Hamsexy dot com

Jerry WB4VQP, subject of some controversy as his relativley un-hamsexy POV was nailed with a citation for “resembling a law enforcement vehicle:” by his local police. We’ve gotten the good news that his case has been dismissed – much to the relief of North Carolina’s ham radio community. Jerry issued the following statement on his website: “A VERY HEART FELT THANKS TO EACH AND EVERY THAT EXPRESSED OPINIONS AND RESPONDED TO THIS CASE. T ONCE AGAIN PROVES WHEN ONE HAM GETS IN TROUBLE ALL THE REST WILL SUPPORT HIM.

The case against Jerry was puzzling, because even though he chooses to drive around in an ex-North Carolina State Trooper 95 Caprice, there are no emergency lights, insignia or other identifying marks on his car. One will only find about five antennae mounted on his trunk of various lengths and configurations. As pretty much any ham that operates mobile has at least one antenna on their car, this case seems to set a somewhat disturbing trend – antennae are grounds for “impersonation”.

To be totally honest, WB4VQP’s car is probably the unhamsexiest vehicle that has ever graced this site. The antenna placement and choice is very reasonable, and doesn’t warrant anything more than a second glance. There are no 800 Mhz NMOs on the roof, no police-style VHF quarter wave in the middle of the trunk… hell, there aren’t even any lights or visible radio gear to be seen on the thing. In fact, every one of the car photos that people submitted to Jerry to support him pin the needle on the “Geeky Heatscore” meter … (“TRY2RUN”… come on, man… that’s so whacktacular is makes me blush….) Jerry’s car, in contrast, doesn’t even register. Other than the fact it’s an ex police car, it just looks like a stock civilan Caprice with a few antennae.

Jerry – we’re glad you got off on these ridiculous charges… just do us a favour and don’t go out and celebrate with a few dash strobes…. okay?

Hey all –

To celebrate the installation of the Echolink/IRLP bridge, tonight at 8pm eastern (7 central, 5 pacific, midnight zulu) we will be hosting an informal on-air getogether on the Hamsexy Inter-service reflector (IRLP 9008/Echolink *VAN-IRLP*). It’s not a formal net, just a little ragchew session, testing it out under load, and just getting everyone used to the new system.

If it’s successful, then we might make it a regular thing (along with the Wednesday night net)

See you all tonight!!

Last Wednesday saw our longest net yet, tipping the scales at a few seconds shy of an hour. We had a total of 30 check-ins, and saw a few new faces among our established crop of regulars.

Here’s who I was able to scribble down (please let me know of any corrections, as you know this is NEVER 100% accurate)

VE3HBD Bryan from Toronto, Ontario (Net Control)
VE3NSV Terry from Cambridge, Ontario (mobile)
VE1MGA Mark from Oldham, Nova Scotia
VE4UO Shaun from Winnipeg, Manitoba
VE7CBT Don from somewhere on Vancouver Island
VE1DTY Terry from Halifax, Nova Scotia
K8TEK Deputy Tim from Ottawa, Ohio
KB3HQX Kevin from somewhere out there
K9JAC John from Hubertis, Wisconsin
W9ORN Barb from Hubertis, Wisconsin (speaking into the Johnson)
N3TOY Jamie from Vegas
KD7LVX Steven from Vegas
N0VSJ Colin from Vegas
KD7SGM Tom from Vegas
VA3AGF Adrian from Toronto, Ontario
VE7LTD Dave from Vancouver, British Columbia
N3JFW Seth from Rockville, Maryland
K4ZYC Charlie from Melbourne, Florida
K7OOL Joe from Vegas
VA1TX Robert from Timerlea, Nova Scotia
VE1PTR Pierre from Bedford, Nova Scotia
VE1MCR Charlie from Halifax. Nova Scotia
VA3LT Tom from Niagara Falls, Ontario
KD7LVX Steve from Vegas
KD7ZAL Dennis from Vegas
N3TOY James from Vegas
VE3MBA Mike from Whitby, Ontario
VE3SY Paul from St. Petersburg, Florida
vVA3THG Mark from Baden, Ontairo
KG9GP Roger from New Berlin, Wisconsin

Once again our epic battle of check-ins between the guys of the Las Vegas superstation and the clutch of hams in Halifax continues unabated. Once again, the Vegas crew wins out with a total of eight check-ins.

