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Ham Radio, with Neorep, here we go, welcome to
Hamtop Live, call in, let's stop, Neil's your
guy, Hamtop Live, here we go, on Hamtop Radio.
Hey good evening everyone it's Time for HamTalk
Live, it's episode number 126. The Huntsville
HamFest 2018 preview recorded live on Thursday,
August 2nd, 2018. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning into another episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight we're joined by Mark Brown in for
BCD and we'll take your calls live in just a
few minutes. Last week here on the show we were
live from Disney World talking about ham radio
and vacationing in Florida and thanks again to
Kevin Zerry KK4 YEL for arranging a visit and
meeting out at the Kennedy Space Center last
week and Andy Malusi KK4 LWR and Sean Wall KV4WV
for hosting the show at the Disney ham radio
shack. And thanks to both for giving me a chance
to get some eight chef contacts, either before
or after the show while I was visiting there.
But most importantly, I didn't thank my girlfriend,
Julie, who put up with all of my satellite passes
on the road trip there and back. And when she
found out she couldn't get into NASA, she insisted
that I go ahead by myself anyway. even though
she couldn't, and rearranged her schedule so
we could stay an extra day to do the show from
Disney. So thanks to Julie for making all that
happen. And I was going through my satellite
recordings for my logs and found a little clip
here that I wanted to play. So this may have
actually happened while we were on the trip.
I was trying to figure out what grid we were
in because we kept going you know one grid to
the next to the next to the next and I wasn't
used to you know okay this is where this grid
is and this is where this grid is I had to actually
pull up the app and try to remember what grid
to say on the contacts so yeah this kind of happened
Yeah, so that at the end there that was all you
care about are the numbers Was trying to figure
out we were in echo Lima 89 and instead of worried
about the ketchup that got on her shirt, so Sorry,
Julie Yeah, you know how it is when you get all
Focused on making sure the recordings go and
making sure you're on the right frequency make
sure you know Everything's ready to go. You know
what grid you're on and then that and then you're
so focused on that and oh I'm sorry. You got
ketchup on your shirt so Sorry, but that may
have happened. I bet I'm not the only one that
it's ever happened to. We'll also had a chance
to work some stations from N1KSC out at Kennedy
Space Center last week. Wanted to give you just
a short clip of audio of that. I've got some
more, but you don't want to sit around and listen
to a bunch of contacts. But we'll give you a
little clip here from N1KSC. This is N1KSC. Here's
it. Whiskey Papa 4 United, this is N1KSC 5 -9
to Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Alright, thanks
for the call from Puerto Rico, 73, this is N1KSC,
QRZ. The QRP Kilo Bravo 9 go Okay, so there's
a little bit from N1 KSC and if you haven't had
a chance to work them on NASA on the air Keep
trying they're they're out there quite a bit.
So give them a call for that So if you missed
that show last week from Florida, you can listen
anytime. Just go to ham talk live dot com or
apple podcasts stitcher i heart podcast google
play tune in soundcloud or even youtube and you
can check that out about vacationing with ham
radio in florida and one more thing that we can't
let go here before we go to break i know i'm
going along on the intro this week but We want
to congratulate Bryant Rascal KG5HVO on winning
the Bill Pasternak Memorial Amateur Radio Newsline
Young Ham of the Year Award and also Ruth Willett
KM4LAO on winning the ARRL Hiram Percy Maxim
Award. So these are two terrific young hams and
their awards are very much deserved. So congratulations
to Ruth and to Bryant. And if you have a question
about Huntsville, which is where Bryant will
be getting his award. You can give Mark that
question in a little bit. After we talk to Mark
for a little bit, you can give us a call. It's
not time to call yet, but the number so that
you have it ready just in case you wanna call
in, it's 812 -NET -HAM -1. Numerically, that's
812 -638. 4261. You can also Skype us at HamTalk
Live, or you can tweet us. We're at HamTalk Live
on Twitter. And tonight, as with all of our summer
shows, you'll have a chance to win. All you have
to do is call in, so we'll talk more about that
later. But I'll be back with Mark Brown in 4BCD
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on ICOM radios. Coming to you live from the glass
enclosed Faraday box, here's Neil Rapp with more
HamTalk Live. Thanks to ICOM for sponsoring the
show. Make sure you check them out at icomamerica
.com. Tonight our guest is Mark Brown in for
BCD. He's the new chairman of the Huntsville
Hamfest. Mark works at one of the many high -tech
government contracting firms found in Huntsville,
Alabama. He has been the president of the North
Alabama DX Club, the Huntsville ARC, and a member
of both the Tennessee and Alabama contest groups.
