This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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.com. Good evening, everyone. Hope you've had
a chance to enjoy some of that NASA on the air
stuff we talked about last week. But this is
HamTalk Live episode number 93. Some holiday
gift ideas and the Pearl Harbor USS Batfish Special
Event Station with Emmet Honesty III W0QH recorded
live on Thursday, December 14th. 2017. I'm your
host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in
to this episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're
joined once again by Emmett Honesty III, W0QH,
the chief engineer at Radio Waves. And we'll
take your calls live in just a little bit. But
last week, if you missed the NASA on the Air
thing. Dr. Rob Suggs, KB5EZ from Marshall Space
Flight Center, and Kevin Zari, KK4YEL from Kennedy
Space Center, and Peter Federer, fresh home from
Antarctic, KB3GTN from Goddard Space Flight Center.
We're here to talk about that year -long NASA
on -the -air event, and that got off to a start
this week. So if you missed that, you can catch
that on HamTalkLive .com anytime. or you can
catch one of the podcast episodes and you can
catch up on that. We upload to Apple Podcasts,
Stitcher, iHeart Podcasts, Google Play, TuneIn,
SoundCloud and also YouTube and some of the other
podcast apps pick up from those. So we're on
just about everything. You can find us on your
favorite podcasting app. So, we've got some questions
for Emmet already, but if you have a question,
you can tweet us at HamTalk Live, and later on
in the show we'll give you a chance to call in.
I'll go ahead and give you that phone number.
It's 812 -638 -4261, 812 -NET -HAM -1, and you'll
be able to call in. Ask your questions. So I'll
be back right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. This episode of HamTalk
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Well, tonight our guest is Emmet W0QH, the chief
engineer at Radio Waves. And my apologies to
you, we're having some trouble tracking down
Emmet today. So we're going to come back. Alright,
welcome back to HamTalk Live and we have been
able to track down Emmet. So luckily Dr. Scott
Wright, KZeroMD is willing to step in and I've
been meaning to have him come on the show anyway
again and talk about some new things going on
with him. So Scott, thanks for joining us on
Short Notice tonight. Deal. It's a pleasure to
join one of the best podcasts about ham radio
on the internet. Thanks for asking me on. Well,
I always say that it's got the best music of
any call in ham radio talk show. I agree. And
there's nothing like hearing the sound when someone
mentions about fun. Is there We'll put the bow
thing in there. We'll get that in there. So we're
also the only one that has music that's a call
in talk show. But anyway, all right. So, so we're
filling in here. And so you have taken over the
editor duties of the national contest journal
and you hit the ground running, making some improvements
and some changes and keeping a lot of things
that worked. So tell us about some of the changes
that are coming up in the National Contest Journal
and the January, February edition should be coming
out pretty soon. Yeah, thanks very much. In fact,
the January, February edition has been sent to
the printer. and hopefully it will be mailed
in January on or ahead of schedule, as usual,
and to all the subscribers worldwide. I am greatly
honored, really, to be named the new editor of
the National Contest Journal, or NCJ for short.
Pat Barkey, N9RV, just stepped down as editor,
did a fabulous job. for three years and there's
so many others who before him have done that.
We've been guests on your show, Kirk Pickering
and Ward Silver and I think Doug Grant and Randy
Thompson and many other people. A couple of the
changes that we're bringing to NCJ starting in
the January edition are to focus a bit more on
getting more young contesters on the air and
when by young we mean those under 40 or 50 years
of age, not just high school students and contesters
like the Rockstar Marty that you have on and
all the students at K9 SOU in Bloomington, but
also younger adults who are active in contesting.
We think that contesting needs new ham activity
and that there's a great opportunity to make
the journal more relevant to younger people.
