Special Episode: 30 Years in Ham Radio with Ray Novak N9JA

We have a very special treat for you! In this exclusive interview recorded during EAA AirVenture, we sit down with amateur radio industry veteran Ray Novak, N9JA. Surrounded by warbirds, fighter jets, and the constant buzz of the Oshkosh Air Show, Ray offers a fascinating glimpse into his world at the intersection of aviation and amateur radio.

Broadcasting from his impressive mobile setup – complete with a hex beam antenna towering 35 feet above his motorcoach – Ray shares incredible personal stories and experiences that bridge decades of radio evolution. From his journey as a Mississippi farm boy who avoided computer programming because it meant "wearing a suit and tie" to becoming a key figure in amateur radio manufacturing, Ray's path mirrors the transformation of radio technology itself.

Episode Highlights:

• Ray's transition from MFJ (nearly 300 hamfests!) to major radio manufacturer
• Behind-the-scenes stories from 30+ years in the amateur radio industry
• Technical insights on radio development and open protocols
• IC-7760 development challenges during COVID disruptions
• Remote operation capabilities that let you control your home station worldwide
• Getting young people excited about amateur radio at special event station W9W
• Tales from technical support (hint: upcoming episode!)

Unique Audio Experience: As young visitors stop by the Warbirds of America special event station W9W, you'll witness firsthand how these operations kindle technical curiosity in the next generation. Between thunderous F-35 flybys and impromptu visits from fellow aviation enthusiasts, this conversation captures the spirit of amateur radio at its best – technically sophisticated yet thoroughly human, preserving tradition while embracing innovation.

Hosted by: James Mills K8JKU, Jim Davis N8JRD, and Rory Locke W8KNX

What's your journey in amateur radio? Have you experienced the thrill of operating from a special event station or explored remote operation? Visit everydayham.com for show notes and links, and follow us on Instagram @everydayhampodcast. Share your stories – we'd love to hear how radio has connected your world!

Note: You'll hear authentic airshow sounds and may notice occasional audio delays due to the remote connection from Oshkosh. Nothing's perfect, but that authentic atmosphere adds to the experience!

Short show intro audio clip

Short outro audio clip

The Everyday Ham Podcast is hosted by James Mills (K8JKU), Jim Davis (N8JRD), and Rory Locke (W8KNX) – three friends who dive into the world of amateur radio with a casual, lighthearted twist.

Follow us at: Website: https://www.everydayham.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayhampodcast/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, james K8JKU, I'm putting the final
touches on a special episode ofthe Everyday Ham, an interview
with Ray Novak N9JA.
It's a great interview.
He shares a lot of his personalexperiences, his history in ham
radio as well as a little bitwhat's going on at ICOM America
Johnson.
So please be warned, there arepoints where there are jet
noises in the background anotherair show ambiance.

(00:29):
That's going on.
We did the best we could to tryto eliminate or fix the audio,
but there are points where itdoes drop out.
Be patient, it will come back.
We hope you still enjoy theepisode.
Also, my audio.
I do apologize.
I joined at 2.30 am at anairport hotel with Wi-Fi.
That is not the best, so myaudio has a little bit of a
delay and drops in and out.
However, if you are watching onYouTube, please remember to
like and subscribe.

(00:50):
If you're listening on ApplePodcasts or Spotify, please
remember to leave a rating andsubscribe as well.
You can find all our links toour socials and other
information at wwweverydayhamcom, and with that, I hope you
enjoy this interview.
Wwweverydayhamcom, and withthat, I hope you enjoy this
interview.
Okay, we are here, joined by RayNovak N9JA.

(01:13):
Ray, thanks for taking the timeto join us today.
We are all kind of spread outall over the world.
I'm in Germany, jim is in hishome office, rory's back in
Southline as well.
And Ray, where are you today?
If you don't mind, maybeintroducing yourself and what's
going on.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Ray Novak, n9ja, with ICOM America.
I'm here in Oshkosh, Wisconsin,for the 2026 EAA AirVenture.
We work with the Warbirds ofAmerica for a special event
station and well, it's going tobe fun.
I mean, right now there's asail plane right now, so we
won't hear much noise out ofthat, but it's a podcast

(01:50):
recording.
Yeah, there you go, just toshow you guys a little bit
underneath the awning here.
You know, let me, let me standup and walk around here are you
guys?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
yeah, as I say, are you teasing a hex here?

Speaker 3 (02:01):
yes, indeed yeah man.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
So this, this is a radial waves hex beam that we've
got, okay, and you can see it'sa, it's a pretty good size and
on the back of my coach we'vegot a us tower alm 31.
I don't know how I'm doing forzoom or anything else, but it's,
it's mounted on a trailer mount.
We've got three differentpieces of coax running up to it

(02:26):
and I mean this is my personalcoach, but hey, I got to wave
the flag here for the love ofham radio, of course.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
And then my call signs.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
But on the top there we've got a Comet GP3.
And I'm sorry this was softground when I rolled in on on
friday.
You can see the ruts oh yeahtripping over them.
But we've got a radio waves offcenter, fed dipole.
We've got their hex beam and onthe very top is a comet gp for

(02:59):
bhf and uhf.
And when I say I'm intowarbirds I'm not kidding.
I mean, as far as you can see,there are planes out here that.
And then I'm right here with areenactment camp Sorry about all

(03:23):
the sunlight here and thenwe've got what we call fighter
town and I'll walk over herewith you guys.
I mean, you can see thelorebirds, provide us nice
signage to get people to roll inhere.
Tuskegee airmen set up and Imean, isn't that beautiful?

Speaker 1 (03:41):
that is pretty.
You guys are in the thick of itthere, ray, I am but am.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
but come on, guys, on Mustangs World War II Corsairs,
they moved the Dauntless.
Anyway, that's what you see.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
I was going to say.
You don't get to radio in thatkind of environment very often,
so that is something unique.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
No, you don't, and because we possibly have some
rain coming in and wind, I'vegot the canopy down, but it's
nice to get to play with some ofthe toys.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a beautiful coach for one.
We're getting the full tourhere.
Appreciate it, Ray.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
And Ray are you?
Are you?
So you're obviously operating,but are you running a guest
station there, like a get on theair station for visitors?

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, this is what our primary thing is, so we're
using a 7760.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Nice.
This sits out on the table.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Then we got 200 watt RF deck.
There's a 9700 behind there, sowe had a.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Oh, there goes the F3535 guys.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
We hear it oh there it is, oh there it is, yeah, oh,
that's pretty awesome so I hopeeveryone likes really cool jet
sounds, because that's whatyou're going to get right now.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
No, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Pulling out both and let's see how well these things
work for noise canceling.
All right.
All right, because he does a15-minute show and you guys are
wanting to do a 30-minute show.
Half of it.
I won't even be able to hearyou guys.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
We'll work with you on that one, ray.
It's just awesome to have youhere this evening.
Now I do have a question foryou.
You mentioned that there is aspecial event station out there
at Oshkosh.
Can you give us a few detailson where we can find that and
when it's spun up there?

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Well, there's two of them and since this is recorded,
the special event station willbe done with.
We shut down on Saturday.
Okay, we're Whiskey 9, WhiskeyW9W, and when I do the CQ, I'll
call out CQ20, CQ20, Whiskey 9,Whiskey Warbirds of America

(05:55):
special event station for the2026 EAA Air Venture, calling CQ
Awesome calling.
CQ and then when we work throughthe contact, we tell them if
you QSL, please QSL with Kilo 9,Echo Charlie Foxtrot.
We will have a commemorativeQSL card and shoot me an email.

(06:16):
I will send a GIF over to youguys that we've used on social
media that will show theprevious QSL cards that we've
done.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Man Yep Okay.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Today we had a young man who was looking at getting
his amateur radio license fromAustralia.
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Okay, yeah, cool.
And Oshkosh brings in a prettydiverse crowd, right.
So folks from all over, notjust in the United States, but
from everywhere.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
I just worked up on CW.
I hate that I'm not there, butthank you for the contact.
Let's see Delta Lima 8, radioDelta Lima.
I hate that I'm not there, butthank you for the contact.
Let's see Delta Lima 8, radioDelta Lima.
And what was so funny is lastyear he's operating and then the

(07:22):
F-35.
And in a few minutes he's goingto come down about 500 feet
just as fast as he can below thespawn area.
We hear it and we're just atthe dangerous end of the engines
when he does that.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Jeez yeah, when he comes by, I'll tell you what Ray
it about washes everybody outof the fog.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
That's crazy.
It's cool to hear, though, Iimagine in person.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
it's just ear-splitting out there, but it
has to be an awesome spectacle.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Oh, this is incredible.
I talked to one ham a coupleyears ago.
He was a retired Pratt Whitneyengineer and he helped develop
some of the radial engines thatare used in the planes that I
was showing you guys, thoseCorsairs, in the planes that I
was showing you guys, thoseCorsairs.

