Hello and welcome to Ham Nation episode
632
for September 23rd, 2026.
And hello everybody. Welcome to Ham
Nation. Thanks so much for clicking on
the show. We've got a pretty busy show
for you tonight, catching up on some
things as we start to fall into the fall
season, which I'm always excited about.
We get a couple of days here where we
can wear sweaters a year and uh it's
it's it's quickly approaching. So, but
let's say hi to the hosts. How are you
doing today, hosts?
>> Hey there.
>> Doing fine. Gordo, you're you're looking
bright and sunny here in uh in Southern
California with me. How how have you
been?
>> I've been fine. All is well, and we're
ready for a hurricane maybe to graze us
in another few days.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh I am I'm seeing all kinds
of news that on the Atlantic seabboard,
very few hurricanes and they're having
some relationship with our massive El
Nino that we're experiencing in Southern
California. It's going to be one of the
biggest of all time potentially. So,
hang on to your uh hang on to your loved
ones in California because they could be
flooded out here a little bit. But
Randy, how are you doing?
>> Oh, doing great here. It's uh we had a
few foggy days and uh doing good. I'm
going to talk about this here a little
later. I've been building
a GPS tracker.
>> Oh, Ry's got a project.
The frequency is in use.
>> The frequency is in use. That was my
bad.
>> I've been I've been playing around with
this uh with this the 5200 and sure
enough the speaker's very loud.
>> Works well.
>> Works well. Works well indeed. Well, I'm
excited to see the project in a bit,
Randy. So, thanks for joining us. Don,
how are you doing today?
>> I'm doing well. I had the day off today,
so I just kind of enjoyed myself and
didn't really do much. Getting back to
hurricane season, it's been an
uncommonly light Atlantic hurricane
season. We've had like one tropical
storm kind of
>> form and then go to Texas and that's
pretty much it, which is just fine with
me. You guys over on the West Coast can
have those things.
>> I speaking of weather, we do have a nice
solar weather update tonight from Dr.
Sco.
>> Yeah.
>> And of course, the newsline folks have
put together something for us as well.
So, yeah, we're just uh loving life. Oh,
I have an update available. Wow. An
Intel driver and support assistant
update.
>> Don't start it right now, John.
>> No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm It went
away, which is perfectly fine with me.
The less I know, the better I am.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Put it on autopilot. And
Amanda, how you doing tonight?
>> Oh my gosh. So, speaking of computers,
I've got like three laptops back here
updating because we're getting ready to
do a VE session on Friday. But do you
know what is more important taking place
this Friday? I just found this out.
Everybody chat,
>> do your work. Don's birthday is on
Friday, so happy birthday.
>> It is. Happy birthday.
>> It is. Happy birthday.
>> Thank you. And on a related on a related
note, my sister was born 48 hours after
me. Her birthday is the 27th. We are
exactly the same age, just a 48 hour
difference. So, I'll leave that for you
to ponder.
>> Yeah, I'm I'm at a loss on that one.
>> It's it's a great conversation started.
That's one of those like riddle memes
that you see.
>> Yeah, exactly. Same father, different
mothers.
>> I was
>> born in born in the same hospital, 48
hours apart. So, uh Rolling Stone was
was doing some rolling apparently.
>> So, anyhow, you guys, um tonight, what
are we talking about? We have um a great
guest. We're going to be talking about
Hamish and the awards uh nominations are
open now. So, Michael's going to be here
is with us here. I've got a great hammet
or can it and everyone else has already
told you what they're going to be
talking about. So stay tuned, stick in
the chat room and we're going to have a
great show probably extended of course
because it's us and
>> we we just put so much into a show we
can't it doesn't it doesn't exist with
us. So anyhow I'm going to shut up and
I'm going to send it over to Gordo who's
going to teach us something tonight. So
please Gordo get us here is open.
>> Thanks everyone. And uh tonight we're
going to talk about power poles. And
you've seen the power poles and uh those
devices that ensure that you don't
overpower your battery when it's
charging off of a uh solar panel. And
everything works great for about 6 to 8
months and then something strange
happens. So you've checked all your
connections. You did your power poles
with the right uh tool. uh you strip the
wires in preparation for the power poles
with your right little wire stripper. Uh
you've got your ampmeter and your
voltmeter and um uh that's telling you
that everything was fine. But you know
about 6 months later something happened.
Well, let's take a look and see what
goes on with power poles, especially if
you don't exercise them and especially
if they're outside. Not in the rain or
the snow or the hurricane, but just I
mean outside. So Josh, if you don't
mind, let's take a look at power poles.
And um the power pole connections that
we see here uh look like uh they're
ready to be either soldered or crimped.
Now, most folks will say, "Well, you got
to crimp them." Other folks will say,
"No, you got to solder them." Well, if
you crimp them with the right tools,
you're going to have a good solid
connection. But you're going to miss
something on small wires. Now, if you
solder them and on the small wires, let
the solder back down in through the
insulation. Now, you've got capabilities
of pushing that into the power pole
connector and having it get all the way
through to where it needs to be sticking
out. So, we'll take a look at uh first
of all crimping. And if you normally
have any load that's 10 to 15, maybe 20
amps. I like the 30 amp power pull
connectors. And they come in 15, 30, 45,
and uh even larger, but this particular
tool available from many ham
manufacturer dealers, uh is a great way
to make that connection. And you want to
squeeze it real tight. And you're going
to think, "Oh, I'm gonna crush it."
Well, when we take a look and you'll see
that, yep, it's got a nice one little
divot there that's supposed to be there.
So, that's a properly terminated power
pole onto it looks like about 14 gauge
wire. There's a little gap in the
insulation, but once you slip it in
place, it's not going to be a problem.
So, the um soldering technique does one
nice thing. It allows for a little bit
of solder to go into backwards uh to the
connection so you can get some leverage
in trying to get it seated properly
because on small wires you have a hard
time getting it so it goes click and uh
the click is when it's properly
installed and the powerpole connector is
uh either crimped or very carefully
soldered. If you get a little bit of
solder on that PowerPole silver
connector, uh, it's going to prohibit it
going into and going click. And the big
deal is you should be able to hear it go
click. So, there's one side of that.
Now, you want to make sure that you've
always got the right polarity. And if
you look at it backwards, this is
looking at it forwards. And looking at
it forwards, I could see I've got a
problem. uh the right hand side negative
uh went click and it's now over the
power pull little uh duad that sticks up
and that keeps it in place. The right
hand one though was not pushed in far
enough. Likely it either a small wire
attached to it and you couldn't get it
in there. So I use a little jeweler
screwdriver on the back side of this and
give it a good push until it goes click.
Now, if you're dealing with larger wires
like 14 gauge, generally they've got
enough oomph that you can just push on
the red outer or the black outer coating
and be able to get them to go click. So,
looking at it, a properly connection
power pole is going to have the red lead
and think of red right down uh the red
side when looking at it from the rear.
So, make the rear red side and the blade
should be going down. That is a proper
connection when you're doing the power
pole connectors. Well, every so often if
you don't push them uh uh just right,
they're going to fracture. And these
came from an overseas manufacturer. Uh
the name is too long for me to say. And
uh while they were nice and inexpensive,
uh you give them a little bit of push
and uh uh they tend to break down and uh
it's all sorts of things when you uh
deal with those. But here's the big
thing on the power pole. When it's
properly in place, u pull on the wire.
You should not be able to pull the power
pole out unless you have the right tool
to disengage that little lip. And uh in
this case uh it didn't get crimped
properly and just pulled right out. And
that's a problem. The big problem is if
it pulls right out on the black lead and
you don't realize it or it's not making
a good connection, your red lead is
going to 12 volts positive, but it
doesn't see the battery, but it looks at
your new radio, your new ICOM
transceiver, and it says, "Oh, wait a
minute. I can get to uh 12 volts by
going through the antenna outer braid
coax and that goes to and you got the
idea and you're drawing a lot of current
on a circuit that should not be there.
So you want to make absolutely sure that
what you're plugging into indeed is
properly set up. And here you can see
that on an inexpensive overseas copy of
some excellent uh voltage distribution
panels. Uh they've broken the the uh
springs. They've broken everything right
out. So suggest you always buy your
Anderson power poles through a reputable
dealer that's getting them from likely a
USA company. Oh my gosh, a little bit of
too much here. But if you're just doing
like one or two amps, you could probably
get away with it. But here's the deal.
If that's left outside,
you go to charge your uh automobile
battery using a solar panel. You got a
good size solar panel and you're reading
3 amps and the battery is like uh uh 12
volts, maybe 119. And then the next day
you look at it and it's down to 2 amps
and the batter is up to about 12.8 and
the solar panel is doing its thing. So
you come back 6 months later and you go,
"Oh my gosh, I got 18 volts on my
battery." No, you don't. you got 18
volts because you're not making a good
connection to the other power pole going
to your automobile battery uh setup or
any kind of battery. You're actually
seeing more of the over voltage from the
panel than you are actually measuring
the battery voltage. Well, what's wrong?
