Episode 264 Gordon West WB6NOA Transcript
Eric Guth, 4Z1UG:
This episode of QSO Today is sponsored by Icom America, makers of the finest HF VHF and UHF transceivers; and accessories for the radio amateur. Reminding you that they have just the right rate for contesters, DXers and rag chewers. And by QRP Labs. my friend Hans Summers G0UPL’s Radio Kit Company makers of the popular QCX kit transceiver. My thanks to both ICom America and QRP labs for sponsoring the QSO Today podcast.
Welcome to the QSO Today podcast. I'm Eric Guth 4Z1UG, your host.
My QSO Today is with one of the most active and well known hams in amateur radio circles today. Author, lecturer, mentor, podcast co-host; just to name a few of his many hats. Gordon West WB6NOA dedicates most of his waking hours to raising amateur radio to new heights both in our community and outside. He travels the United States every month to attend ham fests and conventions; often speaking and mentoring new and old hams.
Eric Guth, 4Z1UG:
WB6NOA, this is Eric, 4Z1UG. Are you there, Gordo?
Gordon West WB6NOA
I am and good to hear you after all these years.
Eric |Guth, 4Z1UG:
Go ahead Gordo, thanks for joining me on the QSO Today podcast. Can we start at the beginning of your ham radio story? When, and how did it start for you?
Gordon West WB6NOA:
Okay we’ll start at the very beginning. Gordon West, WB6NOA born and raised aboard a boat back in 1942 and back in ‘42 the radios aboard some of the vessels that my mom and dad piloted up and down the Pacific coast without a captain; just the three of us and my sister Jackie. The radios were double side band AM and I was fascinated at five years old, listening in on the radio and couldn't figure out how in the world radios worked but I just enjoyed them . So born in ‘42 it was the ‘50s that I really got serious about radio. I was only eight years old; yet at nighttime I would tune in to the AM broadcast band and on the AM broadcast band at night’ as your listeners know, Eric, sky waves come in from all over the country and I was fascinated to pick up stations a thousand miles away AM broadcast. I remember on marine radio aboard mom and dad's boat when I was five to eight years old that I could pick up at nighttime not only the local marine operator on two megahertz but also the marine radio operators out of Texas as well as one time out of Florida and I just couldn't figure out how in that world did this happen? So what I did was, I began to pick up study books. In that we were aboard the boat, I was taking correspondence courses through a local school. We would be sailing down into Mexico, and as far north as Alaska aboard mom and dad's two boats - 144 footer and 172 feet; and it was just three of us.
Eric Guth, 4Z1UG:
And what kind of boats were these, Were your folks in the fishing business?
Gordon West WB6NOA:
Nope, they weren't into fishing; they were into writing as I am today. They would write articles for national magazines like motor boating and sailing , Yachting magazine ,Rudder magazine and as they would write their articles we would take these trips up and down the coast . While they were getting all of their news via the shore folks that they would meet in these strange ports down in Mexico. I would be playing AM receiver radio just fascinated with radio; at five to eight years old. At about thirteen years old after about ten years at sea I thought WOW it’d sure be fun to be able to transmit besides just receive and I would be receiving the AM broadcast band aboard the boat over thousands of miles at night. Because at night there was no noise ,no power line noise; because we were disconnected; far out at sea and when we finally got back and on shore at age 13 at home and we lived on a hill in Palos Verdes California; it allowed me to get fascinated by CB radio but not 27 megahertz. Eric this was CB radio class A down on 462 and one of my high school instructors said: “why don't you try this radio out”? Here’s my call-sign and you can operate as one of my units on class A CB . And my first transmission after I tuned someone in; and this was a vocal line radio; and the way you tuned folks in is not turning a dial but with a non-conductive wood dowel. You'd push two plates together to increase the capacity and I forget which way the frequency went but you just sort of push and pull this little plate of a capacitor and I heard a station. I went back to them and they were located in Palm Springs which was 50 miles away. I was just delighted that was my first radio transmission on class A CB in 1956-57. At the height of the solar cycle the FCC made a great decision to open up 23 channels on 27 maker Hertz and I was not yet old enough to hold a license. So my dad got me a CB radio license and I would operate under the license as a unit. So at 14 and 15 years old I was addicted to talking DX on CB radio 27 megahertz with 23 channels .It wasn't illegal back then but you did have to use their call sign. Well, I did get a visit from the FCC. They actually drove up to the house to make sure that I wasn't running high-power because my signal was so strong to a monitoring station about 40 miles away. Nope, I got a clean bill of health but they admonished me that I would be given a citation because my communications on 27 megahertz CB radio and I'm only like 15 years old , was superfluous and CB was not to be used in that manner. So it sort of limited my DXing working stations on 27 makes at the height of the solar cycle and so I thought gee I better explore a little bit about ham radio. So at 15 years old before I could even drive, mom drove me down to a ham who had advertised an S38 E Hallicrafters receiver. Wow, now I could tune in to the professionals, the hams rather than the CB radio operators and you know Eric, back then in ‘57 the CB was very well disciplined. There were no vulgarities going out there and that the truckers had not yet discovered CB radio so we were almost like hams but we weren't and I always wanted to become a ham. At age 15 I started tuning around the Hallicrafters S3080 and this was a wonderful radio because aboard our vessel Monsoon we still had the boats. We would many times go out at sea and this worked on a 110 volts DC as well as 110 volts AC. That's the Hallicrafters S3080 . What I didn’t realize when I ran it on DC was that the chassis was hot; about a 110 volts hot and after a big storm everything was very wet. I was in my bare feet and I went over to adjust the radio and knocked me on my butt. I was beginning to learn that while tuning in the ham transmissions and this was a period when they were going from AM over to single side band so I had to use the beat frequency oscillator to hear the side band; that you had to be a little careful around voltage. In 1958 - 1959 when I was 16 and 17 during the summer months I began sweeping shop of a marine electronics company called Binrad (Marine Electronics) and I was so fascinated with all the electronic radio projects that they were working on: the depth sounders, the radars, none of those who were near as exciting as medium frequency AM radio. They got me tuning out and dipping these AM rain radios that had a big tube; I think a 6146 put out a whopping 40 watts; it allowed me to get sort of a feel of what it would be like to get a ham license and actually start tuning around and playing a ham radio because during the summer months I would actually be installing these radios. Don't tell the FCC ,but to install them physically was okay but I was not permitted to tune them out and go on the air because I didn't have the commercial -the second class license at that time. In 1960 I finally did it, I got my novice license and V6TWJ and this was just fascinating