I'd like to announce really if I can for the
first time Neil on your show that we are really
delighted to have one of the premier educators
and ham radio mentors in America as the section
editor for what we call next -gen contesting
and that's yourself Wait a minute. I thought
I was going to be the editor of that You are
I just said that oh, okay, I don't know you you
kept talking about some some great educator and
everything and so I thought maybe somebody else
got it but Yeah, I know You're just not willing
to promote yourself much. So anyway, so, you
know, we're gonna benefit from your experience
and your connections and for the people who read
in CJ Neal's first write -up will be about the
quite successful program at K9SOU and getting
non -licensed students involved in contesting
at the Ham Club station there. So we're hoping
that others will read this and sort of catch
some of your enthusiasm and your passion for
doing this and let it spread across the United
States. And I would like to say in the upcoming
edition of NCJA, we hope in the spring, You're
going to be doing some interviews with the youth
participants in the World Radio Team Championship,
WRTC. And we're all looking forward to what you
tell us about those young contesters who have
qualified to be a participant in WRTC. I'm an
active contester, but I didn't come close to
qualifying. And some of the people who did, like
Matthias, Charlie Echo Two, Mike, Victor Fox,
really are phenomenal contesters. So I'm looking
forward to learning how to improve my own skills,
Neil. So that's one new feature. A second new
feature is we're going to have regular surveys
and book reviews by Kelo3, Mike Delta, K3MD,
John Thompson, another physician like me who
is an active contester. John is quite known for
working every radio contest every year. He's
on every week in a radio contest, sometimes two
or three. and he is a wide reader and writer,
so John will be sharing sort of new books and
new technology pieces with us and also stimulating
discussion on The Reflector, on the ARRL website
and on the hopefully NCJ website about sort of
controversies and new trends in contesting. All
the other section editors, assistant editors
that everyone has come to really appreciate and
love will still be with us. The past editor,
Pat Barkey, will also be contributing some of
his famous interviews as we go forward. And then
I'm really delighted to announce that we, for
the first time in the history of NCJ, have a
deputy editor, someone who works closely with
me to help me keep all the articles organized
and to the managing editor, Rick Lindquist, W
-W -1 -M -E, and to the league. And that is Fred
Reganiter, K -4 Italy uniform. Fred recently
retired from his job as an academic orthodontist
at the Mayo Clinic and is now with a bit more
free time, shall we say. He might disagree with
that assessment, but he has time and efforts
to help with the NCJ. Fred's a very avid contester.
He's been on your program. He's been on a number
of the Ham radio podcasts and a very long and
distinguished career, so to speak, in contesting
and DXing. Those are sort of the changes with
NCJ that we're bringing. You know, the first
edition coming out in January will have some
very interesting articles. It will have the first
of a three -part series on what type of receiver
the contestor might need. You know, what qualifies
as a competition -grade receiver and transceiver
for contestors. We have a very special article
by Craig Thompson, K9 Charlie Tango, on how multi
-multi -contesting has helped him prepare the
Bouvier d 'Expedition team for what will be probably
the most remote and most expensive the expedition
ever put on and Craig and many of the teammates
like Ralph Fedor Glenn Johnson Bob often Jerry
Rosalius and more than I can name at the moment
are all multi multi contesters So the contesting
community has had a big impact on the bubi the
expedition. We have some other interesting articles
I won't give away all the secrets, but I also
would like your listeners to look at NCJ web
Just do a search with your favorite search engine,
NCJWeb, and Kirk Pickering has a fabulous website.
We're gonna be pushing articles and special information
pieces to the website where you can find some
of the great articles coming out. And the last
one I'll leave as a bit of a tantalizing end
is your good friend, K9LA, Carl Lutzl Schwab,
up the... Highway from you in Fort Wayne has
a nice article on propagation. What can contesters
and others expect in 2018? If any of your listeners
like me got on the 10 meter contest you really
wondered if you were working largely a state
QSO party because most of my contacts were within
250 miles of my home and I only made a couple
of DX contacts. I wasn't on for that many hours,
but the conditions were really tough and challenging
at least for those of us in the W0 area. So,
you know, I read Carl's articles and listen to
his webinars all the time on propagation and
really delighted that he took the time to put
together a fabulous short article on what to
expect and how to take advantage of current propagation
conditions. So, it's probably a bit of a long
answer, Neil, but you put in your nickel and
you got a dollar's worth of information. There
we go. We got it covered. Yeah, I heard some
people. get on the 10 meter contest but I heard
some people talking about the 10 meter contest
and saying that they were wondering if their
radios were not working properly because there
was no one there. They couldn't hear a thing.