(08:08):
He sent me a nice package withdecals and historical
information about some of theengines that he designed.
He's a ham radio operator.
He told me how many years thathe had spent out here and what
he did and everything else andhe goes.
Hey, thanks for putting it onthe air for us.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
It's wild.
I have to imagine that inperson.
It's just unbelievable.
Yeah, it's really nice to hearthat you guys were able to get
these folks on the air and, likebefore we got started here
today, ray mentioned that thereare a number of amateurs that
are part of the part of thefolks that show up to the
Oshkosh Air Venture, right, yeah, yeah, and there's also and

(08:47):
also and I can't take awaycredit from the, I think it's
the and they're up in KittFenster to let the kids see a
little bit about ham radio.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
So we're not the only ones.
Down here, camp Shuler, there'sa bunch of hams that will put
up verticals and things likethat.
They start looking up for W9Wand I'm sorry I haven't had time
to get it up on QRZ, but we dohave a good time and draw a lot
of people in here and that hexbeam being about 35 feet in the

(09:14):
air, it is the tallest thing inthis end of the field and that
has become a landmark for peopleto go.
Oh, you see the antenna overthere, I'm right next to it.
Right, right, right.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
One of these years I'll have to get to Oshkosh.
I've not really been a flyerbut I am a 20-plus year member
of Civil Air Patrol and I knowCivil Air Patrol supports
Oshkosh in various ways and oneof these years.
Over that way.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
There we go.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
Over.
That way.
There's a whole camp of them.
Yeah, they, uh, they set up andand and serve they.
There's a national blueberryacademy that runs along with the
air show and then, uh, thewisconsin wing also helps
support a lot of needs of theair show.
So that's, that's a big deal inwisconsin wing and people do
cap members from all over theworld all over the world, we're
a us thing all over the country,go and support that.

(10:08):
So I'll have to get there atsome point.
So, ray, you mentioned earlieryou were originally living in
Chicago and that was when youkind of got your first time up
to Oshkosh.
So tell us, oh, we have to seewhat we have to see.
Oh, look at that.
As all our heads get closer tothe camera oh, look at that as
all our heads get closer to thecamera.

(10:29):
Gosh, see, we get to be part ofthe air show now.
That's pretty cool thataircraft?

Speaker 2 (10:36):
yeah, yep, and at one time everything was called
amateur radio, because there wasno such thing as broadcast or
professional radio or commercialtwo-way or any of that stuff.
It was just a bunch ofexperimenters experimenting and
experimenting with.
What can you do with theseradio frequencies?

Speaker 3 (10:58):
so, rory, I think you were, you were on one, and then
, uh, the f3d5 came by, so goahead so ray, what came?

Speaker 4 (11:05):
what came first?
I know the interest in aviationis there and you got up there
to Oshkosh.
What came first, the interestin aviation or the interest in
radio?

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Well, so I joke around.
I'm a product of MississippiPublic Education.
I grew up on a farm and I gotexposed to a computer in my
junior year in high school.
I taught myself how to programit with BASIC and immediately

(11:38):
went into neuroscience.
So I went to college to get myBASICs out of the way, started
studying COBOL.
Fortran PASCAL Probably couldstill work for the US government
.
Knowing COBOL, nice Asked myadvisor what kind of career path
?

(11:58):
And my advisor told me you couldgo work for an insurance
company.
So you got to realize there'sredneck tendencies from growing
up in Mississippi.
I grew up on a farm and whatcrossed my mind had nothing to
do with money.
I go, I'm going to have to weara tie, aren't I?
Yes, you'll have to wear a suitand tie every day.
And I go no, that's not for me.

(12:20):
And she's like well, what doyou want to do in computers?
And bless Miss Lott.
I told her I wanted to docomputer games, I want to do
video games.
No one ever sat around acomputer and played games on
there.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
I do think that that's a common thing, that
perhaps a younger individualmight say right, but even now
folks would say, hey, if I'mworking on a computer I might
want to help program a game.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
It's photographic, my youngest would cry because,
well, Josh is watching thescreen.
He sees where I respawn and hekills me.
And I'm like Jojo, you'reeither a shooter or a target,
son.
So true.
Everybody's like.
Well, your son's not goingmountain much.
All he does is play video games.
I go, you know what, Lookingback today, he could be sitting
there flying drones and makingall kinds of money Absolutely

(13:13):
Sure.
Because he's got this kind ofhand-eye coordination.
Absolutely so I look at it.
Don't chastise today's youththat they're doing something
different than what you think isnormal, Because they're
inventing tomorrow's technology.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Well, a lot of people think we're strange for the ham
radio stuff, but I have twokids.
I have a 10-year-old and an8-year-old and they actually
will encourage kids now to playvideo games because of the
hand-eye coordination, as yousaid.
Also, there's a lot of gamesout there now building blocks
like Minecraft, so people codefor these things now at a young
age they do creative arts andother things with them.

(13:51):
So you know, the evolution of alot of things is real and
you're exactly right Don't putdown kids because they want to
do something that maybe isn't.
You know the everyday andthat's one of the most important
things.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Everything can be a skill.
You know, gentlemen, I got aneighbor that just stopped by
just to show you how friendly hebrought me something to eat
nice, that's good, and do I looklike I miss many meals?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
well, happy to have a snack, then.
Those are good.
Thank you very much.
So what snack did you bring, bythe way?

Speaker 2 (14:28):
What snack is this, sir?
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Chicharrones, chicharrones, chicharrones.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Kind of like Chichichon, chicharrones okay.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Alright, sounds good.
So, chicharrones, okay, nice,nice, all right, all right,
sounds good.
There's a little 35 doingsomething else over here.
Oh, he's coming in for alanding, so he's doing a hairy
landing.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Okay, okay, oh that's cool.
There we go.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
I would love to see one of those actually set down.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
I imagine it's quite a show as well, right.
Not only can they take off invery short order, but I imagine
that they have quite a bit ofcontrol in that landing too,
upon the computer for part ofits flight patterns, right, like
the way that it flies is verycomputerized, right.
I don't know much about it, butit is very interesting to see

(15:28):
how technologically advancedthat thing is.
There we go, there we go, well,very good.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
And, by the way, these are a bit cool.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
I'm going to let the F-35 land there for a second.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Okay, okay, you guys can still hear that.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, yeah, let the f-35 land there for a second,
okay, okay, yeah, yeah, a littlebit.
It's a weird sound.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
It sounds kind of like a vacuum cleaner when it
gets stuck on the rug?
I would yeah if that visualizesit for you.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
I'm glad it doesn't sound like a rainbow with it no,
it's not quite that I told youguys, this is going to be a wild
ride with me.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
I don't think you're going to be able to see it in 30
minutes.
That's just fine that is justfine.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, we're happy.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
So do they bring out all the aircraft that are out
there?
Are those all for the most part, privately owned folks that fly
out to the thing for showingoff their own personal stuff?
I don't know much about it, soI'd love to know more about how
do they get them all there.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
But yeah, most of these the Warbirds are
individually owned.
We got to hear Jack Roush fromRoush Racing.
He started a business becausehe owned a P-51 Mustang and they
don't make the engine partsanymore.
So he started a business tobuild P-51 Mustang and they
don't make the engine partsanymore, so he started a
business to build P-51 Mustangengine parts.

(16:49):
Okay, yeah, that's pretty cool.
The owner if you guys do anylawn care Scott's Lawn Care he's
a warbird enthusiast.
He's out here.
There's a lot of people outhere that own several of these
aircraft.
The neighbors that are rightnext to me.
They have an A26.
They were on their way in.

