
know, when that takes place, when you need to
shorten it up as opposed to when it's okay, I
think is something that, that a lot of hams struggle
with. Yeah. Well, until you practice it, um,
You know, it's that wax on, wax off thing. And
you mentioned scripts. I think that's a really
great tool if you're a beginning contester or
if you're a beginning net control. Make a script,
nice big letters so you can see it. And you don't
have to follow along with your finger or anything,
but it will cue you and help your brain get it
right. And you just develop this rhythm for CQing
and answering people, or for checking in people,
or for whatever it is that you're doing. The
script is really good. And like I said, if you're
a more experienced operator, it's our job to
help new hands learn good radio discipline. And
that can't be taught from a book. It can only
be taught by doing. So wax on. wax off, you do
the practice until you are so comfortable with
it, you don't even think of doing anything else.
Very good. Well, we are running late. So let's,
let's take a break here. And I'll be back with
Ward right after this word from ICOM America
right here on HamTalk Live. Heard it? Worked
it? Logged it. It's time to get the transceiver
that is best suited for your lifestyle. ICOM
offers a variety of high -performance and innovative
products. See how you can make the most out of
contest season with one of these transceivers.
First, the IC -7851. It's the competitive edge
you've been looking for. Raise the bar and hear
what others cannot with this flagship HF and
50 megahertz transceiver that has reciprocal
mixing dynamic range. crystal clear LO design,
spectrum scope, dual receivers and digital voice
recorder. The one I've been drooling over lately,
the IC7610. It's the SDR every ham wants and
just in time for contest season. This high -performance
SDR has the ability to pick out the faintest
of signals even in the presence of stronger adjacent
ones. The new ICOM IC7610 is a direct sampling
software -defined radio that will change the
world's definition of an SDR transceiver. It
has RF direct sampling system, 110 dB RMDR, independent
dual receiver and dual digits select. The reason
I've been drooling over the IC7610 is the performance
I've seen at work with our IC7300. It's changing
the way entry -level HF is designed. This high
-performance, innovative HF transceiver with
a compact design will far exceed your expectations.
RF direct sampling, 15 discrete bandpass filters,
a large touchscreen, a real -time spectrum scope,
and an SD card slot. It's all in the IC7300.
Visit www .icomamerica .com slash amateur for
more information on ICOM radios. Join the conversation.
Call us on voice with Skype at HamTalk Live or
give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. Now here's more HamTalk Live. We
put the ham in HamTalk Live. It's great to see
the ICOM crew down at Huntsville and they've
got some pretty cool stuff out there. So make
sure you check out icomamerica .com and make
sure you check out HamTalk Live on Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram. And we're here every Thursday
night at nine PM Eastern time at hamtalklive
.com. And it's time for your calls now. So If
you have a question for Ward, give us a call
at 812 -NATAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Or you
can Skype us at HamTalk Live on Skype. Also on
Twitter, we're at HamTalk Live. And so we'll
see if we have some questions out there. During
the break ward, we talked a little bit about,
uh, you know, some other things that may have
come to mind, um, and getting into this rhythm
that you were talking about and, and, you know,
having the script to where you have what you're
supposed to say and practice it and getting into
this rhythm. And, and one of the things that
we got to remember is breathe breathing. Yes.
I started. In broadcasting when I was in college
and my first newscast I think it was about three
in the morning and I was convinced that there
were thousands people out there listening and
I got nervous and I couldn't make myself breathe
and My voice got higher and higher and higher
and I think by the end of the one minute One
or two minute newscast. I was about ready to
pass out so Breathing is really great. We got
sweepstakes coming up in November, and that's
a real popular phone contest for hams here in
the United States. And a lot of people jump in
there and make a few contacts. But it's a really
long exchange. You've got to give a call sign.
You've got to give a number. You've got to give
a precedence, a check and section, and all that
stuff. And if you're used to just saying, you
know, Ward, Missouri, and suddenly you've got
this paragraph to send, it can be disconcerting.
And what I counsel people to do is before they
give the exchange, just take a breath, just N0AX,
your number 22, alpha, W0EEE39, Missouri. And
you never run out of breath. You develop a rhythm,
and it becomes second nature after a while. Works
for all kinds of things. So, you know, there's
a free tip of the day. Breathe. There we go no
extra charge for that for you listeners out there
eight one two three eight one two six three eight
four two six one about gave my phone number eight
one two six three eight four two six one if You
have a question here for Ward will talk about
some of the things we say on the air here for
For just a bit longer. So if you have a question,
uh, give us a tweet, give us a call. We'll be,
uh, happy to hear from you. So, uh, you know,
we, we, we beat up on, please copy pretty hard
here. Uh, what are some of the other things that,
that are kind of in the same category? Oh, um,
well, we talked about you are, uh, what it's
really, I am. And repeating information, I think,
is a time waster, a time eater. And my personal
thing, like I said, is I tend to say thank you
one extra time. If you're going to say thanks,
say it at the end. If you're calling CQ and the
person gives you their information and you got
it, you just say thanks and your call sign, you're
on. You want to give the other person a cue.
that you got it correct. Thanks is just fine
there's no need to give a cue signal and some
people will tell you that cue signals shouldn't
even be used on phone but you can just say thanks
or got it and your call sign whatever comes out
of your mouth easily and doesn't take a lot of
work to say. Just say it once and I think the
important thing is just to look at your own operating
practices and say, what could I improve? What
could I snip out as not being useful? And go
from there. All right. We do have a call on the
line here. So welcome to HamTalk Live. Hi, Neil.