I I did everything correct. What's wrong
is out in the open, you're going to get
a little bit of corrosion on the red and
the black contacts. Remember, these are
just contacts. And you should exercise
them uh about every week if they're
outside, plug them in, unplug them, plug
them in nice and clean. But when you
begin to see voltage uh on your uh uh
voltmeter uh looking in between the
current between the uh outside solar
panel and your battery and you go,
"What's going on here? I've only got
like a half, maybe even a quarter amp
where I had two or three before. What's
going on is where the power poles are
plugged into that distribution panel
like we see here. You've got a dirty
one. You got to clean it up and you can
buff it. Uh, you can get a little bit of
sandpaper, a little teeny nail file,
little bitty one because there's not
much room, but they've got to be a shiny
contact. I'm waiting for manufacturers.
Josh, we should uh campaign on this.
Okay.
>> And Randy, too. Uh, we should um uh seek
goldplated
uh powerp. What do you think, Randy?
Would that work?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. You know, we have goldplated PL
259s. They're not solid gold. They're
just gold. But it would resist the
corrosion. Now, Randy, how do we know
that we've got the Powerpole red and
black? Right. You came up with a great
way.
>> Um, well, two things.
You know, you were talking about the uh
uh the position or the relationship of
of the connectors looking at the back.
I've always gone by looking at the
front. So,
uh, so my saying is that you should be
able to read the little A, which you're
not going to be able to see here. So,
red on right.
>> Oh, that's good. Sure.
>> Yeah. So, so you see that. So,
>> and this is a little Powerpole polarity
checker I built years ago. And it's just
a red green LED. And let me plug it into
the battery here. And
it lights up green. And I don't have a
uh cable that the polarity is reversed
on, so I can't show it in in red for
you, but let me pull it apart. All it is
is one of these little red green LEDs
and a current limiting resistor.
And uh that's it.
>> There's not much to it. You can see the
resistors inside the heat shrink there.
I don't know what the value is. 470K or
something. you can experiment and uh
find a value that lights it up for you.
>> Oh, that's that's great, Randy. And
again, when you're dealing with power
poles, uh just physically look at um the
uh power pole and make sure that those
two contacts are shiny. Because again,
if the black the negative lead is not
shiny and you plug it into the other
one, uh what's going to happen is it's
going to try and pull current through
your antenna circuit.
>> Uh because no, there's no more metal
under the dash these days. So the
antenna circuit ultimately goes to the
frame of the vehicle that ultimately
goes to uh the battery negative and
that's not good. You're going to lose
power output as well. So, mine the power
pole connectors and make sure that
you've got a good tight connection. And
again, when you see a panel like this,
it's good if they're in the back of your
vehicle to unplug them. Plug them in.
Unplug them. Plug them in. And make sure
that those two contacts are nice and
shiny. And double check that they both
look the same when you're looking at the
little tiny uh silver duads. uh inside
they click in and you should be able to
wiggle it back and forth and feel that
click and then you know they're properly
in there. But if you oh that pulled out
then you know that could happen when you
plug it in and it's halfway out. And
what occurs then is your voltmeter
measuring this circuit is going to be
looking at the solar panel at 18 volts.
Not your battery that's going, where'd
my current go? I need a little bit of a
charge. Exercise your power poles. And
that's my story for today. Gordo WB68.
Back to NIP.
>> Yeah. Question for you, Gordo. Do you
use anything like Deoxit or a dialectric
of any kind on the connectors
occasionally depending on where you have
them?
>> Oh, you bet I do because every so often
there's a need to have a power pole
connector aboard a vessel just for a
temporary deal and out around salt
water. You know how quickly that little
silver will begin to build up
resistance. And the more resistance, the
higher the voltage that's apparent, but
the battery is starving. Yes. Uh I have
got a little bit of a hack actually that
I can show you. So, uh for a long time,
you know, if you're if you if you don't
know, you can go to Harbor Freight and
you can pick up this little pick set.
It's like a you know, it's under two
bucks. And this uh this one on the left
here, this straight pick is really great
for both seeding small gauge wires into
the connector and then also if you need
to remove the wire from the connector,
this will help pry up that little uh
that little hook end that's on a
soldered or crimped connection. So,
>> Harbor Freight always on sale or you
know, they're already cheap enough. So,
yeah, check.
>> We have at least four of those sets, I'm
telling you. And we can never find one
when we're looking for one,
>> of course. Yeah.
>> Oh, yeah. Be real careful.
>> Turn in my jeweler screwdriver.
>> No, that's a good screwdriver there.
>> Oh, you be real careful when you're, you
know, using a screwdriver to push that
in. It doesn't slip out and stick
through your finger.
>> You bet. Yes.
>> And and I also noticed on that um power
distribution thing you thing you had
there, I had one of these little
voltmeter modules.
>> Oh, that's so cute.
>> You know, tucked on it. So, here's one I
built up years ago. It's an Altoids can.
You see these things at Hamfest for a
few bucks. If you see them, you know,
buy a few. Yeah. They're, you know,
they're real they're real handy to have.
>> Yeah. The ham ones like like these guys
are like got those
>> $32.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. The power. So,
>> everybody's got them. Everybody hold
them up.
>> Y power meters.
>> I can't reach mine right now. Otherwise,
I I had I would have show and tell.
Gorda, I have to tell you though, the
the chat room, first of all, they always
love you so much. And tonight was extra
special. says, "Love that you have
Gordo, the granddaddy Elmer." Gordo,
will you adopt me, please? I'll second
that. Gordon has been the Elmer for all
of us for many years. And Gordo adopted
all of us decades ago when he put out
his first book. So, it just leads me to
our next topic tonight, and I'm going to
send it over to Michael, but this is the
reason there is an a Gordon West award,
right?
>> Yeah.
>> That's right. Exactly. So, it's exactly
Thank you, Gordo, for all of your
knowledge and um bringing the power pole
lesson to us tonight. We appreciate you
very much. And uh let me introduce uh we
got Michael Collie here uh W4 RL with
Hamishian and he's going to be talking
about the Gordon West award along with
some others. So, hi Michael. How are you
tonight?
>> Even Amanda, Josh, everybody else. Thank
you for having me on tonight.
>> Oh, we're excited. So,
>> absolutely.
>> You guys have been in full swing. I've
seen a lot of advertising. you're you're
ramping up for hamation which takes
place in February. So tell us what's
going on right now.
>> Yeah. Um pretty much it's hamation
season as I call it. Uh so uh yeah we're
in full swing for Hamation. Uh the dates
are February
uh 12th, 13th, and 14th of next year,
2027.
>> Yes, I'm excited. I will be there as
always.
even when it is Valentine's Day.
>> Uh it's gotten me in trouble a couple of
times, but yes. Yes, I will be there.
>> So, yeah, this will be the last year for
probably another three to four years
when it falls on Valentine's weekend
again. So, uh which is good,
>> assuming you can talk your your
significant other to come with you. Yes,
I agree. It would work.
>> Vacation Orlando, honey. Happy
Valentine's Day. That's right. That's
what I tell people. So, what better way
to bring your significant other to
Orlando, make it into a vacation, enjoy
the show, take her to dinner every
night, and
>> there you go.
>> It's great for both.
>> So, Michael, you got some nomination
windows opened, right?
>> Uh we do. So, uh the um Hamation Awards
are open uh for nominations right now.
Uh we have three awards we give away
each year. Uh the first one is going to
be the Carol Perry Educator of the Year
Award. uh which this award goes to an
individual who makes an outstanding
contribution to educating and advancing
young people in amateur radio. Then of
course there is the Gordon West Ham
Ambassador of the Year Award. Uh this
award is presented to an outstanding
amateur who represents and inspires
others and embodies the amateur radio
spirit u that everybody's come to love
with Gordon. And our last award is the
amateur radio hero award. Uh this award
is for someone that goes above and
beyond providing their skills,
equipment, and communications to public
safety during disasters and uh using
their um skills to help others in need.
>> How many years have you been doing that
uh hero award? It's a relatively new
one, right?
>> Correct. Actually, this past year was
the first year uh in 2026 was our
inaugural award. Uh which actually went
to Ambrose. I'm not going to try to say
his last name, but he's actually a ham
out of uh India and he was the first one
to win it.
>> Yeah, I love that you started doing
that. I think it's great.
>> I do too. There's not enough hero
awards. That's awesome. There's a lot of
um helpful Aries and um emergency
communication people out there that are
deserving of that for sure. So,
everyone, if you think of someone that's
helped in like a hurricane this last
year or something, be sure to fill out a
nomination form for them. Um, what and
the the education awards. Now, we've had
Neil on here who's been a winner. I
can't remember most of the other
winners, but um there's been quite a
few. So,
>> Michael, what what makes people stand
out in the in the nominations?
>> Uh, the biggest thing is uh people that
just go out in their community and help
out people. Um, pretty much they're all
about amateurs, helping people either
learning about amateur radio, teaching
students, uh, public safety. Uh, so if
you know somebody in any of these
categories, please go nominate them. Uh,
we're always looking for nominations.