(17:09):
One of the engines startedrevving too high so they ended
up stopping.
Was talking to some of themechanics here about what was
going on and he goes we've lostover five gallons of oil.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
My gosh.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
And it blew them away .
Here's a 30-year-old mechanicthat goes.
I can guarantee, if you removethis cap and remove this,
there's a gasket that is broke.
The next text that came in wasa photo of that gasket that was
broken.
Jeez, Put it back together, putoil in it and learned on the

(17:45):
A-26 that it wasn't uncommon forthem to lose two gallons of oil
during flight.
That was acceptable duringWorld War II.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Wow, yeah, it's also based on the names you listed in
their private collection.
I'm going to guess it's a veryexpensive hobby.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, ham radio is hobby.
Yeah, ham radios mean nothing.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, I think I can get my nice 7760 there before
I'll be buying me a Warbird.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, these P-51s start out at $1,000.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
That's outside of my reach, for sure.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Yeah, but I mean.
I guess you're owning a pieceof history at that point, if you
can afford it, why not?

Speaker 3 (18:32):
oh, yeah, yeah, I've heard that being said before,
james is to say that when youbuy one of those, right, you're
really just shepherding it alongpart of its story, right,
because more likely than notit'll outlive you and the guy
that buys it the next time too,right?
So it's up to you to maintainit and kind of keep that story
going, and I'm sure not aninexpensive proposition.

(18:52):
But it's just awesome to seesome of those things restored to
the high quality that they are.
They're still, they're buffedimmaculately, they're still
flying just as well, and you'vegot a crew of people there, like
Ray just said, that can stillfix them right, that have that
knowledge from when they learnedit, that can apply it and get
these guys in the air again.
It's just awesome to hear allthat.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
But the interesting thing about it, the way the
people are around here is justlike what we see in amateur
radio.
I mean, you go to DaytonHamvention, everybody looks at
the big contesters, themulti-multi-contesters like K3LR
and W3LPL, and those guys havegot antenna farms that people

(19:34):
only dream about, but they'rethere to share the story.
They talk about the antennasthat are designed, they talk
about different techniques andthings like that.
It's the same environment, justa different toy.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, that's a great example, right, and certainly, I
think, some of those big namesthat you just listed right in
amateur radio.
We've all probably looked attheir QRZ page or seen the
antenna farm and said, man,wouldn't it be sweet to have
access to that with all of thatreach that those antennas bring
Most of us, especially all threeof us working with much more
compromised situations here andso enjoying the hobby

(20:10):
nevertheless and I think thatyou can scale it to whatever you
have available to you, whetherit be a very inexpensive radio
all the way up to a very niceradio like the 7760.
Same with antenna right, youmatch that antenna to the
situation that you operate in.
All three of us are kind of ina limited situation.
I have a DX Commander in mybackyard.
That's a vertical antenna thathas worked well for me.

(20:31):
James runs something similarand we've run NFEDs and that
type of thing on HF as well.
So, right, it's nice to seeyour hex beam out there in the
field, and I imagine it does.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
We dream of a hex beam one day?
We've talked about it a fewtimes, but I think that's for
all of us.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
We're all HOA hams, though, unfortunately so it's,
it's which is why I love POTAquite a bit.
Yeah, no hex beam going up onthe balcony here, that's for
sure.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
And the thing is I'm the same way as you guys.
Everybody's like oh, you've gotan antenna farm?
No, I don't.
I live in an HOA area to keepthe family happy and it takes
the pressure off of me, Yep,Because the maintenance and

(21:18):
upkeep of those type of radiosystems is unbelievable.
Yeah absolutely, and I don't getenough time at home.
I mean, we were talkingbeforehand.
I was just in Germany forFriedrichshafen at the end of
June.
Then I'm here, I drive home,drive the coach home on Sunday,
monday morning, fly to Seattle.
I'll be at the Tokyo Ham Fairafter Huntsville in August.

(21:39):
So I mean I'm not even homeenough to enjoy a big antenna
system hundred and you're 7760.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
I love it.
It's awesome to hear and Iimagine that you've had quite a
bit of a success with that, evenon the road wherever you end up
parking for the evening andcalling your home.
So that's really cool.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Now you'd asked me earlier about how did I?
What was my transition?
What was my first love?
My dad was a pilot.
He had.
He had a few warbirds in hislife.
He never got certified to takeoff.
We just taxed him.
I decided computer programmingwasn't the way to go.
I wish I had my friends inSeattle that I do now, because I

(22:35):
probably would be retired, likemost of them, from Microsoft at
that point.
But that wasn't the cards thatwas dealt to me.
I ended up changing my major towork on hardware instead of
software.
So I got my associate's degreein electronics, was wanting to
get my double E and decided,yeah, I've got $15,000 worth of

(22:58):
student loan debt and back inthe 80s that was a lot of money
to me.
And I went to go work for MartinJew at MFJ.
That's cool.
I remember his first questionto me why would I want to work
for him?
And as I got older and learnedto be fluent in sarcasm, the
last time we had the day in thepark I go, it was because I owed

(23:22):
money and I needed a job.
That's why I wanted to comework for you, because I had no
clue who MFJ was, had no ideawhat amateur radio was other
than my dad was running 500Watts on 11 meters and I got
busted playing around on hisradio and you need to get your

(23:42):
ham radio license If you want totalk to people around the world
.
Got my license because, uh, thefirst year I was there
everybody vacated the buildingto go to a thing called dayton
hamvention.
I said that wasn't going tohappen.
Next year I got my license andmy first dayton hamvention was
to talk about a thing calledpacket radio.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
And got bit by the bug to go to the shows and they
started meeting people.
And I did learn one thing aboutpacket radio and that was what
made it very popular was a thingcalled DX packet clusters.
Very popular was a thing calledDX packet clusters.

(24:29):
All these guys wanting to getthe rare countries bought these
TNCs so they could get notifiedwhen a rare one was available.
And what?
What happened?
It was an old ham that wouldask for a young kid that knew
about computers to come set itup and that computer never got
shut off.
That two meter mobile never gotshut off.

(24:50):
Don't touch it, it's blackmagic in the corner that gives
me my DX spot.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
That's awesome, you know it's, it's we think about.
You know, I sit here and I'mlooking at my phone blow up with
ham alert as we're sitting hereand and very know that's a,
that's such a simple thing.
Now it's.
It's fascinating to sit backand take a moment and think
about the where, where that allgot started.
And of course, I got licensedin the early, early 2000s when

(25:16):
there was still a little bit ofpacket going on, but the the
Internet was was starting, ofcourse, or was there already of
of course.
But I do know a couple hamsthey're all silent keys now.
They did do the packet dxcluster and that was kind of
exactly how ray just describedit was.
It was a thing.
They couldn't tell you exactlyhow it worked, but it told them
when they needed to find whatthey were looking for on the air

(25:37):
.
So that that's a cool story.
Reminds me of a couple stories.
Some of the older hams I onceknew, um, told me I'm hijacking,
hijacking you guys real quick.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
There's one of those poor stairs firing up right now
okay yeah, just to the yeah.
And then the next one fartherout, the one with the bigger
nose, is about to fire up aswell.
Okay, that looks like some typeof bomber.

(26:07):
And then there we go.
We got the guys in the orangevest walking away.
So I'm jumping around.
This is Matt Bauman.
He's one of the local guys here.
Turn around and show the shirt.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
Very cool Yep.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
So when we're operating, they see exactly what
we are when we're sitting inthe chair operating.
And then the warbirds ofAmerica.
And his son earned his earliertoday over here walking around,
eli, eli.
So this is what we're lookingat, some of the operators.

(26:49):
So he earned his shirt todaywith how many cues?
Six cues, good work.
So he doesn't have his callsign yet, but he's getting his
feet wet here.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
He'll have one soon.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, the guy said congratulations.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yep, absolutely Good work.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
So this is being recorded.
It'll be next week, so you cantell all your fans.
I'll send you the link.
Have a great day, thanks,november 9.
It's one of those hard ones.
November Mike Hotel.
November 9, november Mike Hotel.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
Okay, it's fun to get a little insight into these
special event stations.
I hear them all the time, rightFor all different reasons that
they're on the air, and I thinkit's just a really neat way to
promote some things that areeither ham radio adjacent or are
looking for another way to toget themselves seen and heard
Right, and so it's cool to see alittle behind the scenes from

(27:54):
W9W there at Oshkosh.
I never I haven't seen any ofthat before.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
Excellent to see getting the kids on the air,
getting some younger folks onthe air and getting exposed to
it.
Unless you have family in it orsomehow know about ham radio,
you're probably not going toknow, not going to find it,
unless someone, someone bringsit to you or has something like
that.
So that is, that is excellentto see.
I enjoy seeing and hearingabout kids on the air, for sure.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Last year we had a 12 year old over here pounding out
35 words a minute CW.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
Nice, that is excellent.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
And then when I get out I'm like he looks familiar.
And then I saw dad right aroundthe corner with his other
brother.
They were a whole ham family.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
Very, very cool, very very.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
I was there for about five and a half, almost six
years.
I started out as a as a tech,working on their stuff, but
somehow they thought I had thegift of gab and could sell and I
ended up getting into their,their domestic sales, doing all
the ham fest.
And then, yeah, I heard thatsarcastic remark, then became

(29:13):
international sales manager.
So I had gone toFriedrichshafen back in 89 or
1991.
So at that point here I am,wearing a suit, a tie and a
mullet and there we go.