This is Jocelyn. This is Jocelyn, KD8VRX. How
are you? Ah, Jocelyn, good day. Good to hear
your voice again. It's almost like I saw you
a few days ago. Yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly.
Right. Uh, I was listening in and a work doing
a great job as usual. I did attend contest university,
not this past year, but, uh, the year before.
And, uh, I will say I did the, uh, informal contest
that is field day. Uh, that's a whole other topic
that you can talk about. But I had the similar
thing. I didn't have to please copy. I had somebody,
and we were hunting and pecking, and I had his
information already. So when my turn, you know,
I was trying to reach him, reach him, finally
my turn came up, and I basically just said, all
right, I know you're a, you know, for Alpha,
Michigan, for example, I'm for Alpha, Ohio, QSL,
and the... I was expecting a QSL back and we'd
be moving on and try to be efficient. And the
gentleman, obviously, was new to field day. So
he was like, let's see here. I am for Alpha Michigan
QSL. The QSL took way too much time. But again,
I think it's one of those things where it's field
day and a lot of people are learning. And as
Ward said, bad habits are hard to direct. And
try to get a good habit in the beginning would
be very helpful. But you need helmers for that.
So that's, as you said, as people have gone to
contest university, it's our job, I feel, to
educate people in terms of trying to make it
efficient. Now, again, field day being an informal
contest means that it's a little bit more relaxed,
and you have to be a little bit lenient. But
anyways, for a bigger contest, I know that most
people appreciate the quick change and move on.
Yep. I think that's right. Field Day attracts,
what is it, almost 50 ,000 hams, I think, at
this point. So it's an enormous open house for
ham radio. And sure, a lot of people are making
their first contact. So you're going to hear
all kinds of interesting behaviors on the air.
And I think what happened when you said, well,
I know you're for Alpha Michigan. Basically,
you upset their rhythm, you know, and he was
saying he was used to doing, you know, the CQ,
you give your call, he gives the exchange, you
give your exchange, thank you. And if you disrupt
that, if people aren't real skilled, they can
really throw them for a loop. But, you know,
it's just anything can happen and maybe a noise
crash can do exactly the same thing. So we just
need to have a little help and take it easy with
people. I never yell at them for saying, please
copy on the air. I just throw my radio across
the ground. That's OK. Nobody can see me do that.
That's OK. That's all right. I love field day,
and I always have. It's just a terrific event
and gets a lot of people on the air. It's just
when you hear most new hams making their first
batch QSOs. So I'm hopeful that more of us experienced
guys and gals will get out there and help people
operate. And I'm delighted that you went to Contest
University. And it sounds like you learned a
lot, Jocelyn. Yes, yes, I did. And like I said,
we're trying to put it to good use. But yeah,
you do, as Neil said, you do catch yourself saying,
please copy and you know you're just wasting
time. You know on field day, it depends who you're
talking to. It's probably not that big of a deal,
but it's not a good habit. So you try to get
rid of it. So anyways, thank you very much, Neil,
for taking the call and I'll be listening on.
So thank you, Ward, for being on and we'll talk
to you guys soon. 73. 73, Justin, thanks. Okay,
bye. Bye -bye. 812 -638 -4261 is the telephone
number if you'd like to call in we have a few
minutes remaining so we'll we'll do that and
we'll try not to get into the is field day a
contest or not a contest argument because you
know if you keep score well isn't that a contest
but but it but it's more than that and and so
it can be a lot of different things to a lot
of different people and so it's still Like you
said a chance to practice those things and and
we were patient with those who were still learning
that Well, you know one thing you mentioned is
it's a lot of things so a lot of people and I've
been at everything from full out We got a win
the category groups all the way to it's a club
picnic and there's a radio over there if you
want to operate so you know, it's in I guess
I'm pushing 45 field days now. I've seen a lot
of different versions. You know, you just need
to agree on what it is that you are all planning
on doing and operate in that way. It started
out as an emergency communications training exercise.