And Mark started out as a novice class ham in
high school and got away from the service for
a while, but at age 50 he got back in full force.
And Mark has been working hard all year on preparing
for his first year as the chairman of the Huntsville
Ham Fest and that's what we'll be talking about
tonight. So, Mark, thanks for calling in and
being a guest on the show tonight. Well, Neil,
thank you for the invitation. It's great to be
here and we're really excited. It's two short
weeks away and if things are falling into place,
it's going to be a good one. Yeah, you've been
on here a few times with just calling in as a
listener, but Now we've got you on here to talk
about what's coming up here in just a couple
of weeks. So I'm going to start off asking you
the same question I always ask, whether it was
Charlie or Dave or now you. What's going to happen
new at the HamFest this year? Well, there will
be some new things. But before we go into that,
let's talk about what's the same. We've got a
great lineup of vendors. The vendors that we've
had in years past, Flex Radio, Ellicraft, Yesu,
Kenwood, ICOM, they're all coming. A lot of the
same vendors you're going to see year after year,
the Wireman, if you need ladder line or antenna
wire, copper weld, you know, you can't find some
of those things at Home Depot, but the Wireman
will come through. You can find that neat stuff
at a hand fest. So yeah, a lot of stuff like
that the same. We got a couple of new coax vendors,
several distributors, GigaParts, HRO, RNL will
all be there, MFJ of course. And then the flea
markets, 384 tables of really cool stuff. You
never know what you're going to find at those
tables or under those tables. Sometimes the best
stuff is underneath the tables. that they kind
of they filled up their table and they didn't
have quite enough room so there's these boxes
of things underneath and for those things those
places are worth taking a look at but what's
new well the youth lounge at Huntsville has been
extremely popular year after year and we're going
to expand the youth lounge this year it's going
to be bigger more activities Dr. Monty Bateman
who runs that youth lounge He has been great
with the kids. Last year we had a go -to station.
We'll do that again this year, but Monty promises
even more cool stuff. So look for that to be
a really cool thing. And let's see, guests. I
should mention Dr. Carol Perry. I met and I was
in Orlando at Hamcation. We were staying in the
same hotel. We spoke off and on throughout the
hamcation weekend. And lo and behold, she's coming
to Huntsville for her first ever visit. She'll
be doing a two -hour forum on Saturday on Youth
in Ham Radio. She's bringing several of the,
not several, but some of the kids that were with
her when she did this forum up in Dayton back
in May. And she's also bringing up some teachers
from Pinson Valley High School. Many of you folks
might not know this, but Pinson Valley High School,
just north of Birmingham, was involved in an
ISS contact a couple of months ago. There's a
lot of planning involved with NASA to snag one
of these ISS passes where they basically take
the auditorium at the school and turn it into
just a huge event for every student in the school.
They have prepared questions. Kids are chosen.
I don't know how they choose them. But each one,
as the satellite passes over, they ask their
scripted question. And the astronauts aboard
the space station are answering the kids. And
we could hear the downlink up here in Huntsville.
So that was pretty cool. And it's just Dr. Carol
Perry is really, really heavily involved with
youth in ham radio. And we're excited to have
her here. She will be networking with the U .S.
Space and Rocket Center folks. They'll be visiting
the director of the U .S. Space and Rocket Center
and Dr. Kay Taylor, director of education at
the local rocket center. They'll be at the Huntsville
hand fest this coming event in two weeks. What
else is new? Got a lot more forums, more forums
on Sunday. It's a full schedule. We got Joe Eisenberg
coming back. Joe couldn't make it last year.
