First Annual NAMBPIG Convention

The First Annual NAMBPIG Convention occurred last week in Nevada. This first year’s attendees were Airyn & Art Bell w6obb, and Cherry & Ben Gardner kd7bcw. Apparently, Sharon & Carl Richardson kb5fjx, either were not invited or artie was not willing to foot the bill for more attendees. (Also on hand, still riding on artie’s coat tails was Scott Barris k7mix.)

There were two basic venues, Pahrump and Las Vegas.

In Pahrump, the events included:
-The ‘look what I have and you don’t’ with artie winning by miles.
-Another event was Ben getting on the LittlePeeps Network, using artie’s radio equipment, in which Ben was the winner, at least by LittlePeeps standards.
-Then there was the ‘gracious’ event, in which Ben had to perform various forms of ‘thank yous’, for his wife, for the trip to Pahrump (strange that artie never paid for Ben to visit before, and of course, Ben never had the funds for such a trip being on SSD and living with his mother), and artie had to graciously accept. Equal winners here.
-Perhaps in the Pahrump venue, there might have been the bedroom ‘swapping’ event (as artie has a rumored reputation for this).

In Las Vegas, the events included:
-The tourist event, seeing a show, and having dinner with Scotty.
-A side event was the children riding amusement rides with artie

Throughout all venues, the kids, Airyn & Cherry were able to visit extensively; surely comparing notes on the problems of being married to an old man, their new roles in life, and the demands now required of them (Adult Pampers, Diabetic Diets, Viagra, and sex, sex, sex!).

It will be interesting to see what ‘events’ next year’s convention will bring! (Which is almost as much fun as a ‘Lord of the Loop’ gathering.) Perhaps more NAMBPIG’s will be in attendance.

The Little Peeps and www.hamminitup.net

It absolutely had to happen, The Little People Network. The surprise was that it did not happen sooner!

Glen Thurman’s web site, The Little People Log http://members.cox.net/kn6z/littlepeoplelog.htm, is just that, a log.
Though most probably enjoy the fruits of kn6z’s painstaking, night after night work, and keeping track of the Barneys etc, there is no interactivity.

The Little Peeps are ‘graced’ in that artie w6obb (the Lord of the Loop) smiles upon their group (even sometimes joins them), therefore their audio gets streamed though the Pahrump Receiver.

With the addition of http://www.hamminitup.net/ , they now have a place to post their own pics, comments, questions, and polls. (Go make a comment, or ask a question!)

(Perhaps a future place where they can stream audio if artie cuts them off?)

The Little People’s Network is well laid out, (obviously a template, but hey!), pleasing to the eye (other than terribly small text in the body of the page!), has a few well-known links (but not one to HamFanz!), and a potential to grow into a strong component for the Little Peeps AND their listeners. However, the page tends to 'hang' up IE7...THAT needs to be fixed!

Good for them!

Elites kissed & made up?

On the night of July 7, 2008, the remaining Elites were on the air. Art Bell w6obb, Jim Watkins ki6gu, Scott Barris k7mix, and various other bit players including Jim Southwick m7js, and Bill Houlne wb6bnq (with one line), showed up.

Gu and artie tried very hard to pretend that they hadn’t been on air because propagation has been so bad (and basically it has been), but that didn’t stop the LittlePeeps nor the Short Attention Span Network!

In fact, the Elites have not been on air because there was still another big blow up. It would seem that artie and Scotty accused GU of telling SOMEONE, SOMETHING. So they were calling GU a rat, took all his pics off EliteHams site, etc. and left 3820 (where GU stayed put).

Now, we are right back to square one, where we were years ago, before the FIRST split. Does artie have the right to tell other hams who they can talk to, or what they can say, or when, or how? Many do not think so, thus the repeated ‘splits’.

By now, artie is down to (literally) a handful of ‘worshipers’. So this split left artie wandering the bands in search of a home (what-propagation was not bad those nights?). It is no surprise that artie did not find any takers. I said then, that the Elites would be forced to kiss and make up.

Scotty trailed along on arties travels. When you put all your eggs in one basket, as Scotty has done big time, you are likely to end up with nothing but broken eggs. Scotty only made a very brief appearance towards the end of the night. In recent days, he has claimed that he is working 12-hour days, 7 days a week, so that he does not have time to get on air, or to do the Phone Patch. This may or may not be true, but it sure sounds like a handy and socially acceptable way to ‘distance’ himself from the whole mess.

After many days, the Elites got back together on air. They may have ‘made up’ behind the scenes, but you could almost see the animosity dripping from the radio. The appearance of Jim Southwick (whom GU actually seemed to almost attack), helped fill the long empty silences between the Elites. One cannot help but wonder if he was contacted and invited to the party for just that reason.

That night, I do not think the Elite Hams site, chat, or phone patch was mentioned by any of them. Perhaps they should just take the site down (as has been rumored that Scotty wants to do). But, I am sure that artie will find another loop worshiping subject, to carry the load for him. It is just a matter of time…

(The full, unedited recordings of that night are currently available on the HamFanz Secret Page.)