(29:34):
They did there because I wastold the Germans are more
professional than the US hams.
And this was before they movedit to the Zeppelin building.
But yeah, I went to alsoPescara, italy forum to do a ham
fest and then received a lot ofpressure.

(29:55):
Ray, you're working your buttoff.
You're driving all these shows.
I think at MFJ in the six yearsI did almost 300 shows, wow,
and we drove to all of them.
Jeez, yeah, that was a bigmistake.

(30:20):
With the suit and tie I get tohave more fun now.
We fly to the shows now.
But one of the interestingthings is you need to go work
for a real manufacturer and Ikept hearing that so much.
I got on board with ICOMthrough their technical support

(30:42):
department because it's mostcorporate America.
You need to have a four-yearsales degree to get into sales
and I didn't have that.
But I had a friend that I'd metgoing to the different shows.
That got me in through the backdoor into technical support and
it took me a year and a half intechnical support to start.

(31:04):
People start seeing, hey, maybehe's got some sales skills, yep,
and then four, four years afterthat they moved me to chicago.
I spent almost four years inchicago as an outside
salesperson selling all of ourdivisions land, mobile, amateur,
aviation and marine products.

(31:25):
Then the person that wasrunning the amateur division
decided to take a career changeand that opened the door for me.
So I became the national salesmanager for ICOM's amateur
division around 96.
Wow, and I haven't looked backyet.
Yeah, so now I'm in charge ofnot only amateur but the

(31:54):
aviation division and the marinedivision for ICOM America.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
If I can ask there, ray, I assume that the amateur
division's the most fun for yousince you've kind of come up in
it.
But I'd be curious how muchtime do you spend on any one of
those three right at any givenpoint?
Does amateur represent a lot ofyour time?
Can you break it down at allfor us?

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Amateur and marine are the two that I spend the
most time on.
Aviation has been kind of, Iwould say, stagnant for us
because I've been I've beendoing all three divisions for
the last four years, so rightafter COVID, and our product in
the aviation industry is prettymature.
But we are showing a conceptradio here at this show.

(32:34):
I let my sales team do thebooth.
I come out here and watch theseguys and the only time that I
can get on the air because yougot to realize I'm salary so I'm
never really off the clock Sure, so when we start getting some
of the FCC purists out theregoing, oh well, you're under an

(32:56):
ICOM tent, you can't be on theradio I will get on the radio
and tell them hey, I'm on theair before it's my booth duty or
I'm taking a 15 minute break towork some cues.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, yeah, that's one of those things that you
don't ever think about.
I think when we, when we talkabout folks in the industry that
are also amateurs at heart andare doing it as a hobby, right,
there is a sort of conflict thatwe even have thought about here
on the everyday ham thing.
Is, you know, as we kind of getthis thing rolling, what is
business, what is pleasure, andhow do we make sure that we're
respecting the rules of the FCCas they were?

Speaker 4 (33:32):
There's a money shot for you.
Look at that right over the hexbeam, there we go.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Yeah, that is an awesome shot.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
It's NA1 Goodyear.
There's two Goodyear blimpshere because it's the 100th
anniversary.
Ah, there you go, so both N1Aand.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
N2A are here.
Those, I assume, are the tailnumbers for the blimps.
Is that correct there?
Yes sir, okay, yep.
I think, I just saw somebodypost in the Parks on the Air a
picture of them activatingacross from the blimp landing
site, and I thought it was anincredible picture.
Right, the blimps set downacross the field from them and

(34:24):
they're sitting there workingtheir radio.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
what a unique way to go, okay, yeah, yeah these are

(34:59):
all ham, ham, ham shows that areon our list.
We we hope to go to germanysomeday and I hope to go to
tokyo someday, and that one's,uh, that one's coming up too
soon, too soon for this year.
I think I need to save a fewmore quarters before I can go to
Tokyo, but with Tokyo rightaround the corner.
I guess that means we're comingup on a year of the 7760.

(35:21):
Is that true?
I think that was last Tokyothat that was unveiled.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, that was unveiled at the Tokyo Ham Fair.
I was invited to come out andJosh Nass from Ham Radio Press
Force and myself did a livestream for Michelle.
We were watching.
We were talking about trying todo something like that from
Friedrichshafen, but then welooked at the logistics that
when the show opens it'smidnight.

(35:47):
He's like yeah, I love you, butnot that much.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
Yeah, we were all but not that much our hands on and
take a look at it.
We didn't operate with it.
I guess we could have gone overto the Dayton Amateur Radio
Club station and played with itat their special event station
but didn't make it over there.
But at the ICOM booth it wasexcellent and I'll be darned.
I wish I remember the name ofthe fellow who came over and
talked to us and wasexceptionally friendly and

(36:29):
forward with our questions andletting us look at it and look
under it and look at all thethings.
So that was.
That was cool.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
It was nice to have our hands on it, the one in the
ICOM booth yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yep, yeah, that's my buddy Scott.
Scott is in 7SS.
He's here operating the specialevent station for me.
Okay, so while Matt's the localguy, scott comes in.
He's a pilot and we have a lotof fun together.
Retired Microsoft and it wasfunny.
We did a couple of field daystogether and I'm an honorary

(37:03):
member of the Microsoft AmateurRadio Club called MicroHams and
we got a gentleman's agreement.
I don't complain about theirsoftware, they don't complain
about my radios and we get alongperfectly.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
That sounds like a good plan.
For sure.
I think those cooperativeagreements like that, those go a
long way.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
You can help each other out and just keep it nice,
of course um well, last, lastyear was extremely funny because
, as you can imagine, themicrosoft guy is anti other
other os manufacturer, of course, and he goes I'm pissed at you

(37:44):
and I'm he's like I'm pissed atyou and I'm like why, what did I
do?
You made I go.
Dude, I didn't make you buyanything.
He goes.
Yeah, you did.
You told me about Marcus'ssoftware, marcus from Germany,
that works on an iPad thatcontrols the 705.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
And I'm like it's a good thing that I brought my 705
here, Take it home.
After we set up last year hestayed up to about one or two
o'clock in the morning playingaround with the 705 setting it
up so he could do ft8.
And then I've got a, a um buddypole, buddy stick.
Scott put the radio over by thebuddy stick because it's like a

(38:29):
six foot um coaxial cable forit, and then he's walking around
here working FT8 on his iPad.
He goes dude, this is so cool.
And then I reminded him it wasmy 705 and he's like, yeah, I
gotta buy one of these soldanother one.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Ray, you sold another one one addiction at a time
that software from Marcus doeswork incredibly well.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yes, one addiction at a time that software from
Marcus does work incredibly well.
Yes, well, after raising fiveboys, I love them all dearly.

(39:16):
So I've had the most fun withthe 7300.
Because that one you can justtake anywhere you go.
I'm having a blast right nowwith the 7760, just for the
simple fact that all I need totake with me is the head.
And around Dayton, aroundDayton, we launched a Windows

(39:39):
app that you can buy from theMicrosoft store that allows you
to monitor your PW so I cantravel anywhere in the world.
Used to travel routers with VPNand I can have a full KW as my
base station, nice.
So that that isn't it.

(39:59):
That is an interesting one.
We've had several hams that arepilots that came here and have
asked well, what's that?
What are you guys doing?
That's all the radio.
And then we show them the bodyand he goes.
Well, I've been thinking aboutputting a tower by my hangar
with a tri-band.
There we go.
Where can, where can I take the, the head of the radio?