He decided to spend the Eclipse weekend with
his family up in Nebraska, but Joe will be back
for forums doing kit building. Steve Hicks from
FlexRadio is going to be talking about advances
in SDR and remote radio. Let's see. Contesting.
Contesting group typically does a large number
of back -to -back forums in one of the rooms.
And this year, we're blessed. WRTC was just a
couple of short weeks ago, the Olympics of Ham
radio over in Germany. Charlie Wooten was a NF4A,
November Fox 4 Alpha. Charlie was a referee for
one of the teams over there. He will be here
to do a forum firsthand experience as a participant
over there. So that should be real interesting.
And then we have forums, Bill Brown, WB8ELK.
Neil, I don't know if you saw him, but he was
in Dayton and actually did a balloon launch on
Saturday up there. And so that was really well
attended. So he'll do a kind of a 45 minute to
45, 50 minute presentation on the physics of
the balloon launch. showing the circuit boards
he uses, talk about the weight, the amount of
helium, et cetera, et cetera, and culminate that
form with an actual going outside, launch a balloon.
So that's really cool. There's a lot for everybody.
There's D -STAR, there's Yesu System Fusion,
there's HF, there's contesting, there's DX. We
got card checking. We got a DX banquet that night,
on Saturday night. Tickets are still available
and that's in a closer hotel. They were so successful
in years past that we've moved that DX banquet
to a larger venue that's just behind the back
doors of the Vaughan Braun Center. And Jim Fenstermacher,
he activated the Kosovo when the league gave
us official credit. They went over, maybe it
was the ITU, but anyway. the coastal activation
is what he'll be talking about. So that's always
real well attended. A nice door prize to the
FTDX 1200. Huntsville -Hampest, of course, we
have hourly door prizes. And then on Saturday,
we have a main door prize, the FT... Let's see.
Oh, Saturday is the FTDX 1200. And on Sunday,
the main door prize is an ICOM IC7200. And like
I said, hourly door prizes to fill in the gaps
there. We also have the hospitality suite, hospitality
room over at the embassy suites. So if you're
staying in town for the night or staying in the
embassy, or even if you're not, you can stop
by the second floor hospitality room. We've got
just a little informal gathering there where
you can meet and network with anybody who's in
the room. And it's a lot of fun. Let's see, what
else did I miss, Neil? Well, I'm not sure. You
hit so many things there. There's so much going
on that, boy, I'm not sure what you missed. I
think you mentioned something about our PA master
of ceremonies, Doug Childs. He's coming back
doing it again, as far as I know. Okay, well,
yeah. Being a PA announcer for sports activities.
I always pay attention to that and you've got
one of the best down there. So I'm glad to hear
he's going to be back. Well, you've had a year
to prepare for all of this and I know you've
been working all year long. So tell us a little
bit about what you've been doing to make this
HamFest a success and some of the highlights
of preparing for this uh... weekend that's coming
up soon well one of the one of the interesting
things uh... is uh... i bring a background for
marketing and sales electronics and engineering
uh... in my in my background and when uh... when
i was asked to become the chairman my first thought
was i i there's a whole lot of i don't know and
who knows about this stuff uh... more than me
but uh... the guys in dayton and orlando And
so for those events, uh, I went up last year
and I went up this year too. I went to Dayton
and, uh, well, let's see, let's start, let's
start at the beginning of the year. I went to
Orlando and I stayed at the same hotel as the
Dayton, uh, guys. And, uh, and we sat over, uh,
over drinks one night until, uh, until we were
thrown out of the room, but, uh, just learning,
being a sponge, asking questions, how, how do
you guys do things? And, uh, It's wonderful.
They're a wonderful group of people willing to
share. And as an organization, as all these organizations,
Orlando, Dallas, Huntsville, Dayton, we work
with each other and we share best practices to
make it good for the vendors, to make it good
for the visitors. Because if it doesn't work
for somebody, it's going to cast all of these
hand pests in a bad light. So we'd rather do
the opposite. We want to make all of these handfests
worth your while to attend. And so that's one
of the biggest things I've done throughout the
year. Up in Dayton, I stayed with the Orlando
guys. And by the way, Orlando and Dayton will
both be sending a contingent here to Huntsville.