Yes, it was a tough time for Dan. It is, it's
a tough time and since we're not even technically
at the bottom of the solar cycle I fear what
the 10 meter contest will be like next year.
You might actually have more distance on the
two meter repeater. You never know. Wow. Now
it's, it's a pretty amazing, we were on 20 this
afternoon and trying to do some of the NASA on
the air stuff from school. And I mean, 20 was
just horrible. It just, we, we couldn't, uh,
we finally did find, uh, the guys in Huntsville,
but, uh, we couldn't, couldn't hear them at all.
And it just looked totally dead on the scope.
So hopefully there will be better days ahead.
Yes, but I've been reading on Twitter that the
K9 SOU club is working some new DX on 20 meters.
So while the band propagation may be reduced
compared to two years ago, your club seems to
be doing a fabulous job of picking up some new
DX entities. Yeah, we picked up a couple and
we're lucky that Galapagos was coming in real
well last Thursday and so we were able to get
that and some others but we just keep working
at it and hopefully like I said there's better
days ahead. We were trying to work a couple of
new entities today and had zero luck. You just
never know and that's part of the fun of ham
radio is you never know what you're going to
get. Absolutely. It's a true adventure because
the outcome is so uncertain. That's why it's
such an interesting hobby compared to just using
Skype or the cell phone to call someone in another
country. Well, we're talking with Dr. Scott Wright,
KZeroMD, the new editor of the National Contest
Journal. And so if people want to subscribe to
the National Contest Journal and get a copy of
that, how would they go about doing that? The
easiest way is to go to the ARRL website. That's
www .arrl .org. And in the search box at the
top center, type in NCJ. And then a search will
appear and you can click on the links at the
bottom and then you can subscribe directly from
the ARRL website. It's around $25 a year for
US subscribers and a little more for those outside
the US, but it also ensures that it's mailed
to them. And we produce six issues a year, January,
February, March, April, May, June, July, August,
September, October, and November, December. And
then the web content is free or it goes along
with the subscription? The web content is free,
courtesy of the ARRL and K4RO. Okay, very good.
So you can check out some of the... articles
on the website and check it out and see if that's
for you. We hope that you'll enjoy some of these
new things coming to NCJ and a lot of the old
standbys that are really good learning opportunities
for contesting and ways that you can get better
with that. Well, let's take a break and then
we'll come back and we'll talk more with Dr.
Scott Wright, KZeroMD, right after this, right
here on HamTalk Live. Tours are now available
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Time. You can see the control room, a 200 ,000
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of most every Drake amateur rig ever made. This
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tons of shopping and restaurants. Take a trip
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.org. All I want for Christmas is a TS -990 and
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Join the conversation. Call us on voice with
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-NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Now here's
more HamTalk Live. Welcome back to HamTalk Live
and hope you can check out the Voice of America
Museum of Broadcasting at some time. Get a chance.
It's a really great place to go. Enjoy getting
over there whenever I can. Plan on spending some
more time over there soon. So check them out
at voamuseum .org. And HamTalk Live, we're on
the air every Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern
Time right here at hamtalklive .com. Make sure
you check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
We post some stuff up there, so I hope you enjoy
that as well. We'll take some calls here tonight
if you want to call in about the National Contest
Journal and talk with Dr. Scott Wright, KZeroMD,
and myself. That phone number is 812 -638 -4261,
812 -NET. ham one or you can Skype us we're ham
talk live on Skype and you can also tweet us
at ham talk live so if you want to talk about
some contesting tonight we'll switch to that
and we'll try to get Emmet rescheduled here to
talk about the gift ideas and the antennas as
soon as possible so you know Scott I guess one
good gift ideas, and Emmet's not here to talk
about gift ideas for the ham. An ICOM 7610 would
make a great Christmas gift, wouldn't it? Boy,
it would, Neil. It would, and I know that you
and I have both put those requests in to Santa.