to me because it got me on the air. I was doing a little bit of CW but I was not much faster than about five or six words per minute so I knew I'd probably never get my general but nonetheless I would still work as a novice and back then you had to use your novice license . It would go away if you didn't use it. A couple years later I upgraded when I started Chapman College in Orange California and that's a four-year Liberal Arts college. Ended up with a Bachelor of Arts degree, but I ended up with my technician class license and I was fascinated with voice; much more than CW. So I explored, I wanted sky waves; so back in ‘62 while conditions weren't near as great as ‘57, there were plenty of band openings on the six meter band. So at college I had hidden a little antenna on the roof and played radio on six meters and worked a lot of sky waves and that was where the good old Polycom; because at the same time as going to Chapman College I worked for Henry Radio . Yeah, good old Henry Radio. Now they had two stores; one in LA on Bundy and one down here in Orange County at the same location now that ham radio outlet has taken over. Back then it was Henry Radio and my job it was an evening job; going to college and in the day; was to review radios that were being tuned in for the used bench. Henry Radio had a long used bench on Grover Chaffee. Good old Grover , he took me under his arm because many times these fellows would bring in huge transmitters. I didn't have a clue how to turn them on and Grover would go back there and say “now Gordo years away you get him on the air” and so on. So I learned a lot from my friends at Henry Radio back in the very early ‘60s by working that out . I graduated from college in ‘65 and then the US army came knocking and I was inducted in the Army from ‘66 to ‘68. No, I didn't go to radio Telegraph school. No , the army didn't put me as a communicator but rather my work during all this time encompassed also working closely with our church and music and I became a chaplain’s assistant . But more important they had made a regularly working the special services division not special ops but special services which gave those in the Army here in the USA idle time to do many of the fun things that they would present. So I started our own Aberdeen probing ground as well as White Sands New Mexico. I started Mars stations, army Mars on the army grounds and allowed me to patch soldiers all over the world coming in on this army Mars station on the six meter band. But you know I really needed to upgrade to get the general class. So back then there were Navy records too I increased the code speed up to 13 words a minute but I was not really that great at code. Although I was musical there was just not any code that I was going to pick up on my Polycom so I went back to the good old Hallicrafter S38E and started listing the code over the air . In 1969 after I got out of the army I went to work for a local marine electronics dealer here in Newport Beach and my job was a fascinating one because they would many times send me on long boat trips to check out radios and my boat trip ended up from Southern California to Hawaii on the 1969 Transpac. And during the 1969 trans-Pacific yacht race about a 3,000 mile race from Los Angeles to Honolulu in the middle of the Pacific and I was a chief radio operator on marine radio and the marine radio bands went over to single-side band in about the 1970s 1-969 and I worked a Karr Marconi. I worked this radio aboard the Transpac main communications vessel and Karr Marconi allowed me to stay in touch with not only the entrance of the radios and the Transpac yacht race but it also allowed me to contact Shore stations, the company I was working for and during that time we had a Mayday call come over and one of the Transpac operators was hit in the head with a spinnaker pole and needed immediate assistance. Wow that was like my first big job, to handle this. Well, although we did have ham radio I was not a general so I couldn't go on the HF bands but I had good comms with our local United States Coast Guard on marine single-side band on eight megahertz and twelve megahertz so I told the Coast Guard our plight and so on. About a half hour later we were informed that a military vessel would come to our position and we did our position- finding out of Lorai A. This is where you had the cycle match and adjust Loran receivers, Loran down very low in frequency on the VLF band so I gave our position. They said well, stand by we'll have an emergency evacuation taking place and we waited and we waited and we looked on radar . We had a small 24 mile radar didn't see anybody around us in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and “boosh” up comes a submarine. Yep and we communicated with the submarine on 2 megahertz local and we did the transfer of Glenn Bricker ,who was hit in the head with a spinnaker pole. He did survive and away they went via submarine. So absolutely amazing what radios would do. Early ‘70s I was just fascinated with emergency communications. I met my wife Susie and N6GLF and continued my work up to about ‘74 when I was just over 30 years old working with Bartel marine electronics. I was doing installations I was helping with checking radios out on the bench and my big deal was, thanks to ham radio and technician class, I was like the authority on marine VHF. That's right, in the ‘70s they were switching everybody from two megahertz Marine Band double side band , first a single side band but then they said you know two megs for ship to ship, over short distances could be accomplished like the rest of the world on marine VHF at 156 megahertz. I was a pro because I'd been playing ham radio at 146 so I knew everything about propagation, well not everything, and I knew that there was a propagation in July that occurred between Los Angeles and Honolulu at a 146 as well as 146. I was the antenna expert on marine VHF antennas. So that was my deal to get me started as I worked for the marine electronics company. But you know I was always fascinated with emergency and emergency comms so I became an emergency medical technician and at nighttime I worked for an ambulance company and occasionally their radios would poop out , need to take him apart and get them back on the air so it was a fun job in the early 70s for me. Then I was contacted by a gentleman I had known before. Not a ham but a gentleman that said “you know we'd like for you to work with us and become possibly one of our national sales managers” and this was Standard communications back in 1973-74. Now Standard was the one of the first companies to come out with Marine VHF radios and they were crystal controlled . They were a whopping ten watts of output, so I was like the marine electronics guru up there at Standard. Took about an hour drive to get there and it was a fun job because Standard began to send me around the country to do seminars all about marine VHF and the Standard marine VHF radio. I was doing boat shows and then one day they called me in and said, Gordo we want to now have you help out Erik Digg with ham radio, we're coming out with a ham radio born out of our marine VHF line so Standard was the first one to come out with. Standard and Henry Radio with a Tempo 1 , one of the first manufacturers with a crystal controlled narrow band FM ham radio on the two meter band and Standard’s handheld was the SRC146A which was really a land mobile handheld at ambulance frequency of 155.16 Mhz. They just retuned it and changed a few coils. That's how I got into it big time , working the Boat Show and as well the hams show circuits and ‘74 was one of my first years at the Dayton Hamvention.
