Interesting items

interesting items

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, let's get on into the show here. First up, Tommy,
this is do you have an actual email to night?
Is that correct?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I have a real email, not an email. We're short
of email tonight, but I do have an email. Episode
one sixty two where I've built a life po battery
pack says it's from our friend ray Ai too. S Hi, Tommy,
I built a life Po for battery pack from episode
one sixty two, but I haven't used it except for
fun at my qth. I recently used the low tester

(00:32):
to check battery capacity. The batteries are not well balanced.
I'm now using the best four of eight batteries for
a twenty five AM pack. Had good fund building the
design and learned a lot from the experience. Knows that
you did not use the battery pack during the field day.
I wonder if you may have also had the same
experience I have. Newer packs may have improved internal bms.

(00:54):
Your thoughts would be appreciated. But we did use the
battery pack. George used it with two rigs. As a
matter of fact, it worked really well all the way
up through I guess mid Sunday morning. The second morning,
I guess it died right, something like that. But anyway,
it worked really well as far as balancing it.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I have my.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
BMS set to balance when it's not charging, and I
found that if I charge at a slower rate, it
tends to equalize out a little bit better. So I'm
not sure what rate you're charging your battery out, but
if I dump ten amps in it, it doesn't do
as well as I do if I do it at
four or five and just let it take a little
bit longer to charge. But then if I had to

(01:43):
do it all over again, I probably wouldn't make two
cells in parallel to double actually, yeah, in parallel to
double capacity. I would probably just get four one hundred
amps cells. Paid a little bit extra money for it.
But if you says are mismatch, you can have the

(02:04):
problem that you're that you're saying. Anyway, I had email
more already about this, so hopefully get that taken care of. Anyway,
Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, Yeah, Tommy didn't use the battery because I did,
and I got all the good out of it too.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, it worked well.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
It was that second rig I was running that was
doing FT eight was just sitting there hammering on it constantly.
So it held up good. Yeah, considering it was transmitting
most of the time.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I did notice the problem when I was charging it though,
that they would get a little bit out of balance
when it was charging if I did it too fast. So,
like I said, I backed off on it in it charged. Fine.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Does your BMIs show you that or you have to
measure it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
It shows Okay, I'm not sure if you showed the
picture I sent you. When I was reading the email,
I wasn't looking at the screen. Yeah, that's that's actually
the BMS. And if you look at the bottom of
the four three point five nine eight, six point one three,
that's the four virtual for cells there in the balance

(03:14):
of them.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
So that's four pairs.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, okay, yeah, and the voltage difference is circled right there.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Okay. Cool. One day I'm going to get a battery.
My my biggest lead acid battery just bit the dust
here recently. It didn't have much much hours on it,
but it was getting older. I almost bought one this
past weekend. I didn't hadn't yet, but yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Thought you were going to when you sent me that
that thing about it, I figured you we're gonna get one
That's why I asked what you bought the Hemp Fest.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, I didn't almost I came this close.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
But if i'd have been there, twist your arm you had.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
It could have happened. It could have happened, because when
I was comparing prices with some of the others there,
it was a better price. Anyway, speaking of that, our
friends from Gigaparts were there again this year. Of course,
you know, Huntsville's their home base there, and wow, there

(04:22):
was something new going on there. I did not know
about it, and you had the they got the new
big building. I haven't been there why and I didn't
make it over and enough time to go buy on Friday.
But maybe one day soon I'll get back over there
and get a look at it.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
When you say the new building, Georgie talking about the
Vaughan bron Center or.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
No, talking about the gigaparts building, they moved to a
big building. It used to be a home depot. I
think it's huge, very nice.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, they've also got a new line of products out,
and that's what I wanted to look at. But when
I walked in their booth there the first day, I
saw several people I knew but one in particular that
I've never seen at gigaparts before Stephen Pan. Do you

(05:17):
remember Steven Pan. Yeah, used to be like one of
the head honchos at MFJ.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
He was a guy that was doing all the technical
stuff in the background and keeping everything running. And I
assume he was feeding the picking place machines and all
of that, giving them the data. I don't know that,
but he did a lot of the underlying work like that. Well.

(05:48):
He retired a few years ago. I believe he moved
to Huntsville and he got tired of being retired, so
he hooked up with gigaparts and they got a new
line of products here. I saw him on Saturday and
it was real busy, so I told him I would
come back later, and I was thinking, well, Sunday would

(06:09):
be the best day, but he wasn't there. This is
what happened, and it wouldn't be Huntsful without a stop
by the gigaparts booth to see what's going on. Had
visited yesterday with Stephen Pan, who I've known from a
number of years, worked with MFJ and did a lot

(06:30):
of stuff that you would wonder who did it. It
was him. He is now with Giga Parts. And I
came back today and I asked Stephen Pan here. No,
we don't have a Stephen Pan today, but we do
have a Stephen molow Ki four kwr Steve. Good to

(06:50):
see you, Good to see you, guys.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Welcome to Gigaparts and twenty twenty four on spril him
almost at Hamvention hamp Fest.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah. I wish I could have made it over in
time on Friday to come out of the new store.
I would like to see it. Tommy's been there. I've
got to make it by though. One day I went
to the old one. But he tells me it's something.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
It is huge if you haven't been there, fifty thousand
square feet. It is not just amateur radio. We have
three D printing makers, photography, astronomy, games every day. Carry
there's much more in course, computers, which was you know,
one of the base things of when gigabarts started over
twenty five years ago.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
And you've got a new line here. This is this
is basically what I wanted to talk about. Intelatron. Tell
me a little bit about Intelltron. This this is will.
It's brand new to Gigaparts.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
It is brand new.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
So about a year and a half ago, we thought
there is a demand in the market for these products
that we are now offering. So between even Panning myself
and a few others, we we started reaching out to
the companies where to get these products. He did a
lot of the lakework getting the products here, and then

(08:10):
the rest of us was the marketing, writing the manuals,
proper wording, and just giving something to the amateur radio enthusiasts.
What do they need? And here we are with all
these products, and we're not stopping. We have a lot more.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
On the way.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
This is just a little you know, the beginning. So
this is not just okay, this is what we're gonna have.
There is a lot more on the horizon with Intellatron
and product line.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Just the lancing here. I see, you've got the nice
fiberglass pose with the tropods. You've got wat maters, you've
got power supplies, antenna switches, clocks, mumbile antennas. Where is
it going, Well.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
We got let's see, we've got the antennas covered. We've
got your power supplies. Coax will leave that to the
to the competitors. That one's a hard animal.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Clocks.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
I debuted the clocks at Orlando this year and I
sold out Saturday afternoon of what I brought at clocks.
We've had to bring in additional supply here at Huntsville.
So we hit that. We hit that mark. What is
next on the horizon. I can't give everything out.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
But.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
I would say stay tuned for power distribution, mass and tripods.
What you see here is just a little bit. We've
got more on the way now. Probably by October we'll
have a lot more of the mass and tripods. Tuners.
I would love to have tuners. It's something in the works.