I don't know that he's going to deliver it to
my house, but I hope he does to yours. Well,
it's looking like a everything that we thought
it would be and it'd be interesting to get a
hold of one of those and give it a spin. I hope
you can try it out. Yeah, I hope you can try
it out at K9 SOU. I bet it will just blow the
students away with what it can do, especially
with the touchscreen on the big LCDs that you
can connect into the back. I'm really looking
forward to hearing how hams and contesters especially
like that. I got to use the radio at Dayton briefly
at Contest University. with the remote VFO control
and the VFO knob, and it truly is a two VFO radio.
I was very impressed. I really commend ICOM.
A number of us wrote them and urged them to make
a functionality available that would let operators
control both VFOs because if you're trying to
work a DX pile up or do SO2R contesting or SO2V
contesting, you need to be able to control both
knobs. or both receivers, excuse me, and they
did that, and so some people criticize ICOM for
not listening to their customers. I disagree.
They listened on this, and they've made a number
of functional improvements to their transceivers
over the last 10 years based on customer feedback,
and I think that's really amazing. It's nice
to see so many manufacturers in the ham community.
Every major... original electronic manufacturer.
US and Japanese and others really are responsive
to ham's needs. So that's just wonderful. Neil,
I would also suggest by the way a good stocking
stuffer. If you have someone in your life that
you want to ham or you want to get a stocking
stuffer for, a subscription to NCJ is a pretty
inexpensive stocking stuffer and it will give
them satisfaction all year long. There you go,
and you pair that up with some some adapters
from tower electronics and and you've got it
covered so You truly go Yeah well now you you
you write in and call into the show a lot and
and one of the questions that I see you asking
a lot of the guests that come on the show is
Super hat SDR. So now we've got the 7610 out
there. It's real now. It's not just some, you
know, dream somewhere. So where do you stand
as far as a contest rig with that SuperHat or
SDR? Yeah, thank you. I've asked a number of
your guests if they have a preference. As you
know, I'm a bit of a receiver aficionado. I have
always tried to own really good receivers, even
if I have to buy them used, as I have almost
all of my hand equipment. And I don't have an
opinion that says one is superior to the other.
I can tell you in my own station, I have two
ICOM radios and an Ellicraft K3S. They all have
strengths. and they all have weaknesses. If there's
a weakness to my icon it's that it weighs 70
or 80 pounds and it's hard to move. But that's
about the only one. I'm also very impressed with
the SDR. Ray Novak came to Rochester and visited
our ham club in the summer and loaned me a 7300
one evening to test in my station and I was blown
away like you and your school club have been.
And I've also had a friend with a Flex who loaned
me that for a week to test. And I've been very
impressed with those. If money were no option,
I think I'd have one of the ICOM SDRs, one of
the Flex SDRs, and I would just test them all
with my antenna array on everything that I have.
I really like a quiet receiver, to be honest,
about what I prefer best. I like good filtering,
sharp filtering, and a quiet receiver. And the
ICOMs that I run are really quiet. And I know
the Flex SDRs are really quiet receivers. And
I think it's tough. I think you have so many
good choices and it just gets down to what you
like to use and drive. Some people want to drive
a Honda, some people want to drive a Toyota,
others a GMC, a Chevrolet or a Ford or a Jeep.
You know, they're all wonderful cars, and I think
the same is true for Ham radios. The top -end
Op 20 on Rob Sherwood's list all will perform
great in contests. I think it's really what do
you like to use? That's why I really encourage
Hams to go to a local radio dealer or come to
Dayton and try out the radios and see what you
like to operate. And you'll know once you start
using what models fit your personal receiving
preferences. And I don't think there's a single
correct answer here. I think... Sometimes all
of the above might be the best answer possible
Now it's been It's been kind of interesting with
the you know the icons the SDR in a box Coming
up and and then you know, then I see that Kenwood
with that retro 520 dial on the 990 and it's
just you know It's always been a dilemma, but
after using the 7300 and the touchscreen and
and all the All the bells and whistles on that
thing boy that just makes you think that 7610
is just That much better. So now I've seen some
of icons numbers on that I wonder what our friend
Mr. Rob Sherwood would say about comparing the
receivers to that and I know that that's what
been one of the most popular shows that we've
ever had on this program was when Rob Sherwood
came on and talked about the receiver performance.
