Liberty Net for Week of April 10-17

Posted on 16 April, 2010 by WB4AIO

Our ancestors sought to "secure the blessings of Liberty" for their descendants. They did not have the illusion, common today, that widely divergent peoples could practice, desire, or even understand freedom.

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

PROPAGATION for this week’s Liberty Net began well but went very long later in the evening, making some normally big signals fade — but N2IRJ’s low-noise antenna brought most participants’ signals in with good intelligibility nevertheless. The Liberty Net — one of the oldest and certainly the most exciting net in amateur radio — is on the air every Saturday night at 10PM Eastern Time on (or near, within roughly 10 kHz) 3950 kHz.

Listen to or download this week’s Liberty Net”]

Here is just a tiny sample of the highlights from this week’s edition of the longest-running discussion net in amateur radio:

• Was the entire Polish government killed because they weren’t going along with the New World Order boys? (6 minutes)

• Obama was soundly booed when he threw baseball’s ceremonial “first pitch” this week. (21 minutes)

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Liberty Net for Week of April 3-10

Posted on 8 April, 2010 by WB4AIO

The authors of the Constitution fought "To secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity" -- in other words to our own descendants, our own people, our own race.

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

THE EASTER WEEK Liberty Net was a session full of cheer, friendship, sharing (of both good spirits and information), and camaraderie in the face of some intentional interference. This venerable net is on the air every Saturday night at 10PM Eastern Time on (or near, within about 10 kHz) 3950 kHz SSB.

Here is just a tiny selection of highlights from this week’s Liberty Net, brought to you by Net Control Station (NCS) W1WCR. The times indicated are from the beginning of the recording:

Listen to or download this week’s Liberty Net”]

• When you have a country with bad demographics, you will inevitably have bad politicians. This is always the downfall of democracy. (13 minutes)

• Should an IQ test be mandated for anyone who wants to run for Congress? (14 minutes)

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Liberty Net for Week of March 27 – April 3

Posted on 30 March, 2010 by WB4AIO

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

A WIDE range of viewpoints emerged on the Liberty Net this session, and it’s no longer possible to classify the Net as either of the “left” or the “right.” Critics of the oligarchy come from far more than one perspective.

The Liberty Net is on the air every Saturday night at 10PM Eastern Time on — or near, usually within 10 kHz or less — 3950 kHz SSB.

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A Tribute to Harvey Heinz, W8MPB

Posted on 25 March, 2010 by WB4AIO

A scan of Harvey's signature from one of his many "care packages"

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

THANKS to Mike, ex-N3GVA, some precious audio files were recently rescued, and we once again have access to the recordings of W8MPB, Harvey Heinz, made during his final days with us in March, 1999. We also get to hear KE2LO, W9OAG, N8ECR and other voices which we sorely miss on 3950 these days.

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Liberty Net for Week of March 20-27

Posted on 24 March, 2010 by WB4AIO

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

THE LIBERTY NET for this week was characterized by mostly good propagation and some of the most impassioned discussions heard this year.

There was some intentional interference, but nothing that significantly hampered communications. The Liberty Net is on the air every Saturday night at 10PM Eastern Time on or near (within 10 kHz or so) 3950 kHz.

Listen to or download this week’s Liberty Net”]

Here is just a small sampling of highlights from this week’s edition of the longest-running discussion net in amateur radio:

• There’s a reference to the Liberty Net’s “listeners in Ft. Meade, Maryland,” (location of the so-called National Security Agency) as one station opines that Net participants are the modern-day equivalents of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. (14 minutes)

• Many AM stations — both amateur and broadcast — have quite good audio fidelity. (18 minutes)

• Why is Texas threatening to write Thomas Jefferson out of its history textbooks? (25 minutes)

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Liberty Net for Week of March 13-20

Posted on 19 March, 2010 by WB4AIO

An early American allegorical engraving, showing Justice personified as a goddess recording the voice of the people guided by light, liberty, and truth. It is a particularly apt symbol for the Liberty Net.

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

JUST BEFORE this week’s Liberty Net, a very unusual wind storm in New Jersey — characterized by brief but extremely powerful “micro-gusts” of wind — caused extensive damage and protracted power loss; but N2IRJ’s generator saved the day, and the Net was able to be recorded as usual.