We've got them side by side in a booth in the
commercial area. So looking forward to that.
And I'm sure you'll get to get a chance to chat
with those guys, Neil. So that's one of the biggest
things, preparing, looking, trying to look ahead
and just getting a handle on all the things.
And one of those things is a Gantt chart. From
project management, it's one of those, okay,
you can't get to the finish line until you pass
lap three or lap two or lap one. And a lot of
the predecessors were learning to put those kind
of things down on paper. So we don't get surprised.
Oh, we should have turned in the QST ad four
weeks ago. We don't want any surprises like that.
And by the way, we didn't miss that. The QST
ad did air when we wanted it to up on the QST
magazine. But back to you, Neil. All right. Very
good. Well, yeah. And that's one for anybody
that has a ham fest. That deadline is really
early. And so you got to make sure you you don't
miss that one because it will sneak up on you
i can i can tell you that from uh personal experience
so uh luckily i never missed it but uh there
were a couple times i cut it pretty close and
was thinking oh i got plenty of time so yeah
don't forget that well you mentioned yeah you
mentioned uh my friend carol perry coming uh
you've got uh Some more special guests I know
that have said that they're going to be there
and you mentioned Joe and some of those people.
So who are some of your other special guests
and some of your forum speakers that you haven't
mentioned so far? Well, we have on the sales
side, DX Engineering. We had Tim Duffy last year,
but Tim I think is burned out from travel. He
was over at WRTC also. He may be going to Japan.
So instead of Tim K3LR coming from DX Engineering.
The sales manager, Bob Newman, I think is his
name, he'll be coming to visit and we're really
hopeful to one of these days have DX Engineering
as a vendor. We understand they don't normally
operate outside the state of Ohio, but there's
always hope with the Supreme Court decision changing
the tax laws for mail order that something may
change in the near future. Let's see, forum wise,
we have the Salvation Army Saturn, the title
of that forum, it really can all fail. I think
we know what that's all about. Public information
sharing, Ed Tyler, Alabama Public Information
Coordinator, will be doing a one hour forum.
The Alabama Ares Group does a forum. Of course,
Greg Surratt is our Southeastern Division Director.
He will be doing a division and section meeting.
And by the way, the Delta Division, Dave Norris,
I ran into him at HamQuest up in Nashville last
weekend. Dave will be coming over from Arkansas.
He's a regular attendee. So good presence by
the league coming to Huntsville for the Southeastern
Division Convention. Let's see, I mentioned Steve
Hicks from Flex Radio, Joe Eisenberg, Joint Services
Army Mars, Army and Air Force Mars will both
be here. Skywarn Operations, there's a Skywarn
and NWS forum sponsored by NOAA. There's a Packet
Network Forum by somebody at West Mountain Radio.
I don't know this person, Shoto Fisher, Hero
7 Tango Mic Golf. I mentioned Charlie Wooten,
WRTC. Life and Contesting in the South Pacific.
This is an interesting one because Bruce is a
DX Club member and a fellow Tennessee Contest
Group member. He lives about four miles from
me. Bruce had the opportunity many years ago
in his career to work and activate Kwajalein.
I can't remember the prefix for Kwajalein, but
he was DX out there. He was making contacts with
verticals at the edge of the beach and just having
a ball doing it. Kim Hensby, Whiskey Golf, 8
Sierra. Kim is very active in VHF contesting
and is talking about low sunspot activity, alternatives
in UHF VHF contesting. So Kim's very active in
that. The repeater council, Alabama repeater
council will be doing something. AMSAT has a
big presence. AMSAT will have a booth here. They
will be doing a one -hour forum. Bill Brown's
balloon launch. Dr. Monty Bateman, as I mentioned,
is the youth forum coordinator. Monty works as
a scientist at NASA here in Huntsville and is
an expert studying lightning and thunderstorms.