So have you heard anything about where he's ranking
it so far? No, I have not. I looked at his website
the other day and it was down or I couldn't get
logged on just to see if he had it there and
I haven't looked back. I have a friend in Japan
and I won't give you his call sign but he travels
to Dayton every year and he owns usually serial
number one of any ICOM radio. He has serial number
one of the 7850, serial number one of the 7610,
I imagine he had the 7300 too. And he told me
that the 7610 in his opinion sounded almost identical
to his 7850. And in some respects, it heard some
signals better and some signals not as well.
But on average, he thought it was very comparable.
So if his experience is typical, then that radio
is going to knock the top out of the Sherwood
testing, and it's going to be a real winner.
I think it's going to be a disruptive radio in
the market, just as Flex's SDRs and Maestro combos
have been disruptive. I think SDR is out. I don't
see us going back to superhats. I don't see superhats
staying the only models. Now I think everybody's
going to innovate with SDRs. If the talk show
listeners ever subscribe to QEX, the Experimental
Communication Journal by the League, there was
a great article by German Ham on SDRs and I've
asked him to submit something to NCJ and he's
agreed. sort of the basics of SDR for understanding
receivers and how they work and they have so
much opportunity. I've had the privilege of corresponding
with Gerald Youngwood at Flex and really I think
Gerald understands where the opportunities are
in terms of user interfaces. how to put the package
together. You can have your radio at the antenna
connector or near the antenna and then have it
all remoted by LAN or CAC -5 into your shack.
It's really an opportunity to do things and to
get noise so low, so quiet, that you can hear
really weak signals. You know, the secret to
success in contesting, Neil, is not to hear the
loudest signals or the next loudest signals,
but to hear the third and fourth and fifth layers
of stations in Europe and Asia who are calling
you when you're on the air. And unless you have
a really quiet receiver with good filtering,
you can't. And that's why the LA Craft's been
so popular. And frankly, all of the top -end
radios have been so popular. And I think SDR
is going to give us the opportunity to pull signals
out of the noise that we couldn't before. It's
going to make what we do now with FT8 look more
standard down the road with CW, I think. eight
one two six three eight four two six one eight
one two net ham one is the phone number if you
want to call in and Talk to dr. Scott right K
zero MD talking some contesting tonight some
contesting rigs and the National Contest Journal
That Scott is now the editor of so give us a
call eight one two six three eight four two six
one or drop us a tweet, we're at HamTalk Live
or we're also on Skype at HamTalk Live if you'd
like to call in and weigh in on this and I tend
to agree with you. I think the SDR is really
the way things are going. I've noticed how much
quieter it is and so I totally agree with that
and I look forward to seeing where the numbers
come in. The numbers that I saw from ICOM are
putting it right there with a $78 .51 and well
above the $7 ,300. The $7 ,300 came in very high
on his list. It will be interesting to see where
that ranking comes in. Trying to pick a rig right
now is a tough job. truly is because you're always
worried when you buy something that three or
six months from now something new will come out
and you'll regret that you didn't wait just three
more months or six more months because innovation
is happening. We all think of Flex and now ICOM
as the innovators in SDR, but there are a number
of manufacturers from Europe as well as from
the US that if you just do a Google search for
SDR radio, you'll be surprised at how many are
competing in the hand market space and are doing
it really at economical prices. It's really kind
of exciting, isn't it, to see PAM radio go from
where it did when we were young PAMs with the
520 being sort of the cat's meow of transceivers
to where we are now. And it's really exciting.
I have to think though, Neil, that the user interfaces...
with the digital displays, the waterfall displays,
the touch screens, really attract the next generation
contesters more. They really are graphically
and visually oriented learners, I think. You're
a teacher. Tell me if you agree or not. I do.