Eric Guth, 4Z1UG:
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Gordon West WB6NOA:
As I traveled around everybody wanted me to write articles for different magazines about both marine and ham radio so I ended up with writing for CQ magazine, 73 magazine in the early Seventies, Popular communications, World Radio, Nuts-and-Volts. Huh, it was fun. I'd get about eighty or a hundred bucks for each article and wow this was easy money so I was having a fun time and I began to have some great times with our readership; that certainly knew a lot more technical than I know because I graduated not with an engineering degree from college but a business degree. So all went well in the Seventies Eric. About the mid ‘’70s, a phone call came in saying “how would you like to work for a company that produces a ham radio single side band radio” ? Wow, you mean not a modified one but a real single side band? So I said “where are you located?” And he says “well we're near the Bay Area” and the company was Side Band Engineers SBE and their big deal was SBE33 and 34 but they said, “SBE, we also want you to work and head up our CB radio division”. So in the ‘70s I did a lot of traveling from Orange County up to Side Band Engineers I'd stay up there for a week and then come back down and have a few days with Suzy here and it was also in ‘75 -’76 that I needed a good mode of transportation so I had to retire my black Corvette that made it all the way back to the army base at Aberdeen and launched my brand-new vehicle that everybody could not believe after I outfitted it with radios . It's a 1976 Chevy Malibu wagon chrome wheels. Eric, you remember the wagon right?
Eric Guth, W1UZG:
I do, I remember it in the late “70s.
Gordon West WB6NOA:
Right. Well, that wagon soon had plenty of radio gear in it and it was quite the rig and Eric , I still have it. It's in the garage , standing tall, does have a new engine. If anybody's interested in a ’ ‘76 with a lot of radio gear and coax in it let me know but it still works great. The wagon that worked in quite nicely because beside doing the ambulance I was also working on summertime on weekends as a lifeguard down , just south of Newport Beach where they had some pretty mighty waves and where we were located , you couldn't get an ambulance down there so we had to put him in the back of the wagon and take him to the top of the hill. The wagon did a lot of double duty. Well then after a side-band engineers they had me traveling all over the country representing both SBE CB radios as well as the SBE33 and 34 ham radios , and they were really more involved in CB radios because that's where the real numbers were; in selling thousands of CB radios. With my very early years as a CB radio operator on Class D CB, it was fun and they discovered that I loved to do seminars. So I would do CB radio seminars for CB radio dealers on how to better sell their CB radios. Then it happened. Out of almost nowhere the FCC said: “we're going to be opening up the CB radio band in about the mid ‘70s from 23 channels to 40 channels”. Wow ,is this great for the CB radio operators? Yep . Was it great for the CB radio sellers that had thousands of 23 Channel radios around? Nope, it was death and many of the companies just could not really compete with any profits because for every 40 channel radio we sold we gave away not only one but maybe two 23 channel radios to try and keep the sales going. So it was a tough time for SBE but they took good care of their dealers. They gave deals upon deals, and I have fond memories of both Standard communications as well as Side Band Engineers for launching my career into ham radio. Reluctantly I left SBE and began doing more and more ham shows and in the ‘80s Suzy and I got married . We finally moved into our permanent house here in Costa Mesa and I was still doing a lot of seminars, working with companies from Pace that Suzy represented. Pace electronics for CB radios in the early ‘80s as well as boat shows because Side Band Engineers came out with the industry's first digital CB radio tied with high gain, that came out with the first digital marine VHF. SBE had the first keyboard marine VHF that we called Keep Calm so I continued to do a lot of work with SBE as a consultant doing the boat shows . At the same time I was just fascinated with ham radio and that was my real love. Well my real love was radio; but ham radio. We once had a phone call one morning and it was a gentleman asking about my ham radio classes that I started in the early ‘70s through a local college district. And he says I understand you're doing classes and I understand that you are like doing your own little question-and-answer book with a plastic comb. A bound book that we took to our local print shop and Susie and I would literally do page by page to put it together and it was selling very nicely for our classes; selling for like two bucks apiece . This fellow says we would like you to write a book for us, because I know of your work in marine electronics and we'd like for you to maybe come out with some study books that would along a CB frame get more CBers into ham radio. I go: “oh okay, what's the name of your company?” And this was Bob Miller who's still alive today. A good friend; lives in Arizona and Bob Miller says the name of our company is Radio Shack . I said “Oh Radio Shack. You want me to do a book for Radio Shack on ham radio?” Yep, so the early ‘80s I started pulling together a book for Radio Shack and at the very first the ham community goes “Oh Gordo you're selling to like CB radio operators to get them into ham radio“? I go “well yeah that's why I got started”. It was a couple of years at ham shows that the hams sort of scowled at me as inviting other radio services to join ham radio but what they found out was those CB radio operators that were getting tired of the foul language they were soon hearing in the ‘80s from all the truckers because remember the truckers? No, not the truckers foul language, it was just the foul language throughout the band they came from everybody not just truckers. The truckers actually were using CB the way it was intended; to stay in touch with each other till the band opened and then they loved doing the DX . Anyway I explained to them that those had studied the Radio Shack book as well as five word per minute code cassettes - remember the cassette tapes? We had a great time and finally at Staten they said “you know this is really working out fairly well “. So for many , probably four or five years I worked with Radio Shack and then a company working closely with Radio Shack, about a mile away called Master Publishing put together a deal where Master Publishing would then take over the arduous job of printing the books, of editing the books. I would still continue to write the books and they were still sold by Radio Shack but now Master Publishing could also sell them to ham radio dealers that were really thriving in the ‘80s throughout the country. At the same time our classes were going on Suzy was so great to put up with me. Almost every weekend , doing weekend classes. Oh my gosh, Eric when the hams heard ; get a tech license in two days, you're out of here; Gordo. But as it turned out when they came to the classes to see how I was giving away ham tickets; in just two days of training; they saw that we would send the students ahead of time my book, would send the students taking my classes ahead of time the home study materials; they would see all the correspondence between these students so by the time they came to my weekend class, two days these students could probably pass the test because they knew they were involved in something that required some work, required plenty of homework ahead of time and then the two-day class is when I showed them beside the Q and A's on learning the material. I then applied it to the real world of ham radio with demos , lots of demos. In our classes it gave me an opportunity to say “wow I wish we had a ham class back when I was studying because before then the League certainly had their good technical manuals but they were far too technical for me just to get an entry-level or a general class ticket and while I tried to learn the material; it just wasn't the same of working the real stuff”. Getting my nose out of the book and nose into the tubes and transistors, these radios. So in the late ‘80s the ham class is going strong all over