Exclusive Interview With Chris, N7ICE Founder Of 73s dot Org
Chris, N7ICE founder of 73s.org cares about ham radio's future for today, tomorrow, and 20-years from now. His passion radiates like a stack of 4-element 20m monobanders secured to a 200-foot tower. His signal is 20dB and I count him as one of the leader's shaping the future. Chris comprehends the convergence of ham radio technology, software interfaces, and the Internet.
His social website is not a typical landing page. Instead, one will discover, a vibrant community of earnest operators carving out their ham radio niche on the Internet. Additionally, Chris understands and is executing the social media model while supporting an open exchange of ideas and personal experiences. Basically, N7ICE has accomplished several successes at different organizational levels, while infusing our hobby with a new sense of direction.
N7ICE is focused on building infrastructure for tomorrow. For example, HamBrief Television, HamFeed, Gears widget, cloud function (ie. upload/archive QSO data, social graphing), microblogging, and status updates. What is the goal for Chris, N7ICE as Founder of 73s.org?
He is going for #1 when someone searches the term "ham radio" on Google. Bold? Absolutely. Tenacious? Yes.
Why ham radio given the number of other competing interests for our cohort?
I have been a ham radio operator off and on for nearly 20 years. My original callsign was KB7PWX and of course now it's N7ICE ~ ICEman. Ham radio is a fun hobby that I continue to return to because it's educational, geeky, and it provides a great vehicle for meeting other fun, geeky, interesting people. My brother, Toby, is also a ham radio operator (K7DIG). It gives us another reason to bond and share common interests. When he lived in Phoenix, Arizona, we talked every day to and from work on our commutes and it brought us even closer together than we already were.
Tell us about your first operating experience?
My wife, Beth, bought my first ham radio. It was a Radio Shack HTX-202. She gave it to me in front of friends as a surprise and I was so excited that I must have looked like a 5-year kid meeting Santa Claus or Micky Mouse for the first time. I charged the battery and was on the air that evening talking on a local 2m Flagstaff, Arizona repeater. I remember shaking as I keyed up and asked for a radio check. I explained this was my first QSO - ever - and made one of the biggest mistakes by saying 10-4 when asked a question rather than Yes. Luckily, I was talking to a very nice and helpful ham that simply explained that 10 signals were not allowed on the ham band and I should simply stick to Yes'es or Rogers instead. BTW, when we ended our first QSO he said, "73s".
When did the idea for 73s dot org crystallize for you?
In 2005 or 2006, my brother changed jobs and moved away from Phoenix. I soon became bored with ham radio and went off the air. Every Christmas I try to take 2 weeks of vacation to spend with my family. For my 2007 Christmas present, my wife secretly went to HRO and asked them to show her the most complicated handheld radio they had in stock. They showed her the Icom 91AD D-Star radio which she bought on the spot and wrapped under the tree.
Christmas morning, I opened it and had never heard of D-Star. After reading through the manual briefly, I was excited if not more so than my own kids! The power of digital ham radio communications from the palm of your hand interfacing with the Internet and being able to talk to someone around the globe inspired my to tell the world about this amazing new technology.
Keep in mind that I am a geek and was very familiar with VoIP and I had heard about IRLP and even offered to invest in the venture early on. This was digital routing over a new ham network with data capabilities! I had used Twitter for a little while and Facebook and I developed a social network for beer lovers called Chug'd the previous Christmas vacation. It all kind of hit me that a new era of ham radio was upon us - digital communications, social networking, and web 2.0 rich user interfaces.
I spent a couple of days looking around the web but couldn't find anything online remotely close to what this new era could involve so I set out to scratch my own itch and starting searching for a domain. You can only imagine my surprise to see that the previous owner of 73s.org had let the domain renewal elapse - so I grabbed it immediately. Three letter domains are incredibly rare and I thought that .org matched the spirit of ham radio. I am well known for being able to conceive and start up new business ventures in a 2 week vacation period and that is pretty much what happened with 73s.org!
What motivated you to sacrifice personal time and resources for ham radio's premier social networking site?