I agree and you know that's one of the things
Dave Anderson said when when he sent us the the
7300 was you know these kids need to have a touchscreen
they need to have that technology because that's
what they're used to that's what they're on 24
-7 whether I want them to be or not with their
phones and you know that's That's the way they
interface with technology and so having that
type of interface with ham radio is just a natural
progression. And I think as those of us who are
youth wannabes because we've now outgrown our
youth age and look back at the golden era now
that our youth current youth are having We really
like what they have in terms of technology. My
wife and I talked about how needed it is that
our children, three of whom have finished high
school or either have finished college and grad
school or in the process of that, stay in touch
with their classmates. We had Ham Radio, the
first social media, as Timothy McGee said on
NCIS a few weeks ago. But today's youth really
are able to use this in far. more interesting
ways. I look forward to the next 10 years of
this hobby. I think those who have announced
the death knells of ham radio are wrong. I think
young people and people who are really excited
about technology will take it in directions that
we've not even begun to appreciate. I think remote
operating is just one of those I do a lot of
overseas operating. I do business trips a lot
to South America for work and do conferences
and take a radio along. I can see the time that
I might even be able to leave an SDR where I
operate in Chile and just remote in from home
and do a contest that way or try to do a contest
that way. It'd be kind of exciting to try. I'm
very excited that we had the remote hams guys
on here a few weeks ago and talk about that method
and there's all kinds of methods out there to
do remote operating these days. I remember, you
know, again back in the day, you know, we wanted
to get a remote base going on the repeater because
that was about the only way you were going to
get any remote operation done. And now all you
do is load the software on and away you go. It
is amazing. It is amazing. Well, Neil, what advice
do you have for grandparents and parents who
are listening to the show who have grandchildren
or children that they would like to encourage
to be more active on HF and contesting? What
are the mistakes that you see we make as adults
with our children and grandchildren or our nephews
and nieces that we shouldn't be making? Well,
and I just had this conversation earlier with
someone today. I think that... Pushing the license
is probably one of the biggest mistakes, to push
a license first. I think getting them on, get
them contesting, get them on the air, DXing,
get them doing what they're interested in. Sometimes
it's digital, sometimes it's voice, sometimes
it's DX, sometimes it's contesting. I'm seeing
a little bit of a shift in my kids right now
from contesting to DXing. And so we're kind of
shifting you know with them a little bit and
and we're still definitely doing a lot of contesting
but but we've kind of shifted a little more toward
DX and and so get them on the air get them hooked
and then they want to get a license instead of
you know putting another test in front of them
we would us teachers we push enough tests in
front of them so you know I haven't want to do
that. Really glad to hear you say that. I noticed
in the latest updates from the ARRL that the
executive committee and the trustees or directors,
whatever we call our governing body, are looking
at a new license class. I hope they make it more
student friendly. My daughters all were licensed
when they were quite young, the youngest at eight
and the oldest maybe at 11 or 12. I was blown
away that they could learn. the material and
pass the test. It was pretty hard. I sometimes
worry that the technician license is a little
challenging for students who have not had, you
know, pre -algebra or high school physics. So
I think we need to find a way to get more young
students engaged in the hobby and then let them
progress through the licensing as they get more
knowledge. Yeah, I tend to agree. And I've always
said too, I don't know that it's the difficulty
as much as the approach. Maybe it's not too difficult,
but the approach may not always be real student
friendly. And so I think some combination of
that could pay off. Well, before we go, Scott,
we mentioned WRTC and we mentioned the article
that I've been working on and finally got in
contact with all the youth teams and we'll be
putting that together. But, you know, WRTC is
an every four year event and that's coming up
in Germany next summer. So tell us a little bit
about WRTC and how the people participating in
that in Germany will be working and then how
people can work them. Sure Neil, in every July
there is an IARU contest on a Saturday and Sunday
and the WRTC is a contest within the IARU HF
contest where for 24 hours They take the top
50 or so contesters from the world and they put
them together and have them do a 24 -hour marathon
radio sport contest to see who the top three
teams are. So I forget the exact number of teams,
but let's assume there are 20 or 25 teams. Each
team has a team captain who qualified because
they were the best contesters, had the highest
number of wins or points. in the pre -published
contests that were used to grade you as a criterion
over the last couple of years. And so they were
selected earlier this year and announced. And
they can pick a teammate. And the two of them
do basically a multi -two type operation with
two transceivers, low power. They have a single
tri -band Yagi and then dipoles for 40 and 80.