the country. We also offered eight-week classes but I found out that the eight-weekers through the college system were not near as popular as get your license in two days. But of course you do have to home study ahead of time and that was my hook that would reel these folks in; was to promise them a two-day class and then hit them with all sorts of home study and my fun comments in little newsletters to our students to make sure that they would continue to go ahead. They did. In the early ‘90s the classes were going just great . I do a class every couple of weeks here in the local area and then I started doing classes as far south as San Diego, including a class in Mexico for the USA ham license for Mariners. Then I started doing the classes as far north as Alaska and these ham radio classes were quite effective because all of the students had to study my stuff ahead of time and that helped me be sure that my books were accurate, that Master Publishing was working over and that all of the Q&A’s really related to the real world of ham radio. This created interest in my ham radio books that I would be writing about and many of the ham magazines and Master Publishing had a program where I went through several of the different directors running Master Publishing. Finally went to Chicago for the call book to have a shot at it; went to New York City where a New York group did publishing for a couple of years working with Master Publishing and finally Master Publishing I came back to Chicago as well as Texas where we remember W5Y1 Fred Maya. Fred was very instrumental in helping get the books really rolling and about the 1990’s because of my marine electronics interest I saw a need for a GROL commercial book so I was one of the first to write a commercial book based on Q and A's as opposed to the excellent Electronic Communication by Schrader. These were wonderful books and continued to be in my library but I found a lot of technicians after they would read those books would want sort of a review before taking the commercial exam. That's when the commercial exams began to become privatized like the ham radio exams in the ‘80s. The ‘90s were a busy one for me traveling all over the country as well as continuing my work with the Radio Club of America where in the ‘90s they made me a fellow. I was quite honored for that. QCWA got me involved and it was just fun and oh yeah I got my extra as well, my advanced and my extra in the ‘80s and ‘90s as well as of course passing the general on the first time . But boy I was nervous on that 13 word per minute code test because the FCC would be like looking over your shoulder as you are doing the code copy and at the FCC office this is a classic one and you're probably one of the first who ever hear the whole story. At the FCC office when that fellow would stand over you watching you copy; the headphones that we used were high-gain and they were picking up signals off of electromagnetic loop that ran around the top of the FCC testing room ceiling. I would regularly take students up there for code and theory tests and I said for the code test , I said you're gonna put on these inductive headphones and as you move your head around you're gonna hear some hum and so on. But I said don't worry a voice will come over saying “this is FCC and so on”. Dick Basch was also coming out with stuff at that time . Dick wanted me to get involved with his operation and he would actually send students to go there and try and memorize the test questions as well as the code. At the ‘80s and ‘90s that's when the program was turned over to the private sector but on a few of the last tests at the FCC field offices, I had a student go in there and we're waiting in the waiting room waiting for the 20 tests and then the 13 tests and all of a sudden my older ham; this was a ham technician wanting to get his general. He was probably 70 (God old as I am right now recording this for you Eric) that older ham he grabbed his earphone and goes “oh my gosh what's coming over my earphone “? I said “what is coming over your your earphone”? And these are hearing aids. O course they were inductive hearing aids and he says “listen” and I'm hearing d-d-d-d-d-d CW and I go “oh my gosh you're picking up CW on your inductive earphone, let's go for a walk.” We walked all the way down to the bottom floor of the FCC, all of us, we walked outside; we walked down a block and his earphones are still picking up the CW that the FCC was using for their ham tests. Oh my gosh. I thought well that would be fun to make sure that my test preparation code tapes followed closely. I never ever did and I know tentacle FCC . No I never I never did it. But I did my code tapes and CW practice for test tapes very similar to the FCC. People to this day would say “ Gordo your code tapes are just like what the FCC was sending 40 years ago from their office” and I go “ really hmm”. My best reception is; I have a yellow dune buggy and I still have it; Eric, and that yellow dune buggy I wound about 500 turns of gosh small little transformer type wire, made a big magnetic loop. I parked two blocks away I could hear the elevators going up and down on this big building, I could hear traffic signals relays clicking and then all of a sudden: This is a FCC Morris code exam . So I had plenty of the FCC signal that leaked out into the airwaves and not being on FCC property; I thought if the radio or the the inductive ways go this far, everyone is game . I never told the story to Dick Basch, He would have loved to have done that and I never ever did a code tape that was the actual message. But it certainly was close to their formats. Oh that was a fun little story and you'd be surprised how far we picked up those signals. In the ‘95s , that's when W5LFL Owen Garriott, where the space program began and I was just fascinated with being able to work him on the very first rotation of his orbit working ham radio and it was also in the ‘90s that I needed to up my demos in our classroom so I came out with something that one of the students said he says “ don't you remember in high school you had put two forks one on each end of a hot dog and then wire the forks up to 110 and plug it in and you'd have your own hot dog cooker, Gordo you ought to do that “. I didn't have any hot dogs; so Susie says “oh we got some pickles”, I go “well hell; let's try a pickle”. We plugged fork in each end of the pickle, plug the pickle into 110 plug the forks into 1/10, staying clear of everything and psss psss psss we had our own little spark gap . The whole pickle lit up and to this date people don't remember my name but they go “oh yeah you were the guy that lit up the pickle” so the blazing pickle is sort of one of the fun little gags that I had. You know I had instructors calling me up in 1995, ham instructors. So I suggested a W5YI and they took me up on it, to start an instructor program . But I first ran the program by the American Radio Relay League ; saying you know a lot of folks want to get into ham radio; they know where the books are but they lack that person, that Elmer in some parts of the country where the Elmer would take them under their wing and get them on the air. And they go: well we really don't know who the Elmers are . And I go well sure you do. This talking to the league I says those folks who order 10 or 20 technician class books from either me or you . They are the perfect ham ambassador and my deal was the league would have ham ambassadors in all of their areas throughout the country. So when someone would write them saying “ you know I think I want to get involved in ham radio but I can't find the class and I don't know what book to study, I don't know how to do it . That's where we turn it on to the ham ambassador that would then befriend that person at their local city or county and get him into a local class . Well the ham ambassador program was embraced by Master Publishing and the W5YI group. So we then started our instructor academy in the late ‘95s and wow the Ham Instructor Academy got so big that we started offering these classes all around . But the wagon couldn't carry all of the demo stuff so we bought a 1976 communications van brand-new, gosh got it back in 76 and we continue to have the same van. A Roadtrek absolutely outfitted with all the ham radio gear to offer students not just a talking head but rather live demonstrations of HF gear VHF , UHF and so on.
