HRWB 223 - A Conversation with Bill Meara from the SolderSmoke Podcast

In this episode we give you the buyer's guide to holiday cheer.  The team put their heads together to come up with many suggestions for the workbench, ham shack and portable ops plus a few stocking stuffers.  If you are buying for a loved one, best ham radio buddy or yourself, you are sure to find many great suggestions in this show.

In this episode we catch up with our good friend Bill Meara, N2CQR, the host of the SolderSmoke podcast.  SolderSmoke is a haven for those of us interested in home brewing our own radio equipoment.  Bill shares his experiences both at the workbench and also operating around the world.  SolderSmoke was one of the inspirations behind the HRWB Podcast and we appreciate all that Bill and his team have done to bring great content to the ham radio community for the last 20 years. 

In this episode we catch up with our good friend and show regular Thomas Witherspoon, K4SWL, to find out how things are going in the disaster recovery from hurricane Helene.  We are also joined by our good frend Josh Higgins, K7OSH, from the Hoodview ARC and discuss what we should do, as amateur radio operators, to prepare for disasters.  

In this episode, our dear friend Thomas, K4SWL, tells us about the devestation in North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.  Thomas shares his family's esperience and his advice for emergency preparation.  We had so many interesting topics to talk about regarding emergency prep, workbench style, that we are going to do a follow up episode with our top tips for emergency prep sometime in the coming months.

In this episode we meet Adam Kimmerly, K6ARK, and avid outdoorsman, hiker, and ham radio operator.  Adam has achieved Mountain Goat status by earning over 1,000 points in the Summits On The Air program.  In addition to his outdoor adventures, Adam, a professional mechanical engineer, has designed some very innovative antennas, CW paddles and other cool ham radio accessories.  Adam also has a very good YouTube channel.  You can find him by going to "K6ARK Portable Radio" on YouTube.  You can find Adam's products on his web site at k6ark.com  

In this episode we meet Pat Hensley, W5WTH, a prolific designer and project builder.  Pat has made several intersting radio and non-radio related electronic projects and he features them on his blog site WhiskeyTangoHotel.Com Some of Pat's projects are very useful and some are just plain fun.  Many projects are a blend of hardware (Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, etc) and software (c, Python, etc).  Pat publishes all of his source code for us all to learn from.  If you want to be inspired to build your first project you have come to the right place. 

In this episode we bring back Rick England, KC6UFT, the designer of the 18650 battery tester.  In a previous episode, Rick told us all about the need to test 18650, and other batteries, under load to determine their health.  Rick has refined his tester design and shares his experiences and learnings with us on this episode.  You will learn all about the proper way to test these popular lithium batteries and plans for making the testers available.

In this episode we meet Morten LB0FI, Kjetil LB4FH, Tobias DL3MHT, and Bård (Bob) LB5JJ from the European Ham Radio Show on YouTube.  Walt, K4OGO, was not able to make the show this time. The European Ham Radio show is hosted by Morten and the team talks about many aspects of ham radio on their weekly YouTube show.  Topics include radios, antennas, homebrew and a big dose of portable operating.  We were invited to join them on their show a few months ago and had such a great time, we wanted to introduce them to our HRWB audience.  We hope you enjoy the discussion of ham radio from a European perspective.  

In this episode we talk with Alan Wolke, W2AEW, an expert in electronic test equipment.  Alan has a fantastic YouTube channel where he educates us about test equipment, circuit design and electronics theory.  Alan talks about the projects on his bench and discusses the use of various types of electronic test equipment and has advice for setting up your own electronics workbench.

In this episode we meet Scott, N1VG, the owner of Argent Data Systems.  Scott is a long time maker and innovator that has brought several ham radio and commercial communications products to market including TNC's (Terminal Node Controllers), APRS trackers, weather stations and even a LED illuminated hula hoop ! We talk about Scott's inspiration, design and manufacturing process and learn what it's like to start up a ham radio businses from scratch.