And the goal is to try to work as many stations
on as many different bands. on sideband and CW
as you can during the 24 hours and It requires
a lot of skill It requires the understanding
of propagation when to change frequencies going
to 10 meters leaving 10 meters when to go to
the low bands when to go back to 20 when to look
for the Skewed openings between Europe and North
America There's a novel written by one of your
guests Jim George called Contact Sport, and it's
just a novel. It's a story, a first -hand description
of the WRTC a couple of years ago in Boston.
And it's a very exciting read. Even if you're
not interested in contesting, you can appreciate
the tension, the stress, and the challenges the
operators face. So it's really like watching
all these teams compete. They're all given call
signs. You don't know who they are. when they
operate. They're given sort of special one by
one or one by two call signs so that you're not
sure that if you're working the American team
from the central part of the U .S., the West
Coast teams, the East Coast teams, the Canadian
teams, the Slovenian teams, the Russian teams.
You really don't know who they are until the
contest is over. So they finish on Sunday morning
around 8 a .m. and then it takes about 24 hours
for the contest results to be processed by computers,
the log checks to be done. And then they announced
the winners at a banquet, I think on Monday evening.
This coming year, this year, in 2018, the WRTC
will be in Germany near the church, near the
city where Martin Luther nailed his theses on
the wall at the church. So it's going to be in
that part of Germany, near Berlin, sort of south
and a bit west of Berlin. And it will draw several
hundred people from around the world to come
and observe. They have referees, they have press
who will be there, and it's a really big event.
It takes a lot of money. The German contest groups
are organizing to put it on. They've done a phenomenal
job. In full disclosure, I've been one of their
fundraisers in the U .S. I've helped raise a
small amount of money from the zero land to help
put this on. Our local contest club is joined
with the Minnesota Wireless Association to sponsor
a tent. Other groups are sponsoring tents to
promote sort of the fellowship and friendship
of amateur radio. You know, we all have differences
on so many angles, and in the current public
dialogues between countries and within countries,
you begin to think people never have any agreements
on anything, but you know, ham radio sort of
transcends that. You can... Doesn't matter what
your political or religious philosophies are
or anything else, you can sit down and enjoy
the hobby together and be friends regardless
of any other differences. And I think that's
what this contest really epitomizes. Well, we'll
look forward to hearing more about WRTC as that
gets closer. And I've enjoyed talking to the
youth teams. We'll be putting that together for
an upcoming edition of the National Contest Journal.
So Scott, thanks so much for coming on, especially
on short notice and talking about the National
Contest Journal and some of these contesting
things. And we'll be talking to you soon, of
course. Neil, thanks again. Thanks for letting
me talk about NCJ and contesting. Some of your
listeners will take a look at the journal and
subscribe. And also, Neil, let me say thanks
again for the time and effort you're putting
in as the next -gen contestor section editor,
because really, the next generation is where
we all need to be investing time and effort.
So you're probably leading the most important
effort of all in the journal. Neil, thanks again,
and best holiday wishes to you and all your listeners.
And the same to you, and thank you for that.
And we look forward to seeing some articles submitted
for that. So I won't be writing all of them.
So we need to get some people to send those in.
So by all means, if you have something in mind,
let's get it emailed to me and we'll take a look
at it. Well, that's going to wrap things up for
tonight. Thanks to my guest, Dr. Scott Wright,
KZeroMD and everybody out there in cyberspace
for listening and invite you back next Thursday
night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time. And if you want
to see who's coming up next, just go over to
HamTalkLive .com and we update that as soon as
we know. So you can check that out over there.
So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. saying
7375 and may the good DX be yours.