HamRadioNow

Way back in 2015, the World Radio Conference allocated a worldwide ham radio band at 60 Meters. Here in the US we are finally getting that band. A whopping 15 kHz wide, with Phone, RTTY, data and CW permitted, and a whole 9.15 Watts ERP power limit.Of course, we’ve had 5 descrete ‘channels’ available on 60 for 23 years, initially for USB only, and later adding CW and data modes. One of those channels is in the middle of that new allocation, and it ‘disappears’ into the new band. But we keep the other four, at their cuttent 100 Watts ERP.In this episode, hosts David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ (eventually) discuss the details of the new band. Gary reviews some of the history, including several HRN programs tracing the inception and progressof the band. Find the programs in this HamRadioNow Playliston our YouTube channel.The band becomes available 30 days after the new rules are published in the Federal Register.Oh, and yeah, Gary had the wrong episode number. We docked his pay.

When you walk in the main gate at the Hamvention, the first exhibit you encounter is an outdoor collection of vehicles outfitted to the gills with ham radio. The banner says 'EmComm Vehicle Display', and some of the vehicles are truely that, sponsored by organizations dedicated to emergency response. Others have diffeent purposes: contests, rovers, or just the ability to escape a poor home QTH and get to a better operating location, and they are personal projects. In this episode we'll meet some of the hams responsible for these impressive rolling ham shacks, and take a look at what they've built. About this episode Last May, the HamRadioNow Mobile Production Unit (that's Gary K4AAQ, a handheld camera and a couple of wireless mics) shot some TOURS at the Hamvention, which the HRN Editorial Unit (also Gary K4AAQ, using DaVinci Resolve on a 13 year-old Windows PC) promptly edited and posted. The MPU also shot a bunch of interviews at the 'fest, which have been languishing on the editor's hard drive ever since, while life went on. Now, somehow, Gary found a few spare minutes to slap one of those segments together. There are a bunch more. Apparently Gary could use some encouragement 👏 to spend time slaving over that hot editing computer. Perhaps you can make some comments. Or just tell him to burn the drives🔥 and forget the whole thing 😒. Either way.

Last July, East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ/WRPG652 posted a QLog Entry about a GMRS ‘Travel Channel’. after repeatedly answering the question “Is there one” on GMRS Facebook and Reddit forums. He linked to that essay when encountering the question several more times, and even got a few ‘good answer’ responses 😀. So we made it a show, because why not?He invited GMRS users on Reddit and Facebook to join the show. Nobody bit, so Gary and West Coast Host David W0DHG/WROT234 rambled around and then went through Gary’s essay to exhausively overanalyze the subject. As we do. Oh, what’s a ‘Travel Channel’. For details, watch the show and/or read the essay, but briefly, it would be one of the GMRS channels that everyone agrees to monitor when they’re out on the highway, so if one of them transmitts (simplex) looking for a contact, others in range will hear them and respond if they’re interested in a chat while motoring along🚗.And… spoiler alert ⚠🚨… Gary says “There isn’t one, but there could be” and suggests GMRS channel 20 (462.675) — not channel 19 — and explains why.

HRN Hosts David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ had just finished recording an episode of the show about how Everybody Wants a Handneld (and why they shouldn’t), and they tried hard to keep it on topic and fairly concise (and almost succeeded). But the pent-up ramble had to explode someplace, and that place was here, recorded immediately afterward. It ended up mostly being about David leaving his ARES affiliation to concentrate on volunteering with ‘real’ emcomm. Gary did talk about some of the stuff that’s kept him from producing more HamRadioNow. There could have been more, but David had other stuff to do, so we leave it for next time. Stay Tuned🎙

In both Ham Radio and GMRS, there's no doubt, almost everyone starts out with a handheld radio. After making basically the same points about that - over and over - while answering questions in multiple Facebook and Reddit forums, HamRadioNow East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ/WRPG652 wrote an essay in his QLog blog on the HRN website. Now he can just link to the essay and go on with his day😉 (that has actually worked, and he’s had a few positive responses. Go figure). And now it's a podcast episode. Even better, because West Coast Host David W0DHG adds his experience on the topic. And we tried very hard to stick to the subject and not ramble.