Speaker 4 (40:21):
anywhere you want.
Anywhere you want, yep talk tome about.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
I'm curious on that.
It's on the the want list overhere in my shack ray, so I'll
tell you that.
What kind of bandwidth does itrequire to get connected to the
head?
Do I need do I need decentbandwidth, or is it pretty, uh
pretty resilient to, uh say,being on like a cellular tether?

Speaker 2 (40:43):
well, to quote scott okay, I can't believe all the
stuff you guys have got in thatthing.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Nice Okay.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
So you can tell it if you're using a Wi-Fi adapter
and then set up the latenciesfor that.
You can do wired.
I mean there's so manydifferent things, but what is
the common?
I'm not really sure.
He's my expert on that.
I mean he knows the IT managernow and that's why I bring it.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
I should have known there was some magic built in.
I should have known there wassome magic built in.
I think it answers my question,which is to say it's likely
very, very resilient to a bunchof different network speeds.
That's one thing that I'vewondered about, because I'd like
to set it up here in the shackand take it with me.
We just put a trailer back inour loadout here and we've been
going camping all summer and itwould be fun to throw it in the

(41:36):
truck with me and take it outthere and operate remote Like
that's kind of like what you'redoing, but without the hex beam
of course.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
I had a guy tell me he's got an F-350.
He's put the body in the backseat of the truck.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
And has a Scorpion screwdriver in the bed of the
truck and has a scorpionscrewdriver in the bed of the
truck and he's using the 7760 asthe remote head of his HF
mobile.

Speaker 4 (41:59):
I don't know, jim's got an F-350.
Is that on your list?
Sounds like a plan?

Speaker 3 (42:04):
That does sound like a dream setup there, guys.
I like it.
I like it.
200 watts out the back of thetruck without any extra work.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
200 watts out the back of the truck without any
extra work.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
From what I can remember on the guy's
explanation at Dayton is he'sgot enough dash space to put it
right on the dash.
Yeah, not an insignificantspace.
Well, it's an absolutelyamazing looking radio and I
would love to put a little moretime in with one before I
finally get one in the shackhere.

(42:40):
But it was fun to put hands onit for the first time down in
Hamvention this year.
It was, of course, my firstHamvention going down and seeing
you guys in the booth, beingable to see all the stuff that
you guys do, and it was justreally awesome.
You had a huge presence downthere at Hamvention and I have
an Icom 9700 that I run as myprimary UHF and VHF rig here in

(43:00):
the shack and it's just anincredible radio, so absolutely
wanted to see that, and I cansee a future where both of those
sit next to one another in thisshack.
So really, really fun to see itfirsthand and hopefully we'll
have one here eventually.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
And I'm still trying to figure out what is my
favorite one.
I mean the 705, the story withScott Well, the 705, and I

(43:37):
cannot remember the website forit.
I'll find it and email you guysso you can reference it in the
video.
Excellent, circumnavigated theplanet over over in a I think it

(43:59):
was a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Yeah, yeah, we were.
We were talking about it atDayton, something to Fram or
something like that.
Anyway, I thought it was realcool that they.
They took amateur radio.
The goal of this was to takephotos and instead of going

(44:20):
around the equator, they wentnorth, south, north south and
they were doing slow scan TVshots to schools and you had to
receive several of them to getthe big picture.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
That's cool.
Piece them together.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeah, yes, that's really cool, and the gentleman
that did it was from China andhe had made a lot of money in
these cryptocurrencies and tookfour of his friends, but then
made it about technology and the705 was a radio of choice but
then made it about technologyand the 705 was a radio of
choice.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yeah, it's so compact and it offers so much packed
into that small package that Ican imagine that it makes a lot
of sense for that type ofdeployment right Someplace that
we know is going to bespace-restricted.
And you need a lot of radio ina small package.
It seems like an excellentoption.
I just got done capturing theSSTV from the ARISS event that

(45:17):
just came by and I've beenreceiving those images from the
space station in my own shackhere and so, yeah, I always get
excited a little bit by SSTV,even though I know it's kind of
an older mode at this point.
We've been having a lot of funwith it here in the South Lion
area and it's just a really neatway to promote radio in a way

(45:39):
that's friendly to folks thatdon't quite understand radio yet
Young kids, they see a picture.
That's a cool way to get theminterested in doing radio stuff,
and I think that that's whatSSTV shines at is being able to
get folks that are maybe notinterested in rag-chewing or
getting on HF just yet to showthem something cool that radio
can do for them.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
Well, we have a lot of guys in our area here that
like the crossover between theradio and the computers.
We have a lot of people who arein this immediate area that are
very interested in some of thequote-unquote older technologies
, the APRS, the packet, all thethings, and slow scan kind of
falls into that.
So it gives an opportunity.
Opportunity to do that.

(46:15):
And then we found the chancethat, all right, it can be
inexpensive to do because slowscan can be decoded so easily on
on an iphone app if you don'thave all the things to make it
go on the computer.
I was just looking online.
It looks like it was called framto ham there you go yeah, fram,
the number two ham, and it wason the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket,

(46:38):
okay, and I do remember hearingsomething about that and it
talks about the mission and howthat was done.
I do recall hearing about thatnow that I'm looking at some of
the details but yeah, that'ssuch a cool thing.
And again, same thing gettingkids, just like you guys are
doing with your special eventstation out there at oshkosh,
you know, get, get the kids intoseeing all these things and it

(46:58):
opens their minds for sure.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Very cool well we're developing the next, uh, the
next wave of new hams right andhopefully that we can get some,
get some new and younger bloodon the air.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
That's awesome well after we had shut down for the
day.
We can only operate till fiveo'clock.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
And we saw a mom with two kids that the kids look
like they might've been five orsix years old and she says
they've already shut down theradio station.
We'll have to come backtomorrow.
So it's always incredible tosee those that I call
technically curious.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
Yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
I never liked the word nerd or geek or anything
like that.
So technically curious is Imean.
My dad used to tell me I couldtear up a freight train with a
rubber hammer, and it wasn'tuntil later that I learned how
to put it all back togetheragain.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
That was.
That was one of my dad'sfavorite things to do.
He'd bring home a piece of oldequipment from work and he'd
give us a screwdriver and saytake it apart, see what you got
it, see what you can find inside.
And we never intended for us toput it back together, but he
just liked a equipping us withtools and letting us dig in a
little bit and.
B discovering that there'ssomething under the shell of
each of those things that you'repushing the buttons on that you
can only see the outside of.

(48:12):
So really cool.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Yes, I have oh yeah, I mean just watching them A lot

(48:52):
of our radios like the 2730, ourdual band mobile.
It is CI5, which is Charlie,india, victor, which is computer
interface version five.
It was the CI4 back in the late80s and then they moved it over

(49:17):
to TTL Logic and called it CIV.
Our radios are all the waybackwards compatible on the CI5
from the early 90s.
But this dual-band mobile iscomputer controllable using that
same technology.
The same command sets to changeVFO frequencies directly into

(49:39):
in frequencies.
I'd love to see schools startcoding and doing stuff with that
.
I mean you don't have to hackin.
You don't have to hack in themand start trying to learn how to
program machine language andthings like that.
But remotely controlling aradio, I mean that that's.

(50:06):
That's fun.
Now one one of the other thingsis you were talking about slow
scan TV earlier.
We do picture sharing on DSTAR,the ID52, the later ID51 pluses

(50:33):
, the ID52 pluses.
You can see it on the screen ofthe handheld the 9700,.
You can see it on the screen ofthe radio, the 705, on the
screen of the radio.
There again, the app is on boththe Google Play Store as well
as the iOS store, reverse,engineer that protocol.
See how they can control theradios.

(50:54):
It's still going to be the CI5command structure for
controlling the radio.
But you guys can figure out howwe're doing the data because
the radios have a modem builtinto it.
All you're doing is sendingones and zeros to send the image
.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
Oh, that's a neat idea, james, and, like I said, I
think it does appeal to thatyounger audience that you're
talking about right there.
I just did a little Googlesearch on CI5 while we were
talking and it looks like youguys have a ton of documentation
out there pretty clearlyavailable too.
So, like you said, no hackingrequired.
It's something that you can goout there, learn a little bit
about and probably put intopractice.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
And the thing is we were doing.
Everybody talks about how greatopen source is, that CI5
protocol has been publishedsince the 90s.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Right.
So, we were doing open sourcebefore you guys even came up
with a name for it.
Yeah, yeah, I got it.
Yeah, it's nice.
I just broke the referenceguide open and it's pretty clear
here.
I did have the ID52 here in theshack and that is a slick radio
.
I had the Anniversary Editionmyself and sharp radio for sure,
and I should have given a shotthere.