(09:54):
Everybody has been telling us amplifiers that it would be
a dream. I don't know if we're I'll be able
to hit that that that's an animal that's gonna be
very hard to achieve. But never say never, is what
I've been telling everybody.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
And I didn't mention the life Po batteries over here.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yes, the light bol batteries.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
It originally started out as Peol four power and it
came to the drawing board of it's time to reorder.
Why are we not just integrated with Intellotron and just
keep growing the Intellotron brand. People can get a fifty
empower battery and now it'll get them out and operating
for much longer than a smaller six amp hower. We
do offer twelve amp and twenty four amp hower options,

(10:33):
but everybody asks for a fifty amp Hower and let's
bring it to the show.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
And here we are and they're selling.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
I've had my eye on them. I've been thinking about
pulling the trigger real hard.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
And the good thing about you know, as we look
over at that peel four power is the weight. You know,
a lot of us were carrying these deep cycle you know,
boat batteries and that battery. I don't know the exact weight,
but when an older gentleman, you know, you know, he
you know, he can't lift up heavy items, is picking

(11:08):
it up from his powers here here at the show
and going I can use this in my shack. Charging
with a lead acid versus a liftium iron floss a
battery is different. But they understand that and they go, okay,
I can't use this charger. I have to use this
and it'll last longer and it's much lighter. So if
you want to go out and go camping or take

(11:29):
it to a part or especial event, it'll work a
lot better than that heavy one hundred pound lead acid battery.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
It's pretty much a no briner anymore. Why would you
want to carry a marine lead acid battery? Just doesn't
make sense. You're not well. It might be a few
dollars cheaper, but you're gonna spend that at the uh
that's the chiropractor or you know.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Or wherever and hurt yourself and we you don't. We
don't want to hurt ourselves in his hobby.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
What's a warranty on these bats.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
The batteries and everything Intellitron, unless not specified on the
packaging or on the manual.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Is two years, no questions asked.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
You know, if we if you do have something wrong,
we're going to ask you what is wrong so that
when we do get it back, we can test and verify.
Not that we don't believe you, but we want to
make sure that you get a quality product and that
you're satisfied and it's you know, everything with Intelligent is
economically priced.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Say thanks for talking to me and tell me a
little bit about a teletron. What's going on with gigabarts here?
Great to see you, and I hope we'll run into
you at Dayton if I don't make it back over
to Hansville and come by the big store here.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Thank you for stopping by.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
And you know, like I said earlier, and Teletron is growing,
and hope to see.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
You in Dayton, all right, seven three seven three, Thank you.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
I'm excited.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Those were some really nice looking clocks there. I know
that you saw a little flicker there on the screen
that was rain right of the camera doing that. In
real life, they don't do that.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
They really liked the little Nixy Tube when Yeah, I want.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
To get one of those Nixy Tube clocks.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
They're cool.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, they're sharp.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
There was when I was at the store, they had
a pretty nice selection of Intel trying stuff. I actually
bought a speaker, an Intel trying speaker when I was there,
and they said they were getting more things in. I
imagine they're going to probably kind of build out that
line and probably uh some of the stuff where Martin,
you know, is shutting down stuff, probably fill in the

(13:35):
gap on a lot of that stuff, which is great.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah it is. I picked up something while I was
there in their booth. Now I didn't buy a whole
lot this year. We'll we'll look out of here a
little bit. But this one thing I bought here. Tell me,
I was thinking you and I would open it, But
since you're operating remote tonight, I'll just have to open
it by myself. Okay, I think I can do it.

(14:00):
They were so no.

Speaker 4 (14:02):
Way, is that like a surprise.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Pack mystery box, and they had They had several different
ones and different price ranges. This one is the tech
enthusiast option to mystery box. This is just a twenty
dollars version. You can hear there's something in there. It's
not a cat y.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
You don't want to let the cat out of the box.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
It seems like they had another range there that was
called Outdoors or something similar to that. They had one
that was called ed C.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Every Day Carry.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, you know when I heard that, I said, wait
a minute, they're selling guns there. Now. No, I don't
think so. But uh yeah, every day carry. That's just
like stuff you keep in your pocket.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Huh yeah, knives, flashlights, usually some kind of utility stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Okay, well, let's see what's in this box right here.
I have no idea. I haven't opened it yet.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
Wow, that's like that's almost the same dimension of the
ones that RadioShack used to carry.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, it is, but I'm pretty sure it's not going
to be the same thing here. It doesn't feel as
heavy as a radio shack and it doesn't rattle like
it's as many parts as was in a radio shackman,
But what is that? Oh? There are several times. No,
it's not jello mold.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
What is that USB stick?

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, this is a sixty four, giveabite, don't drive.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
He'd be calculating with his like fake cash register.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
And it looks like it's USB three. Looks like it's
blue up in there, so yeah, that'll be handy. Yeah,
it's uh, what is that? I don't know. There's a
little screw here on the side. Okay, you can unscrew

(16:22):
it and that I don't know what that. Oh you
pull it out, okay, and that's how you hook it
on something.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Oh okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Nice this it's a nondescript white box. Oh wow, this
could come in handy right here.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
We could have used a pair of those a few
months ago for you upgrade to AC.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, well it has batteries in it, but it's not
doing anything well out.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
That little cardboard tab.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
This car. What in the world. Would there be a
cardboard tab in there for Oh wow, okay, I'm gonna
have to look in here now and figure out how

(17:34):
you hack this thing and put your own message in there.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
That's cool. Persistence of vision. Yeah, I had no idea
that was me neither that. That's pretty amazing.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
If we could have used these in here back before
I had the the new air conditioner Tommy.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yes, I say, all ago, I could use a pair
of them.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Cool, well, that's mate.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
I don't think I've ever seen like a little portable
fan with the POV built in like that before. That's
really neat.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, let's see what else is in there? Wow? Oh wow,
the seventy two hundred million half your hour mini power bank.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
Get your twenty bucks worth out of that for sure?
Absolutely yeah, nothing. Hang on, let's see if the mail approves. Yeah,
I meil approofs. Yeah, I would say you twenty bucks
worth I think so. Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty good.

(18:52):
And of course, of course, now everybody's going to order
based on what you got in your box. They'll get theirs,
and it'll be a box of resisters something.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, it won't be. They're all different. But suppose Okay,
little switch there. I guess you hit that to check
the charge, and this one's fully charged. It's got a
standard old USB on it. It's got a USBC and
a micro USB. I believe that's what that one is. Cool.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
I'm a believer. You can't have too many of those either, man.
I have a couple of big ones, but I have
little ones. I use time time too to power my
camera various things.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
So looking over here, I'd say, you have a window there, George.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
I would say that's at least twenty dollars worth take
to knife out because I turned out.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
For that POV fan. I'd probably pay twenty bucks just
for that. Yeah, the novelty factor is well worth.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
That, and probably the battery and the USB beastick would
be twenty dollars worth alone. Oh yeah, yeah, I like
the battery. Actually, I like the USB stick too with
the batteries. Nice size, it's a good filling battery. It's
it's got some half.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
To guise of a smaller cell phone.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yes, so a little bigger than the original iPhone. That's
what you get for twenty dollars. That's what I got
for twenty dollars. In the tech enthusiast option two box. Yeah,
you got me.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
Curious about the what's in the the one box?

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, you got me thinking maybe I should have got
the fifty dollars option or one of the more expensive options,
because they say it's going to be at least what
the value of the package is in.

Speaker 4 (20:53):
There, and I know, you never know. There could have
been a Tesla cyber truck in that fifty dollars one.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, I probably wouldn't have rattled the same as that
box DIF but uh okay, nice, not bad. I feel
like that was that was a good twenty dollars Yeah,
I think so. There was also, well, I will say

(21:21):
someone else sort of knew I knew him, but we
had not really had a chance to speak a lot.
We did. Jerry and I had a good conversation. This
is just a small part of it. He was there
with the hall Ham Radio booth this year. He worked

(21:42):
with Bob for a lot of years. Real interesting guy.
I I think it was probably the right guy to
take over sales manager position there. So let's meet Jerry Lynch.
I'm here in Huntsville Hamfest with Jerry Lynch from hile
is It Hollam Radio is that the official name. Now, yeah,
we've been you know, hile Sound.

Speaker 5 (22:04):
We've been high communications, but we've tried to pair it
down to where it was hile Ham Radio. So our
Ham customer's new hile Ham Radio.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Okay, you know, we really missed Bob. It's still sinking in.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
Yeah, it's it's still still uh kind of fresh, you know,
and in the sense, you know, there's times I'll pull
up an email or a voicemail and just know that
he's there, you know. But yeah, we're carrying on without
him as he would one have wanted us to do.
And we're still bringing high quality products to the market.
Everything compatible with the major brands ken would I come, YESU.