He's going to be doing two separate one -hour
forums, lightning research at Marshall Space
Flight Center. And the second would be lightning
protection for the radio amateur. I've seen his
forums. They're well worth anyone's time to visit
those. Carol Perry from New York will be doing
a two -hour forum. Yeh Suh is doing system fusion.
Let's see. Oh, Bob Heil's coming. forgot to mention
Bob Heil, K9 IED. Bob is coming to do a forum
on his new audio parametric EQ. They will not
have a booth here, so I would imagine that after
Bob's forum, he will be available to chat with
in the commercial area as just another guest
and visitor. So we're looking forward to having
Bob here. Another technical forum, Bob Depeer,
KHKI, is doing 60 years history of HF amplifiers.
And Bob has his master's in radio design and
knows the architecture of both transmitters,
amplifiers, and receivers. So that should be
very, very interesting. Following him is a coworker
of his, Dr. Hans Schantz, KC5 Victor Lima Delta.
Dr. Schantz can explain how electromagnetics
works. He almost makes the Maxwell's equations
understandable. It's a deep topic, but a very
fascinating one -hour form. And then we have
Ben Lowe talking about impedance matching. Ben's
a very active VHF guy here in the Huntsville
area. Frequency synthesis for the radio amateur,
Dr. John Stensby. John is a retired instructor
over at University of Alabama Huntsville and
HF propagation and the great American eclipse.
Okay, we talked about the eclipse from last year.
It was the Monday after our ham fest. Rob Suggs
studies propagation and solar physics at NASA.
He's also a very popular, very avid ham. And
he has correlated gigabytes of data on the contacts
that were made during the eclipse and has some
fascinating studies of how 80 meters and 160
meters opened up across the eclipse path. Just
really cool stuff. I would hold these forums
up to any organization, Huntsville. I'm not boasting
and I'm not putting down Dallas or Dayton or
Orlando, but these is a really good collection
of forums, guys, and we hope you can join them.
We do have testing both Saturday and Sunday,
$10 cash only and 10 o 'clock sharp. So lots
of stuff to do in Huntsville. Back to you, Neil.
Oh, I would say and on the forums, you do have
a bit of a home field advantage there because
of all the engineers and all the NASA folks that
are working and even living in Huntsville. And
so you've got some amazing people like Dr. Monty
Bateman, Dr. Rob Suggs, and you know, they just
are right there and available. And so you might
as well take advantage of that. And it sounds
like you are. That's exactly right, Neil. It
is a good home field advantage having this pool
of talent. We lost a couple of years ago, Dr.
David Hathaway, a very popular solar physicist
who was published in several online journals
and magazines. Dr. Hathaway was doing many times
here in Huntsville. He would give us kind of
the Punxsutawney feel of what he thought the
next solar cycle was going to be like. But unfortunately,
Dr. Hathaway moved away and we're looking to
fill that void. The lady that's now doing the
podcast, I haven't met her yet, but I'm hopeful
that we can meet her and somehow entice her to
come to Huntsville. Well, Dr. Scove has been
to several forums at Dayton and it's always a
an informative discussion so if that works out
that would be great. Well we're going to take
a break here and we're going to come back and
we're going to take some calls and I know we're
already expecting one so we'll get him on the
line here and we'll be back and talk more about
the Huntsville HamFest with Mark right after
this word from Tower Electronics right here on
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HamTalk Live. Tower Electronics will be at Berryville,
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West Virginia on August 11th, and then at Huntsville.
