Teleradio Veneta serves the Veneto region which like most of Italy is under lockdown. Giorgia and Ketty usually do their show in the same studio but they are social distancing so in this case one of them is in the studio and the other is on a Huawei Android phone. As you can tell, even in Italian, they’re able to go back and forth as if there were no distance between them (the first voice is on QGo). If you need to work from home QGoLive is the easiest, fastest and most flexible way to get on the air from wherever right now!
Every night at 7pm 1010 WINS in New York goes to a different neighborhood of the city for live coverage of “Clap Because We Care“. This is the nightly salute from the people of the city to the essential workers who are on the front lines of the fight against Covid 19. On Saturday night April 4, live coverage came from an iPhone running QGoLive propped up in an apartment window in Hell’s Kitchen, across the street from Mt. Sinai West Hospital. We think the salute sounds as big as the gratitude New Yorkers feel.
Here’s a recap from the Winnie’s first big trip out of state in February and March before our world got a little crazy. Hope you enjoy.
The goal of this trip was to do a longer shakedown cruise, work out bugs, enjoy some slightly warmer weather and visit some radio stations along the way!
El Reno, Oklahoma
This was the first stop after leaving Wichita, Kansas. Originally planned as a backup stop, the Lucky Star Casino turned out to be the perfect spot with full hookups for FREE! That’s pretty rare. You can actually stay four nights here, just pull in to an open spot and then check in with the security desk. Day one also brought our first squawk – no oil pressure indicating on the gauge. Turned out to be a loose connection on the sending unit, so a quick five minute fix.
The next morning, it was time to take care of a few radio tasks, including recording and cutting the network spots for Sterling on Sunday, of course using QGoLive. So there we were, cutting national radio commercials airing on 50,000 watt stations in the middle of a parking lot (with a nice little Shasta trailer in view).
Lawton, Oklahoma
We continued on to Lake Lawtonka in Lawton, Oklahoma, which is an incredibly beautiful place to stay in full view of the Wichita Mountains. Although the weather was cold (still mid February), the city-owned camps are well-maintained and $12 a night during the winter for electricity, dump station and bathrooms. The folks in the area are incredibly nice and it was really a shame to leave.
Wichita Falls, Texas
As a Wichita, KS native, I’d always heard of Wichita Falls, but never visited. We stopped by a few area radio stations and stayed at the River Bend RV park, which is owned by the city. It’s $17 a night for water and electric hookups with a dump station on site in a very convenient location. There’s also a suspended bridge to an enormous city park that leads to the actual Wichita Falls, which oddly enough are man made. Wichita Falls is also home to The World’s Littlest Skyscraper, which was actually an elaborate scam, but makes for an interesting tourist stop.
The Falls… built in the 1980’s
The World’s Littlest Skyscraper
Inside the 4th floor
Blowout!
It sounded like shelf over the radio studio inside the Winnie had spontaneously collapsed going down a Texas two-lane highway. A few milliseconds later, I realized that the shelf was fine, but one of the rear dual tires was not.
I eventually found an abandoned gas station to pull into and started the fun-filled process of changing the inner passenger’s side dual. With a bottle jack, lug wrench and cheater bar, it took just under an hour to deal with the eight big lug nuts and mount the spare tire. We replaced all four rear tires a few days later just to be on the safe side.
Whitney, Texas
Two nice 70’s vehicles. The Radio Nomad and our neighbors the Parkers
Some ham radio action on 20 meters
Whitney is just outside of Waco and there are a wide variety of parks in the area. The first night we stayed at Lofers Bend State Park, which isn’t too busy in the winter, but I’m told reservations are a must during the summer. At $20 a night it’s a bit expensive for my tastes, but electricity and water were provided plus a dump station and bathrooms on site. It was an interesting challenge getting into the site in the dark.
The next day we explored free camping options in the area, eventually settling on Walling Bend State Park on the other side of the lake because there’s plenty of sun for solar power. Walling Bend is great because you can stay for FREE for 14 days in designated spots. I met some wonderful people at this park and picked up so much RVing knowledge from the pros.
Waco, Texas
iHeart Waco
iHeart Engineers Scott Shafer and Jennine Davis are our first guests
We finally made it to Waco and invited our first guests into the Winnebago. The picture of Scott and Jennine is a favorite – it represents a lot since it was taken less than a year from the original Radio Nomad concept. Waco also included a trip to the Dr. Pepper museum, which is a must-see stop if you’re a fan.
Hot Dr. Pepper was a thing indeed!
A mock 7UP bottling operation
Heading back
We didn’t waste much time returning to Wichita, but stayed in a Walmart parking lot, the Winstar Casino RV park and another city park at Bell Cow Lake in Chandler, Oklahoma.
Outside the 19th century structure
The inside can be rented for events
One of the last stops was the Round Barn in Arcadia, Oklahoma, just outside Oklahoma City on Route 66. It’s exactly what it sounds like, but is worth visiting and is just across the street from Pops, another legendary stop.
So that’s the whirlwind recap. It was a great trip with a taste of everything – looking forward to many more to come.
Building demolitions and QGoLive go hand in hand. Here’s an example from KRLD where reporter Alan Scaia covers the second attempt to knock down an 11-story office building in Dallas, Texas, after last week’s implosion efforts were not totally successful. From these reports it sounds like the Leaning Tower is still putting up a fight. At least the audio is crystal clear! Notice each report contains a pre-recorded interview played right from the field over QGoLive, plus the hosts and reporters enjoy latency-free talkback.
Used the sound clip playback and app’s script function. Sounded great. No dropouts from Downtown DC.
Lee, one quick note. Can the script function work with the iPhone’s auto word generation/auto correct? Those functions help when trying write scripts in haste.
Great idea Mike. Already submitted to the development team and we hope to have it soon. Stay tuned.
Meantime here are a couple of Mike’s reports on a shooting in DC which he was able to put together even without benefit of auto correct.
UPDATE! New version of QGoLive with Auto correct now in the Apple App Store!
El Reno, Oklahoma
Building demolitions and QGoLive go 
