HamRadioNow: Amateur Television

This episode was recorded in the SIB* at the 2017 Dayton Hamvention, thunderstorms and all!

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Mel Whitten K0PFX brought over Mike Collins WA6SVT, editor of ATV Quarterly, the magazine for Amateur Television, and that's what we talked about.

This is as general a conversation as a bunch of geeks can have, which means it lapses into the jargon and details of ATV now and then. But if you're not one of the ATV ops (and odds are strong that you're not), you'll still get the flavor of this niche mode that everybody seems to mention when they tell the general public about ham radio ("Oh, and we have television!").

The big thing in ATV these days is the transition to digital. While FM voice operators can argue the merits and demerits of the digital voice modes (D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, etc.), Digital ATV is all upside. But there is still a lot of analog out there.

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This show is 99% talking heads, so the Radio Rating is a big fat A. The only thing that robs is of a + is how loud the rain gets in the middle. DOWNLOAD/LISTEN

You know, since this is all about television, you'd think Gary would have slugged in a bunch of ATV video as Mike and Mel talked about it. And while there is a lot of it on YouTube, Gary couldn't find any that came from the guys we were talking about. So if you want to see it, head to YouTube and search for Amateur Radio Television ATV. (Just plain "Amateur Television" will get some interesting results, but not what you're looking for).

*Studio In a Booth

 

Mel, K0PFX, is a great guy. I've had him on my show a couple of times. Really knowledgeable on all things digital.

 

It's bad enough when I punish the community with my voice, it would be unconscionable to torture anyone with my image, to say nothing of risking an EPA violation for visual pollution.

 

I shoot my wideband vestigal AM TV signals into outer space with two cophased 25 element beams aimed straight up from level ground. The ERP is fantastic. I transmit old test patterns from original TV stations with audio dual tones. Wonder if my TV signals made to another galaxy? CQ galaxy DX.

 

HAHAHA, i love it.