(52:02):
Rory and I have a tendency toplay across town.
He has some D-Star equipment inhis shack.

Speaker 4 (52:08):
I have some in my shack here, so we've dabbled in
digital around this area andit's really interesting to see.
We'll have to do some images onDSTAR between my 5100 and your
9700.
We'll have to do that at somepoint because the 5100 can do it
with the app in the Bluetoothmodule that I have.

(52:28):
So I have that installed onboth the 5100 in the house and
the 5100 in the car.
So, okay, that is.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
That is something we could do at some point always,
always like discovering a thingthat I wasn't aware of, and, uh
yeah, it just goes to showthere's so much that all of
these radios can do.
You just need to get ray ray onto chat about it and he'll tell
you something you didn't know Ihonestly had forgotten about
the uh about sending images by dstar I.

Speaker 4 (52:52):
I actually I'll pull that out.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
We'll have to do that across town so you can see that
good well, I don't know how, Idon't know how much footage you
guys have got to fill your showwith, but I guess I will
continue down this path of myfavorite radio okay and leave
you with this okay my favoriteradio is always the next one.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
I can acutely feel that statement there.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
Absolutely.
We're always waiting and ready.
I'll tell you we're right ontop of paying attention to
what's next, and very, veryinterested.
It's fascinating watching thetechnology.
Both.
You mentioned the 7300 earlierand how that one.
You know that was a tremendousvalue.
I mean that radio, crazy goodvalue for what it does and what

(53:46):
it is.
And so many of our friends oneof my close friends and James
and Louis, a bunch of people inour club have had the 7300.
But look back at the 718.
That thing's still chuggingalong.
That's a solid radio and it'sstill built on solid technology.
Did you guys stop making thatone and then start making that

(54:07):
one again?
It had a start and a stop, if Iremember.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
It did.
A lot of the components,because of COVID became no
longer available.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
Okay, so that's the story there.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
What we did is we took the FPGA technology out of
the 7300 and used thatarchitecture concept to put an
FPGA in a 718.
So it's still, but there again,I look at it and I'm like, okay

(54:55):
, I got a choice between a 718and a 7300.
I interface is just so easy tooperate and even though we've
seen others release new productand, oh, you got to update it,
you got to update it.
Really, what needs to bechanged on it?
There's a wish list and I stillhave people that argue with me

(55:17):
from the very first video I didabout that radio.
It's an entry-level SDR, a lotof the things that people are
like well, I wish it had this, Iwish it had that.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
It's entry-level, guys, yeah, it's a great way to
look at it.
Right is is that lets folks getin the door with sdr.
Uh, to have a radio that can doas much as it can for the price
point that you guys offer it at, it's a.
It's still a hell of a radioand I can totally understand
where you're coming from on that.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
It's been and it's pretty one-dimensional.
Yeah, I mean the contesterswell, I need to have this
receiver because of this.
Okay, well, how many sub menusdo you have to go into to make
changes?
I mean, you can you can losecues because of a submenu.
Yeah, and if the goal is towork as many cues as possible,

(56:17):
then wouldn't you want to dothat?

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Yeah, yeah, I think you're definitely on the ease of
use bandwagon there and we canunderstand that 100%.
The easier the radio is to makeit do the thing that you need
it to do when you need to do it,that is the most important
thing, right Operating at itsforemost, and hopefully the
technology just kind of workswith you and not against you in

(56:39):
the way that you're operating.
So very good.
Well, ray, I want to thank youpersonally.
I know we're going on justabout an hour and it's been an
absolute pleasure having a chatwith you here.
Love to have you on and talk alittle radio and talk a little
bit about ICOM and yourbackground here.
But I wanted to give you anopportunity to say anything else

(57:01):
that you have to share here,anything related to ICOM or
yourself, before we wrap thispart of it up for tonight.
I appreciate you jumping inwith us.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Well, I appreciate the invitation.
I look forward to doing thisagain.
I've had a lot of fun with thethree of you guys Absolutely,
and that's why I keep doing whatI do, because I love doing it.
It's fun, I get to do some veryunique things and I really
don't feel like I work a day inmy life and my wife will agree

(57:30):
that I don't work a day in mylife.

Speaker 4 (57:32):
I play a dream that's the dream and you're living it.
Yeah, the dream for sure yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
The thing is, though, that you guys don't get to be
on this side of the camera,because you you hams can be a
little patient, trying I can, Ican, yeah, I can only imagine we
are all.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
Everyone knows.
Anyone that watches or listensor knows me knows that I don't
have much patience, so I canguarantee I know about that.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
But at least you own it, rory, at least you own it.

Speaker 4 (58:04):
I'm not ashamed.
I learned that some time ago.
There's no reason to be ashamedabout it.
But certainly next time we'reat Dayton we'll certainly make
sure we have an eyeball cue withyou in person and I don't know
if we'll have a chance to Do.
You do hamcation, by the waywe're planning.
We're in the early stages ofdoing hamcation, actually in the
winter.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Yes, so we primarily go to five ham fests, Okay, and
Dayton being the largesthamcation being second,
Huntsville being third and then,um, Seaside, Oregon, Um, I
basically label that as a sanitybreak, because it's it's.

(58:48):
We go from Dayton hamventionfor 30 to 35,000 hams to 2,500
hams on the West Coast.
Get to hang out on the beachand just listen to the ocean.
You need that.

Speaker 4 (59:04):
You need that break after Hamvention.
I would imagine that's for sure.
That's a different environmentfor sure, heck, I needed that
break after Hamvention, justfrom being a you know a
spectator, so that I can onlyimagine, after being being a you
know presenter and doing the,doing the booth there.
So that's for sure.
So, uh, what, uh, what's next?

(59:24):
Tokyo's next are we?
Are we expecting a something tobe covered up underneath the
curtain at tokyo this year?

Speaker 2 (59:31):
no, I've got huntsville ham fest next and
then the weekend after that isgoing to be the Tokyo Ham Fair.
And speaking of technicallycurious, one of my neighbors
stopped over and I'm hanging outwith a video show.
So this is Bruce.
Bruce is a chief technologyofficer.

(59:54):
I sent him an email last nightand his email address doesn't
have his name at all.
It's Snake Snake at.
And I saw that and I startcracking up.
I mean, this guy is more funthan a barrel of monkeys because
he was telling me he reallydoesn't have a job title, but he

(01:00:17):
is the hold on.
I'm going to see if I canremember this Bruce, because it
references a book that I hadread and it was very interesting
.
He is the cheese relocationambassador.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Okay, If you've ever read the book who my cheese?

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
that's yeah.
Yeah, he's okay.
It's about doing differentthings to to change the way
people do things.
Nice, smart and it was veryfunny.
He works for this company.
He comes over, he sees the ICOMred umbrella and he's like are
you with ICOM?
And I go a little, and then herattles off a part number on a

(01:01:03):
one of our network products thatI mean it takes very unique
people to understand and installthese things and what he's done
is taken multiple technologies.
He's taken our airband basestations, interfaced it with our
interoperability box, which hecalled it's a VEPG4, and has

(01:01:26):
interfaced it with our Wi-Fibased radios Wow, based radios,
wow.
So they have many fixed baseoperations across the United
States and a couple ofinternational ones and you
really can't have humans there24, seven, three, 65,.
But the company is and they usethese wifi radios for anybody

(01:01:50):
to answer a pilot that's cominginto one of their controlled
airspaces, radios for anybody toanswer a pilot that's coming
into one of their controlledairspaces and it interfaces to
his computer with a dongle andI'm like, okay, how did you get
involved in this?
He goes this real curious thingyears ago called a computer and

(01:02:11):
I keep telling my guys, ourgoal is to get him interested in
getting his AM radio license,and he's fighting it real hard.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Is that the next Oshkosh you're going to get him
licensed?
Get a couple of VEs there.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
I'm sure you can get a bunch of VEs around and
bamboozle the guy and get himhis license.
I'm sure it could be done.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
I just want him to sit down at a radio, because
when you've got control ops thatare extra class license holders
.
You can sit down and operateAbsolutely so the 12-year-old
young man that came here fromAustralia.
He's wanting to get his hamradio license but he had never
had anybody take the time to sithim down at a radio and he

(01:02:51):
operated and got about 10 to 12cues.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
He's going to go back home and get his license good
for him.
He should.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Well, it'll be good, dx, when he gets on the air.
There you go, but one.
One last story for you guys.
We had a young lady, we had ayoung lady from australia that
got on d star and we had a hamhere from Scotland and told us
to to go over to the reflectorthat his Scottish buddies were
on.
We got to see three groups ofpeople that were confused by a

(01:03:27):
common language to hear an tohear an with a, a US call sign,
talking to Scottish people and Ican't remember what animated
movie it was, but McSqueezy wasthe beaver.
You guys go search YouTube forMcSqueezy and listen.