It's sort of morphed into open house and on a
related subject. When I put up signage for people
and I'm trying to attract the public who do not
know very much about ham radio, maybe they've
never seen one at all, the signage that I put
up says ham radio open house. Everybody knows
what open house means. Hardly anybody knows what
field day means and if you are a civilian I'll
put it that way a lay person and you come across
a bunch of amateurs with a whole lot of equipment
and antennas and The safety tape and all this
kind of stuff It can be pretty intimidating to
just go over and barge in and ask them what they're
doing but if you make it clear that it's a demonstration
that it's an open house that we're here to show
you what we've got. More people will come over
and take a look. It also helps to have a sign
that says free cookies and coffee or something.
You can have one that says free beer, but then
they'll never leave. So you just want to welcome
people in and encourage them by talking to them
using phrases and terms that they understand.
So if you say open house, They'll get it and
they'll come over. An interesting comment here
online from Carl KD9HQT and says, you know, it's
annoying every once in a while when someone responds
with just your call. After you call CQ and they
just say they're called respond instead of using
your call and then their call and there's a history
behind that to call sign thing. And Ward, I bet
you remember it. Well. There's a lot of different
stories about that, but the two call signs, they're
not required by the rules at all. The only call
sign that is required to identify your transmission
is your own call sign. And so there's really
no need to say the person that you're calling's
call sign, the station that you're calling, unless
there are two stations or more than one station.
on the same frequency. For example, if you have
in a public service net, if you have several
people standing by waiting for traffic, you would
definitely want to give their call sign first.
If you're tuning around in a contest and you
hear somebody calling CQ, there's nobody else
on the channel, then there is no reason to give
their call sign. You just give yours. Give it
once. And if they need a repeat, they'll pick
it right up. And there's also a question about,
do both call signs have to be given during every
QSO at some point? And the answer is no. The
FCC was asked to rule on that some years ago.
And their point was, we just want to know who
is making the transmission. So if you read the
rule, it says, The call sign must be given at
the end of the communication does not say contact
The communication may be a series of contacts.
It may be a conversation Obviously you can hear
people all the time talking for up to ten minutes
without identifying and then they'll drop in
their call so The history of it is probably from
round tables and nets and things like that And
in such cases, it's still quite appropriate to
give the station your calling's call sign. For
example, I may call CQ and I get two people calling
me. It happens all the time. So I will say specifically
who I'm calling back. And I might drop in my
call sign if I think there's any confusion. It
never hurts if you think there's a possibility
of confusion. to give both call signs. And that's
often appreciated. Sometimes two stations can
be in each other's skip zone and think they're
working the same guys. And they're not. So it
happens all the time. I'd say there's a long
response to a short message online. Neil, go
ahead. Just thinking about rule changes that
that was a, you know, something that you really
had to do at one point and it kind of stuck and,
and, and the rules aren't that way now. Yeah.
Well, um, the rules have been that you have to,
as far as identification go, all you have to
do is give your call sign the rest of it. Is
for operational effectiveness and you have to
decide on your own whether the other stations
call sign is effective or not. There you go.
Well, and I think that's a good place to end
here tonight because that's really what we've
been talking about is. making those decisions
and trying to be concise and not waste people's
time, but yet still be polite and be courteous
and when to do what. And I think that's a perfect
place to leave things forward. So thank you so
much for coming on the show, talking to us about
that and dare I say it. I'll catch you further
down the log. There you go. Please copy Neil
We have the fourth cat sighting on the show Sorry
kitty Yeah, electric likes to hang around here
in the office It's just that we we just need
to remember that sometimes of courteous means
deficient And sometimes courteous is, um, polite
and with extra manners and that little social
grease we use to, to, uh, deal with each other.
So it's, it's just important to realize there
might be different, uh, definitions of that at
different times and learn when to shift gears.
That's just part of becoming experienced. So
73 is, and thanks for having me on the show.
All right. Very good. And, and. And now it's
time to talk, whether it's 73 or 73. Oh, wait,
we're out of time. So sorry. Oh, no. So sorry,
we're out of time. We can't get into that discussion
tonight. So anyway, ward, thank you so much for
coming on the show. That is a wrap for this week's
edition of ham talk live. Thanks to ward silver
in zero a X and everybody out there in cyberspace
for listening and calling in. And next Thursday
night at nine PM Eastern time, we have a bit
of a. triangular table I guess it's three people
so I guess it's a triangular table instead of
a round table but some of the leaders of some
of the big HamFest, Michael Coulter, W8CI from
Dayton, Michael Colley, W4MCA from Orlando, and
Mark Brown in for BCD from Huntsville will be
here to talk about their HamFest and how they
support one another and how the HamFest can support
one another. So be sure to tune in for that.
And for a list of all of our upcoming guests,
just go to HamTalkLive .com. And if you like
the show, please leave us a you on iTunes or
wherever you listen. That helps us, uh, get the
word out faster. So for now, this is Neil rap
WB nine VPG saying seven three, seven five, and
may the good DX be yours. You never once mentioned
your weather at all 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, to you and your family I'll
be seeing you for the last time Obviously in
your urban...