Um, and, um, it's simple to do. You just
go to the website, you click on each
award, it will actually pop up with a
form. You fill it out and our awards
committee will contact you back with
more info at that point on each
individual and why you're nominating
them. Uh but please go check it out. Um
and um there's always u people out there
to nominate. Even if you uh don't want
to, please do um please nominate
somebody. And that's what I tell people.
There's people don't get recognition as
much as much as they need to uh for what
they do for amateur radio.
>> Yeah,
>> that's true. I know so many and then I
don't think about it or I don't have all
the resources to do the actual
nominating and um I mean I need to make
more of a
a conservative effort to do that for
some folks that I know of that are a
great nomination for this. So, anything
else? Oh, well, this last year was your
first year for having a banquet. How did
that go?
>> It went really well. Uh it was actually
a hit. We had almost 120 people add it.
Uh so we're in actually works now of uh
doing it again. So more info will be
coming on the website once we get it all
scheduled and set up.
>> Good. And anything else uh new coming up
this for 2020? It's hard to say the
words 2027.
>> I know. I've heard
>> it hurts a lot.
>> I think it's hurting chat, too. I can
already see people saying, "Oh, no.
We're talking about 2027. what's coming
up in 2027 that you want any everyone to
know about?
>> So, um yeah, uh this is actually a
particularly u good year for Hamation.
Uh it is actually our 80th show. Um wow.
>> So, uh we're actually 81 years, but
because of co we minus the show there.
So this is actually our 80th show and
our theme for this year is 80 years of
connecting generations of hamp radio
operators.
>> So we're going to be doing a lot of uh
special things for our 80th year coming
up. Uh you can stay tuned to the website
for more information about it.
>> Uh but that is our theme for this year.
>> That's great.
>> And uh also please look for uh special
merchandise with the theme on it also
coming. Uh, it will be on the Hamishian
website uh soon
>> where you can order stuff.
>> Fun times. I'm excited. Not that I'm
going, but I'm excited for everyone else
that's going.
>> I know. It's always a fun time. I always
really enjoy it. I look forward to it
every year. And it it's kind of my the
kickoff of the Hamfest season, if you
will. It is. Yeah. It's really the the
starting shot across the bow for the
crazy remainder of the year of Hamfest.
And it's a one of the best. No question.
There you go. Anything else you you want
the our viewers to know there, Michael?
>> Um, the biggest thing is um we have uh
space for uh 200 plus RVs. So, if you
have a RV, you can bring it to the show.
You can actually uh hook up right there,
walk out to the show every morning. You
don't have to leave property. Uh we have
commercial booths. Uh we have a huge uh
indoor swap area with over 250 tables in
it. Huge outdoor area with over 300 uh
uh tailgators outside. Um also we do we
host around 40 plus forms over two days.
Uh so yeah there's a lot of stuff to do
at Hamation. Um and the best thing is
where else do you want to be but
Orlando, Florida in February.
>> Exactly. That's a true statement right
there. And lots of people are saying
they can't wait for it to to be come up.
So anyhow, well, thank you for being
here and when when the award winners are
announced, um we'll try to get some of
them booked on the show so they can
>> give their thanks to all around the
world. So,
>> sounds good. Uh thank you for h having
me on and uh nominations are actually
open until November 1st. Uh so please go
uh sign up somebody you know for one of
the three awards.
>> Sounds great. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Thank you so much, Michael. I
am honored to be part of that. Thank
you. Thank you.
>> A welldeserved award uh for Gordo there.
I appreciate you guys doing that. That's
awesome. All right. Well, we're going to
throw it over to Icon. Let's see what's
going on today.
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hamnation.iccomamea.com.
This month we are giving away a
wonderful ID50A
fantastic radio. Fantastic handheld. So,
let's see who is winning.
Well, our swag pack winners are Cody B,
K3 KLB, Mark O, N7WHW,
and Jerry R, KJ5
JHM. And the big winner is David C. N
I7R O. So, congratulations to the
winner. And again, thank you to Icon.
I'm throwing it over to Don. We'll see
what's going on with him.
>> Yeah. Let's go and get into the news of
the week from Amateur Radio News. And
we've got Dr. T as well. We've got a big
show today.
From Amateur Radio News Line Report
number 2551,
this is Ham Nation headlines for
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026. We
begin this week in Indonesia where hams
quickly organized a net for emergency
communications amid violent volcanic
activity. Graham Kemp, VK4BB, has that
story.
Emergency communications were activated
and expected to stay in place in
Indonesia through to the 24th of
September following eruptions at an
NORATO earlier in the month. The
National Amber Radio organization Arrari
cautioned hams to stay off 7 decimal 110
to allow for phone traffic and 7 decimal
1000 meghertz for JS8 call. The
emergency amter radio net was also
making use of the lay pan A2 satellite.
Harrari was asking that the uplink and
down link frequencies 145 decimal 88 and
435 decimal 88 respectively also be kept
clear. A genera YB1 BTM chairman of IU
region 3's disaster communications
committee advised amitor all of those
frequencies whenever possible. This is
Graeme Kemp VK4BB. In Jibralter, it's a
double anniversary year for amateur
radio operators and some keepsakes are
in the works to mark the occasion as we
hear from Jeremy Boot, G4NJ.
This has been a big year for the
Gibralta Amateur Radio Society, which
has been marking its 50th anniversary.
It's also a big year for Amateur Radio,
which became active in the British
Overseas Territory 8 years ago with the
issue of the first license bearing the
ZB2 prefix. The call sign ZB2A belonged
to the RAF Amateur Radio Club, which
years later became part of the Gibraltar
Amateur Radio Club. The Gibralta Club's
dual celebration this year included a
one-week event hosted by members in May
where they aired the special event call
sign ZB2FTY.
Now, before the year winds down, the
group is looking forward to
commemorative items available for
everyone. The Gibraltar Fletillic Bureau
will be issuing a 50 p commemorative
coin and a set of four postage stamps on
or about the 20th of November. This is
Jeremy Boot, G4N NJH.
>> One of the last things you'd expect to
see at a nearly 12,000y old
archaeological site are modern amateur
radio rigs, particularly radios calling
CQ on the HF bands and via satellite.
You're about to hear about it in this
next story from Dave Lee, M9TLB.
Archaeologists believe the wheel had not
even been invented yet when the
sanctuary known as Kahonepe was carved
into the bedrock almost 12,000 years ago
in what is now the Turkish province of
Shaoler. Special event station TC8 KHT
will be the first ham radio activation
at the site since its creation around
9,400 BC. A team of operators from the
Turkish Amateur Radio Society will be
active on the 18th through to the 20th
of September where there was once no
writing, agriculture or pottery. There
now exists a grid square designation of
KM97PC.
From there the operators will be using
CW SSB FT8 FT4 and the geostationary
satellite QO 100. Any operator
completing at least one contact will be
eligible for the free amateur radio
Kurahhone Heritage Award. Although the
cradle of civilization will never be the
cradle of amateur radio, operators will
make the most of these three days and
then depart as scientists continue their
work through the Carah Hone Research
Support Association. There are always
new discoveries to be made. Something
amateur radio operators can surely
relate to. This is Dave Lee, M9TLB.
And that's all from the Amateur Radio
News Line, your independent source for
amateur radio news since 1976 at
arnewsline.org ORG with Graham Kemp VK4B
Jeremy Boot G4 NJH Dave Lee M9 TLB Karen
Eve Murray KD2GUT at the news desk in
New York and our news team across the
globe. I'm Don Wellbanks AE5DW73.
We'll see you next time here on Ham
Nation. Now here's the solar update from
Dr. Tamoth Scove WX6SWW.
>> We have some fast solar wind coming our
way. Our sun hints at its first spotless
day, but then course corrects and now
flare activity is on the rise. Those
stories and more are in this week's
spotlight.
Our sun reminds us this week how deep we
are in the declining phase of the solar
cycle. Take a look at our earth-facing
disc. My goodness, I see one sunspot
right now. This is actually back on the
17th, but it actually got worse. went
down to a spotless day. In fact, the
only record I actually have of it is the
official uh synoptic chart from Space
Weather Prediction Center. Look at this.
Back on the 19th, try to find a sunspot
here that's numbered. There really isn't
one, but if you notice, you see new, you
see new over here, new over there.
There's all sorts of little new spots
coming up and around things. And that's
because we do still have a lot of
growth. The sun really is a bit complex.
So, this didn't last. This spotless day
was just a hint because just a moment
later on the 20th, look at this. We've
got three new sunspots. One here, one
here, and one here. And that's what I've
got labeled as 40, region 4532.
Now, that is not the sunspot actually
that starts getting busy. That's going
to be this cluster here. But we'll talk
about that more in a minute. Meanwhile,
one of the big things that we're looking
at is this coronal hole right here.
Compared to the last rotation, this
coronal hole is definitely deepened.