August 18th 19th, and then they'll be in Shelby
so you can visit them at any of those shows or
You can visit them at pl -259 .com Ham talk lives
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time right here at ham talk live comm and be
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We have a call of the day today's call of the
day will win an FS3 foot switch courtesy of Hile
Sound. All you have to do is call in and we'll
pick a random caller at the end of the show and
you'll be the winner. So it is time for your
calls now. So if you have a question about Huntsville
and a question for Mark, give us a call. It's
812 -NET -HAM -1, 812 -638 -4261. or you can
Skype us at HamTalk Live or tweet us at HamTalk
Live. And speaking of Skyping us, we have a Skype
call on the line. It's our good friend, Mr. I
am Will Banks. Good evening. And good evening
to Mark. I am seriously looking forward to the
Huntsville Hamfest. You know, I've been coming
to Huntsville since 1995, and Newsline has had
a presence at Huntsville with the Young Ham of
the Year Award presentation since 1993. So if
you do the math, that's 25 years that Newsline
has presented the Young Ham of the Year Award
at the Huntsville Hamfest. We certainly hope
that that partnership continues for another two
and a half decades or longer. Hopefully outlive
us all mark. I got to tell you as someone who's
who's only missed one Huntsville ham fest since
1995 I got to tell you that's my favorite ham
fest including Dayton. I've not been to Orlando
I've heard very good things about Orlando and
and Dallas and all those other ones, but I've
been to Dayton several times since 1999, but
Huntsville remains my favorite ham fest and Congratulations
to you for taking on the reins I know that you've
got some very large shoes to fill with the passing
of Charlie Emerson who did a great job and I
have just the utmost confidence in you and everybody
there at Huntsville. You guys bill it as the
world's friendliest ham fest and I have to agree
with that and I'm seriously looking forward to
being on stage at 2 o 'clock. Local time there
to present Brian rascal the young ham of the
year award I'm also going to try to check out
his forum on Saturday morning He's got a he's
got a forum talking about WRTC on Saturday morning,
and I'm looking forward to checking that out,
too Yeah, Charlie hi Don and it's good to good
to hear from you, too And yeah, we're very excited
about and you've been you've been coming here
probably longer than I've been an active ham
so it's it's wonderful to to be part of that
history. And thanks for the vote of confidence.
I'm doing Charlie's job, but I don't think I'll
ever fill his shoes. He was a unique individual.
And I really look up to his memory and try to
try to keep things going the way they are. We
make incremental changes each year. We try to
try to make things a little better here and there.
We were walking the BBC this afternoon where
the Space and Missile Defense normally did their
show the week ahead of ours and they were setting
up today because they've changed their schedule.
But we're walking around just doing what ifs
in our head. take up this area out here. And
so we're looking at, you know, because consistently
we're selling out the commercial area and the
flea market tables are all taken. It may one
of these days, maybe we need to look at some
additional space, but we want to control that.
We want to because it downtown convention space,
of course, is doesn't come free. So we've got
to we've got to really weigh that very carefully.
But, Don, I'm glad I'm really Don, I'm really
glad you enjoy coming to Huntsville, and I heard
you mention it on other shows, and it's true,
a lot of folks feel like we do a good job, and
we want to live up to that reputation. Well,
you know, I can relate to you in the large shoes
to fill, because when Bill Pasternak passed away,
it kind of fell to me to kind of take the reins,
not because I was the best person for the job
by any stretch of the imagination, but I think
primarily because I was the most visible member
of the Newsline staff. And so, you know, I completely
understand the growing pains and the false starts
and the hiccups and the things that you have
to overcome to continue. And from someone who's
been in those shoes for the past three years
and keeping Newsline going, I... Again, I kind
of have some personal knowledge of this that
I have just the utmost confidence. They pick
the right guy So I'm certainly looking forward
to it. Yeah, you know, I gotta say I got licensed
in 1995 and that's when I got involved with Newsline
and that's when Bill said you need to come to
Huntsville because we do the Young Ham of the
Year award and in fact I was actually told about
Huntsville by the 1993 Young Ham of the Year
who was from New Orleans where where I lived
at the time and uh... you know he asked me said
your thought about going to the Huntsville Hanfest?
I said no. I said I'd like to go. You know, I'll
split a room and split the gas with if you want
to go. I'm like yeah let's go. Great. Well I'll
introduce you to Bill. And so I've been coming
ever since. And wouldn't dream of missing it.
