Qso Today - A Conversation For Amateur Radio Operators

Ray Heffer, G4NSJ, commandeered the family shortwave radio, as a kid,  to further his interest in shortwave listening and ultimately amateur radio. Ray made his career as a television, radio, and audio visual equipment repairman, and now specializes in the repair and restoration of 1940’s vintage AM radio sets.  I found this endeavor to be fascinating and Ray has created some clever and novel solutions to keep these radios entertaining their owners in the QSO Today.

Steven Bible, N7HPR, made a career in the US Navy, spending almost two years under water on the Trident submarine.  Steve is a long time contributor to TAPR, the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corporation, perhaps amateur radio's "Bell Labs".  Steve and I discuss his ham radio storym the developments of TAPR, and TAPRs contributions to advancing the state of the art in amateur radio.

Rod Moag, W5NDS, interests in radio and electronics paralleled an interest in American Folk and country music leading to advanced degrees in Linguistics and South Asian languages.  Ham radio plays a solid role throughout this story as it weaves it way in and out of Rod’s professional career. Rod’s musical career and performances are one of the diamonds in this episode of QSO Today.

Rich Zwirko, K1HTV, was quickly bitten by the DX bug in the late fifties and has gone on to log just about every DX entity on every band. Rich made a career of radio serving as a teenage broadcast engineer in his hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, and later ended his career at the Voice of America in Washington DC.  Getting on the air is Rich’s mantra that he shares with us in this QSO Today

Glenn Johnson, W0GJ, began his ham radio journey as a teenager and from his love for chasing DX, has since been to many DX entities around the world including Heard Island, an attempt last year to land on Bouvet Island, and an upcoming DXpedition later this year to Pitcairn Island.  Glenn’s interest and determination to provide these rare DX entities along with this DXpedition group, is worth the weeks at sea, sometimes in terrible conditions. Glenn was able to break from his preparations for Pitcairn to spend this QSO Today.

David Reed, W5SV, began his ham radio story in Mexico at the age of 6, and was undoubtedly one of Mexico’s youngest hams at age 7.  W5SV has a rich and interesting story that includes stints in electronics technology, advanced education, as a US Marine Corps pilot, and as homicide detective. The twists and turns in this story makes this QSO Today an interesting ride.

Mark Ziegler’s ham radio story began as a  youngster that moved him into a career as an electronics engineer with the famous Bell Laboratories.  Now retired, Mark enjoys operating from an RF quiet QTH in rural New Hampshire. Wind power is WA2ILB’s alternative power source of choice and is one of the subjects that we discuss in this QSO Today.

Exploration of the edge of space, first by astronaut Jordan Kittinger in Project Man-High, began Bill Brown’s, WB8ELK’s, fascination with, adaptation of amateur radio to high altitude weather balloons and later to smaller pico balloons that Bill tracks around the world using amateur radio beacons that he fabricates for his balloon launches.  With over 600 launches to his credit, it easy to say that WB8ELK is an expert in high altitude ballooning and amateur radio.

Vi Barrett, W6CBA, celebrates 70 years as a radio amateur.  Vi’s love for radio began with an uncle getting back on their air after the Second World War.  Growing up in Southern California, W6CBA became the first female radio dispatcher for the FBI, raised a family, operated phone patches for US servicemen during the Vietnam War. Still active on the air on both CW and SSB, W6CBA is my QSO Today.

Jerry Lewine, K6QU, began his career in radio as a young ham in 1959, that led to a career as a broadcast engineer, first as a teenager in his native Pennsylvania, through the Air Force, and later to markets in Hawaii and California.  While Jerry’s broadcast radio career sidelined his ham radio adventure for a number of years, Jerry is back with a passion for CW and FT-8 while the current solar cycle is at its low. K6QU is my QSO Today.

George Misic, KE8RN, is an RF and analog engineer by training, a collector of vintage American amateur radio equipment, and an early pioneer in the development of MRI or magnetic resonance imaging machines and whose name is on 38 patents around this technology.  George is a frequent author of articles for QST and Electric Radio Magazines, and is my QSO Today.

Jack Worth, WA0QZK, is a retired pastor with over 50 years of amateur radio operating experience who likes to QSO on CW from the Warsaw Telegraph Office.  Jack collects and restores antique Morse code telegraph keys and bugs and uses them to work the World and ragchew on QRP and a modified G5RV antenna. WA0QZK is my QSO Today.

Joe Everhart, N2CX, is well known is QRP circles for his technical contributions and articles in the ham radio magazines.  Along with George Heron, N2APB, my guest in Episode 151, of the QSO Today podcast, they produce a live talk show called Chat with the Designers, as well as present at the QRP Event, four days in May, that precedes the opening of the Dayton Hamvention in May.  Joe is a builder and ham radio designer, and share some of his insight into homebrewing while enjoying amateur radio in this QSO Today.

Howard Bernstein is the co-founder of the Long Island CW Club along with Rich Collins K2UPS,  where they train amateurs of every age to be CW operators over Zoom video conferencing. Howard has a long history in ham radio extending back over 50 years.  WB2UZE still has his first Drake line and is a collector of vintage things including old radios and automobiles. Howard is my QSO Today.

Bob Sumption, W9RAS, was raised on Popular Electronics and Popular Mechanics magazines, learned how to fix anything from his father, and became a ham radio operator in the 1950s.  Bob was an electronics technician at Heathkit who assembled the prototype SS9000 synthesized HF amateur radio transceiver. Now a collector of everything Heathkit, he has restored one of the three original Heathkit SS8000 HF transceivers that never made it to market. Bob is a consummate long term, big project builder and radio restorer, who shares his success, knowledge, expertise, and history in this QSO Today.

Neil King, VA7DX, shares his ham radio story that began as a kid when is father introduced him to the Morse code.  Now after almost 40 years, Neil has over 16 DXpeditions under his belt and continues to enjoy traveling and operating CW from some of the most remote locations in the World.  When he his not traveling as an international IT consultant, VA7DX resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, is active in his radio club and club station. We also discuss the BCWARN amateur radio microwave backbone in this QSO Today.

Joe Lynch, N6CL, began his ham radio story over 50 years ago in Bonita, California. After a stint in Vietnam,  an amateur radio journalist for CQ Magazine focused on VHF and above, and a career as minister, Joe, is now the director of religious education at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.  Both he and his wife, Carol, are active ham radio operators. N6CL has always been active in amateur radio emergency services, including at the site of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.  N6CL is my QSO Today.

Sputnik and an uncle inspired George Allison, K1IG, to become a radio amateur. George had a long and successful US Navy career where radio was always the center of his activity including MARS stations, a visit to the South Pole, and the operation of very high powered VLF and ELF stations around the World. George promotes the Wordsworth method of raising CW speed above 40 words per minute.  K1IG is my QSO Today.

Jay Slough, K4ZLE, has over 60 years in the amateur radio hobby and still enjoys CW as his primary operating mode. An accomplished DXpeditioner, having operated in over 40 DX entities including South Sandwich Island. Always ready to extend the hand of friendship, either by knocking on the doors of houses with amateur antennas or sharing his own station through RemoteHams. K4ZLE is my QSO Today.

Andre Hansen, K6AH, and his team of open source developers have taken amateur radio mesh networking to a new level with AREDN, that allows commercial low cost WIFI routers and access points to be used to build out local and regional broadband networks in the amateur bands above 2 GHz. Andre and I discuss this technology and its possibilities for the amateur radio community in this QSO Today.