Eric |Guth, WZ1UG :
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And now back to our QSO Today.
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
In the 2000s we were really rolling having a great time working with the volunteer examination coordinators as they would develop new question pools, working the Gordo books ,working the new commercial book GROL, that was a big success and doing tons of ham shows . But still remembering marine electronics working closely with a radio technical commission for maritime services called RTCM on their marine electronics education programs for safer boating. Every year I would update our books. The question pool committee once a year, with just a one year gap will first upgrade tech and then the next year upgrade general, next year upgrade extra and then a year off and that allowed me to then upgrade our commercial book and it really worked out well. So in the early 2000s I became very interested in my earlier work back in the ‘70s at 10,000 mega hertz 10 gigs ham band x band. Because I worked with radars aboard ships, well I knew a lot about x band I knew about the devices but back in the ‘80s they were gun flexors and now the great expand gear comes from overseas sources ; as well as Down East in Florida; who brings in overseas gear plus their own gear and 10 gigahertz is just a fun way to explore all of the ultra high ham radio frequencies. During the early 2000s upgraded my trusty Teac X2000R Reel to Reel to audio editing that Eric you're an expert on and took me a little while but now I'm a big fan of some of the audio audition programs and I can now do that effectively on the computer but the reel-to-reel , even tape cassettes still are here in the library because the tape cassettes allow me to put in different audio soundtracks and different orders and they're always quite reliable. So in 2015 just a few years ago the instructor program is a huge success all going well . I finally anted up and said I need a better radio than some of my smaller rigs here so I invested in the Kenwood TS-990 even though it's a lot more radio than my modest four element beam here in Costa Mesa but allowed me to listen in on how the DXers do their thing tied it in the computer for FT8 the digital modes and my work with the US Coast Guard Auxiliary also required a lot of MT63 1k and 2k digital communications. So I really got involved with the HF bands again in earnest. I'm not a DX er Eric but I enjoy listening to DX and I do enjoy the DX up on two meters when we have band openings to Hawaii I enjoy the DX up on 10 meters talking to technician class operators 28 3-5. I tell them to get their general and I enjoy the DX at 10,000 megahertz but I'm not a contester. I mason in my logs to support the contest but I know no real interest in collecting a whole bunch of awards . I'm just happy to help support the ham radio world. Now we come to current and I'm still gosh, at 77 years old Suzy keeps me going. Monday nights I have, actually every morning Monday to Friday a40m net, turn it on 7250 that lets me see what propagation is like on the lower bands as we go through the solar minimum that we're at right now on 19 or 20 19 and hopefully we'll come out of that on the solar cycle 25 soon. But Monday nights I have three or four nets, Tuesday nights in the evening four Nets, Wednesday nights a ham nation and ham nation now over 400 podcasts working with Bob Heil and George and Don and Amanda, Valerie and just all of the real experts at ham radio. It's a fun show and after each ham nation show I look at the chatroom comments and if the chatroom comments give loads of comments about the topic I was talking about and my color short shot said if I present then I know that was a good topic. But occasionally I'll do a topic that I think is going to be great and nobody in the comment room comments then I know that; well, that was a bust, so it lets me sort of see what the ham radio audience throughout the world is looking for. I'm very happy to say that ham radio operators are not just appliance operators these days but they get involved in ham radio at the appliance level and then dig deeper and deeper in their gear and this is exactly what we want because we want more than just appliance operators. So ham nation is a great way for me on a weekly basis to really get the feel as to what's happening out there on ham radio. My future will be to continue our books and audio projects. I try and use as many sound effects and I was gonna give you some sound effects and maybe I'll send them to you later Eric; but sound effects of WU5LFL, sound effects of someone spotting something unusual on one of the bands and recording it and sending it to me. Sound effects as well as live demos are so important so we're not just watching an instructor as a talking head or going in front of a classroom; and oh my gosh presenting a PowerPoint for the entire eight-week class or the entire two day weekend class. Nope I say you got to do more than just rely on that. Use it certainly for test prep at the end but we've got to give our students the very best of live demos. I always enjoyed the live demos beside the blazing pickle the other live demo goes way back to the ‘70s about your time Eric taking a class or seen me in action where we had a Swan Cubic ST3 antenna tuner tied into a person's bicycle that they rode to class who put the bicycle out on the wet lawn; clamped battery alligator clips to the bike frame attached the other alligator clip to a good metal ; a source nearby, loaded it up. Our first contact was Japan and we told the Japanese station we were running 40 50 watts into a Schwinn 16 speed bicycle and the Japanese fellow came back “Oh bicycle 6 16 element yes”. Well I don't think I was speaking clear enough, I don't speak Japanese for him to know I was on a bicycle as an antenna but after we finally it’s all hahaha and he laughed and he laughed and we made plenty of contacts during our eight-week class off of a Schwinn bicycle we did a crutch. You know these kind of fun things that just come out of nowhere are what get ham radio operators excited about completing the class and getting on the air and trying their experiment with their own bicycle or a real live antenna. So Eric that's where we are today . Master Publishing doing well with my books and audio and some of the other great courses that they do. CW ; everybody thought when they did away with CW that the Gordo CW courses would go away . I sort of, I was worried that that would happen. We are now selling more CD, this is what I'm told by the publisher, I don't sell stuff myself. They're now selling my CW courses. They used to be cassettes now they're eight CDs. Soon we'll probably go to a digital format. Though that's hard to manage on a sales side. We're now doing these CW courses like we've never done before so even though CW is not required to obtain the ham radio license, it allows more and more folks. You know I couldn't do the CW so I couldn't get beyond the no code check, they are now general and many are extra doing CW at 30 40 50 words per minute much faster than I can copy. So it's fun to see what happens to ham radio operators. Ham radio absolutely I live and breathe it, Suzie puts up with this. She and I stay in contact by ham radio when I'm traveling. So ham radio is everything for me .Gordo WB6NOA . Eric back to you.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Do you have any thoughts on how to attract new hams especially young people to amateur radio?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