So again, this is my favorite Hanfest. And we're
going to have you on Ham Nation coming up here
fairly soon too to spread the gospel of the Huntsville
Hanfest. I've kind of become an evangelist for
that Hanfest. I really, I seriously love it.
Good were you aware dawn that the Alabama a Alabama
a double RL section outstanding youth ham Will
be named also. So what are the chances of the?
Pasternak ham of the year and Coming from from
Alabama also. I Think that I think the chances
will be great. I've known Brian rascal since
He's been a ham, I guess, about three years now,
and I met him in his first year of being licensed,
and I just knew there was something special in
that kid just from being around him for five
minutes. So it would not surprise me one iota,
and to share the stage with the Alabama ham of
the year is always something that we would certainly
be happy to do, and if it's the same person,
well then so much the better. That's wonderful.
It's just going to be such a great weekend. It's
so much fun. I live up in Fayetteville, Tennessee,
just over the border. It's a 35, 40 minute commute.
But I have so much fun that whole weekend. I
did this last year. I booked a room at the embassy
just to be part of the action down there. and
not have to hassle with the 30 or 40 minute drive
each way both days. And so it's going to be just
a great event weekend. It's not just the hand
fest, it's the camaraderie afterwards and before.
Yeah, it's everything. It is truly everything.
I'll make it off here and let somebody else get
in and talk to you guys. I just wanted to jump
in and say that I'm. I look forward to this weekend
every year. This is my favorite weekend of the
year is Huntsville weekend and I'm looking forward
to going up there and seeing you and shaking
your hand. Okay Don, thanks a lot and we'll see
you in two weeks. Alright Mark and thanks Neil
for getting me in. Great show tonight. We'll
talk to you later. Alright Don, thanks for calling.
That's Don Wilbanks, AE5DW and if you go to Huntsville
you'll see him up on stage again two o 'clock
on Saturday is the Young Ham of the Year presentation
to Bryant Rascal KG5HVO who now lives in Alabama.
So yeah, we'll have to see if that works out
that he ends up with both of those. So 812 -638
-4261 is the telephone number if you'd like to
Call and ask a question. We have a little bit
of time remaining and One thing that that we
kind of save for the end, but we probably need
to mention that now Andy K9 AWM tweeted in where
can I get more information on the Huntsville
ham fest and and we forgot to mention not only
Is the Huntsville ham fest the world's friendliest
ham fest? It also has the easiest website to
remember hamfest .org. Yeah, you don't get much
easier than that. That's pretty obvious. Hamfest
.org. I think everything you need to know about
coming to Huntsville is out there. Yeah, and
it's a good resource for everything. So there
you go, Andy. Hopefully, you can get to experience
Huntsville. It really is. I always say it's the
easiest ham fest to attend because if you stay
at the embassy suites, you just take the skywalk
over, then you can go stash all your stuff in
your room and come back again. And it just really
is pretty easy. Yeah, and you know, it's worth
mentioning too that there's there's some other
hotels right real close that That are available
also at adult at a lower per night rate Lots
of hotels in Huntsville. So whatever your budget
there's someplace for you to stay for the weekend
Very good, and we have another call on the line.
So who do we have with us on him talk live tonight?
Don KB to buy a site. Can you guys hear me? Yeah,
Don we've got two Don's in a row go go right
ahead another Don Yes, we take over the world
at times great. I didn't want My question was
have you thought of doing any of like the the
maker communities sort of like they do over in
Friedrich often? We have considered that yes,
and I'm not sure if there was some inquiries
by the Birmingham maker organization and the
Huntsville maker organization But I'm not sure
they kind of they kind of contacted us late I'm
not sure if we had the space that they they needed
but I think there's a really good synergy there
and We want to pursue that relationship next
year for sure Excellent it seems like a great
fit for the Germans I guess they happen to have
the great setup for it, and I figured the bigger
Amfest would be a good showcase for that. Absolutely.
I've seen some evidence of 3D printers at various
booths in Dayton, and that's getting very popular.
It's not just what the makers do, but it's a
mindset. Those guys really do some cool stuff,
and I think we need to pay attention to each
other. Absolutely. All right, I'll get off the
line. Hopefully someone else will call in. Great
talking with you and have a great ham fest. Yeah.