(22:40):
We're even seeing some Zaygo brands entering the market Radio Oddity,
so there's a lot of new brands that we haven't
seen in the past ten fifteen years, so we're trying
to adapt to those brands as well as we've done
for ken Wood and I come in Yasue.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
So how many years have you been with Hyle, Well.

Speaker 6 (23:00):
This year marks twenty four.

Speaker 5 (23:02):
I started in May of two thousand, right after well,
actually I guess it could have been June because Bob said, hey,
I want you to start as soon as possible, but
we got this huge amateur radio convention in Dayton, Ohio,
and once we get everything back in the shop, then it'd.

Speaker 6 (23:17):
Be a good time for you to come in. I said, okay.

Speaker 5 (23:20):
So I did that and currently in the sales manager position.

Speaker 6 (23:25):
I've been doing that for the past six seven years.

Speaker 5 (23:29):
Prior to that, I was also a production manager, so
I would build as well as making sure everything was
built the way it needed to be. And then before that,
I started in early two thousand in the home entertainment department.
So I was eating, breathing, sleeping home audio surround sound,
and I said, I need to work somewhere that that

(23:51):
is the epicenter of audio.

Speaker 6 (23:53):
And it was hile Sound. So been there ever since.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Wow, well that's great. You know, it's found to be
a fantastic place to work.

Speaker 5 (24:03):
And Felock Audio, Oh absolutely, I mean there was no
better place. And just hearing the stories, I mean, especially
in the early days, and you know, Peter Frampton might
call on the phone and oh Baba, and I'm like,
who hold on? You know, and I go into Bob's
office and I go some guy from London's calling.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Oh is it Peter?

Speaker 6 (24:23):
I go, I think so, yeah, Peter Frampton, you know,
and and I knew.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
Who he was, but it's just one of those things
you don't really expect those stars to be calling in
and you just picked the phone up and.

Speaker 6 (24:32):
They ask for Bob.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
So yeah, whether it's Joe Walsh or Frampton, Charlie Daniels,
all all of the people.

Speaker 6 (24:40):
That he's worked with all these years.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
So I've developed relationships with them as well. And a
lot of times Bob and I would travel together, you know,
and in his later years we were more concerned of
driving and vision and everything. So I kind of took
that role on. And now that he isn't here, I've
I've kind of stepped into that position.

Speaker 6 (25:00):
So it's been a nice transition for me.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah. Well, you know, you got good products. That's that's
half the battle right there, or at least half of it.
This R twenty two is one of my all time
favorite microphones. Now, I'm I'm a musician. I work for
radio stations and engineering for decades and done a lot

(25:24):
of recording. But the way this mic sounds and if
I get over here, you know, yeah, that's a true rejection.

Speaker 5 (25:36):
And you know the thing that's so nice with microphones.
I mean, yes, you everyone has a certain preference of microphones,
but when people are not aware of using a good
quality microphone, you know, the brands that people use, it's
just kind of a situation where they don't think about it,

(25:57):
or they see who else is using it.

Speaker 6 (25:58):
Oh, that's what I'm going to use. So we really
respect our.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
Artist front of house engineers, monitor engineers for going out
and looking for the best that's in the market, and
we feel that we've got that product, whether it's the guitar, drums, bass, vocals.
I mean, we know how music should sound. We have
a lot of musicians. I'm a drummer, Ash is a guitarist.

(26:22):
We've got a bass player, another guitarist in production. So
we've got a lot of music in the central of
hile sound. And you have to in order to understand
your customer and bring to market a product that they
want to buy.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Okay, so you're a drummer, I'm a drummer.

Speaker 6 (26:39):
Yahd drummer. I'm a left handed drummer.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Left handed? Do you set up left handed? I do?
I do? I couldn't play your set, then.

Speaker 6 (26:46):
No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
You've carried on the full line of how microphones and
other products. I say, you've still got the parametric EQ
system out there. Is that a good seller?

Speaker 5 (26:56):
Yeah, it is, a lot of our customers call it
the prom just as the acronym. But it has been,
you know, and a lot of hams. As we age,
you start to lose hearing, or maybe your job in
your career that you chose your hearing sufficient. You know,
you've got a lot of foundry workers, you've got a
lot of engineers, you've got a lot of you know,

(27:18):
loud applications where that can damage your hearing. So you
want to be able to adjust the settings. And a
lot of times it's much easier to do it on
the fly with a knob than menu diving and forgetting
to save your menu after you've exited. So you could
have fifteen twenty minutes setting up a radio and you

(27:40):
hit the wrong button and it's all for none. So
with this it doesn't limit you on what you can
make your trans your receive audio sound like. And we've
got you know, the mid range parametric keyqu which is
extremely important for amateur radio. We've always integrated a two
point four to two point five booth in the frequency

(28:04):
response because Bob was so adamant about the difference between
p's and t's and s's and c's, So that mid
range and the way that our ears are designed, it's noticeable.
So we have base and trouble as well, but you're
really gonna see the biggest improvement through that mid range adjustment.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Sure you never heard the word articulation.

Speaker 5 (28:26):
No, I mean it was, you know, in my early days,
I had my not even in office. I just had
like a countertop sitting out and Bob was down the
hall and I would just sit on the step and listen.
And yeah, it was, you know, twenty thirty times a
day of hearing that articulation and things being intelligible because sometimes,

(28:50):
you know, we're just dealing with ragsqu and it's fun,
but there are serious times where it's a matter of life. Yeah,
And if you don't hear things correctly, that's a problem.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
So all would you say is the most popular among
microphones now? Not headsets? I'll ask you that in a moment.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
Well, our microphones, the gold Elite is one of our
more popular models because it offers two elements, so in
the day's past. We had an HC four element which
was a contest element, but it was Welly Nelson. I
mean it was just punchy into getting up breaking those
pile ups for ragshew.

Speaker 6 (29:28):
It was terrible.

Speaker 5 (29:29):
So a lot of people like that again because they
can flip the switch. Now you have a completely different
response from one microphone to the other, and then you
flip back and you're back in ragshow.

Speaker 6 (29:41):
So that's a very good one.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
But I probably would say the seven eighty one PR
seven eighty one because it does work with some of
the Icon radios. It works with all Kenwood, all Yasu, Flex, Ellacraft,
So I mean that's probably one of our more popular
microphones for the amateur line.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Let's switch gears to headstats. You've got well, how many
different I'll say, you're right here in front of me,
five different models. But that's not all of them, is it.

Speaker 5 (30:08):
No, it's not a lot of what we have shown
currently is what's in production. We are in the process
of updating our BM seventeen. Originally, when Bob released that,
it was kind of in an emergency e comm yellowish orange.
We've been getting feedback from customers saying you know, it's
a little.

Speaker 6 (30:26):
Polarizing for me.

Speaker 5 (30:28):
If it was in black, I probably would buy it.
So our next production run, which should be shipping in
the next thirty to sixty days, we'll have the dual
side finished in black. The single year will still be
in that caution yellow. But a lot of our parks
on the air customers are telling us, hey, it's perfect.

Speaker 6 (30:48):
For this, so don't change anything.

Speaker 5 (30:50):
So you know, we listen to our customers as we
do our artists, and that's usually what determines our product.
Bob had wanted an Ultimate DX contest headsets. He worked
a lot with Tim Duffy, and Timm had said, you know, Bob,
these are the requirements that we need. So this is
a result. It's a Pro seven. It is a military spec.

(31:12):
It's you know, almost kind of an aviation type headset
because of the noise levels. Certainly they're not the same
as what you would have in an airline, but when
you got a room full of people calling, it gets loud.
So the isolation that that Pro seven offers really does
a good job.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
That product right here is is meat.

Speaker 6 (31:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
I have never clicked one. I had had to see
what it feels like. It's satisfying.

Speaker 5 (31:45):
It is, and you know the thing, every time I
look at it and I use it, it always brings
a smile to my face because when I was a child,
I had a big RC track in the basement, and
when I put that in my hand, it just brings
me back to when I was ten.