This was almost two coronal holes last
rotation. So, expect a little bit more
oomph from this one this time and
that'll be coming here in the next few
days. But it also is still a bit
unstable. This region last rotation was
actually firing a bunch of sun solar
storms and this time it's not quite
doing that. But as of the 20th, it has
started to fire solar flares again. So,
we're going to be paying close attention
to this region as well as the new one
that's going to be rotating into Earth
view. You can kind of see it here. It's
actually been firing solar storms and
solar flares. Right now, it's popping
c-class flares. You can see it right
there. Boom. That was a nice solar
storm. And we're going to be getting uh
bigger solar storms from it and likely
bigger flares as the whole thing rotates
into Earth view. But for now, we're kind
of just sitting at that wait as you
know, wait and see mode as this region
and one other one from the far side
rotates into Earth view over the next
few days. So, amateur radio operators
and emergency responders enjoy the quiet
and aurora photographers, well, you've
got just a couple more days before you
get that fast solar wind. And that
should give us a little bit of a show.
And now switching to our farsighted sun,
we are in luck that Stereo A is back to
being useful. It's staring at the sun
partially from the side. You can see
here's our orbit circle and here's
Earth. Here's the sun up here and here's
stereo A staring at the sun partially
from the west limb. So, what's nice
about that is that we do get to see some
regions that actually have already left
the Earth-facing disc and are rotating
uh on its on in this far side passage.
So, pay attention to this set of regions
as we go, especially region 4530. It is
still firing big solar storms. Watch
this thing right here. You'll see go
boom right there. That was a big storm
launch. We also still are seeing a bit
of activity from uh the active regions
that's growing in around this coronal
hole here. I think you'll see right
there is another big puff. So we we do
still have active uh solar storm
launches on the far side of the sun.
These regions will be rotating back into
Earth view in probably about a week,
maybe a week and a half. So uh we do get
a little bit of a break from them. We're
just going to have to pay attention to
what's going on on this on this limb
here. But sadly, Solar Orbiter is not in
the position for us to see the far side
of the sun from the east limb, which is
up here in this part of the orbit circle
here. So, we're just going to have to
kind of rely on JOC, HMI,
Heliosismology, fire sighting viewing
for that right now. And right now, it
just looks like most of the activity is
on the east limb. So, amateur radio
operators and emergency responders, pay
attention to these regions. But after
that, there might be a little bit of a
rest bit before all this cluster begins
to rotate into Earth's view. And that's
pretty good news because that means
solar flare activity will probably stay
down uh reasonably minimally. But aurora
photographers, well, let's hope these
guys give us some solar storms because
we don't have much more than that for
easily the next week. Switching to our
solar storm conditions and aurora
possibilities over the coming week. We
do have that fast solar wind from that
coronal hole that's going to be rotating
into the Earth's dri zone here over the
next couple days. Now, this coronal hole
is actually better formed than it was
last rotation. And that means it could
give us some slightly faster solar wind
than we saw last rotation, which could
mean better solar storming here at
Earth. So, aurora photographers, if
you're at high latitudes, expect around
the 23rd to start looking for that fast
solar wind. we could see active
conditions with up to about a 10% chance
of minor storm levels with it. Then
Thursday on the 24th, that's probably
when we're going to get more of the full
brunt of that stream interaction. And we
could see up to about a 20% chance of
minor storming. But this is only for
those who are sitting around 55 degrees
latitude and above. So, uh, cities in
these regions, this is actually a really
good time to take a look at, uh, chances
for your aurora shows. Now, at mid
latitudes, we're only expecting
unsettled conditions even through the
23rd. We could see active conditions by
the 24th, h maybe. And hopefully, if
it's even stronger than we expected, we
could even get about a 10% chance of
minor storming. So, photographers, if
you're at mid latitudes, well, you know,
it only if you're dedicated should you
bother chasing unless you're really good
at chasing substorrms. And then we could
get some brightening further down uh in
in possibly the United States Canada
border. And of course the equivalent
would be around Scotland to Ireland and
they're probably not deep into the UK
though. So all of these cities sadly if
you're south of Toronto you probably are
going to get drowned by lights. So be
sure to uh get into the dark skies
especially with that full moon. That's
going to be a real problem for you. And
now switching to our solar flare and
dayside radio blackout outlook over the
coming week. We are sitting in the
triple digits for solar flux and this is
likely going to climb here over the rest
of this week especially as that coronal
hole rotates out of Earth View and those
new regions rotate into Earth view. We
are having minor noise on the dayside
radio bands right now and that's going
to also climb just slowly over this the
rest of this week. Only got about a 5%
chance of MClass flares and an R1 to R2
level radio blackout and basically no
chance for X-class flares at the R3
level. But again, these things are going
to rise as we move through the week
because we have more activity coming
from several regions. One isn't even in
Earth view yet, and we even have one on
the far side that isn't even in view at
all yet. So, we've got a few surprises
in wait. So, amateur radio operators and
emergency responders expect a little bit
of noise on the dayside radio bands.
But, as we move into Friday of this
upcoming week, things could be a lot
noisier. And now switching to our
radiation storm and polar aviation
outlook over the coming week. Everything
is in the green this week for radiation
storms. We're sitting at the D1 normal
range. This is for you aviators at
flight level 360. It's also the S0 quiet
range for everyone else. And likely
everything is going to continue to be
that way. We don't see any real strong
risk for radio or for radiation storms.
That may change as we move in through
the end of this week just because we've
got those new regions that are more
flare active that are going to be
rotating into Earth view. But for the
most part, you frequent flyers and this
does mean air crew and you high-risisk
passengers, well, you're all in the
clear this week.
For the latest and most accurate space
weather info, subscribe to this channel.
And for more details on this forecast,
stay tuned for my full forecast out
later this week.
And there you go. Another great report
from Dr. T. Her little sound effect
stager music at the beginning always
reminds me at the end of the Transformer
movie. It's got that it's got that that
that sound to it. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Exactly. Very very cool. So, thank you
to Dr. T and thank you to the newsine
folks. Uh check her out on Twitter X,
whatever you want to call it.
Tamathcrove. Of course, it's
spaceweatherwoman.com and her YouTube
channel is Tamatha Scove. So easy to
remember, all of Unified and everything.
So that's my story. And now we're going
to ramble with Randy.
>> Yeah. I think one thing though, I think
that the yellow shirt means all calm. I
mean, she
>> she has a code. She does.
>> She has a she has a color code. I know
red means that, you know, stuff is is
popping. I'm not exactly sure what
yellow means, but I think if it's blue
or green, she's probably pretty calm.
>> Well, it was very I'm gonna have to I'm
have to quiz her. Yeah. No, it was Yeah,
there was a wait and see kind of message
that she gave. So, maybe yellow is
>> cautionary. Caution.
>> Yeah, caution. I I will ask her.
>> That was crazy. No sunspots at one time.
Yeah.
>> Isn't that wild?
>> Bizarre.
>> All right. Very good.
>> Okay, now we can ramble with Randy.
>> Yes. Still radios. Now the bands are
going to be completely shut down. Yeah,
>> exactly.
>> Oh, that's not good.
>> Well, no, no, not that. Not that.
>> Yeah. Okay, I got some stuff here to
chat about. Let me get the screen here
flipped over.
>> Still safe to go to Costco and stuck up
on your bunker. Nice.
>> I go to here. Here we go.
That's happening.
>> Uh, it is beginning to happen.
>> Okay.
>> It is now happening.
>> All right. So for September 23rd,
>> we have an SSTV event starting Friday
next week. So for five days, and I've
got kind of a shiggy dog story here
about me and Chat GPT. So me and Bobby
McGee, you know, Chat GPT. So, the SSTV
event series 33,
uh, get ready, uh, starts Friday morning
early. So, here on the West Coast, it'll
be at at 2 o'clock in the morning. You
don't have Well, well, the way I
operate, I don't have to be up. I just
leave everything run. So, I
>> So, I wake up in the morning, I come out
here and hopefully I will have some
pictures. What's different this time
from their normal is that they're not
transmitting on on the 2meter band, but
on the 70 centimeter band. So 437.550
and Doppler here becomes more of an
issue up on the
>> up on the UHF band. So you need like
five frequencies,
>> you know, setting your radio or steps of
5 kHz. Start off at
>> 10 kHz high as it's coming over the
horizon. When it gets a little raspy
sounding, go to 5 kilhertz. When it's
more overhead, go to zero. As it passes
away, go to minus5 and then and then
minus 10.
Um, so you can do this by either step
sizes on your radio or programming five
different memory positions. They're
using robot 36 this time, which I kind
of like better than
better than the PD120.
You know, the PD-120 is a twominut
transmission and then then they would
follow it by a by a twominute off time.
So the robot 36 is 36 seconds for the
picture, then it rests for two minutes.
So you get an opportunity hopefully to
get more images during a pass. It'll end
sometime on uh Tuesday DVD. And the
Aries group always likes you to submit
your images to this uh website here.
They don't have to be perfect. And uh if
you submit at least one picture, you
will get a certificate after the event
is over. So,
>> can you click that hide button on your
the little bottom of your screen that
says sharing? Yeah, just there you go.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> And I'm not going to go into all the
things to do about receiving this
tonight, but I I'll just point you to a
to a video I have here. It tells how to
predict, how to use heavens above, how
to receive the different decoding. Uh
the video may start off um with a
schedule announcement, but just kind of
skip through that and get to where the
meat of the video is and that'll that'll
get you going.