I'm flattered that you called 73s.org ham radio's premier social networking site! That was the vision in 2007 and the site has been experiencing healthy growth ever since. I really enjoy software development equally as much as I love to geek out on ham radio. Some people watch TV or solve crossword puzzles for fun. I build web applications! Building 73s.org has been a labor of love for me. I have met so many awesome and encouraging people - like you - through the site and on Twitter. You personally motivated me to develop the Gear section of the site. This section allows people to show off and talk about their ham radio gear that they have accumulated over the years and one day they they'll even be able to trade it online as well.
Can you give us a brief history of the development of Web2.0?
I started noticing a social and open API trend in Web applications staring in 2004. By 2005, a buzz started developing around the Web 2.0 moniker. No one could really define it but you knew it when you saw it. These new Web 2.0-labeled sites had lots of rounded corners, open APIs to use for developing mashups against them, a social aspect such as friend or follow options, RSS feeds, and the belief that people could contribute content/data to your site and the more people contributed - the better your site and value proposition could be for humankind. This is still the basic recipe of 73s.org.
Describe your vision for 73s dot org going into Web2010?
2010 is going to be a great year for 73s.org! I have been dabbling with video integration and ham net operator tools for the site. I recently acquired a few new awesome domains including 73s.com and hamrad.io. We may be able to use these domains to our benefit to improve Search Engine Optimization. We will continue with more APRS and Twitter integration and will probably begin expanding into Facebook Connect functionality. We will not stop enhancing the site until Google has 73s.org listed as the number search result for ham radio - and even then we may take only 1 day off. Hi hi :)
What is your favorite aspect of ham radio?
It is difficult to pinpoint my favorite mode of operation or interest in ham radio but it's easy to pinpoint my favorite aspect of the hobby and that is meeting new and interesting people. This hobby has some of the smartest, friendliest, and honest people in it that you will ever meet. If you watch my HamBrief.TV series of videos, you will probably notice that I absolutely love HamFests and luckily we have many of them in Arizona. I love getting up early, making a thermos of coffee, grabbing video cameras and cash, and spending the day interviewing people about their wares and enjoying the geekiness that goes along with the hobby of invention. Back to modes, I am fascinated with satellite communications, D-Star, and APRS. I have also grown extremely fond of learning about antennas and QRP.
Tell us about the convergence of ham radio, social networking, and the Internet?
Many hams will complain and tell you that the Internet should not be involved in ham radio and that the first social network was actually ham radio. I don't see any boundaries. IRLP, Echolink, and D-Star require the Internet to make the technologies work and ham radio is better for these inventions. Even 73s.org and Twitter have connected me with hams around the world with similar interests which we ultimately scheduled QSOs online for D-Star or HF meetups. At the rate technology and social networking is changing, you can continue to expect these lines to blur and the Internet will continue to be more involved in ham radio.
What about HamBrief?
HamBrief.TV started as a way for me to explain all of the social networking features of 73s.org through a series of videos and screen casts. What surprised me was the number of positive responses that I received from the initial series. I guess that I didn't realize how little video content was and is still available online for our hobby. BTW, my favorite videos online are from Randy K7AGE. HamBrief.TV is steadily growing by the week and we continue to invest in HD equipment, better microphones, lighting, software, and even a green screen. I would like to position HamBrief.TV as the authority on new and innovative ham ideas, inventions, gadgets, and news. Our viewership numbers have recently been exceeding 3,000 views per episode and that's a very small portion of the hams around the world that can watch it online. The show also allows for my inner ham to make an appearance once a week. Hi hi :)
What is the role of 73s dot org in ham radio?
I view the role of 73s.org as a community for connecting the new breed of ham radio operators and enthusiasts ~ especially new hams (both young and not so young). We only have 1 simple rule - No curmudgeons allowed on the site. We label the hams that fuss about the s in 73s as curmudgeons. If you are going to fuss about something as silly as a letter, you will probably also fuss about the Internet's involvement in ham radio.
We want to promote ham radio innovation, connect people with like interests, facilitate conversations, and move the hobby forward into the new era that emerging as we speak. Your readers can help us promote the site by linking your personal blogs to us and/or writing a brief post about us. You can also copy and paste our Gear Widget link into your site to promote your gear identified on 73s.org. You can also buy 73s.org merchandise and embroidered callsign hats to show off your spirit. Any help with spreading the word about our site would be greatly appreciated. Remember our goal is to be #1 on Google's search results for ham radio.
Thank you very much for your support and advice over the years. You, too, make the hobby a better experience. You're Shackadelic!