Speaker 6 (31:59):
So some times, if I need a little you know, boost.

Speaker 5 (32:02):
In the afternoon, I'll go out into production and just
push the button a couple of times. But yeah, it's
it's a really nice ergonomical trigger. You can use it
forwards or backwards, depending upon your application. So yeah, that's
one option of a of a PTT device we have,
as well as the FS three foot switch. So on
this one it's the older purple version, but now that

(32:24):
we've kind of did a rebrand of everything being blue,
this pad is is now blue, but same good quality
single channel foot switch. You could either use another one
of these two Kia radio to relay before transmit. This
one retails for thirty five, as does the hand switch.
And then lastly, the CB one PTT base is a

(32:48):
base that has pushed to talk in it.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Jar, I appreciate you taking time out to talk with us.

Speaker 6 (32:53):
Well, thank you, George.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (32:55):
It's always great to see old friends and new friends
at these shows, and we're always looking forward to answering
questions for our customers, so we appreciate you being here
as well.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Well. Thanks. And I would say anyone considering a hollow product,
you know, used to be you would line up here
at the booth and you'd wipe for Bob, and Bob
would not leave for pretty much the whole show. He
just stood right there and the line just kayutly, oh
how he did it.

Speaker 5 (33:26):
We would, you know, Sarah or I would run and
get him in a hot dog or something just to
keep it. He's like, I don't need to leave, I
need to get these answers, questions answer for people. So yeah,
and you know of days of past, I mean we
would bring the kitchen sink and they have a forty
foot booth and you know, at that time it was great.
But now we've got you know, great dealers that support

(33:46):
us with products and we're here to showcase.

Speaker 6 (33:50):
So it's been a good transition for us.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
So if somebody had a question about a particular microphone
combination and what should I use with it? Us radio,
what kind of adapter would I need? Who would they call?

Speaker 5 (34:04):
Well, you could certainly call us at our number six
one eight two, five, seven, three thousand. If you push
one for service, you would get Donna. If you push
two for sales, you would get me. But I also
answer all the info emails that we get, so I
try to get those answered within twenty four hours of
receiving them. So I'm pretty firm on getting these, you know,

(34:30):
replied to. But we also have a adapter selector chart.

Speaker 6 (34:35):
On our website. So what that will allow.

Speaker 5 (34:37):
The customer to do is they can enter their brand
and radio of model, and then they can decide, well,
I'm looking for a microphone, and then it will give
them all of the options that are compatible for the radio,
and it won't show the ones that are not compatible.

Speaker 6 (34:51):
So if a customer.

Speaker 5 (34:52):
Says, well I got a Kenwood an Icom radio's microphone
isn't going to show up, so it's only going to
give them what's compatible. But yeah, usually doing that or
sending me an email calling me, we get it resolved
and then we can make for sure they have what
they need.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
All right, Thanks Jerry, Right, thank you, George. I've seen Jerry,
seen him at the ham Fist before I do too,
and we just never really stopped and chatted. But oh
we went on for about an hour there, so that's
that's like Bob.

Speaker 4 (35:29):
Bob made a good choice when he passed a ton on,
that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, Jerry is a talker and he knows the product
line too, and a lot of the stories. We just
had a great time visiting there, so really good to
see him. I've got one more video coming up here
in just a few minutes from another guy that some
of you might know. But first, let's take a break

(35:56):
right here, get a message from my comm and we'll
be right back sun Son and Qso wherever you go,
keep the fun going with one of ICOM's GO two
portables or remote ricks. The IC seven O five and
IC seventy three hundred radios both feature a large touchscreen
with real time spectrum scope and waterfowl display for intuitive

(36:17):
functions and setting operation. So kick back, enjoy the breeze,
and make those QSOs with these. The IC seven oh
five portable radio provides base station features and performance in
the palm of your hand. From HF to fifty one
forty four or four forty megahertz enjoy a wide variety
of bends in the D STAR, DV single side band,

(36:40):
CW riddy, AM and FM modes. This handheld also includes
an RF direct sampling system, wireless land and Bluetooth connectivity,
and internal GPS receiver and more. The IC seventy three
hundred is an industry first to use an RF direct
sampling system and an entry level HI radio. This high

(37:01):
performance radio includes an audioscope function IP plus class leading
RMDR and phase NORSE characteristics, fifteen discrete bandpass filters, and
a built in automatic antenna tuner. This compact and innovative
radio will far exceed your expectations. Bring the fund wherever
you are by going remote. The optional RSBA one remote

(37:23):
control software allows you to operate your ICOM from a
portable PC. For those of you with an IC seventy
three hundred, head on over to Icomamerica dot com and
download the latest firmware to get ICOM's new digital predistortion capabilities.
This technology corrects nonlinear distortion at the final amplifier stage
by applying inverse distortion at the predistortion section in the

(37:47):
FPGA unit. In advance for more information about ICOM's Amateur
Radios and to locate a dealer, visit icomamerica dot com
slash amateur today for the love of ham Radio and
thanks I Com for sponsoring ail trilogic. I saw right there.
We didn't shoot any video. We talked about it, but

(38:08):
by the time they got to the end of the
day each day we were kind of wore out, so
we didn't We didn't really shoot anything. But perhaps we'll
be checking in with him soon. See what else need
they've got going on there?

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, the You know, while we're on the ham Fest topic,
you never did tell me what you got from the
ham Fest. How would you buy it? Other than the
twenty dollars.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Box, Well, the twenty dollars box, yeah, I bought that.
There's a couple other things I got. You do you
remember seeing Wired Communications at Huntsville and at ham benchon
sayes not ringing.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
The bell, but that probably would if I saw the song.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
I showed you their card. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The
guy who had all the led all the different kinds
of chargers, different form factors of LEDs, all the little
connectors and phone chargers, cables and such. I always stopped
by there and pick up a handful of stuff, and

(39:17):
so I did this year as well. The biggest thing
I bought from him, I think I paid fifteen dollars
for this. I've got some of these lights, you know,
these led lights that run off like three triple a's,
but I didn't have a rechargeable one. And this one's
a little bit brighter right here. It's got what is

(39:39):
that eighteen what litium ion battery? You remember the number.

Speaker 4 (39:45):
Eighteen six fifty.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, it's got one of those in there. Plus it's
got a little cartridge where you could put three triple
a's in there and run it off of that if
you were in this school. So it's rechargeable and it's
pretty bright too, yeah, I'll say, much much brighter than
the other lights I got around here.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, I've got one similar to that that's rechargeable too.

Speaker 4 (40:12):
I use it a lot. It's good lights mode.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
I don't think that's at so o S. I didn't.
Let's see now that's just a flicking No, it is
so o S.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
There you go. Okay, I think that's pretty much mandatory
that they put those on everything. Now, Yeah, it's not mandatory,
but it just happens anyway.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Nice light. It's got a big led in there. I
don't you probably can't see that it's huge. The others
I had were nice, but you know, it's good to
have a rechargeable one and one with a little more strength.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, those things, the one with the three little uh
triple A batteries, so it burns through those batteries if
you use it much.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, I've put those averready lithium batteries in mind, and
they last pretty good, but having any charge of ones better.
I bought another one of these, you know, I've I've
bought these for these little U voltage and amperage voltage
and this one, I don't remember the range on it, typical,

(41:28):
probably fifty volts. It probably goes that high and maybe
five amps. I think you.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Test it out and find out.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, i'll let I'll get back to you on that.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
We'll let you know he's giving her until the smoke
comes out there you go anyway, I can sell you
a can of re smoke.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
I've got a project I'm working on and I needed
one of these, so I picked that up. I don't
remember what I paid for. It wasn't much. Oh, and
I knew it will approve. Then I wanted some of these.
You know, I didn't have.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
Any little SMA jumper cables.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, you know, this is the the good cable.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Yeah, I bought some of those when I had that
nine oh five over here and hooked the antennas of well,
I wanted one to hook up my.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
RSP duo with to my antennis switch and something a
little more flexible than what I had, so I bought
a pair of those. They I don't remember what they were.
They weren't much though, Yeah, they're handy to have. I
also needed an adapter because my tennis switch had so
two thirty nine's on it, so I bought an adapter

(42:41):
to APPL two fifty nine. I got a couple of
different ones, the B and C to the.