Now, me and chat GPT,
I've seen several videos where people
just define something and hand it off to
chat GPT or claude and
it grinds away and after a number of
times you get something done and
working. I've seen videos where guys
just take a little ESP32 board and a
display and they go to cloud and say,
"Make it do something useful." and the
thing comes back and sticks some
software in it and you got an audio
spectrum display, you know, things like
that.
So, I'm going on a cruise here in a
couple months and I want to track track
where I'm going. Now, when I've looked
at buying trackers, a lot of them now
have, you know, cell modems and they
want all, you know, the LTE or whatever.
I just wanted something simple and I
decided to see if we could or we me and
it or it could take and build one for
me. So you start with defining what you
want in very general terms. I said I
would like you to write software for a
GPS tracker for my upcoming cruise. I
would like this
to stick stick this in my cabin window
to log my trip. I'm just wondering if
this is something you can do. My my
requirements are a um ESP32 board. I
just picked that because they're really
common and cheap. Uh with a display, a
lot of them have like a little one-inch
display. I wanted something larger than
the common oneinch ones. I need a GPS
receiver. I want this to be a standalone
device I can power uh from a battery or
plug it in the wall or whatever. I want
the tracker to log location time,
heading speed, all the standard GPS. I
want the file format so I can load it
into Google Maps or Google Earth so I
can see where I've been going.
I want the ESP board to act like a USB
memory stick. When I plug it into my PC,
I want to be able to see the
tracking files on there. I said, I don't
know how what the length should be, days
or hours. Not sure. We'll figure that
out. And uh we've come up with a better
way of doing the the file transfer. I'll
get to that as we get through this. And
then I say I need to select the uh I
select the GPS module as well as the
computer with the display module. I said
is that something you can do? And then I
say I can do any wiring.
I don't have to do very much here. And
he says yes Randy this absolutely
something I can design and write for
you. It's a very good ESP32 project for
your crew. Was it really that personal?
Did chat GPS say yes, Randy?
>> Oh, it gets better.
>> Okay, hang on.
>> Okay, so this is what it recommended.
You know, it goes and grinds away. And
this is an ESP with a 3 and a half to
4.3 color display and this UX or this
Ubot Blacks M10 series GNSS receiver
that can receive both the GPS and the uh
the Russian and the U E European
um um you know constellation of
satellites to have a removable SD card
so we could move it physically if we
wanted to. You know, it has a USB
connection, use a rechargeable power
bank, and a few buttons or touchscreen
controls. And it says ESP32S3 is
important because it has native USB
support and Windows and it's got the
library and stuff to take and support
that.
What I would and this is what it would
record. So once per second or at a
selectable interval um it'd be the date
and time, latitude, longitude, speed,
you know, all the standard things. I
don't know how it came up with battery
level, but I don't know, maybe that
board supplies a supplies a battery
level. Don't know.
So now to shop. So chat searched the
internet for the main board and the GPS
receiver. It it found several of each.
when I went to check out the site,
sometimes they were un, you know, they
were backlogged or not not supported
anymore by that vendor. So, uh,
eventually I found, um, you know, a
board that it recommended for both the
computer display as well as as well as
the G GPS.
And then it told me
when you receive the boards, take a
picture of the modules front and back so
I can check.
This is where this gets really
interesting. You can take pictures of
stuff and it can read everything on here
and understand it and say here's where
the TX and RX pins are on here and
here's the stuff over here and you know
the switches and here's the big header
and you know all that stuff so it can
see that and understand what it has
here.
So, one of the things we did really
early on, now I don't have really any
experience using the
the Arduino IDE software development
environment. Several years ago, I did a
couple little simple things with nanos
and never touched it since. So, we had
to set it up. We had to search and
install libraries. So it would tell me
to search for this GFX library and would
come up with several and it would say,
you know, use this one here by Moon or
whatever. And and then we'd have a
discussion about should I
um use the version that recommended or
should I use the newer? And it said no,
let's stay with the older one for
for the time being. We had a bunch of
parameters we had to set up to the board
type and baud rates and um some other
things. So we got through through all of
that. In fact um in fact when it started
doing that it gave me a whole list of
things to do and I kind of did the first
one and then I told it I am new at this
um and then it came back and says I'll
talk you or you know I'll step you
through it step by step. So, we do one
thing at a time, verify it, and go on
to the next one. It then came up with a
schematic.
Not not a lot going on. It kept warning
me, do not connect the five volts into
the GPS module. It kept saying you make
sure you select select the pin with the
uh 3.3 volts on it. Okay. So, here I've
got it wired up. I had the solder header
on here. Here's the four wires. I took
this picture and I sent it to it.
Meanwhile, I got it plugged in and the
there's a couple LEDs up here. There's
one that for power and there's another
one for one pulse per second. They were
up they were blinking. But it came back
and said, "Randy, do not plug it in. You
got the uh ground and the 3.3 volt
wiring, you know, backwards."
I go, "No, I don't." So, I took a better
picture of it and it then agreed that
the wiring
was right.
Um, when I powered up the display, this
is the base software that just lights up
a couple pages on the display there. And
it recognized that and said, "Oh, okay.
The board's working." Yeah, here's the
pictures I took. They're all kind of
screwy here because of the size. So, I
said I powered up the wave share board.
It appears to be working and it says
factory test and goes through blah blah
blah. all these various things that it
you know verified
that it was working. Okay.
So, so we know the board works. We know
we got the
um the uh development tool kind of set
for things and it says let's build a
simple sketch. So it's just a sketcher
that does nothing or a program, but this
is to test that things, you know, the
libraries are are known or whatever and
that there's no compile errors, that
type of thing. And uh okay, we that
work. So now we start to go on to more
in-depth things.
So the first thing we did did next was
to um
write a simple sketch to see if the GPS
is working and then using the serial
monitor it sent this stuff back and it
said excellent that's a very strong
uh valid fix. So okay it now knows that
it can talk over over to the GPS
and it be able to see the data. One of
the problems we had here was that it
kept skipping seconds on the display.
And um so here's a just a photo I took
what's in this serial monitor. You can
see it goes from 17 to 18 to 19 20
22 22 24 25. So it's so that you know
some of the timing between the display
or the reading of the
uh of the I squared bus. There's things
going on in there. So it would think
about it and come back with some
recommendations and things that was
going to change. I said okay go ahead go
for it. and it come up with a new uh a
new program to which I downloaded pasted
into the uh the uh the development tool
do the compile which was taken now that
it's getting larger about 3 minutes it
loads it into the thing and the display
lights up
um so we got the display working it's
reading the GPS uh we went through
probably
maybe eight iterations s to get the
timing working so that the seconds were
not skipping anymore.
And what I did was that as the thing is
sitting there running, I took my phone
and I created a video of it. Let it run
for like 45 seconds, upload the video to
chat and it says I will analyze it now
frame by frame and it would come through
and say, "Oh, we're skipping here." And
eventually is to we're forgetting every
every second being being displayed
uh properly. Yeah. You know what good's
a digital clock if it skips seconds, you
know. So yeah.
>> So anyway, it started doing that. Um
this 10 seconds is not part. Okay. Yeah.
So then we started running to the SD
card and again there was some timing
things
>> and it was skipping seconds. So it went
through about three different four
different iterations. I thought to
myself I don't need one second position
logging.
>> Yeah.
>> So I suggested 10 seconds. I agree 1
second logging is unnecessary for a ship
journey. I recommend starting with the
position every 10 seconds. And then it
says at 10 knots the points are appro
approximately 51 meters apart. If the
ship's moving 20 knots are approximately
103 meters apart. A full day produces
only 8,640 records roughly around a
megabyte. Provides a smooth route near
ports, islands, and course changes. And
good idea. And then it suggested
somewhere along the line probably have a
a page on the display that I could take
and set the interval to something else,
but we'll worry about that.
So the status here this morning I um
I uploaded another GPS data file. I let
it run for like a half a day each time
we do a software
change revision and then I let it
analyze it. Oh, you know, so it
analyzes, it detects gaps in the
logging. It thought about a fix and then
it came back and said,
I want to use the GPS serial data rather
than the I squared bus to take and
communicate to the board. So then it
supplied me the wiring changes. I moved
a couple wires over and then it wrote a
small program to test a new connection
so it would um uh read the uh GPS data
and just put it in the serial monitor
kind of the you know debug window and po
there it all it was. So I just copied a
bunch of that and pasted it over and
it's been running
running fine. So,
>> I had it running all day today and and
then I stopped it here just before the
show and when I get out of the uh slides
here I can show you what it
what it came up with. So, so then
repeating till until fixed and then
we'll go on to other steps. So, um I
probably have I don't think I have 10
hours in to playing with this. maybe six
hours that it's done all all of this.
So, the next steps we're going to deal
more with the S SD card.
Um,
I told the I told Chad that I would not
be using the tracker connected to my
laptop all the time. I was concerned
about I was concerned about shutting
down or or removing the SD card so not
to corrupt it. Then I asked chat, "Well,
since a module has Wi-Fi on it, program
it to be an access point serving a file
directory web page, so I can connect to
my lap laptop using Wi-Fi and download
the files." It said, "Sure, good idea."
So that's something it needs to
implement yet.