If there are any groups of hams that check into tht net on a regular basis from the same area, take a group photo of ourselves and send it in to us…. we’ll feature it on the site and all poke fun at your hamsexyness (not really, we’ll be kind). Vegas guys, I expect a photo next week.

Also, a quick programming note: Thanks to the hard work of the team headed by Dave VE7LTD (the inventor of IRLP), we now have a permanent IRLP/ECHOLINK bridge!! That’s right, if you want to access the net but don’t have access to IRLP, you can now use ECHOLINK to participate!! The ECHOLINK conference room *VAN-IRLP* is now permanently connected to IRLP node 9008 (The Hamsexy Reflector).

This also means a change of location for the net. The net will NO LONGER be held on IRLP node 9007…. for future nets, please use IRLP node 9008.

Remember, although Echolink is far from anything resemling real ham radio, it is PERMANENTLY connected to the node. Because it may be connected to a real over-the-air repeater at any time, be sure to conduct yourselves on *VAN-IRLP* as if you were on the air.

So for next week’s net, be sure to join us either on IRLP node 9008 or on Echolink at *VAN-IRLP* – see you all there!!

Right now, one of the biggest pieces of regulation change, probably ever in the history of American Ham Radio, is before the FCC.

QRZ.com has graciously hosted a PDF version of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking here. View for a look.

Of course, this has doen nothing but shake the hamsexy hornet’s nest, and the old farts, malcontents, troublemakers and stalwarts have all making their opinions known. Usually an amusing read, QRZ’s thread on the topic is proving quite interesting. While some are for the elimination of code, a great many others are against it.

There’s one factor that is common in most of the pro-code posts on that (and most) threads on QRZ… SNOBBERY. As you are aware, us here on Hamsexy have taken it upon ourselves to point out and highlight useless snobs in our beloved hobby. As with most hobbies, ham radio has it’s share of snobs. Unfortunatley, Ham radio has more than most – which is why we exist.

But – my little piece of wisdom is this: The problems of Ham Radio don’t even BEGIN with keeping or losing code, but a lot of the same people are involved.

(The thread on the Hamsexy Forums can be found here: http://forums.hamsexy.com/viewtopic.php?t=2694)

Another week, another installment of the Hamsexy Net.

If you’re a ham from anywhere in the world, join us at 0100 zulu (9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific, midnight in London, 9am in Taipei) for the HAMSEXY NET. We’re live on IRLP Node 9007 (the “Hamsexy Reflector”)

The live stream is uncertain at this point, as Terry VE3NSV is out of town on business. I’m going to work on a backup plan, but in the meantime if anyone can provide a good stream that can handle upwards of 20 people, please e-mail me at bryan@p25.ca and we’ll see if we can get it streamed.

As well, the IRLP/Echolink linkup is still being worked on. As of writing this I haven’t heard if it’ll be up or not, so if it is, I’ll make sure people know.

As always, we accept checkings via our Net Check-in Thread on the Hamsexy Forums.

Also, feel free to join us on the Hamsexy Net pre-game show, happening between 6pm and 0pm on reflector 9007.

Peter W2IRT sent us some photos of this weather whacker monstrosity he found recently.

We here at Hamsexy HQ always like to see people, whackers or not, keep their 10 GHz nice and fresh in TUPPERWARE brand containers.

And, we also think that he wants people to KEEP BACK 60 FEET not out of safety concerns, but out of shame.

Click on the thumbnail to get the blah blah blah…

We got this pretty funny e-mail today…. It’s from some whacker we mentiond once back in March named “bish1op” or “1bishop” or something. Anyway, here’s his letter:

From: “[removed, although I’m not sure why we’re that nice…]”
Date: July 17, 2005 6:58:36 PM EDT
To:
Subject: Remove this ppage on your site immedately

Pissed as hell,
bisho1p

Now now now.. where to start. First of all, our first instinct was to laugh our asses off…. But after a hearty chuckle over this I contacted our lawyer (you can’t run a site like this without having a least a lawyer or two available to run questions by). After reading him the letter, we both had a laugh together. I don’t know why people badmouth lawyers, this dude’s great. Finally, after he regained his composure, his words were clear and he beseeched me with some advice that could only come from many years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of education: “Fuck him”.