(01:03:49):
That's what these?

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
guys sounded like talking to this Australian young
lady.

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
I have a hard enough time on Reflector 24, charlie,
which is linked into a bunch ofDetroit area repeaters.
There's a Scottish fellow thatgets on there and talks to
someone local I have a hardenough time with one.
American accent and oneScottish guy when they get going
.
So yeah.
I can only imagine.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
So you're in the Detroit area, you said.

Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
Yeah, all three of us are.
Yeah, metro Detroit, west sideand north side of the metro area
.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
So yeah, Okay, so one of the directors for the
Warbirds just passed away.
He's from Detroit and workeddown at the Detroit airport
working for Jack Roush andkeeping his airplanes FAA
certified.
I've known John Russman formany, many years 30 plus years

(01:04:47):
and he's the one that said, yeah, let's let him do it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
Very good.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
He's a silent key and it was always funny he would
come here at least 10 times aday just to get out of meetings.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Well, I like that he hadn't out.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
I mean, when you got a trailer full of toys.
I think that's a good plan.

Speaker 4 (01:05:08):
Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
It's easy to get distracted, yeah, but I guess
from our point of view, ray, Ireally do want to thank you, by
the way, for your time.
You've been more than generouswith us and we've really enjoyed
hearing the stories.

Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
And I said we were going to go 30 minutes and I
think we're over an hour now.
So well, he laughed at us whenwe suggested that.
So he knew he knew better.
He's warning us right at thebeginning that that wasn't going
to be how it was going to be,and I'm grateful for it.
Ray, certainly, like I said,now that we mentioned Hamcation,
if you're going to be downthere, we certainly will find
you down there, because I thinkthat's in the plans for us this
winter, because, of course,being in Detroit, we have no

(01:05:50):
reason to stay here all winter.
We've got to go to Florida forat least a weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Got to.
We have no reason to stay hereall winter.
We got to go to.

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
Florida for at least a weekend Stay sane, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
Well, you guys may not ever invite me again,
because I'm a Blackhawks fan.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
That's OK.
I'm a hockey fan in general, soyou're still welcome.
I mean, it's questionable now,but I think we can say out loud
that the Red Wings haven't beenon the greatest run.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
for the last couple or many years it Red Wings
haven't been on the greatest runfor the last couple or many
years.
It's looking like that, Ray.
It's looking like that,unfortunately.
Feels like another era.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
I will say living only four hours from Chicago,
there's enough crossover andpeople that have moved here or
there.
We have to be nice to thepeople who like the other teams.
It's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Well, I got a good friend of mine that works at
ICOM Canada.
They're out of British Columbiaand it pains him to fly through
Chicago here, especially whenthe Blackhawks are in for the
Stanley Cup.
He goes the ugliest colors youcould ever imagine are hanging

(01:06:50):
at O'Hare Airport and he evenjokes.
He goes man, I'm going to haveto become a Seattle Kraken fan
to get a Stanley Cup.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
Don't do that to yourself.
Despite its origins being fromCanada, they haven't had much
luck in the Cup for many years.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Florida just keeps winning.
So I guess you just have to bein Florida now.
That's the secret, Turns out.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
If you, if you, if you get paid really well and and
you want to live in a reallynice place, you go down and play
hockey in florida you go youput you're on the ice all day
and then you go out to the beachat night and save yourself a
mai tai.
It sounds like a pretty solid,solid setup for me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Now I do have a show idea for you guys okay we're all
ears tales ears Tales from Ooh,okay.
Because I did go through bothMFJ technical support as well as
ICOM technical support and someof the tales that I could share
with you guys that just makeyou laugh hysterically.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
I will also admit that I'm taking the note now and
we're going to take you up onit.

Speaker 4 (01:07:53):
I was going to say I say we have Ray back and we do
Tales from Tech support.
Absolutely, I think we'll behaving a good laugh.
I can only imagine.
I know some of the stupidthings I've done.
I can only imagine what otherpeople have done.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
I did tech support for five years, so I know.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
There you go.
You guys could share some ofyours too, but I'll share one
with you to give you an idea.
Okay, icom had a T21 at onetime.
It was a two meter handheld,micro handheld.
It was about five inches talland part of that was a nickel
cadmium battery that popped inthe bottom of it.
So we're talking about fourlayer boards and very complex

(01:08:36):
design.
Guy calls me up and I keephearing a stupid clicking noise.
He goes I'm looking at your T21, click, click.
I'm wanting to do the Mars modto it.
Click, click.
I've got it open.
I go okay, what board are youlooking at, sir?
And he tells me, click, click.
I go.
You know what, sir?
The best thing for you to do isto put it all back together.

(01:08:58):
Well, why is that?
I go.
You come anywhere close to thatboard with that Weller 100-watt
gun that I keep hearing youheating up.
You're going to vaporize tracesin the board and you're going
to be SOL.
He's like what do you mean?

(01:09:19):
How did you know?
I had one of those?
I said I can hear you clickingit to heat it up.

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
Yeah, that's funny, that is that's, that's
impressive.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
So when you guys go to rig picks, look at the T21,
you'll fully understand.
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:09:33):
I have it up.
I'm sure Jim has it up now.
Oh yeah, no, I I've got it up.
I can't say I can't say I'veever, I've ever seen that one
and I I've seen.
I'm usually pretty good withthe obscure.
There you go, jim, there's your, there's your next one you got

(01:09:54):
to find I was just gonna sayit's.

Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
It's one of those ham swap hunts.
Now.
Next time I see one sitting ona table abandoned two meter.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Two meter transceiver with 440 receive.
It was called abandoned halfabandoned half, all right and we
had the one that's even morerare is the t41, which was a uhf
transceiver with two meterreceive see that well, well,

(01:10:22):
that's I do love.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
I do love finding those what do we want to call
them?
Little treasures?
When you go to the swap.
They've they've been abandoned.
Nobody really understands justhow cool those were back when
they first launched.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Right, they've kind of been forgotten, but that's
just a great one the z1a isanother one where the front
panel would remove off the radio.
Then you would put your speakermicro adapter, snap it in the
head place and then snap it, andthen it was your speaker mic.
Yep, yep, the A4L killed it.
Instead of talking about thetechnical wonder it was, they

(01:10:57):
trashed it because the audio wastinny.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
Oh, because the speaker was in the removable
head portion so it had to besmaller.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
It was a ceramic disc .
I mean, there again, it's thattechnology Absolutely.
I mean we even had the 900 andthe 901 that we ended up using
fiber optics because we neededthe data throughput that you
could not get on wire.

(01:11:25):
So it was expensive to remotethe head of the radio because it
all communicated over fiberoptics.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
You said that was the ICOM 901,.
Huh, all right, I'm going tohave to look that up too.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
909.01.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Oh, my okay.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
A lot of ham radio operators would take the rf
modules.
I mean it came as two meter 440, but then you could add a 220
module, an expanded receivemodule, a 10 meter fm module and
the guys I'm looking the guyswould take a repeater controller
that would take one of those rfmodules and then you'd add a
band to your repeater.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
Oh, wow, okay, Yep, I see it listed here.
The optical fiber cableinterface unit E766 was the
number for it, apparently.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
That is a cool-looking radio.
I won't lie.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Yeah, that was a sexy little radio from back in the
day.
Now I think it's like it mighthave had 50 memory channels.
And today's people, man, theygo nuts over how expensive the
handhelds are.
My first radio that I boughtwas not an ICOM, it was formerly
known as Trio, and that thingwas $650 in the late and you had

(01:12:50):
to buy the tone encoder,decoder board to access the
repeaters, which was another $75and, trust me, mfj didn't pay
that well that one took a littlesaving for.