Speaker 7 (42:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, these look a little cheap here, but.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
They do the job.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
I mean for that's all you need.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
And I got the opposite sex as well, and I
got a little barrel. You know, I don't have a
lot of SMA adapters, so I'm a big fan of adapters.
So about several there.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
That'll be handy for. Basically, all the new hts come
with the well, some come with the regular polarity SMA
and some of the reverse polarity SMA. So yeah, yeah,
you'll you'll find those adapters handy for that.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Yeah, and if not, I just know that I got it.
It's now. It's just peace of mind. You know.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
That'st another thing. You can't have too many other adapters.

Speaker 4 (43:37):
Yeah, that's right, I've got because somebody will borrow them
from you and they will forget to give them back
to you.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
I don't resemble that remark.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
I don't know how many adapters over here i've got.
You've seen my box temmy. It's it's probably well and
it uh in excess of one hundred. Yeah, from adapters.
I got several of everything I bought. You know, I
do video stuff around here, so it's always handy to

(44:09):
have extra couple. So I got a Mini HD in min.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
To h handy for the new Raspberry Pies.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Well that's the uh, that's.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
The Raspberry Pie.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
That's I think, yeah, that's the the men and they.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
Went to the they went to the that's the mini right.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
Mic the micro So I bought a couple of the
micros as well, but I don't remember what they were.
They were maybe a dollar a piece something like that.
Uh then I I like to look through all the
surplus junk there, and there's a guy that has a
lot of military stuff. Another thing I like to keep

(44:53):
is crimp connectors.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Good kind.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
These These are the middle cherry ones here. The way
they're packaged very very good. This is for Tommy ware.
I don't remember the gauge.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yeah, I'd like to have some of those. I ever
confined to those so Gar returns. They got the auto
parts stored them.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
Those are those are two hand or connectors you need
to hands to.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Crimpto things exactly. I got some big ones because occasionally
I need I need a big one. So but they
were like three four dollars, I think, uh so I
got some of those. I got the next size down
some of these. Got a couple of those. I don't

(45:38):
use those often, but when you want them, you need
them and you can't find them. I got some a
little smaller than that. These are. All of these are
really nice. That's yes, another one of those. And I
bought some of these. These are good and heavy too,
and they're the ones just like these right here. There's

(46:02):
two different sizes of metal in there. One piece crimps
around the insulation. The other piece crimps around the strip wire.
So I can't have too many of those, so I
bought those as well. Now this we'll talk about that
in a minute. I didn't buy this, but look I

(46:25):
got two boxes here. One's got Tommy's name on it. Hey,
So I get that over to you. But first I
want to read an email. I hadn't read an email tonight.
This came from our friend Timmy, aged seventy. Yeah, you know,
we visit with them occasionally. He said, Hi, George, we're

(46:49):
doing well. Located here at KP zero one UM in
Poree and I look it up and that's on coastline
there in Finland, he says, coastline of sea. Short holiday trip.
It's useful, found myself as building whole amateur station from basics.

(47:11):
Always do learn something of what needs to know. Next
stop half on there in Huntsville, and greetings for everyone
whom we could know together seven three to May eight seventy.
Great guy, you know, always enjoy visiting with him. He's
in the chat room here. A lot not in there tonight,

(47:34):
but he shared a little video here. Hello there car.

Speaker 8 (47:42):
For in mid coast Feeland City. Here besides of the
sea that hits two kilometers away and beside of the
Cocomaka River. Yeah, I just noticed that I could charge
my seven O five the solar panel which is actually

(48:03):
five walls solar panel, which is an emergency case a
backpack pattery packer there inside. But today directly we are
charging this ernal of five gear here. And I don't
know what exactly do mean that blending the light there,

(48:26):
but we are following the cord and we are following
the court.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
There's an X.

Speaker 8 (48:34):
Which is not for the for the cutter cut the line,
it's for the matter woods. And there is a cord
and certainly we do have a box here, and there's
reading a oh my, oh it's seventeen a Piker Anthony

(48:55):
magical wire antenna and there is our antenna where and
it's going up there on the tiny mast and the
ands on their way there. So there's comfort of seven
tongue old and cemetery.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Great to see what he's been up to.

Speaker 4 (49:20):
From different parts of the world.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Yeah the weather dog, you said, Yeah, he had a
weather dog out there too.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yeah, how does that work?

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Well, you know if it's raining the dogs with.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
Yeah, okay, joke gets old.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Yeah, it might.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
So you know, if you if you're out doing an
event or something like that, you can send us a
little video. We'd we would like to see what she's
been up to. Always fun to share that kind of stuff.
You know. We met to My well, we had never
met him in person, but online a number of years ago.

(50:04):
Because what we've been doing is is it going on
nineteen years or going.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
On twenty nineteen or nineteen? I think it's nineteen.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
I think it is. Well.

Speaker 4 (50:17):
I had a look at the episode number and it's
getting out there, almost two hundred now.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah, and in only one show a month, so you know,
it takes a little while. But we met Timmy a
number of years ago, just you know, through the show
online and he was just beginning to learn English at
that point and he liked I believe he's the one

(50:43):
who told us he liked watching the show because we
talked slow and it helped, you know, with learning English.
So that's one of the things we're proud of st Off.
Yeahs the slow talking he talks though.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
Yeah, yeah, and to me, as I recall too today,
was a little mike shy when when we first met,
and uh, it's always great. I mean we he was
a regular check in on the Amateur Loge Logic sound
check net, and then I think he still checks in
into the logic net every once in a while. I

(51:21):
know Tom's in the chat room. He can maybe comment
on that, but uh, yeah, it's always good to hear
Tomay in there.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
It is.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Yeah, super nice guy. I'd like to meet him in
person one of these days.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
I would too. Maybe he'll make it to day in
one year maybe, or maybe we'll make it over there
one year Friedrichsoffen, that would be.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
That's yeah, that would be the one to go to.
He's not too far from that one.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
No, he's not not. Yeah, I would like to go
to that one. There's another one of our friends in
the chat room over there. Who's that Tom? Tommy Tom
w A two I v D. Yeah. I visited with
him while I was there. As a matter of fact,
these boxes right here that I was just talking about,

(52:13):
I'm not gonna well, we'll come.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
Back, give it, give it away, come on, open it
up now.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Well we're going to see it anyway. When I got there,
I ran into Tom pretty early on in the hamfest.
Oh boy, yeah, this is something he created brand new
a nice device. Got one for me. He also uh

(52:42):
sent me one for Tommy across him. That's one of
his projects. Uh another one here and he will talk
more about these. It's a the kit for a crowbar circuit,
which could be handy, uh particular, Yeah, very nice. I
got a rig that doesn't have that. So our friend

(53:04):
Tom Apple Lennox w a two IVD. You've seen him
on the show here before and run into him at
Huntsville Halffest. Tom. It's great to see you.

Speaker 7 (53:12):
It's good to see you, George. It's fun to be
here at Huntsville again.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
You've run the well, we've changed the name of it.
What is the name of the net now that you've
been running with all the digital modes.

Speaker 7 (53:26):
We switched it over to the Logic Net after the
sound Check Net decided to kind of sunset there a
couple of.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Years ago, and it's been on hiatus for the summer
or summer vacation. That's about Star back up, isn't it.

Speaker 9 (53:39):
Yes, it is.