So… fuck him we shall. There are a few pretty funny things in this letter that come to mind:

1. “most/if not all of this is untrue” Oh really now. Which part of “I am a lying whacker” is untrue, then? The part where you’re a whacker or the part where you call yourself a liar?
2. “This will not continue, or my lawyer will be contacting you immediately, and suing you/your organization for libel/slander/verbal assault/misrepresentation/and anything else you are already obviously guilty of.” This guy suffers from dellusions of grandeur. First of all, he was mentioned ONCE in an article dating back to MARCH. It’s currently the latter end of July. As well, I’m not sure how he expects to file a “libel” suit against us, since all we used to identify him was an internet handle – and “no lawyer worth his salt would ever touch anything like this” (according to our counsel). But, if you still feel to the need to do so, please have your lawyer draft a cease and desist order against us. But please make sure to have him send us a scan of it so I can post it on this site. And no, the page isn’t going anywhere.
3. “Just because one elightbars member was pissed, does not give your organization the authority to allow public slander of my character without intervention.” Again, where is the libel? (Your lawyer needs to teach you the difference between “Slander” and “Libel”. We’re only working with the material you provided to us. And, btw… it was more than one elightbars member that wrote us, thanking us for putting a spotlight onto you. I can’t remember what they said, because… well.. it was a long time ago, and to be honest I didn’t know who the heck you were until I clicked on the link… and even then it took me a second to remember. Sorry, we deal with so many whackers, it’s easy to forget. I’m sure you’ll forgive us!
4. “If this is not removed, my lawyer will be contacting you and your organization, and I will see to it that your organization never sees the light of day again.” Bwahahaha….. Lighten up, man!! Dig into your pack and give yourself some of that Epi, man (if you’re infact authorized to carry it). This line got the most laughs from everyone I’ve shown your letter to. We invite you to contact a lawyer. It’s your money, dude. We are quite confident in our case, as our only mention of you was your incomprehensible internet alias, and that’s certainly not enough to warrant a libel case large enough to ensure daylight doesn’t fall on our rosy cheeks again. I am rather puzzled as to why we’d never see the light of day. I mean, Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon, and he sees the sun on a regular basis. Are we going to to be sequestered into the world’s deepest underground courtroom? Maybe that’s it.

Anyhow.. as I said, feel free to hire a lawyer and pay a few hundred bucks to send us a cease and desist letter. And make sure it’s on a nice cream bond paper…. I don’t want it to clash with the others we hang on the wall.

Comments on this gentleman are always appreciated. but be careful as we’re treading on dangerous legal ground.

Oh, and by the way: The page you listed in your e-mail isn’t going anywhere. In fact, if you write us again, I’ll make it a permapost so everyone visiting the site will be able to read it.

Oh…. one more thing… if you had just politley e-mailed us, requestion the page to come down in a very nice manner, the page would be gone and we’d apologize for being a bother. You see? Maybe you’ll learn a lesson out of all of this: The squeaker whacker gets greased. Cheers!

The always fun, never dull Hamsexy net is a go tonight at 9pm Eastern (6pm Pacific, 0100 zulu) – catch it on IRLP node 9007.

Live stream will be at http://irlp.net:8000/hamsexy.m3u (thanks to Terry VE3NSV as always) – good for those who aren’t hams or don’t have access to an IRLP node (sorry about the stream not being up last week – technical problems). We will also be accepting check-ins from the net check-in thread.

Once again, net control will be VE3HBD.

All hams from around the world are welcome to check in. We’re building a nice little group of net regulars… hope to see all of our friends and some new faces on the net!

ATTENTION ECHOLINK USERS: If you want to access the net through Echolink, connect to K5MLK-L or Node #207801 (thanks to Matt K5MLK for setting that up) hopefully it’ll work this week!!

See you on the air!