And uh in about the middle of this, we
also had it displaying the
uh the local time and it knew I was on
the West Coast, so let's set the UTC
offset
uh for minus 7, but it said you'll be in
different time zones on your cruise, so
we should make that adjustable
>> uh for you. So, when the thing first
started, the display was portrait, kind
of like your common phone. I didn't like
that because the USB for power is coming
out the bottom. So I told it um you know
redo the display for for a landscape
mode. So this was its first attempt and
it just had these dots down the side.
Sent that to it and it went bang bang
man. It said something about offsets or
something in the display. created a new
code and it came up with this and says
it's pointing over here to the USB
connector and this is the right side and
left side and okay we got the thing
working on on on the horizontal display
and this is the way it looks currently
somewhere along the line I told it I
want you put some buttons down the right
side because we're going to need to go
to some other pages because is it
because this is a touch screen so it's
I've laid out a couple things here you
know they're not active yet And down in
this area, it reads back some status
about, you know, writing to the card or
things like that. So, um, the clocks now
do not skip seconds. They're both
running together. Um, that little
satellite receiver, I've seen it lock on
to 25 satellites with the little puck
antenna sitting inside the house. So,
>> wow,
>> that thing is hot.
So somewhere along I said I could have
never have done this by myself
and it says you're doing important work
Randy assembling the hardware checking
the wire compiling each revision you
know observing the behavior carefully
reporting exactly what happens that's
real development work because it can't
see what it's doing.
>> So this is really gave you positive
affirmations.
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
>> So then it says, "I'm helping with the
code and the troubleshooting, but this
is very much a project we're building
together. And by adding deeper comments,
I asked it to do better comments from
here on, you'll be able to understand
more and eventually modify more of this
yourself." And I came back and said,
"I'm just the hands." Good engineering
needs good hands. And somebody who
notices that a counter paused for three
seconds, a header change color, a cable
belongs on the other side. You're also
the system tester hardware builder
requirements department. and the person
taking it on your cruise. I'm merely an
engineer that doesn't get seasick.
>> Yo, that is crazy.
>> So
>> that's great.
>> Oh my god.
>> Wonderful.
>> Hey, sexy logo there, Randy.
>> Oh yes.
>> Yeah, I didn't leave it up long. Um,
yeah, those will be stickers here
supplied by Guess Who, and I have those
available
at Pacific Con. Excellent.
>> So, it didn't pick up the screen change.
Let me drop out and come back.
I don't know why it doesn't like doing
that. Entire screen. This one here.
So, here's why. So, this is where I
uploaded the file at 501 today, just
before the show. It ground it for a
minute and 38 seconds and said version 4
results 5 hours 36 minutes. It um logged
2020 records. It expected 2020 100%
coverage.
Logging interval exactly 10 seconds
throughout. Missing intervals zero.
Duplicate time stamps zero. Um fresh GPS
records. Perfect. Perfect.
Uh longest GPS age little over one
second. Typical
typical GPS age just under a second. And
it saw between 14 to 25 satellites with
a medium of of 19.
>> Wow.
>> And reported accuracy 1 to 2.7 meters
with a medium of of 1.4. So
>> Wow.
>> Okay.
>> So that's my current chat GP chat GPT
journey.
I like it,
>> you know, and I know nothing about
software. All I've done is define it.
And like I said, on the hand, so here it
is. I don't know if it'll focus, but you
can see the
>> Mhm.
>> seconds changing there.
>> Y
>> uh here's the back side.
Uh so here's the uh the card reader and
the extension header and a bunch of
stuff. Then here's the little GPS
receiver. Yeah,
>> you can see it blinking away.
>> And then it has a little, you know, puck
antenna sitting up here on
>> on top of the radios.
>> I'm curious, does it have the capability
that you could ask it, hey, make me a 3D
print file so that I can house all this
stuff together?
>> That's my ultimate goal. It should be
able to do that.
>> That's a cool thought.
>> That's That's very cool. I like it,
Randy. And it was interesting. A ham
buddy of mine from back in Grass Valley
stopped by today and I was going through
this with him and I and I told him about
we're going to implement this you know
you know Wi-Fi access point. He says you
know having the Wi-Fi on all the time is
really going to dra drain your battery.
I said chat GPD thought of that and in
the Wi-Fi management page we're going to
have buttons that we can enable and
disable the access point function
>> because I don't need it all the time. I
just need it for a few minutes when I
need to
>> pull out the file. So,
more to follow.
>> That's cool. Nicely done.
>> That's wonderful, Randy.
>> I like that.
>> So, if you have an idea,
go for it. You I think I have maybe that
board's $50 and the GPS 25 or so. Um,
you get the little ESP modules with the
displays for I don't know what 10 bucks
or less
>> and they can do a lot of there's a lot
of stuff going on in those ESP32s.
>> Yeah, I ham radio operators being so
capable with wiring and and modifying
physical things. I think for a lot of
people, you know, Claude and Chat GBT
and stuff like that, it's actually
really really helpful um because they
can rapid prototype some amazing stuff
like you got that up and running in no
time which is pretty cool.
>> Yeah. So a follow on to last week I
talked about the little UHF Moxon
antenna
>> I believe. So I had it out. So it's
outside here running and I received the
telemetry from two or three satellites
that are I think much stronger than the
other eight or 10 that that I am
listening for. The skyroof software
detects
and will take and detect a telemetry
burst. counts that and if it then
receives a telemetry it'll it'll put it
you know you know below that. So um what
I'm doing I'm letting it run for a
couple days on one antenna
and it creates log files and then the
other antenna I have and then the other
antenna I have I just taken my beam and
pointed at 45 degrees and leave it
north. I don't want to be tracking
around
>> and I'll get logs for that. I've also
ordered a eggnog's egg beater antenna um
from Halibit Electronics. I have one on
my Tiny GS. I think you have one, Josh.
I have one. Uh but yes, the Tiny GS is
outside still. Yeah.
>> And it works great on that. It receives
a lot of satellites.
>> Yeah.
>> So, I'll get that running and create log
files. Then I'll take the log files and
give them to Chat GPT and have it do an
analysis
between the three antennas and see see
what it says. Randy, there's a question
for you. Um, Brett, he says, "How many
prompts did you issue that produced
results that you didn't want from chat
GPT?"
>> Um, I'd say none.
>> None. Okay.
>> Um, we would get errors and things not
working right. Um, but it never went off
and did something.
>> You were really asking the correct
questions and you were putting in all
the correct information because some I
mean I I've had to back up a lot of
times like oh that's not what I meant.
Let's go back a few screens here and try
that again. So that's good. Oh yeah, it
did the you know you know it did the
screen uh the screen layout and we got
it twisted so it's in in landscape and
then I asked it uh somewhere along the
lines you know the next reision revision
can you put in local time and it did
that and it had something positioned
that I didn't like so I kind of
mentioned I said can you re re you know
fix the positioning a little bit and
second time it was quite good but it was
in a like a darker blue color or
something and it would not a lot of
contrast between the the black
background. So I said, "Can you change
it to orange so it stands out better?"
"Oh yeah, no problem." And out came the
orange, you know, local time display. So
So
>> that's pretty sweet. Well, thank you for
sharing. Everyone is um pretty in awe in
the chat room. So So go for it. Come up,
you know, get a little module and come
up with some simple little thing or
whatever and and play around. It's it's
just a little bit of time.
All right. Well, thank you. Yeah. Any
other questions?
>> I might have to try something. There's a
um somebody mentioned in the chat. It
was Jam Scan, actually. Uh have you
heard of the cheap yellow display yet,
Randy? Have those come across your
>> It's a 3.5 in screen with an ESP32 chip
that's baked onto it. It's It's very
similar to what you got, but they're
really cheap. They're like insanely
cheap.
>> So, a lot of people are bodgeging up
projects with those guys. But,
>> right on. Very cool.
All right. Is it time to ham it? Can it
or what? Ham it.
>> All right. Let me get to it here. Where
are we? There we go.
>> I took a lot of time. Sorry about that.
>> No, that was really good. I loved it.
All right.
>> All right. This evening we start with a
joke that I didn't understand, but maybe
some of you guys do. Whatever happened
to all the people who bought Mac minis
to run Claude bots? And then um someone
answered, "They're hanging out with ham
radio enthusiasts. I don't I don't
I don't get the joke, but some of you
probably do. Okay. Oh, this is so cute.
>> Um,
>> that's a tiny little van,
>> isn't it?
>> That's Collins. Yeah,
>> Collins van.
>> That's right. I'm going to come up with
I'm going to hit the history of it next,
but this was from 1964
to 1966. This little thing, it was it
was made specifically for um Collins.
And if I they didn't show the antennas
too well or anything about it, but it's
just gorgeous. I don't looks like this.
I see ARL here. So, this is displayed at
some Hamfest or something, but
>> that looks like Orlando.
>> Oh, no. That looks like Hamvention.
>> Uh I had never seen it before. And it
says 1964 Ford Econoline communications
van custom outfitted for the Collins
Radio Company. Okay. So, this is like
the the today's MCOM
>> uh van. This is but it's so awesome. The
vehicle toward America racking up some
40,000 miles between 64 and 66. That's
just it's just cool and it's just sexy.