Kids love computers. They love their smartphones so we need to at the very beginning introduce them to ham radio with FT8 if where they can actually see some of the radio signals coming in, they can hear what sounds just like a hash and then realize that wow this is a whole another way of communicating and stress the importance to kids that this is just one aspect of our hobby and that is tying in smartphones to decode the International Space Station, slow scan television which we did a week ago. Wow, that was neat in memory of Owen Garriott W5LFL. But kids get excited when they see us playing with stuff that they know and then we introduce them to digital DMR Icom America d-star , many of the other digital modes that are out there . We encourage them to link in to other parts of the country via a handheld but to understand all about code plugs, understand all about DMRM and what it takes to get on the air professionally . We don't pooh-pooh the Chinese handhelds but we do tell the kids you're gonna get a $59 handheld dual BAM that's a good deal but you got to make sure that you're getting help from a local ham then I can show you how to program it and how to use it. It's not something where you just buy the radio; so gone are the days that for kids that they would just get a radio and figured out a lot of these digital radios especially the Chinese radios all have their unique operating techniques. Luckily most of them are tied into computer cloning and when it comes to using the computers these kids co come out of the airwaves and they're your best assets so we really encourage clubs and instructors to see the value of kids ; get them involved with programming on a computer and they're quite at home and then when they start hooking up with stations, wireless and have other stations listening in at the same time. Wow this type of chat room over the airwaves really gets their interest. And we also have kids that are musical and they pick up the CW and love the CW and want more and more. So plenty of things still out there for kids not just the old-fashioned stuff and many times they'll bring in an old-fashioned radio and they are amazed when we hook it up to a Schwinn 23 speed. Gosh are they now, 49 speed bicycle and making contact thousands of miles away . That indeed Eric gets the kids attention.
Eric Guth, 4Z1UG:
Let me take a quick break here to tell you about my favorite amateur radio audio podcast, the ham radio workbench podcast with George KG6VU and Jeremy KF7IJZ where they pursue topics, technology and projects on their ham radio workbenches every two weeks . George and Jeremy document their projects and make circuit boards available for sale to their listeners. they have interesting guests and go in deep. Even if you are a seasoned ham radio builder or just getting started ; be sure to join George and Jeremy for the ham radio workbench podcast. Use the link on this week's show notes page by clicking on the image. And now back to our QSO Today. You know the biggest complaint that I hear from ham radio operators and it's probably one I make myself is that we are so busy with our lives that we don't have a lot of time for amateur radio. I understand that as you said earlier ; that you run a net every morning on 40 meters. How do you make time for amateur radio; given your busy schedule?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
well I take my ham radio everywhere I go and Suzi allows me to have fun and she of course has fun also on ham radio. You get into a routine where 8:30 in the morning I'm just waking up and I have some wonderful net control operators who have taken over from me rolling the net. I used to roll the net myself and then a good friend , ham radio operator said: you know Gordo you need to spread it around, let other folks run it I thought about that; you know you're right I'm a hog. I got to do that. So we've turned it over to other net control operators . I'm on giving my local news and a few tidbits from 8:30 to 8:40 and then I'll just continue to monitor the net; begin to take phone calls and that's my big deal during the day is getting phone calls from all of our book readers, all of our audio students. They call here because they know Gordo comes with a book, Gordo comes with the audio courses and I get a lot of marine radio operators calling me wanting to get involved in ham radio because they realize that far out at sea it's expensive with a satellite contact to call home and say hi. Now they see the value of wind link requiring the general class ticket. The wind link service is so great so I try and spread that word and then in the evening hours sort of a routine. Suzie's got to put up with me interrupting dinner to do a net but the nets are fun because they really let me see the heartbeat of ham radio. If you're gonna be a ham radio guru then you gotta live it day and night and that's exactly what I do. Even sometimes when driving around at night in a communications van I'll turn off everything but the AM radio tuned to a distant station that's not local and marvel that I'm still able to remember how tune in DX on the medium frequency band. So continuously playing radio you'll work it into your schedule as a true ham.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Now you mentioned earlier that you're the co-host of the Twit podcast ham nation . I've been listening to ham nation since episode number one so I'm a big fan, You also said that you know Bob ILK9E and George Thomas W5JDX and Don Wilbanks AE5DW are your other co-hosts. Let me ask you what do you think the greatest contribution that ham nation has made to amateur radio?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
I think the variety of the hosts and the host guests are our contribution to let hams see that there's much more than just walking around with a 2-meter handy on FM. They can begin to see some of the history of ham radio, some of the future of ham radio and I usually get the most comments on my segment, Sort of tongue-in-cheek, when I show some of the funny things that happen, some of the mistakes we make that blow things up. In fact April 1st when we have a show on , I have a big HF receiver no longer in service behind me and I have a fog machine and I talk on ham nation that I've just restored this radio , in just a moment will turn it on. I reach over and turn it on and then I'm talking to the audience with my back toward the radio and all of this what appears to be smoke is pouring out of the back of the radio. I can hear my phone ringing in the other room and it's nothing more than an April 1st joke. So I like to have sort of the levity side of ham radio . poking fun at ourselves although we all know that ham radio in an emergency can be a lifesaver. I always stress emergency preparedness and get involved as I have with a Red Cross and Coast Guard Auxiliary and other agencies that emergency comms 95.1 is right there in the rules and that's what we all must be prepared for.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Well you know I might point out that ham nation is a television show podcast so I personally have never seen the video. I listen to it in my headphones as an audio podcast but it's so well done that you could either listen to it or watch it. That's pretty cool. What do you think the greatest challenge is facing amateur radio now?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
