Amateur Radio QSO Show

It is not very often that you can hear a new HF shortwave radio station sign on the air. WTWW a new International Shortwave Radio facility just outside of Nashville, TN is launched a  new transmitter Saturday Feb 11, 2012 with a broadcast we named “This Is Only A Test”. The broadcast started at 4 pm Central Standard Time.  The new transmitter launched is a 100,000 watt transmitter running into a full size rhombic antenna. This was a global radio event with radios being tuned in all over the world. The QSO radio show requested that we could  conduct this broadcast as an amateur radio event to promote amateur radio along with shortwave listening. Why? The shortwave listening audience is huge. The typical shortwave radio listener is a great potential candidate for amateur radio. There are more than 1.5 billion shortwave receivers in use worldwide, in addition to that the BBC estimates that at any given moment, over 200 million sets are tuned to shortwave broadcasts. This is the second time WTWW has allowed The QSO Radio Show to conduct this kind of broadcast and be first on a powerful recently installed 100,000 watt transmitter. The purpose of this broadcast was to demonstrate HF communications and to put radio amateurs on the air to a worldwide audience to tell their story.

Bob Heil K9EID of Heil Sound presents the Heil Sound seminar recorded in Las Vegas. Bob Heil and Chip Margelli K7JA present this seminar hosted by the Las Vegas Amateur Radio Club Tom Petrakis, K4ULL president. This audio seminar was presented during the 2009 National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas Nevada. This audio file has no audio processing on it so all audio demonstrations can be heard as presented.

Walter Cronkite KB2GSD and Joe Phillips K8QOE. A specail memorial radio show dedicated to the memory of Walter Cronkite and Joe Phillips. A special story feature on Walter Cronkite from Bill Pasternak of The Amateur Radio Newsline. Then we feature a past QSO radio show when our guest was Joe Phillips. Join with us in paying tribute to two of our finest in this spcial tribute QSO radio show.

Steve Mendelsohn W2ML has been a broadcast professional for 34 years. He began his career as an audio engineer at the Columbia Broadcasting System. During his 21 years with CBS, he provided pool audio distribution services for many historic events: The funeral of Vice President Humphrey in 1975; the Republican and Democrat conventions in 1976 and 1980; trips to South America and Africa by Presidents Ford and Carter; the first audio of the Americans held hostage in Iran in 1980 (From Algiers and Germany): trips by Pope John Paul to Ireland in 1981 and to 7 countries in Central America in 1983; trips in 1984 by President Reagan to the Eastern Caribbean Initiative conference in 1983 and to Central America and provided pool audio services during his 1984 trip through Central America. He also was the Audio Pool Engineer at the 1988 Republican Convention, and was the Audio Engineer in Charge of the 1989 Bush-Gorbachev summit in Malta Steve Mendelsohn joined ABC-TV as an Audio/Video Systems Engineer and was a key member of the team responsible for the design of the Monday Night Football technologies, and for designing two generations of Mobile Production Trucks. As a studio and systems designer, Steve was on the design team responsible for ABC's first all digital control room; the first all digital communications system, and the first remote intercom system allowing reporters from around the globe to access the plant intercom system. He helped design the first all digital, triple expanding wall, Mobile unit for ABC's Monday Night Football and golf coverage. He became Senior Systems Engineer in 1997. Mr. Mendelsohn was the winner of an Emmy for the ABC "Millennium Around the World" show on January 1, 2000, in recognition of his design of one of the most complicated communications systems ever designed for television, which brought together intercommunications, satellite and telephone technologies. He was communications engineer in charge of the 2003 Super Bowl for ABC Sports. In his thirty year Navy/Navy Reserve Career, he has advanced from recruit to Senior Chief Cryptologist with 2 Navy Achievement awards for creating an important national security database for personal computers. Mr. Mendelsohn, W2ML, has served on many ARRL committees and was the First-Vice-President from 1994 to 2000. He was President of the Tri-State Amateur Repeater Committee (TSARC) from 1978 to 1983. Bob Inderbitzen NQ1R is Sales and Marketing Manager of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the national association for Amateur Radio. He is responsible for ARRL membership and publication marketing. Inderbitzen regularly attends ARRL’s national conventions and Dayton Hamvention® as part of the team that organizes and operates ARRL exhibits. He enjoys speaking with volunteers about ARRL membership recruitment, benefits and services. Bob earned his first ham radio license in 1981 as KA2PZD. He was in the sixth grade. He became NQ1R when he upgraded to Amateur Extra in 1989. His interests in ham radio include casual HF operating, portable operating and contesting. He is an ARRL Life Member. Bob joined the ARRL staff in 1991, serving the Volunteer Examiner Coordinator Department as Assistant to the Manager. In 1993, he became Assistant to the Manager in the Educational Activities Department. There, he helped maintain the large array of services offered to Amateur Radio newcomers, instructors, schoolteachers and recruiters. He is a member of ARRL’s “10-Year Club” for employees with at least 10 years of service. He attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, and holds a B.S. degree in Management and Organization from Central Connecticut State University. Bob lives in Rocky Hill, Connecticut with his husband Michael Bower and daughter Victoria. He and his family are active in church affairs and enjoy vacations to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Jonathon Taylor K1RFD the creator and operator of Echolink. Jonathon talks about how the idea of Echolink came about as well as his beginnings in Amateur radio. Jonathon talks about what the future holds for Echolink and VOIP communications. EchoLink software allows licensed Amateur Radio stations to communicate with one another over the Internet, using voice-over-IP VoIP technology. The program allows worldwide connections to be made between stations, or from computer to station, greatly enhancing Amateur Radio's communications capabilities. There are more than 200,000 validated users worldwide in 162 of the world's 193 nations with about 4,000 online at any given time.