>> Do you know where it is now?
>> No. Does anyone else
>> It's been It's been donated into the
Antique Wireless Museum. So, it's in the
museum in Bloomsfield, New York outside
of Rochester. And they have it inside.
I'm not sure if they had to take the
wheels off and a couple other things to
get it to fit through the doors, but
it's now inside at the museum for its I
guess permanent home.
>> And the radios are all still inside it
and everything. I'd like to hear your
picture.
>> Okay, this one is um this is just kudos
to the ARL. So, if you follow them on
their social media that they're on
Insta, Facebook X, all of the things,
they have started putting out some very
short um
quick pointers kind of videos. And I
just wanted to give them a shout out and
saying you guys are finally starting to
do it right.
>> It's it's taken you a while to catch up
with us, but we want short little reels
that are kind of catchy and you grab our
attention, teach us a little lesson, and
then move on. And thank you ARL for
getting with it a little bit. So agree
to meet you.
>> Uh what do we got next? I renewed my ham
radio license today, but I tried several
times on FCC website that looks like it
was launched in 1995. This is a true
statement. Um I kept hitting a brick
wall, so I called tech. You could call
tech support.
>> I didn't even know this was a thing.
>> Wow.
>> I didn't
>> didn't even know.
>> I am shocked that you got through to
somebody. Um, but the FCC doesn't link
your call sign to your FR. I know. And
that is so frustrating. I just found
that out the other day when I was trying
to up make sure I was good for my VE
session and stuff. Why is government so
bad at I it? That's You don't have to
ask ask that question. It's It's
unanswerable. Yes, it's unanswerable.
But I'm I feel your pain, Cecilia.
>> And the martini, you probably needed it
to get you like doing what you were
doing. Okay.
>> Make it a double.
>> Who's this? Hey, I know that orange mat.
I know that orange mat. That's very uh
very familiar to uh to what's going on
right here with my raccoon sticker.
>> Josh had it on in the background
earlier. Anyhow, make sure you go check
out his video um some of the first looks
at the ID 5200. This one is specifically
talking about how repeater book
basically is integrated and you can pull
up all of the repeaters in your area and
boom, plug and play. They're right
there.
>> Yeah, it's awesome.
>> Ready. And I'm sure Josh goes into much
further detail about it. So, uh, just
another thing about that 5200 that you
can, uh, play with.
>> Turn on your ham radio. Now, that's it.
>> Okay.
>> There's no other context with this
>> with with a with a name like Max Payne
and his his fear index.
>> I'm I'm scared of this man. I gotta be
honest with that avatar, too. I don't
>> Did something happen at 2:05 on the 20th
that he was like, "Everyone, this is it.
End of days right now." I don't I have
no idea, but interesting.
>> Okay, this person, my gosh. Okay. If you
can't speak three languages, build a ham
radio out of scrap, and bench press your
wife, then you are degenerate. What?
>> Okay.
>> Have higher standards for yourself.
Scrutinize your life. I don't Bro,
>> this is like alpha Chad. This is like
alpha Chad, bro talk. The way that they
>> 100%. Okay, Brett. Um, anyhow, I just
found that really funny that that's some
really high qualifications of a person.
Okay, what else have we got going on?
What's one thing that was objectively
better before the internet? Ham radio.
False. That is such a false statement.
Oh my god. Do you know how much life
quality of life in amateur radio
increased after we could look up call
signs on the internet while we're
talking to somebody? Right.
>> All of these things and um look at
propagation, logging, all kinds of
things have just
>> had it has opened the door for more of
amateur radio by far.
>> We we kind of I I look back at some of
those things that that I didn't
experience as almost like quaint. Um,
somebody handed me a stack of like turn
of the century QSL cards. I don't even
know. No, I guess it was like the 30s.
30s or 40s. And it was like two people.
He had multiples of of just a
correspondence back and forth between
two hams trying to work a SCD.
And it it took them weeks. It it just
took them weeks of of sending post back
and forth to each other to figure out
when you when they were going to get on
the air and make a contact. And
literally that's all the QSL cards were
was that kind of story of how well we'll
try this one that didn't work now try
this band and then and then if this
doesn't work go to this band and then
like the whole sketch was laid out it's
like that was
>> that was how they had to do it there was
no other way it seems like other than
>> and when the call book was actually a
book
>> Yes right
>> a published book yeah
>> exactly
>> and you know when you had to go to an
FCC licensing an FCC building to take
your license test and stuff your exam.
That's
>> walk uphill both ways in the snow.
>> This stuff is wild. It's so much better
now. You solar ex your residence spy.
You're wrong. Okay.
>> This this little guy, too.
>> Oh, wait. Hold on. Hold that up. Okay.
>> What are you showing us?
>> Yeah, this this little guy.
>> Oh, yeah. The open spot. Yeah, right.
That works on the internet. That Yeah,
>> I'm I'm waiting to check into the uh Ham
Nation net. It's flashing red right now.
They're talking.
>> All right. What else we got? I don't
know a single thing about ham radio
other than that the people that seem to
know about it are some of the most
annoying people to exist. That is 100%
pure jealousy. That person is
>> hating on their neighbors.
>> All right, Ben bagel bites. I hear you.
>> Yeah, I don't He couldn't pass the test.
That's it. That's That's
>> I would like to read the comments.
There's 25 of them. That's interesting.
>> Yeah, that' be interesting.
>> I'm straight to the comments with that
one. They probably were. I would get
some popcorn out for that one. Okay.
Well, thank you, Amory, for Okay. Um,
what is this one? Oh, this is just a I
didn't do the translation, but I can
translate it for you. Is this too many
handhelds?
>> No.
>> Answer. No.
>> No.
>> Is that all you got?
>> That's it.
>> That's right.
>> I have more than that on my desk.
>> No,
I have more than that in my go bag
alone. Um, so yes. know that I have no
idea what the tweet actually says, but I
made it up.
>> What is um practicing emergency ham
radio doesn't need to be complicated.
This is a true statement. Um you guys
should always all follow Julian. Always
a wealth of knowledge. It just needs to
be done often enough that it becomes
second nature. That is also a true
statement.
>> I agree. Yes, he is.
>> Hearing I'm operating Windling from a
seaside hammock. Well, I'm glad you're I
cannot I can't even tell that you're in
a hammock, but I'm glad you're seaside.
But the statement in itself is the most
is the key thing here is
>> practicing or being ready for your
emergency communications doesn't need to
be difficult, but it does need to be
second nature to you.
>> Um, yes, that's it. Just do it all the
time and incorporate it in other things
that you're doing. And speaking of
which, you know, set is coming up for a
lot of our Aries people. It's usually
takes place um nationwide the first
weekend of October, which would be next
weekend. And sometime in the month of
October, you'll hear a lot of people on
um Aries groups on HF practicing some
signals and passing traffic and things
like that. Don't interrupt them, by the
way. Just let them let them do their
thing and let them do their training and
learning. Okay. Um this one also makes
no sense to me. I'm horrible at ham
radio. I'm probably too impatient.
Did Does ham radio require patience?
>> Um a little bit.
>> Maybe to learn your radio. Like if we
just take it at the most basic level,
like just monitoring a repeater for a
first timer can be a bit
>> um there's there's some stuff you have
to learn, right? You're going to have to
figure out what frequency it is. If you
want to key the repeater, that's a whole
different rabbit hole. And for a new
>> to learn
>> Yeah. For a newcomer, that's got to be
like learning another language almost
>> and doing your
>> getting log book of the world to work.
>> That's advanced ham radio. That's That's
it.
>> For me,
>> the the best doing a code plug for a DMR
radio. That's another one.
>> The takes patience.
>> If you really want to have an amazing
evening, sit down to do your taxes,
update your uh FCC license, and get uh
log book of the world working. And to
put your open spot,
>> then you will be drinking that.
>> Oh, the open Oh, the open spot's simple.
>> That's easy. That's so easy. The open
spot.
>> You turn it on and it does it really.
>> Yeah, it's dead simple. I don't I just
maybe maybe a patience or tolerance. I'm
not sure. I'm sorry, Braves Vintage that
you didn't have a good time with ham
radio. Give it another shot after
coffee and
>> one like and no replies. I Well, that
was a little shocking, too.
>> What else have we got?
>> If I gave you $5,000, but the condition
was you had to spend it on something
frivolous you've always wanted within
the next 24 hours or lose it, what would
you buy? a new ham radio and maybe a
couple antennas. I mean, that's not
>> Is it really frivolous, though? That's
not frivolous. I find this necessary.
>> Um,
>> another radio. Not your first radio.
>> Another radio.
>> Yeah.
>> Or a tower.
>> Yeah, exact. Yeah.
>> All right. What else I got? I'm
considering getting a shortwave radio
receiver in case the global internet
becomes unavailable. You know, global
internet compared to your local
internet. Uh, it's a good idea when the
public network goes down, radio will be
the thing to monitor. AM, FM, shortwave,
CB, ham, and GMARS. Okay, I have to put
a stop on this for our preers or people
that are thinking that they need to be
prepared. It the radio does you nothing
without some education about it and the
appropriate antenna. So, all these
people that go out and buy radios,
they're just going to put them away, put
them in their chest of drawers and wait
until something bad happens. a your
battery's going to be dead, whatever. Be
more prepared than just getting the
radio and setting it in your closet.