[wpaudio url=”https://3950.net/recordings/LIBERTY%20NET%20%20%202010%20March%2013th,%20Saturday%20%20%205h%2014m%2000s%20%20%20Source%20%20N2IRJ.mp3″ text=”Listen to or download this week’s Liberty Net”]

Here are a few of the highlights:

• The post-storm power situation in Jackson, New Jersey was so bad that the police resorted to robo-calls to, apparently, all citizens, to let them know about the situation. (6 minutes)

• The American Family Association (AFA) has made the bizarre demand that the orca that killed a trainer at Sea World should be “stoned to death” in accordance with “scripture.” (27 minutes)

• An activist going by the name of “Splitting the Sky” attempted to make a citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush for war crimes when the latter crossed into Canada. (29 minutes)

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Liberty Net for Week of March 6-13

Posted on 12 March, 2010 by WB4AIO

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

IONOSPHERIC propagation was much better for this week’s Liberty Net — the sunspot numbers are inching up into a more reasonable range — and the discussions were intense and the personal stories gripping.

You can listen online or download the recording right here at 3950.net by clicking the link below.

Listen to or download this week’s Liberty Net”]

Here are just a few examples of what was covered during the Net this week:

• An Oregon man who imports “Airsoft” plastic-BB toy guns found himself attacked — and his business ruined — by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), which made the totally absurd claim that the toys “could be modified” into fully automatic machine guns and that they were “a terrorist threat” to “national security.” (22 minutes)

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Liberty Net for Week of February 27 – March 6

Posted on 6 March, 2010 by WB4AIO

The upside down flag is an internationally recognized symbol of distress. It is an appropriate symbol for the crisis now engulfing American society. Intelligent amateur radio operators discuss that crisis every Saturday night on the Liberty Net -- within 10 kHz or so of 3950 SSB, starting at 10PM Eastern Time.

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

TERRIFIC STORMS knocked out Net Control Station W1WCR’s main antenna system and propagation was poor, but the Liberty Net — amateur radio’s historic free speech net of four decades’ standing — continued as usual with more mind-expanding information than can ever be found on the commercial broadcasting bands. In fact, the Liberty Net alone is enough to justify the effort and expense of purchasing a shortwave radio and setting up an antenna system. And when the criminals in Congress are eventually ordered to shut down or censor the Internet, shortwave radio may well be the only way to freely communicate over wide areas.

Thanks to Marty, N2IRJ, you’re able to listen to the Liberty Net right now on your computer — or download the file and listen on your portable mp3 player. And N2SAG operates a live feed and chat during Net times that lets you make an end run around jammers and a fickle ionosphere.

Listen to or download this week’s Liberty Net”]

Here are just a few of the many subjects of discussion and debate on this week’s Liberty Net recording:

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Liberty Net for Week of February 20-27

Posted on 23 February, 2010 by WB4AIO

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

IONOSPHERIC PROPAGATION was wildly inconsistent this week and there was some receiver overload from a nearby CW contester, but the weekly Liberty Net current events discussion was as free-spirited and informative as always. The jammers that plagued the Net last week, probably disappointed by their inability to disrupt the proceedings, seem to have given up. Here are a just a few of the many topics brought up on the latest Liberty Net:

Listen to or download this week’s Liberty Net”]

• The tragic intentional plane crash by Andrew Stack, a victim of the IRS, is just the tip of the iceberg — many good, hard-working, honest Americans have committed suicide because of abuse by the IRS. There are hundreds of other, more honest, less intrusive ways of financing needed public functions. It’s time to abolish the income tax. (22 minutes)

• What was the motivation of the Ohio man who, besieged by banks and creditors and tax collectors, decided to bulldoze his own beautiful house? (37 minutes)

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The AM-864U Broadcast Limiter

Posted on 23 February, 2010 by WB4AIO

The AM-864/U broadcast peak limiter

by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

THE AM-864/U broadcast peak limiter, which I purchased “new surplus” from John Meshna and Company in about 1974, was my first foray into true broadcast audio processing for amateur radio. Like my TCS transmitter purchase from them, the unit was beautiful and flawless out of the box. It cost me $35. I sold it in the 90s (probably a mistake) for about $100. It now has acquired a “reputation” in the recording industry, and good ones sell for over a thousand dollars.

It’s 600 ohms transformer-coupled balanced in and out, with a simple all-vacuum-tube and all-balanced audio amplifier and peak rectification and gain reduction circuit. It was built in the 1950s by the Federal Television Corporation (some were built by other contractors, I am told) for use in AM and shortwave transmitters run by AFRTS, the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. It came with a manual, the most hilarious aspect of which was its instructions on how to destroy it (“use axes, knives, machetes, flamethrowers, incendiary grenades” etc.) in case it fell into “enemy hands.”