Speaker 7 (53:39):
We're going to start it up at the end of September,
so be watching for it. We'll get some announcements up
on the Facebook, the Amateur Logic Facebook site and the
other social media sites.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Yeah, just let us know and we'll make sure it
gets posted around everywhere. That's always a fun event. Once
a month.

Speaker 7 (53:58):
Again, Yeah, we're going to do it once a month,
and we're going to do it the fourth Tuesday of
the month. We were doing it the Tuesday after the
live stream, but kind of got hard for people to
do the scheduling, so we just said, let's just make
it the fourth Tuesday of the month, which most of
the time is actually after the live stream.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yeah, that's a fun net. It's I don't remember how
many different modes we have on there now. Is it
close to eight?

Speaker 9 (54:23):
It's got to be at least eight or nine. I mean,
it's just about every digital mode that's out there.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yeah, we've got our friends that have these link together
through hubs, through repeaters across the US. We have folks
from all over the world check into it. So do
check it out the logic net and we'll be posting
when it's going to be on again, and generally before
every net a day or two we'll post out there

(54:51):
to let you know about that. You brought some actual
projects and products with you this time around. What s
that you got in your hand there.

Speaker 7 (55:03):
So this is something i'd call the mini bar, not
the mini bar that you have at the hotel, but
this is an inline crowbar circuit. I decided to do
a couple of sort of accessory projects, I guess for
mostly for some things that I needed, and I thought,
you know, this.

Speaker 9 (55:21):
Might be useful for some other folks.

Speaker 7 (55:23):
So this is an inline crowbar circuit.

Speaker 9 (55:26):
And it's called.

Speaker 7 (55:27):
The minibar fifteen sixteen because you can set it to
trip at either fifteen volts or sixteen volts and it's
just got Anderson power poles on each end. Basically, this
is designed if you're connecting your expensive, you know, Ham
rig to an unknown power supply. Maybe you're at a
field day with a club event. You don't know who's
power supply or what it is or as many of

(55:51):
us hams do. And I'm sure the cheap old man
can attestify. We spend three or four thousand dollars on
an expensive age Jeff rig and then we go buy
a fifty nine dollars Amazon power supply to connect it
up to. So this is just used as an automotive
fuze and if the power supply voltage goes above that

(56:11):
trip point. This will the crowbar circuit will turn on
and flow that fuse, so your radio isn't seeing twenty
volts or twenty two volts or whatever.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
That's a good idea, and I could have used one
of these. Well right after I got my license, then
I decided I would build my own regulated supply, which
became unregulated and ran up to about thirty volts.

Speaker 9 (56:36):
And you didn't have a crowbar circuit in it.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
No, the radio was the crowbar.

Speaker 7 (56:42):
Yeah, the radio was the crowbar circuit part. Yeah, that's
that's the way some of it works. So and some
of them, I mean, you know the Black Astron, some
of the better power supplies, they have a crowbar built in,
so you don't need this for those. But if you're
using a surplus industrial supply or you know, one of
the nine dollars specials or something, if that regulator goes

(57:04):
you could be smoking a real expensive radio. So it's
a very simple circuit. The your power comes in on
the inside and then it goes out on the output side.
It's pretty well labeled, and you would just I should
have a fuse in here, which I don't. You put
just a standard automotive blade fuse in here. You can
put up to a thirty amp fuse in here. I've

(57:26):
tested the board. It's actually it's got a full plane
on the top and the bottom for plus and minus.
I'm calling it good for fifteen amps continuous. It's probably
actually good for about twenty and I rate it for
a maximum fuze of thirty amps, you know, intermittent. It's
plenty for one hundred watt hf rig if you're doing

(57:46):
side vand or FT eight or any of the normal modes.

Speaker 9 (57:49):
If you were gonna if you're gonna.

Speaker 7 (57:51):
Do ther a DOBRL bullet, then send Riddy for you know,
thirty minutes straight. That might be pushing it, but for
any normal use, it'll work for any high watt radio.
And it's just got an SCR so we can control
directifier in here and a couple of zener diodes and
circuitry that will make it trip when it hits fifteen
volts or sixteen volts, depending on where you set the jumper.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
It's very cool idea. That's some hot current power poles
you've got on there. It looks like so.

Speaker 7 (58:21):
This comes as a kit. All the surface mount components
are pre installed. All you've got to do is solder
on the two power poles and the fuseholder and the
little header that you put the jumper in for which
voltage you want.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
That might be a good first kit for someone. It's
a pretty simple kit.

Speaker 7 (58:40):
You do have to be a little careful and make
sure you use a higher powered soldering iron because these
are heavy duty power pole connectors and the terminals on
them are pretty big, so you need a good hot
iron to make sure you get the solder melted quickly.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Does it come with a plexiglass case?

Speaker 7 (58:57):
Yeah, it comes as a full kit that's got at
the screws and the spacers and the little plexiglass top
and bottom, so it protects it from, you know, from
something shorting out on it. I actually do have a
version where I sell just the board, so if you
want to, if somebody wanted to build it into a
power box or something else and solder wires to it,

(59:19):
you can buy just the.

Speaker 9 (59:20):
Bare board and then use it however you want.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
How much do they sell them for?

Speaker 7 (59:25):
The full kit is thirty four ninety nine so and
the uh jeez, I gotta remember. The basic kit I
believe is eighteen dollars.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
That's not all you brought up with you. You've got
a something over here that I think I could use.

Speaker 7 (59:41):
Yeah, I have a couple other products. They are a
little bit more ICOM specific. One of them is just
a breakout board that breaks out all the signals that
are on the accessory connectors on the back of the Icon.
So this is an Icon accessory breakout board, and all
it does is break out all the say that are
on the accessory connector on the back of an Icon radio.

(01:00:05):
It's got more connectors than most people are gonna need
because the Icon radios, you've either got the thirteen pin
accessory jack if it's one of the smaller case radios,
and if it's one of the bigger case radios, it'll
have the seven and eight and I've got both of
those on here, and it brings out basically all.

Speaker 9 (01:00:24):
Of the published signals.

Speaker 7 (01:00:25):
So you've got the thirteen point eight volts, the eight
volts ALC, the band signal, the send signals, and it's
got vsend and h send. So if you've got one
of the rigs that's got VHF and UHF, it's got
both of the and you can use those for push
to talk and in the instructions it talks about why
you might actually need both of those, and then the

(01:00:47):
fskke keying if you've got an old vintage teletype that
you want to transmit with where you just need the switching,
and then it's got audio in and out as well.
And for the audio in and out, I've got a
little audio mute circuit here because some of the older
Icon radios, the audio coming out.

Speaker 9 (01:01:06):
Of the accessory jack is not squelched, so if.

Speaker 7 (01:01:10):
You're listening for and it was actually the reason I
designed this in the first place is I have a
seventy one hundred as my mobile rig and when I
put the when I put the rig, or when I
went to connect the audio on that radio to the
stereo in my truck, I used the accessory jack audio

(01:01:31):
and I found out on two meters there was no
squelch and so I was just listening to static. So
I built this little mute circuit, and I said, you know,
as long as I'm doing that, I might as well
bring all these other connectors out, so that works for
the older ones. And it's also got provisions for six
hundred home transformers. You cut four traces on the board,
and you can put six hundred home transformers in there

(01:01:52):
to totally isolate the grounds as well. So it's just
a handy circuit. If people are doing experiment with their rig,
or you need to bring out any of the signals
you want to do a foot switch for push to
talk or something like that, this is just a handy
device to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
Now talk about how you've paralleled those up there. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:02:20):
The other thing that this does for you is the
thirteen pen and the seven and eight pin jacks are
all paralleled together. So if you have one of the
smaller rigs with the thirteen pin accessory connector if you're
using an Icon accessory or any kind of ICOM compatible
accessory that requires the seven or the eight pin jacks.