Certainly the biggest challenge are all of the new technologies that are not ham radio ; that are so inviting to young students. The new steam stem and steam programs ; science technology and you know that is so important for kids in school. But they're looking at other things other than ham radio so with technology just exploding; a big challenge is just keeping folks focused that in an emergency sooner or later the infrastructure microwave towers point-to-point; even cellular maybe even the data on the commercial bands is going to quit and it'll be up to ham radio. It may happen in our lifetimes maybe not but that's a huge thing, is to keep people tuned in that there's still basic communications using either FRS radios GMRS or ham radio and ham radio we don't need the repeaters. The other big challenge to a ham radio is the high frequency and the very high frequency noise floors on high frequency . Now that California has legalized the cultivation of marijuana we see a ton of these grow lights coming on and we see them on our estimator come on and go off. We can even tell the schedule of them by just watching the estimator go up on HF and on VHF as soon as the neighbor turns on the outside LED security light that just wipes out my weak signals on the 2 meter CW single side band frequencies. Yes, all of this new technology not only swaying folks from thinking about the the lowly ham radio service which is not so lowly anymore ; but also the noise floor that all of these big screen TVs and LEDs, as well as those pesky grow lights coming in without the FCC taking one or two and analyzing them that they're horrendously noisy down on HF . That's a huge saying; that no magic radio circuit ,even my TS-990 or my big Icom IC 9100 or Yaesu the new 101, none of them can do anything to get rid of this constant LED or grow light noise.
Eric Guth, 4Z1UG:
That’s amazing isn't it? You get that there really is no part 15 compliance to these devices anymore.
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
The FCC just goes by the FCC, is so overworked, under loved , under-budgeted , always having staff cutbacks. The FCC just cannot go out there on any phone call to investigate this. They are overworked and under loved and it's tough for the hams to do it . One fellow down the street had a grow light and I knocked on his door. I said you know, if you do the grow lights during the day, the police might come by and want to take a look at the minimum amount or maximum amount of plants you are growing. So I said you ought to put that thing on at night , coming on at night after about 10 o'clock (after the bands stir dead) and cycle it off at about 4:00 in the morning and he did that. So he's happy, I'm happy , everybody's happy but these grow lights that come on during the day and evening hours on HM not VHF . They don't touch VHF but HF are killers and the LED’S even from well-respected LED names the little LED light bulbs and you know they're LED because you flick the lights on and off and it takes a second for the light to come up. If you have three different brand bulbs in a three light circuit that all come on together, you'll see each one sort of has its own circuit to come on before the other before the other. It let’s you know that there's all sorts of LED circuits out there in light bulbs that are different and some of them absolutely tear up the two meter band.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Right and it’s my understanding also that the dimmers make a horrendous noise.
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
Oh my gosh dimmers, the pulse dimmers, I have audio playback so that I do on our education courses for a ham for general and extra and I said let's listen to a dimmer . What you hear is ehehhhh and I turn the dimmer off and I go that's just a little tiny dimmer. So yes, dimmers indeed are problems and I've actually have worked with neighbors to work with them to change out their dimmer to a different type of dimmer. Most dimmers are just killers because they feedback , they're switching and that's what they are just fast switching pulse width modulation and they go and they go and they go for quite a distance on HF.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Well I think you've given probably one of the greatest pearls of wisdom tonight Gordo. It’s telling your neighbor who's using the grow lights with their marijuana farm when they should do it , so that they'll avoid being picked up by the police.
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
Yeah that really worked for this fellow and that was back before cultivation was legal and now that it's legal for small plants . Still there are many folks around California I'm sure, growing a houseful not a pot full of plants and they have these grow lights that just tear up high frequency.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
What excites you the most about what's happening in amateur radio now?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
I enjoy sitting back and listening. I try and stay low-key, out of sight ,listening and the greatest joy I have is on the air listening to ham operators doing different things . it can be from working DX to talking about technical topics to looking at how hams who are big on TV have amateur television, looking at their challenge agoing from analog amateur television ATV over to digital ATV and seeing the different modes that are out there. Wondering whether it be one finally mode for ATV digital or will we all need to sort of do our own thing So it's always fascinating to me to tune in to the hams via the radio and going to Hamfest. I enjoy Hamfest and I realize that with my books and audio I have a lot of hams coming up and people say isn't that sort of a bother for you to have these hams when you're in the restroom wanting to shake your hand. I know you don't want to shake my hand now. I enjoy it because each one has a story to tell and well I can't listen to the entire story for more than about a minute because there's now a long line to come up and meet and greet, I enjoy it very much. It's not “hi glad to meet you, see you later”. I always like to ask what bands are you on, what's your greatest excitement of ham radio. Like you Eric, being able to draw out from these folks, an interesting aspect that I can then apply to my teaching a ham radio. So being exposed sometimes I feel very overexposed but I always try and make time for everybody that wants to say hi because ham radio people communicating, this is the best for me.
