Rest in Peace, Azzo (14 December, 2014 – 30 August, 2023), a sweet and loving soul who was always good and loyal, and who never complained despite the cards that Destiny dealt him.
Category Archives: News
W1WCR, Victor Misek, SK
W1WCR, 1929-2021
The co-founder of the Liberty Net in 1974, the regular Net Control Station for the Liberty Net for 45 years, and a great fighter for freedom of speech on the amateur airwaves, Victor Misek, PE, of Hudson, New Hampshire, died on Saturday, 12 June 2021, shortly after receiving the COVID vaccine. He had been suffering from sarcopenia for the last two years. He was a staunch believer in advanced life extension protocols and lived a full and profoundly productive life for almost 92 years. He first QSOed with Kevin, WB4AIO on the Liberty Net in 1978, and worked closely with Kevin (recording the Net, documenting jammer activity, doing interviews, and other projects) from 1987 until his final days, doing his last on-air interview/QSO with Kevin in 2021.
Victor was a lifelong supporter of racial-nationalism and a staunch opponent of the conversion of America into a non-White country. He was also an opponent of the Israeli and other Middle Eastern meddling in American politics, and the foreign wars that resulted. His motto, which he promoted extensively on the Liberty Net, was “Get America out of the Middle East, and get the Middle East out of America.”
When certain malicious operators and government thugs tried to smear WB4AIO, Vic responded with an open letter including the following statement:
I am Victor Misek, a retired professional engineer in the state of New Hampshire and holder of Amateur Extra radio license W1WCR. I am the author of the Beverage Antenna Handbook (copyright 1977, 1987 and 1997, first second and third editions) and have been registered as a professional engineer in Ohio and New Hampshire. My inventions appear in 19 US Patents. For many years I held a Top Secret clearance granted by the FBI because of my work on Electronic Countermeasure Systems. My ECM work was done at Sanders Associates, Inc. starting in 1955.
I have known Kevin Alfred Strom, WB4AIO, since 1987, and have interacted with him both on and off the air innumerable times since then. He, his fiancée, and his children have been guests in my home.
He has provided technical and other support for a amateur radio net, the Liberty Net, of which I am the Net Control Station, for many years, setting up a Web page, news blog, interactive chat room, phone patch system, and online streaming services for the net, which allowed amateur radio operators who were hospitalized or disabled or otherwise prevented from normal on-air participation to hear, enjoy, and take part in the Net. He has been unrelenting in helping other amateur radio operators use these facilities, not only with no personal remuneration but at evidently quite substantial cost to him both in time and money. He has also served as volunteer NCS for the Net and other nets when the regular NCS was unavailable.
He has also, without compensation of any kind, helped me by recovering the composition files of the book I authored, The Beverage Antenna Handbook, from an obsolete computer file system and converting them to modern PDF files, so that the book will continue to be available to future generations.
In all of my dealings and associations with Mr. Strom over a period of 30 years, both on and off the air, he has shown himself to be a man of utmost integrity and truthfulness.
When Marty, N2IRJ, began a dishonorable campaign to ban WB4AIO from the Liberty Net, Vic strongly disapproved of and opposed Marty’s banning efforts and behind-the-scenes slander campaign, saying in a 17 May 2020 email posted to KA2PTE’s Liberty Net email discussion list:
“There are evil people out to smear Kevin. Fake News isn’t just about Trump. Ban the Kevin-haters if you want to test your banning skills…. V.”
And that just about says all that needs to be said on that topic!
In his early years at Case Western Reserve University, Vic worked his way through school as a broadcast engineer at 50,000-Watt clear channel AM station WGAR in Cleveland, Ohio. Victor was a PhD-level engineer, and held patents for 19 inventions granted from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. He was also the author of the ground-breaking Beverage Antenna Handbook for radio amateurs and corresponded with Harold Beverage himself in relation to his research.
He always had a commanding signal on 160 and 75 meters — a real asset for a Net Control Station. He used homebrew large-conductor (8 ga.) 1000-ohm open wire line and a homebrew tuner, feeding a 165-foot doublet at approximately 90 to 100 feet above sloping ground, under which he had constructed an extensive copper ground screen to reduce earth losses. The result was a continent-spanning signal with a high signal-to-noise ratio.
Victor was not only a near-genius, but he was a truly kind man, and welcomed me and my wife and family into his home on numerous occasions.
Ave Victor, you will never be forgotten!
Look up WB4AIO on QRZ.com — ? There’s a Better Alternative
QRZ.COM has banned and censored many people for their political views (for years, KV4FZ was one and there have been lots more, including me) and in my opinion for that reason shouldn’t be supported by amateur radio operators. Sometimes they even lock an operator’s page so he can’t update his information, causing readers to get outdated information. This is intentional, downright malicious — and petty.
So, if you want to look up WB4AIO on QRZ.com, instead look him up on the much better QRZCQ.com. Check it out, and while you’re there, register and make them your new replacement for QRZ.com.
They even help shortwave listeners (SWLs) interact with amateur operators, allowing SWLs to register their own custom SWL callsigns and create a page on the QRZ lookup database, so others can find out more about their listening stations.
The folks there have so many features on their site that I haven’t even explored them all yet. QRZ.com deserves to be abandoned; let’s all register and switch to QRZCQ today!