Charlotte Ertelt K5AVX of Joshua Tx Comes to us by way of FaceBook andTells stories about her amateur radio career along wiht her husband Milton k5PAW and some stories about ham radio dx from Kenya Africa. Some unusual stories about getting into ham radio and stories of being a missionary equiped with amateur radio. Bobby Raymer N2BR of Cookeville TN seems to work long haul DX even in the bottom of the sunspot cycle! Let Bobby tell you how he does it, as he tells the stories behind his DX contacts.

Tom Hammond N0SS was first licensed in 1958 as KN0RPH. Upgraded to the Conditional license Tom was 14 yrs old and couldn't drive to the FCC examining station in KCMO at the time within the year and held K0RPH until 1976. Tom upgraded through General, Advanced and Extra Class in 1976 and applied for and received N0SS the same year. His XYL, Jeri, has been licensed since about 1970 and has held WB0HWL, N0IJY, and currently his old call, K0RPH. Tom enjoys contesting when time permits and and operates 99% CW, though he will switch to SSB if someone really needs a SSB QSO he also enjoys designing and building ham related 'stuff' mostly small projects he reports nothing to shout home about and some actually work! Since the end of 1998, Tom has been a Field Tester for Elecraft, out in Aptos CA which makes the great KX1, K1, K2, and K3 HF transceiver kits, and other accessories as well. Tom continues to enjoy his relationship with Elecraft and he has enjoyed seeing them prosper in the Amateur Radio ranks. Tom hopes everyone has found as much enjoyment in the hobby of Amateur Radio as Tom has.

Jack Davis K6YC chief engineer for KTXL television Sacramento California and chairman of SBE Society of Broadcast Engineers Chapter 43 in Sacramento CA. Jack talks all about VHF, UHF and microwave. Dennis Marandos - K1LGQ with the New England QRP Club. Dennis talks all about QRP and tells about a complete working ham station for about $60.00. Find out all about the excitement in QRP.

Gary Hedden W8JFP Legendary Nashville mastering and recording engineer born in Columbus (OH, USA). At a age of 13 he started to work at the radio and met John Hull. One year later he started to work with John Hull at the radio and then building a recording studio. He was soon doing remote recordings and mastering. He studied Electrical Engineering at Ohio Northern University (Ohio, OH, USA) and Engineering Physics at Ohio State University (Ohio, OH, USA) which he didn't finish. He started to work as chief engineer at Mus-I-Col (Ohio, OH, USA). He is co-founder and designer of Hedden West Studios (Chicago, IL, USA) and Diskwerks (Chicago, IL, USA). He designed and built 2 remote recording trucks including his own GHL remote audio truck. He is a staff member of the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, responsible for all things audio. Currently Gary lives in Williamson County (Tennessee, USA).