Eric |Guth 4ZIUG:
Now you go to so many Ham fest, do you have one that's your favorite?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
I always enjoy the Dayton Ohio ham fest , now moved just in time after that tornado to Xenia Ohio. You know every ham fest sometimes it's in the middle of a desert, we do went in January called courts fest, no AC that is no alternating-current other than what your rig will generate, no plumbing no fresh water , everybody's on their own and that is a fun courts fest where we actually do seminars and so on. It's always a favorite but every ham fest I go to big or small and I've been through some; what we're going to be they thought a big ham fest and it turned out to be a micro ham fest. You know I had so much fun just meeting the vendors and so on. It's the vendors, these vendors, the mom and pop vendor selling the little gadgets and gizmos. Roger of Wired Co selling LEDs and turntables, these are the heart of ham radio real operators. They probably lose more money than they make going to all these ham fests but they are there, to work the hams that come by to get their products. So I have huge respect for those individual hams as well as Ken Hwijae's of Icom, Linko bridge and all of those manufacturers of radios that continuously support the ham industry by continuously supporting visibility by going to ham fests. So that's one of my big pleasures is watching all that is going on to keep ham radio humming.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Do you think that we're in a renaissance of ham radio, do you think this is a ham radio Renaissance?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
Could be. You know a lot of people say well ham radio it's gonna be like a postage stamp collection and so on. It may be but I'm delighted to see, comes to mind Bridge.com who is bringing in these Chinese radios but the company realized that bringing in these import radios had a fraction of the cost of what would be a regular professional ham radio from the big four . It's fun to watch their marketing efforts to keep things going. So yep, we've got to be cautious that we're not going to plateau out and then start going down. I think the ham radio service is going to continue to grow but that's thanks to folks that do something more than just pick up the phone to take an order that someone is placing. We've got to have those manufacturers and independents out there supporting ham radio and that they are doing. Kenwood, Yaesu, Icom, Link, wow, they're making ham radio happen with gear. So I think we're going to continue to slowly grow but we've got to be cautious that we don't go the way of stamp collecting.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Can you estimate the number of hams that you've created in your life Gordo?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
You know people have asked me how many hams have I licensed and Suzy and I , thousands I would say and those that have studied my books and so on. Pne of our publishers said that we've probably done eight out of ten that have come in contact with our training materials . So it's always fun, I'm always honored to have folks saying as an extra class that they started with us at Radio Shack, but it's it's a huge number and it is fun. For me we're like the mom and pops and we aren't making much money at this. Especially we're just only a royalty here and there on the products but it is fun for me to watch the service continue to help each other in making the most and getting the most out of all we can offer to the general public for emergency comms and ham radio. Eight out of ten they tell me, not those in classes probably out of classes, gosh, certainly thousands were the actual classes but those studying the materials a whole bunch of folks out there. I'm just honored to be working side by side the American Radio Relay League. It's got to be rolling their eyes going: oh my G-d what's going on now ;but yes, everyone will say I'm a strong supporter of the American Radio Relay League. Their ham instruction and those valued ham radio instructors at our ARRL instructors, W5YI ham instructors and the independent Elmers, keep it up everyone we want to continue to watch our service grow.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Well, I also have to thank you for my extra class amateur radio license. As you recall, I came to your house a number of years ago while I was on vacation in Newport Beach and you gave me my extra class license examination there. So I'm publicly thanking you for that.
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
Well I appreciate that . Yep I'm fortunate to have across the street , a volunteer examiner and we have several local hams that I can make a phone call to and they come over to the house and we had three extra class bees and it was a joy watching you take the exam and doing as well as you did on the test.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
It was a lot of fun too. What advice would you give to newer returning hams?
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
On hams coming back into our hobby; immediately come up on of all things the 2 meter FM channels. Join a local two meter or 440 or just a local ham club that you hear about on two meters talking about club meetings and get involved via at the club level. Because every club in ham radio has their specialty ; some clubs are absolutely digital, Amateur Television, all they talk is about ATV and other things like propagation, the Bernadino microwave society as well as weak signal societies throughout the country; their club members will get you honed in on working two meters side band and CW working meteor scatter and working digital modes FT 144 FT 8 and many of the other modes. so the clubs are really strong supporters of getting those hams getting back in the ham radio tuned in. The best way to find a club is either go to the league's club page and look up via zip code or simply get on the 2 meter band ; be sure to have a 2 meter ARRL repeater directory for the right sub audible tone. Tell them you are a pal of Gordo, join that club, go to the meeting and you're gonna be launched back into ham radio with a lot of changes that I've seen and they've seen since the early ‘50s ‘60s and ‘70s
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Gordo thanks so much for joining me on the QSO Today podcast. It's been a real gas. I know we've been trying to get together for years and I'm so happy that we were able to do that today.
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
Well, Eric you're the only one in the world that I've ever disclosed from 1942 up to where we are close to 2020. So you're the only one that has the history and I've got it here on a piece of paper. Here it is it's going in the trash can . So you've got it ; you get to roll with it and I am honored to be aboard QSO Today.
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG:
Thanks so much Gordo 73.
Gordon West, WB6NOA:
73 Eric from Gordo WB 6 November Oscar Alpha. Now tuning 5KC UP .
Eric Guth, 4ZIUG
That concludes this episode of QSO Today . I hope you enjoyed this QSO with Gordo. Please be sure to check out the show notes that include links and information about the topics that we discussed. Go to www.qso.com and put in WB5NOA in the search box at the top of the page. My thanks to both ICom America and QRP Labs for the support of the QSO Today podcast. Please show your support of these fine sponsors by clicking on their links in the show notes pages or when you make your purchases, you say that you heard it here on QSO Today. You may notice that some of the episodes are transcribed into written text. If you'd like to sponsor this or any of the other episodes into written text please contact me. Support the QSO Today podcast by first joining the QSO Today email list by pressing the subscribe buttons on the show notes pages. I will not spam you or share your email address with anyone. Become a listener, sponsor monthly or annually by clicking on the sponsor buttons on the show notes page. I am grateful for any way that you show appreciation and support . It makes a big difference. QSO Today is now available on IHeart Radio, Spotify, libsyn and TuneIn as well as the iTunes Store. If you own an Amazon Echo you can say “Alicia play the QSO Today podcast from TuneIn. I still use Stitcher to listen to podcasts on my smart phone. The links to all of these services are on the show notes pages on the right side.
Until next time this is Eric 4ZIUG, 73.
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