(01:02:42):
Icon actually sells a y cable that converts these. If
you have this board, you've already got that function because
when you plug this into your radio with the thirteen
pin cable, the seven and eight pin jacks have all
the signals on them in the same places that they
are on the ICOM radio, so you can just plug
into that. And it's also got a header here where

(01:03:04):
you can bypass that mute circuit, so if you don't
want the audio muted on squelch, you can put a
jumper in here and bypass the mute circuit so that
it's unsquelched, just like it would be on the normal radio.
And the newer radios like the seventy three hundred and
the seventy six to ten, some of those radios, you
really don't need that mute circuit. That's more for the

(01:03:26):
older radios. But this will work with just about any
Icon radio that's been made in the last thirty years,
because they all standardized on those. Once they standardized on
those didn't connectors, they the signals have been all the
same for thirty years.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
You know, printed circuit boards are typically like a sort
of an off beage color, or maybe you'll see a
white one or a green one. But purple, wow, purple.

Speaker 7 (01:03:57):
Well, when I was ordering these boards, the company that
I ordered the boards from, you could get different colors
of soider mask and there was no extra charge, and
purple was.

Speaker 9 (01:04:07):
One of the choices.

Speaker 7 (01:04:08):
And this was shortly after Bob Hyle had passed, and
I thought, you know what, I'm going to do the
purple just kind of as an homage to Bob. And
so the first round of these are purple.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
It looks really nice, good layout. The bottom it's pretty
much a ground plane.

Speaker 7 (01:04:26):
And adam is a complete ground plane except for one
section that's got its own separate ground plane for those transformers.

Speaker 9 (01:04:33):
And if you cut the jumpers, it separates.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
That and that is a good feature. I'm glad you
put that on there, because if you're going to hook
your computer or an external mixer or some other piece
of gear to your radio that's got its own AC power,
you want to eliminate those ground loops. That's the best
way to do it.

Speaker 7 (01:04:55):
One of one of my friends in our local club,
he's got one of the prototypes and he actually put
the transformers in to solve the problem.

Speaker 9 (01:05:04):
That he was getting some AC hum in his audio
and that took care of it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
So how much what are they selling for?

Speaker 7 (01:05:11):
So the board is seventy nine ninety nine. There's a
Hamfest special going on now for seventy dollars. I'm going
to keep it going for a while. I'm not sure
if it'll be still on by the time the show's
on it we'll see. Maybe it'll still be up there.
And that included. The board is fully assembled. This is
kind of a pilot run. I want to see how.

Speaker 9 (01:05:30):
Much interest there might be in these. So it doesn't
come with a case.

Speaker 7 (01:05:34):
It does have the STL files for a three D
printed case. They're on the website. People can just download
those for free and make it, and you do have
to get your own gin cables to go with it.
But they're readily available on Amazon or eBay. I couldn't
find them for a price that I was comfortable. I
didn't want to mark them up and just resell them,

(01:05:54):
so I said, you know what, people can buy them
and then not have to pay any extra markup.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Or you can just buy an actor and solder down yourself.

Speaker 9 (01:06:03):
You can do that.

Speaker 7 (01:06:03):
But the thirteen pin that gets a little tricky.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
With those, that is very tricky. I have done it.
You're going to need a You're not going to do
that with your weller gun, I'll put it that way.

Speaker 7 (01:06:13):
Probably not with a weller gun. You need a pretty
fine tip to do those thirteen pin connectors. I've done
them as well.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
And this is if you were looking forward on your website.
On there is icon accessory breakout board. It's really easy
to find on the website. What's good looking connectors? Good
looking layout. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 7 (01:06:42):
There's one other thing we didn't point out. I have
reverse diodes for the push to talk and the thirteen
point eight volt, so you can plug a relay directly
into the phono jacks if you need to do a
relay for an amplifier or something. The diode protection is
built in.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Snub at itself. Yes, and that's not all, folks. You've
got one other option, don't you.

Speaker 7 (01:07:06):
I have one other item. You know, all of the
new radios today, they've got so many functions, they can
do so many menus, and the seventy three hundreds are
pretty popular radio. I did a mousepad for the seventy
three hundred that has every set menu function all laid
out in a kind of a grid on it so
you can find all of the functions, because I found

(01:07:27):
for myself, anytime I want to do something, I'm scrolling
through all of the menus, trying.

Speaker 9 (01:07:32):
To remember, all right, what menu is that in?

Speaker 7 (01:07:33):
And this is right in front of you, sitting on
the desk, so you can look at it and see
where they are.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
And that's not saying that the seventy three hundred is
is tough to get through the menus of say a
Jazu eight fifty seven D or one of those older rigs.
But it's handy to have it right there where you
can get to it quick because if you're operating and
you know, okay, I need to engage function here, that's

(01:08:01):
pretty handy.

Speaker 7 (01:08:02):
Yeah, that's I mean, yeah, the menus are pretty intuitive.
But sometimes if you haven't used it in a while,
you got to scroll through and what was that in
the function menu or was that in the connector's menu?
And this way you can just glance real quick and
see where it is.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
So where can you find this stuff? Tom?

Speaker 7 (01:08:20):
You can find it at store dot adsh two dsh
Z dot tag t EH.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
If you take your camera and you point it at
the QR code, that'll take you right to the store.
And has a few other things on there, little settle things.

Speaker 7 (01:08:36):
I'm hoping to build up and add some more stuff
over time, but there's some things there for now.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
All right, Thanks Tom, Thank you George.

Speaker 9 (01:08:44):
It was great to see you.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Great to see you too. And we'll catch you on
the net.

Speaker 7 (01:08:48):
You will, and I'll catch you on the next live stream.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Tom caught me totally off guard with that. I didn't
know he was working on on such a project, but
this I can really use.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Yeah, that's nice. That's a great idea. Yeah it is.

Speaker 4 (01:09:07):
I was thinking when I saw the purple board that
I wonder if you did that intentionally as an homage
to Bob, because that's definitely Hyle purple.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
The crow bar is a kit. He's got all the
surface mon stuff mintored already, but the connectors, fuseholder, you
mount those yourself, and there's the optional plexiglass cover and
hardware to go with it there if you want that.
That's a good idea too, And that could have well,

(01:09:37):
I was going to say that could have saved me
a lot of money when I used the rig for
a crowbar that Ola Lenko, but a Linko replaced the rig,
so I was lucky on that just out shipping cost.

Speaker 4 (01:09:51):
But I really like the acrylic cover protective covers, yes,
I really like to see. And that's a great idea
for something like if you're into emergency communications. I'm forgetting
nacronym now, but I was thinking of aries. But either

(01:10:18):
one of those, you never know what you're going to
be plugging into, so probably and you don't always know
if there's a crowbar circuit built into the radio. I
found out when I was still a teen. I I, well,
it wasn't exactly a crowbar, but it was. They had
a reverse polarity protection diode in the radio, but I

(01:10:42):
still smoked the diode. Of course, the diode shows up
as a short, so I had to send it into radio.
It was a scanner. I had to send it into
radio shack repair. Before I really knew anything about electronics.
I had to pay somebody else to fix it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
That's my view of Huntsville Hamfest this year. There was
way more stuff here than there was time to cover,
and I wanted to do some things that I felt
would be interesting and that I didn't know about. I
wanted to know a little more about and people I
wanted to meet and talk with. So that's what we got.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
It was interesting. Thanks thanks for getting the video from there.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Oh, thanks for that.

Speaker 4 (01:11:25):
I got to make it the Huntsville one of these days,
you do. I keep saying that, Yeah, I think I'm
the only one around in the group here that has
never been to Huntsville. And I'm even including most of
the people in the chat room. They've been to Huntsville.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
And I haven't. So. Has cousin Jerry ever been to Huntsville. No.

Speaker 4 (01:11:47):
Actually, right after COVID when they opened Hondsville up again,
we were kind of spitballing and seeing if we could
make it work for to get down there. It just
didn't happen. But yeah, he's never been there either, so
maybe one.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Of these days. Yeah, we'll meet you there next year.
Sounds like a road trip, doesn't it. Tommy?

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Yep?

Speaker 4 (01:12:15):
How's Wayne? By the way? Oh on, Wayne was with you?

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
He was with me. Wayne's doing fine. I didn't actually
both days there at the Hamfest. We walked into the
ham Fast together and he went one way and I
went together, and we didn't really see each other for
the pretty much the whole thing. There's just so much
to see, and you know, we both knew a lot

(01:12:42):
of people there we wanted to visit with and all.
So right, I was gonna get him to run some
camera for me, but it just didn't work out that way.
Everything got shot anyway, So no problems there. How we're
going to wind up the summer here, guys. It's not

(01:13:04):
that much time left now, I know, at the end
of next month. The fourth was it? Fourth Tuesday? That
is going to be September twenty fourth will be the
next Logic Net. So the assignment for everyone, not just
you two, is to come to the net on the
twenty fourth and tell us what you did on your

(01:13:25):
summer vacation.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
That sounds like a good challenge.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Mike, you I don't even know you were so swamped.
Did you do anything for Phield Day this year?

Speaker 4 (01:13:36):
I missed Field Day. I haven't actually turned on or
operated a radio probably since March February.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
That's been that long. I was asking you all earlier
what you did on your summer vacation. Did you even
have one? Mike?

Speaker 4 (01:13:58):
I had one week off, and that's because work had
a system shut down. So with the system shutdown I
would have been twiddling my thumbs anyway, so I thought
else to take the week off. And of course the
weather this year has been crazy. For the weather, especially

(01:14:19):
this month. You'll get rain and sun in the same
day and that'll go on for a few days. The
weather man makes predictions for what the weather's supposed to
be like, and it's been wrong, wrong, wrong, So it
makes it difficult to plan for anything, especially if it's outdoors.

(01:14:43):
But yeah, no, like I said, this summer year is
my busy time at work. So yeah, typically I'm looking
forward to taking some time off, but that's not going
to happen. Well, I'm not going to ge give it
away yet, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
I'm actually off Labor Day week?

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Is that next weekend?

Speaker 4 (01:15:10):
Yes, next week, not this coming weekend, but the following
weekend is Labor Day.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
And actually the next time college is going to be
next Friday. If Dean Martin is in town.

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
I'll be here. I'll be here for that for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):
Hey, I'm just wondering, because I've kind of been out
of the picture lately. Is there a graduate commencement ceremonies
for someone in particular?

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Oh, like like Nigel.

Speaker 4 (01:15:46):
No, I was thinking a little bit more closer to home.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Oh Email, Yeah, we were going to do a joint,
a virtual, joint, double secret ceremony for Email.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Well and not just a commencement.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
And it already happened. Neither one of them even knew
about it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:07):
Well, hence hence the double secret.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Yes exactly. Oh perfect, All right, Well, anything we need
to mention before we get on out of here tonight, Tom,
I had.

Speaker 4 (01:16:22):
Oh sorry, I had one news item. I don't know
if it's handy. There, George, did I miss that?

Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
Yes, yeah, brought up to.

Speaker 4 (01:16:30):
Talk about it. It might be a little older news now,
but anyway, for those folks that haven't heard, the Raspberry
Pie Pico two is now out with the new RP
twenty three fifty chip. Looks like it's the same price
as the original one. Now don't quote me on this.

(01:16:53):
There is a rumor that to follow this shortly is
going to be kind of a wide five version of
that like they did with the original Piko. So they'll
have a Piko two with the Wi Fi built in,
and that's going to be kind of interesting when that
one comes out.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Yeah, I think I'll hold off for that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
I think I will too because my my Pikos. I
bought Piko WS because I knew at that price i'd
want the WiFi in it because it's so cheap.

Speaker 4 (01:17:23):
Well yeah, because other than that, you're you're basically USB only.
It doesn't even have to either net Yeah, there's no
real networking built in. In fact, I still have two
of the original Pikos. Well they're still in the little
field what they come in, those little sealed plastic box

(01:17:45):
type things.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
Well, it does have the gp Io pens on it, Mike,
so you could write your own network stack for it.
I could, but I'm lazy, Tommy. And in final thoughts
not too much to allow.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Again, again, appreciate you getting the footage from the Hamphesi's time.
All this is I wasn't able to go and see
you guys on the next Ham College next Friday night,
all right, yeah, and I hate you missed it too,
and you did ask me to have some fun for you,
and as you can see, I did, I see you

(01:18:26):
did you? You held up your endo the bargain, Ye
you will.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
And even I got a prize package over here from
Tom for you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
So yeah, looking forward to that. Appreciate that, Tom. I
don't think I said it, but I appreciate you sitting that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
That is mighty handy because I mean, just like that,
you can hook up external audio or anything externally want
to to you. I count rig So that's that's a
nice idea, Tom, Yeah, it's great idea. All right.

Speaker 4 (01:18:55):
I wonder about the notches on the edges of the board,
if they were purposely put in there for some reason.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
I think it would probably be because that's where the
post goes through I'll put this crew for the top yep,
for the keys yep. But he did put the files
out there if you want to print your own case.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
So yeah, yeah, he mentioned he put the STL files up. Well,
I guess on his website for a case for that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Yeah, I thought it sounded like a segment to me.
Tommy could be one. I always looking for ideas. Papa
Email should be back with us next month. We'll see
y'all in for the next Amateur Logic. The next time
College will be this coming Friday, August the thirtieth with

(01:19:50):
Dean Morton and Professor Thomas were studying for the Technician
Amateur Radio Exam. So tell you mom and them or
anybody that doesn't have a life, is that you feel
like they should. Here's a good way to study. And
by the way, I saw several graduates while we were
at Huntsville. We had a number of graduates there from yeah,

(01:20:13):
from all the way from Technician to extra so it
was yeah, you know, we usually do. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
I don't know what it is about that hand fist,
but every time we go to that hand fest, I
have several people come up and say that they're Ham
College graduates.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
From yeah, yeah, pretty awesome. One day we're going to
have to just carry around a cap and gown with us.
Maybe we could Maybe we could use the lab coats
as the gown. I'm not sure what for the cap yet,
but I want.

Speaker 4 (01:20:43):
An inflatable version, scaled down version of favorite College.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
Yeah, inflatable, and.

Speaker 4 (01:20:49):
We can take the pictures in front of it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
Yeah, we can put the cranium cooler on them and
then the lab coop graduation photos.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
That's a good idea, Tommy, Mike, can we know what
we do something with this?

Speaker 4 (01:21:04):
Give me an idea. I'm gonna have to modify the
cranium cap so there's POV built in to the fan.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
You need to be able to change the message though, Yeah,
to your own custom I.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
Bet you can do that. I'm gonna have to see
what chip they got. I doubt they got a socket
in there, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Yeah, cool if you can put your calls on on it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:21:30):
The one the one I built used a an AH tiny.
It was a little eight pin dip micropontroller and it
only used like two pins to program it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
Yeah, it wouldn't take much, didn't take much at all. Ye,
all right, thanks for being here with us. Everyone appreciate
you watching amateur logic once again, If you would click
that share button down there, share the word with everyone
all your friends clicked the like button as well, we

(01:22:06):
would appreciate it. And I also did see someone there, Tommy.
At least one person told me they watch on roku.
Oh yeah, so your efforts are are appreciated there. I'm
making that happen every month.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
I'm pretty sure there's more than one person.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
I know there is. I've looked at the numbers. There's
a lot more than one person that watch that way.
But there's also folks you know that are downloading it
at amaterologic dot tv, watching it on iTunes, archive dot org.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
Amazon, Amazon Firestick.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
And that's not even on the list here I.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
Put I publish it every every time on that one too.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
Yep. Seven three ques by my my my b.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
B b b b.

Speaker 8 (01:23:17):
Bla bla blas.

Speaker 4 (01:23:21):
En Why.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
Let left

Speaker 4 (01:23:27):
Plas blah bla bla blay by p