East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ goes solo, with a timewaster of an episode. He’s just repurposing some of his many Facebook Group and Reddit responses to newbie ham and GMRS questions. After he gets done talking about his bike helmet ..read more

To show, or not to show… that is the question. Are we running out of gas for HRN, or just a temporary lull. Hard to tell. This is Gary’s solo thoughts on the topic, but we’ll have a conversation about it soon. Also, how to keep ham radio from turning into Fox News ..read more

Ham Radio activity - ‘unofficial’ and ad hoc as it may be - continues in the mountains of western North Carolina. The Mt. Mitchell 145.19 repeater remains active every day. For this show, we talk to a ham who was deployed at a couple of locations last week. Steve McAtee N0JJO lives in the Charlotte NC area, and heard a call go out for hams to assist. He geared up and set out, and now that he’s back, he tells us his story. We know that Hurricane Milton hit Florida last week, and undoubtedly there are ham radio stories to tell from that event. We’ll see if we can find some hams to tell there sto ..read more

Last week, HRN hosts David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ talked about some ad-hoc ham radio nets that spun up just after Tropical Storm Helene devastated a large area of North Carolina’s mountains, knocking out power, internet, phone and cell communications, flooding towns and destroying roads. The nets appeared to have no connection to any formal ham radio emcom organization. Initially they were passing lots of incoming Health & Welfare inquiries from hams or friends of hams on 40 meters (7232 kHz) and an ultra-wide coverage repeater on Mt. Mitchel (145.19 MHz). We speculated that messages like th ..read more

Hurricane Helene ? left a lot of destruction in its wake, especially in western North Carolina. Power, phone and internet were down over a wide area. So, ham radio stepped into the gap, right? Sort of. HamRadioNow send requests for participation in our Sunday live show to statewide ARES officers in Northern Florida, Georgia, South and North Caroliona, with narry a peep in response. Instead, we monitored some ad-hoc nets that sprung up on 40 meters and on a wide coverage 2 Meter repeater in the NC Mountains, carring mostly inbound welfare requests that mostly couldn’t be delivered because… well ..read more

Last January, a repeater group in Harrisburg PA had some special guests at their monthly club lunch – a half dozen representatives from the FCC, and a couple of ARRL officials stopped by to talk about ham radio and GMRS, and answer questions from the assembled club members. Just your average club luncheon. Fortunately, the whole thing was recorded and ended up on YouTube. However, it was nearly two hours long, and some of it was kind of rambling (we’re looking at you, K4AAQ). So, we cut it down to just the essense, about 30 minutes worth. We still recommend watching the whole thing – there are ..read more

David W0DHG and Gary K4AAQ banter about a big FCC-ARRL 'luncheon' last January, alterntives to saying 'Zero' in call signs, and GMRS linking ..read more

Ham Radio Comm, in search of any Emergencies that might need our help. Well, West Coast Host David W0DHG and East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ (BRAT? maybe…) don’t hit on that theme too hard, but it is a good question. Where’s the Em? Anyway, David spend last weekend doing some COMM at the Angeles Crest Ultra Marathon, and even though he failed to document it up to Gary’s standards, he did describe it pretty well. Gary mentions this ARRL news story on Hurricane Debby that really inspired the episode title. Yet another review of an event where all we did was stand by to stand by. Then David found a ne ..read more

East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ goes solo for this show, noting that he needs another HT like he needs another hole in his head. But, Prime Day and pressure from peers got him to part with a bit under $25 for the Quansheng UV-K5. Note that this review does NOT get into any of the aftermarket firmware options, and that seems to be what is getting everybody excited. That is a hot mess of options and confusion, and so maybe someday ..read more

On the heels of Hurricane Beryl, Bob Inderbitzen NQ1R, ARRL Director of Marketing and Innovation was interviewed by The Weather Channel about ham radio. It was a great shot in national media, which means that East Coast Host Gary K4AAQ needed to take it apart to see how it could have been better, while West Coast Host David W0DHG pulled Gary back to reality. Well, back in his younger days, Gary was no novice in the PR world, and he’s got some legacy video to prove it: Gary's Field Day Interview (Studio): https://youtu.be/vkH21ERvp7I?si=8JP1U... Gary's Katrina Interview: https://youtu.be/yC0u42 ..read more