Posting of June Recordings Will Be Delayed
This is just a quick note to let everyone know that the posting of the Liberty Net and Survival Net recordings for June 21 through June 29 inclusive will be delayed until after June 29. However, you will be able to find them at the following link as soon as they are uploaded by N2IRJ:
WB4AIO is Back On the Air!
by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO
WELL, MY STATION has been too long idle — far too long, since early 2000. But starting last week, WB4AIO is back on the air. Despite the FBI-aided and abetted theft of all my radio equipment, I have been frugally saving my pennies and building a new station (mostly with far-from-new equipment). I’ve been running some low-power tests on 75, 40, and 20 meters using both AM and eSSB with an un-amplified Flex SDR-1000 (running 75 to 100 Watts peak on eSSB and a whopping 18 Watts on AM). It’s a wonderful experience, and especially delightful to make an on-air connection to old friends again. I’ve recently talked to N2IRJ, W1WCR, N2SAG, WA2CYT, WA1HLR, KB1NFS, W1AEX, W4BVT and many others. Thanks for welcoming me back, guys!
I can tell, when the propagation is turbulent or the band is noisy and competitive (as 75 meters practically always is), that exciter power simply isn’t enough — so I’m seeking a good quality linear amplifier to bring my signal up 10 dB or more.
Marty, N2IRJ was kind enough to send a recording he made of me using PowerSDR and a 7.5 kHz bandwidth while we were having an eSSB QSO on 7275 kHz. Take a listen:
WB4AIO as heard at N2IRJ 7275 kHz LSB”]
New Midweek Liberty Net Session!
by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO
THE LIBERTY NET will be holding a special Wednesday night session tonight — and it will be starting at 9PM Eastern Time, one hour earlier than the regular Saturday session. It’s an experiment we’re trying because many of our participants want to be able to discuss breaking events as they happen, and at greater length than a weekly net allows. So check in and participate! The starting frequency is tentatively set at 3991 kHz LSB, but, as always, we may have to be frequency-agile if the frequency is already in use. As AB3RA says, you can never get enough liberty!
Survival Net Update: Skipping a Week!
by Jim Saemann, AB3RA
THE SURVIVAL NET will meet next on Sunday, February 10, at 9 PM on 3.983 MHz. Due to the Super Bowl, we will not meet on February 3.
The topic for February 10 will be investing. We will kick around some ideas about how to financially prepare for an economic crisis such as runaway inflation and/or a currency collapse.
73 to all!
Survival Net Update
by Jim Saemann, AB3RA
THE SURVIVAL NET had its third meeting on Sunday, January 13, at 9 PM Eastern Time on 3983 kHz. We had an in-depth discussion about aquaponic gardening and keeping warm in a crisis. Aquaponics involves having a vegetable garden connected to a fish pond. The fish produce waste which fertilizes the vegetables. Water from the fish pond is filtered through the garden and returned to the pond. The result is high quality organic food, year round, without weeds, chemicals, etc.
Listen: Survival Net 1/13″]
One of the subtopics discussed was the very real possibility of a world wide hunger crisis due to drought and dust-bowl type conditions in many agricultural areas. The food shortage, combined with currency manipulation and devaluation, could lead to massive food inflation and possibly even riots. The importance of emergency food supplies, as well as sustainable personal agriculture, cannot be overestimated. Does anyone really want to rely on FEMA for their food?
Special Election Night Meeting of the Liberty Net
by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO
AT EIGHT PM TUESDAY, election day, the Liberty Net will be having a special meeting to discuss the events of the evening. We’ll try for 3967 or a nearby frequency. The five best-known presidential candidates — Merlin Miller, Gary Johnson, Virgil Goode, “Mitt” Romney, and Barack Hussein Obama are shown below.
Listen: LN Election Night – 2012-1106″]
My personal opinion? Elections don’t matter because the major parties are totally controlled by our enemies, and the moronic mob will always vote the major parties because the controlled media tell them to. So why take even a minute away from our important work of building a consensus for secession and revolution to vote in the phony elections? As it has been wisely said, “If voting could change anything, it would be illegal.” But it’s worthwhile to talk about the charade, and prove to intelligent people that it is a charade, and show them that there is no hope — not even the faintest hope, ever — of regaining our freedom and constitutional rights through the ballot box.
Listen: LN Election Night – 2012-1106″]
Amazingly Good-Sounding SSB (ESSB)
by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO
TO PROVE THAT STANDARD AM (a mode that is very close to my heart) isn’t the only HF mode offering good fidelity these days, here’s a 10 MB mp3 audio file I recorded (with one of the Flex SDR-1000s I’ve been experimenting with lately) Labor Day evening of some ESSB operators on 3630 kHz. The band hadn’t completely formed yet, as these Central Daylight Time fellows were propagating to the East Coast at about 7:30 pm their time — full daylight. And static from the remains of Hurricane Isaac was very much present. Yet these only moderate strength signals — some just equal with the static crashes — are still quite intelligible. I think the good intelligibility is because of the wide broadcast-style frequency response, not in spite of it.
It’s amazing what excellent sound some of these experimenters are getting out of single sideband. For years — decades really — only (highly modified to broadcast standards) AM gear was getting this kind of audio quality on amateur radio. But improved techniques have really made SSB sound better than ever!
For best results, listen on a high fidelity set of speakers or headphones: