Eclectic Tech

Eclectic Tech is ARRL's podcast about the technology and science around amateur radio, and host Steve Ford, WB8IMY, draws that boundary generously. Some episodes are built around a single telephone conversation. Others gather several unrelated items. One conversation grows out of QST Magazine: Ron Block, NR2B, wrote in its July 2022 issue about the lightning protection grounding system at the clubhouse of the Gloucester County, New Jersey Amateur Radio Club. On the podcast he explains the idea of a zone of protection around the HF and VHF rooms, and why a room with spare operating positions has to allow for whatever rig a visitor carries in. Norm Fusaro, W3IZ, retired as ARRL Operations Director and moved to northeastern Pennsylvania, and his conversation covers his station in detail. Ford presses for particulars: how much feed line runs into the house, and what kind. The answers include an antenna in a tree that friends cannot find even when they know it is there, a copper bulkhead with lightning arresters over a ground rod, and RG-213 coax. Carl, K9LA, is the ARRL Central Division Director and has spent his career researching propagation and solar activity. His conversation turns to the Carrington event and a plain point: large flares and coronal mass ejections are most common near the peak of a solar cycle, but can arrive at any time, and media warnings are a reason to think about hardening equipment. David, AD8Y, talks about coherent CW and the work of his research group at Case Western Reserve University. The multi-item episodes are where the show's name makes the most sense. Ford describes plugging an inexpensive GPS receiver into a laptop so free software can keep the clock right for FT8 when operating portable, a fix he also detailed in his August 2022 Eclectic Technology column in QST. He plays the sound of the VARA software modem, sketches its use as a way onto the WinLink email network on HF, and recounts VARAC contacts made on a parks-on-the-air outing with 5 watts and a mobile HF antenna. Then the science leaves radio behind. A graphene segment follows a research team whose graphene-and-diode circuit produces a pulsing DC current through a load resistor, set carefully against the second law of thermodynamics. A quiz about the film 2010 leads to Europa, a moon credited with more liquid water than Earth's oceans, and the prospect of landing a probe there. Sabrina Jackson, KC1JMW, reads the closing credits. One closing asks listeners to keep an open mind and keep exploring, which fairly sums up the method. The result gives a question about coax loss and a question about a distant moon the same plain, curious explanation.