Nancy Williams NR4RR does volunteer work with American Red Cross and other agencies. She retired from work with Tri-County Community College as an English/Creative Writing instructor in May, 2005. Since then, she has tackled a new career of sorts: writing professionally. She began a HAM RADIO mystery/sci-fi novel in 2000, which she finished in 2002. She spent the next three or four years revising the story, A Matter of Destiny, according to suggestions from several wonderful mentors. She brought out the second edition of Destiny on her own at the start of 2008. Destiny involves murder, mayhem, government coverup, and as already mentioned, ham radio and is based on a true event that occurred at Brookhaven, New York in 1992. For ordering information or a preview of my novel, please visit my website at www.nlwilliamswriter.com Steve Williams KC4AZO was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and has lived in the Atlanta and North Georgia area for most of his life. Steve has always had a fascination with roads, roadmaps, roadsigns, and anything else road-related. In late 1997, I discovered that there were many folks like himself who had a fondness for roads and discovered that he, too, was a "roadgeek". His first road-related website was "The Unofficial Georgia Highways Web Page", which he supported from 1997 through 2002. In October, 2005, inspired by his brother-in-law Lib's blog, Steve decided to create his own road-related blog, thus "The Georgia Road Geek" was born. In July, 2006, He purchased additional webspace on GoDaddy.com and expanded his website to include a video series called "ROADGEEK-CAM!!!", special feature pages, and the occasional podcast.

Wayne Green W2NSD Ham Radio Legend and former publisher of 73 Magazine as well as CD review and Byte Magazines. Wayne has some interesting stories that he tells on this QSO. Wayne remains a publisher of various publicastions and tells us all about his story. Bob Grove current publisher of the communications magazine Monitoring Times and the president of Grove Enterprises.

Have you seen the motion picture pirate radio? If you have you will love our guest Alan Wiener who has done it all. His beginnings began with bootleg broadcasting on the AM and FM broadcast band in all places but New York City. Born with radio broadcasting in his blood Alan has traveled an incredible road to where he is now. Pirate ships on the high Atlantic seas equipped with high power transmitter that were located out of the US territorial waters. The goal was to produce a broadcast facility that was free from all forms of control for the radio listener. Even though one of his ships was clearly outside of the US legal jurisdicion the ship was wrongfully raided by the United States Government and all of the staff arrested and all of their equipment along with the ship confiscated. Today Alan runs powerful International Shortwave Radio Station WBCQ in Monticello Maine. WBCQ provides the most variety in creative programming of any Shortwave facility to date. You will sit spell bound as you hear this true radio legend tell his life story.

Charlie Emerson N4OKL with the Huntsville Hamfest talks with us on QSO and gets us up to speed on the Huntsville Hamfest. Charlie tells the story of how he got involved with the Huntsville Hamfest and the history of the Hamfest. He talks about his beginnings in amateur radio and his current interests in ham radio. Charlie talks about all the up and coming activities of this year’s 2009 Huntsville Hamfest. Please note there are extra breaks and in this radio show as the interview is a little short for our show but we wanted to get Charlie on the air as soon as we could to promote the Huntsville Hamfest.

Fred Lloyd AA7BQ. The founder and publisher of QRZ.com the pioneer and cutting edge amateur radio website. Fred talks about the beginnings of QRZ and his early days in broadcast radio as well as his beginnings in amateur radio. Fred talks about the forums on QRZ along with the datbase and other QRZ features. You will enjoy this QSO with Fred Lloyd AA7BQ.

Hank Landsberg WB6MEU of Henry Engineering joins us for a QSO all about his early days and his Knight Kit 3 tube AM broadcaster. Hank takes us inside the days at Drake Chenault and talks about Bill Drake. Hank did the engineering and production of the milestone program The History of Rock and Roll voiced by the master himself Bill Drake. Hank shares with us his QRP operations on the beach with a kite antenna. Radio amateurs and brodcast guys alike, will love this QSO with Hank Landsberg of Henry Engineering.