And Don, thank you for asking the question. That's
a good question, too. Yeah, Don, thanks for calling
in. We appreciate it. 812 -638 -4261 is the number.
We'll take one more. We're actually about out
of time, but we'll take one more if we have another
call. 812 -638. 4261 is the number, but you'll
need to do so kind of quickly because we are
at the end here. Mark, anything that you can
think of you left out real quick? I covered a
lot of stuff tonight, Neil. I think anything
else folks need to know, they can find it at
hamfest .org website. And it's getting to be
a busy time down here. Like I said, we walked
the floor of the von Braun Center today. Things
are looking good. The air conditioners are on
full. And that's something we didn't mention.
The entire flea market, the entire commercial
area is in one big 80 ,000 square foot air conditioned
space. You don't have to walk outside to go between
buildings. It's all inside. It's all air conditioned.
and you don't have to worry about that Alabama
heat it's it's nice and comfy in there well let's
mention here before we go to that i know some
of the other ham radio media podcasts live whatever
whatever you want to call them we'll be covering
the ham fest so if you can't make it w5kub .com
will have some streaming available and believe
ted randall will be there again we've got w5kub,
yourself, ted randall ham radio 2 .0 don will
banks will be doing it of course i hope i'm not
missing someone but that's a pretty good list
Ted Randall and then Jason over at Hammer U 2
.0 will be there too. So okay, I didn't know
that one. But so if you can't make it, you can
check those out and see what's going on. Hopefully
you can make it next time around. But Mark, I
think that's going to do it for us tonight. But
I know we're going to have you back on at the
end of the month. And you kind of previewed this
for us a little bit. We're going to have you
on with the chairman from Orlando and from Dayton,
and talk a little bit more about how you all
work together and support each other on these
things. Is it going to be the chairperson? Is
it going to be Jack Gerbs from Dayton? You know,
I don't have the... From Dayton, I think it will
be Michael Coulter, the spokesperson, I should
say. Okay, okay. I should get the names nailed
down, but yeah. Yeah, unfortunately, Michael
can't make it. Michael, he will not be able to
make it to Huntsville. A very good friend of
mine. He, he unfortunately will be in Japan.
I think there's some, I can't remember what the
event is, but we're going to miss in this, this
a few weekends, but I'm sure our paths will cross
again soon. Oh yeah. Yeah. We're looking forward
to being back on your show. Post -HanFest after
we, after we get through this and it'll be, We'll
all be a little a few degrees cooler. Yeah, I'm
sure you'll be breathing a little better at the
end of the month than right now. So thanks for
coming on. I want to thank you for letting me
on the show. Yeah, glad to have you anytime and
appreciate you being here. So again, guys, gals,
don't miss Huntsville Hamfest August 18th and
19th. All the details. or at hamfest .org. Mark,
we'll see you again on the show here at the end
of the month and I'll see you in Huntsville in
a couple weeks. Probably two weeks from tomorrow.
You're usually around during the move -in, right?
No, usually I'm driving in at like midnight.
Okay. Well, I'm sure I'll see you Saturday morning
very soon. Yeah, we'll see you then. All right,
and it's time here for the call of the day. Today's
winner receives an FS3 foot switch, courtesy
of Hile Sound. And our winner today is Don, KB2YSI.
So we'll get that out in the mail to you. And
congratulations. And one other comment here.
Jill mentions that Jack is the chairman, but
yeah, I believe. Michael is going to be making
the appearance on the show. So Anyway, that's
a wrap for this week's ham talk live. Thanks
to my guest Mark Brown in for BCD and everyone
out there in cyberspace for listening and Calling
in tonight and invite you back next Thursday
night at 9 p .m Eastern time for a list of all
of our upcoming guests Just go to ham talk live
comm and if you like ham talk live please consider
leaving us a review on iTunes or wherever you
listen. It'll help us get the word out to others
faster. So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG
saying seven three, seven five, and may the good
DX be yours. Thanks for watching!