Speaker 3 (01:13:06):
Yes, it did.
Jeez, see, those are someawesome gems to hear.
Like I didn't have any ideasome of the cool stuff that you
guys had put out in the past.
I always love finding out aboutthose older rigs that just had
unusual and awesome engineeringfor their time, or things that
were pushing the envelope evenway back when.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
And one of the things that's kept me with ICOM over
30 years is I've met the founder.
He's a real nice gentleman andfirst time I met him was at a
land mobile show.
We start talking as ham radiooperators and he told me the
philosophy.
His philosophy was to developperformance and technology, not

(01:13:46):
worry about making it as cheapas possible.
And you take a look, I meanpeople complain about ICOM being
the most expensive out there.
But you take a look at some ofthe technology that we're doing
in the ham radio world, the hamradio world.
Who would ever thought you'dfind a 10 gig commercially
available off-the-shelftransceiver to do 2 meter, 440,

(01:14:09):
1.2, 2.4, 5, 5.6 and 10 gig?
And I mean, yes, it's spendy,but you take a look at the guys
that have experimented and builttheir own from transverters and
start calculating in your owntime.
That gets pretty spendy.
Anyway, you guys, I can talkall day long about ICOM radios

(01:14:35):
and the different things thatthey've done and the technology.
I mean everybody wants fiber totheir house.
Why?
Because of the data speeds.
That's what the 900 and 901 did.

Speaker 4 (01:14:46):
I'm still looking at it.
I was mesmerized clickingthrough pictures of that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
That might be the next or you'll be looking for
one in the car.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
No, I don't think I need that in the car.
I'm good with my 5100 in thecar.
But yeah, I'll be looking forone to play with if I can find
one that's intact.
I'll be looking for one to playwith if I can find one that's
intact.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
When I first started working at ICOM, the 271, 471,
571, 1271, those were yourall-mode independent band
transceivers.
I mean the guys complained well, why would you put the

(01:15:28):
operating system of a radio on aRAM card?
And you take a look, that wasin the late 80s.
I think RigPix says like 87, 88, when those radios were
released, which means they werebeing developed in 82, 83, 84.
That RAM card, themicroprocessor on that radio,
ran at 15 megahertz.
What was an XT clone runningback in the day?

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Yeah, shoot, not even close, probably.
I would imagine it'sunbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
Read-only memory and the EPROMs that were available
in the early days duringdevelopment of this did not run
at 15 megahertz.
The only thing that would runthat fast was RAM, so we had to
put the operating system onvolatile RAM.

Speaker 4 (01:16:15):
Interesting.
You tend to forget about those,you know.
I don't want to say limitations, because we were doing pretty
well with technology in that era, but there were limitations
compared to nowadays.
And you guys, icom, neededthings to be stable and make
sure they would work for, insome cases, 30 and 40 years.
People would be running thesethings.
So those were the decisionsthat had to be made.

(01:16:38):
One of my questions I hadwritten down back to the 7760,
actually, what was theengineering time on that?
Do you have any idea, when itwent from concept to Tokyo last
year, how many years that wasand how much time was spent with
the brands working on that guy?

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
Normal R&D for our products is anywhere between 18
to 24 months.
We did run into an issue withthe PW2.
I was at the Tokyo Ham Fair in2019.
We introduced that radio thereat the Tokyo Ham Fair and my
rule of thumb is if it's underglass, give us a year.

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
So, and you take a look at all of the products that
we've launched at Dayton underglass.
A year later, we were shippingit, but the PW2, 2019, we
introduced it COVID hit.
All the R&D that had happenedcame to a grinding halt.
Then, when the engineers wereable to work together again in

(01:17:45):
the same building becauseworking remote did not exist,
much less being able to shareall your CAD drawings and all
your electronic experiments andthings like that that's not
going to happen remotely.
No, by the time they were ableto report back to work no, by

(01:18:15):
the time they were able toreport back to work, a lot of
the components that they weredeveloping had been discontinued
or were short life and we hadto go back to the drawing board
again.
So it took us five years tolaunch that product.
We finally started shippingJanuary, February of 2025.

Speaker 4 (01:18:35):
So showing it in August of 2019 to January 2025,
it took a little while.
Even on a good schedule, Iwould say 24 months is
impressive.
I'm actually surprised it'sthat short.
Of course, you guys have a fairamount of people working for
you, but the ham radiomanufacturers don't have
unlimited resources.
You guys still have, you know,all your various divisions and
I'm sure people spread outacross all of them to do various

(01:18:57):
things.
So that's pretty good.
Two years, I would say.
So that was one of mycuriosities for sure, especially
with how complex the 7760 was,especially since we got to see
the guts of it before anythingelse the year before it dated
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
So I knew it was so much fun.
My riddle was the bits andpieces that are in this box
belong to a radio, but not allthe bits and pieces of the radio
are in this box and pieces ofthe radio are in this box.

Speaker 4 (01:19:24):
That was fun.
It was fun to watch peoplespeculate and see the
speculation and everyone tellingeveryone else they were wrong
and that was a good time.
That was a good time.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
And it drummed up that interest, that hype.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
And it was so much fun watching all the YouTubers.
I come so stupid for doing thatand I'm sitting there going.
Yeah, I got you guys talkingabout it, didn't I?
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
See, there you go.
No bad press, right, as theysay.

Speaker 4 (01:19:49):
Heck, we're talking about it two plus years later,
so that's good.
No, that was a good one forsure.
Pictures of people zoomed in onthe thing, guessing what
different things were.
It must be this Ponents.
It must be this, it must not bethat, and that was and that was

(01:20:11):
, without anyone seeing thecontrol head yet, because I
don't believe that was part ofthat.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
That box I don't.
If I remember right there were.
There was a multiple um usbports okay, I and I was even
having fun, the guy oh, it's got200 watts and I go, okay, so
it's only going to have one ofthose boards.
It might not have two or threeit causes.
Now that's that's not right todo that to us stirring stirring

(01:20:33):
them up right from the beginning.
I like it I like it and they'relike, well, do you know what it
is?
And I'm like, yeah, I canneither confirm nor deny yeah,
yep, geez almost, almost had aflashback of irobot.

Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
That is not the right question and shut down yep,
absolutely all right, ray, Ithink, uh, I think we're
certainly appreciative of lookat this.
We said we were going to do ahalf hour.
We're at an hour and a half andI think we'll, uh, like, like I
said, I think we'll take you upon your offer at some point on
the tech support story time,because that I think would be

(01:21:10):
excellent.
But certainly thanks forspending your time at Oshkosh
out here on Internet land withus.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
All right guys.

Speaker 4 (01:21:18):
I think we'll look for you at Hamcation.
That'll be probably where wehave the chance of seeing each
other again.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
All right, jim and James at hamcation, that'll be
probably where we have thechance of seeing each other
again.
All right, jimmy james.
Although there's althoughhuntsville is a big youtubers uh
convention, they go out to oneof the state parks and do poda
stuff and the timing on itdoesn't work for me.

Speaker 4 (01:21:37):
This year I I actually glanced at that and uh,
but huntsville is on my list ofthat.
One wouldn't be too hard to dogeographically, so we'll see
what happens next year.

Speaker 2 (01:21:47):
For sure, All right, guys.
Yeah well, there's some prettybad ones that are there too.

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
So there we go.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
Well, I've already received it.
I've already been invited backto Friedrichshafen for next year
.
We can have some fun.

Speaker 3 (01:22:23):
Oh man, I have a blast doing this stuff nope, I
just said, like I said already,uh gave ray some thanks and just
taking a chance on a brand newuh channel here with the
everyday ham.
We always appreciate uh, you,uh reaching out and saying, hey,
I like what you guys are doingand i'd'd love to support you in
what it is and hope to have youback sometime in the future

(01:22:46):
here and I'm sure that there'llbe lots more to say and do, but
looking forward to shaking yourhand in person and also maybe
finding a way to chat with youon the air at some point here,
maybe even at the W9W station,now that I know where to look
for it.
So, yeah, thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
Thursday where to look for it?

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
So yeah, thanks a lot .
Thursday morning I'm going tocall in sick.
Okay, I like it there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
So Thursday we're usually somewhere around 14, 250
.

Speaker 3 (01:23:13):
All right, I'll point the radio in that direction,
looking forward to it.
I will ask you if you can hangout for a little bit after we
hit the stop button.
It takes just a second for usto upload all the footage here
to make sure it gets toRiverside.