Dear Friend,

A few years ago, I was hired as a consultant on a 11 KM water tunnel project here in Israel, to bore and install a 100 inch steel water pipe. The company, Tunnelkom, in Austria, thought that an IT guy with ham radio experience would be the right combination to have on hand if their communications system needed local support. It turns out that as the "TBM", or tunnel boring machine, was moving forward, WIFI access point were installed every 500 meters connected by fiber down the entire length of the tunnel. The work radios on the site and in the tunnel were Icom IP100H WIFI portables. These radios provided flawless PTT service for the entire project.

I bring this up because this month Icom has asked me to promote their line of Portable PTT radios that work over LTE (cellular) and Iridium satellite. While these products come from outside of Icom's amateur product line, amateurs knowing about them makes sense as many of us who are involved in amateur radio also are involved in work or emergency groups that need to extend the service beyond what traditional cellular or our amateur repeater networks can do. As hams, who may be tasked with using these radios, our ham radio expertise will allow us to flawlessly segue into their use and other radio services. We know antennas, batteries, charging, and don't hold the radio upside down, like on TV.

I had a great QSO with Tom Perera, W1TP, about his collection of 3000 telegraph keys and bugs. He has a on-line museum at w1tp.com where he shows pictures of the keys and their history. It was fascinating to learn that the telegraph was a secret weapon of the Union Troops during the American Civil War. Tom is also a collector and owner of the German Enigma cipher machines that were used during WW2, the code broken by the British. Tom will also make a presentation in the upcoming QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo on August 14th and 15th. He has a lot of history and stories about his collection. I can't wait.

Have a good week, 73,

Eric, 4Z1UG