>> Buying a bow fang does not make you set.
>> That's right. Absolutely 100%. And
evidently, according to some articles,
you you all of a sudden talk to the
International Space Station. Did anyone
ever see I should have brought that
article. It was awful. I think it was
all make believe. But um so this doesn't
necessarily help you. You're in the
right direction, but you got to go a
whole lot further than just getting the
radio.
>> You need it. We all show them.
>> So you can get some news. Start with
that.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Something. But you need to
be able to hear something. So get a
radio with a good antenna or know what
antenna you're using.
>> Short wave, I guess, is a a starting
point with that because it will come at
least with your telescoping antenna and
go from there.
>> Okay. This was I don't care about what
his first radio was per se, but I was
going to ask everybody else. I just
brought this up. What was your first ham
radio and how old were you? Let's go
around the room. Gordo, first, what was
your first ham radio?
>> Um, probably the Icon 2 AT. And it could
be modified to also work on marine band.
>> I have no idea what it is. Was it a
handheld?
>> Oh, yeah.
>> A mobile.
>> Okay.
>> Nope.
>> Uh, 2 handheld.
>> Who's next to my window? Donnie Boy.
>> Uh, Radio Shack HTX202.
I bought that when I was studying for my
license in 95, which would have made me
35.
And um that's where I found Amateur
Radio News Line, listening to New
Orleans VHF Club.
>> So that's cool.
>> That was my first ham radio.
>> Uh Michael, what about you?
>> Um
>> is he still?
>> Yeah, I'm here. U first ham radio was
He's muted. You're muted. You're muted.
>> I can hear him.
>> No, he's good now.
>> He can't hear you.
>> Hear me?
>> Can you? I can't hear nothing.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah, I can hear you now.
>> Some reason I got feedback on my end.
But uh my first ham radio was probably
um actually it was a Ranger 2950 that
did 10 meter 11 meter and I was 16 and I
bought it from AES in Orlando.
>> Oh, that's so cool. Uh, Randy, what was
your first radio?
>> I think it was like a Heath kit DX20,
maybe a DX40. Got it from the local
radio club auction one night and you
know like the, you know, like you say,
Goro, you know, he asked the guy, you
know, does it work? And he says, "Well,
the last time I used it, 1955, you know,
>> and get it home, the power transformers
toast." So back then you could order a
new one from Heathkit for like5 $6 and
that was my first crystal controlled
novice radio in 1968. So
>> wow. Josh, what about you?
>> I had to think I'm trying to think of
how old I was. Um I was it was a Yau
FT60.
Picked it up at the HRO in Anaheim along
with Gordo's book after meeting uh Bob
for the first time and I think I was 23
or 24.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. Mine also the first one that I
picked out and purchased myself was an
FT60. Of course, I married into ham
radio. So, there was just plenty of them
laying around. Um, including Jeff's
first one handheld that he bought was a
two I think it was a 2 meter poxing.
That was the brand before Bofangs and
Wongs and things came out. So,
>> um,
>> yeah. And he was really thrilled about
that. and it was a $99 radio and we
lived in a 400 foot apartment and could
barely make rent at $425 a month. So
that was a huge purchase for him at the
time.
>> But anyhow, that was those some and some
people have been talking in chat about
their first radio. Thanks you guys for
sharing drakes and Brett is talking
about 40 meter crystals were expensive.
I bet they were. Um, okay, let's move
on. What else we got? learning digital
modes for ham radio and I just learned
that uppercase lettering in PSK31 slows
down transmission. Is that true?
>> Yes, it does. Yes. Yes.
>> I have a video that shows this.
>> No, that at all. I had no idea. And I
absolutely
>> I type in caps a lot and I didn't know
that.
>> Don't do it.
>> Oh, this is
>> Yep. It takes longer to yell at people
in PSK31.
>> It's only in It's only in PSK 31.
>> Really? So like any any other Ry or
something.
>> Oh, Ry, it's the same.
>> Anything phase shift key, right? The way
>> Yeah.
>> the way they structure the alphabet.
>> Well, the way he did the coding, he he
um use I use fewer bits for the common
lowercase characters. And uh since you
don't use uppercase as much, the the bit
pattern is a little bit longer. And I
actually have a video where I say send
the same text in lowercase and and then
in uppercase and I play them side by
side in the video and you can it's a
noticeable
difference.
>> That is that's trippy. Okay. What else?
This last one tonight.
>> This made the rounds.
>> Spiral. You made the rounds.
>> Oh my god.
>> Is this your mug shot from the police?
it. What's so what's so funny about this
is um that's an AI image
and you could tell like you can see my
hand is obviously sticking out.
>> Well, I don't know what that is, but
supposedly
>> they they took a I think they took a
screenshot of my my video where I'm
wearing that exact harness and then they
threw it into AI.
>> Uh but I I like that it says a do it
>> on the bottom.
>> Yeah, do it.
>> I never noticed the hand sticking
through the uh sticking through the
orange. Yeah, but this was like some guy
one guy went offended on Facebook.
>> Oh, no.
>> I mean, I made that video. I made the
video of making fun of myself with it.
So, it's like, yeah, of course it's fun.
>> It's do it.
>> Oh, I hope we have a good if I I don't
have a calendar in front of me that it
is current. I'm still on July in my
office here, but Oh, lord. Um, if I hope
that Halloween is close to our Ham
Nation show so I can dress up this year.
So that's that's all I'm saying. Um, all
right. That's um that's the end of
Hammet or Can It. Hopefully it was very
enjoyable and very entertaining.
>> It was fantastic.
>> People are kind of just like
>> mo in the past weeks people have been
really into ham radio and this week it
felt like people were like uh ham radio.
So people's attitude it's like a roller
coaster. I
>> we were talking about old old QSL cards.
If you ever see this book in a flea
market or used bookstore
>> Oh, that's cool. What is that?
>> Hello World.
>> Hello. Yeah.
And the author knew nothing about hams
and ham radio, but he was at some flea
market and there was a big box of QSL
cards and he thought they looked neat,
so he bought them all and
and all came from and they all came from
one estate
>> and they ranged from
>> back in the 40s up through maybe the 60s
or or 70s. So, so he went through and
organized them by time and date or by
date.
>> Wow.
>> Then he compared that to world events.
>> And what he discovered that Ham when
something was happening in some part of
the world, that's where he made his
contacts to.
>> Huh.
>> Wow.
>> That's cool.
>> So, it's a real interesting read. You
know, the graphics in it and stuff are
just fantastic. Um, a lot of detail, a
lot of the old cards and stuff. It's uh,
if you see one, buy it.
>> That's very interesting. Very cool.
>> On the heels of your comment, Amanda,
about people's interest in in ham radio,
I got a a great little email from uh,
somebody at the Rio Hondo Amateur Radio
Club, and they were saying that they did
a bit of like a ham cra session to kind
of like, you know, teach people about
the license. And their first initial uh
class was like five people and they're
doing a second one and the interest shot
up to 80 people.
>> Wow.
>> And then uh they're going to have to
break it up into multiple classes like
you know multiple cadres if you will.
>> Um and I just like that's amazing. So
yes, it it it you know es and flows but
um I'm seeing a lot of a lot of interest
right now which is which is
>> Thank you. and and um obviously world
politics plays a big role in things and
and um national politics as well. So um
oh you guys I do have to give you one
update because we were talking about it
two weeks ago. Jeff did shoot his elk.
>> Oh good.
>> Yes. So hunting was successful. His
first one ever. So
>> with black powder too black powder take
muzzle loader. It was very nice. It's
much more difficult. So congratulations
Jeff. He's not watching or listening or
anything, but I'm really proud of him.
And and now we have a hide in our porch.
So,
>> Oh, was that the uh first day out?
>> No. Well,
>> very cool.
>> Uh a few days out. So, few
>> days. Yeah. Yeah, it was a few days out.
But, and then we just went and camped
and got played ham radio the rest of the
time. So, portable camper and had a
great time and I had a good time in
Colorado party. Okay. Anybody else have
anything before I announce the Nets?
>> Nope. Uh, the closest um Ham Nation to
Halloween is going to be October 21st.
>> Yeah. The week before.
>> I'm I'm uh I'm going to dress up. I
don't care.
>> Okay.
>> Well, yeah, it's close enough.
>> I'll be the ham radio witch.
>> There you go. Thank you, Chris, for the
super chat. Appreciate you.
>> Thank you.
>> And uh Okay, get on those nets. Don's
going to get on uh Dar on 14 here as
soon as we uh close up. And then uh Tom
>> Wyky is running around 7192 or
thereabouts on 40 meters. So be a be
sure to jump in and say hello and
>> might do that too.
>> All right,
>> thank you everybody. We'll see you in
two weeks.
>> Thank you everybody. Have a great rest
of your week. 73.
>> Radio.