Are We Losing Ham Radio Spectrum? 70cm Band Under Threat

Title: Ham Radio Spectrum Defense & The End of NOAA APT Era

Is amateur radio spectrum under siege? James (K8JKU), Jim (N8JRD), and Rory (W8KNX) tackle the controversial FCC experimental license granted to AST SpaceMobile that threatens our 70cm amateur band.

This episode covers the growing concern over spectrum encroachment, what the ARRL is doing to defend our frequencies, and why every ham needs to contact their representatives. We also discuss Jim's hands-on experience with the Flex 6400 ATU and bid farewell to the legendary NOAA-15 and NOAA-19 satellites.

Topics: Spectrum defense, FCC policy, emergency communications, amateur radio advocacy, satellite operations, and the importance of congressional outreach for protecting our hobby.

Visit EverydayHam.com for show notes and join our Discord community!

Short show intro audio clip

Short outro audio clip

The Everyday Ham Podcast is hosted by James Mills (K8JKU), Jim Davis (N8JRD), and Rory Locke (W8KNX) – three friends who dive into the world of amateur radio with a casual, lighthearted twist.

Follow us at: Website: https://www.everydayham.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayhampodcast/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode
of the Everyday Ham Podcast.
This is Episode 8.
I'm James K-A-J-K-U, joinedhere by Rory W8KNX and Jim N8JRD
.
But before we get formallystarted, I just want to remind
you.
You can find our videos,information about our show, our
audio podcast, at everydayhamcom, so all the information is

(00:23):
located there.
We'd really appreciateappreciate, if this is your
first time joining us toremember to hit the like and
subscribe button if you'rewatching on YouTube, if you're
listening in the audio podcast,whatever your platform is.
A five-star rating or leaving acomment greatly helps us.
So if you like what you'rehearing, just be sure to like
and subscribe and rate.
So with that we'll turn it overto you, rory, what has been

(00:44):
going on in your daily ham lifethese last few weeks.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
I'll also mention, when you go over to our website,
take a look for our link to ourDiscord server.
It's a slow channel.
It's all just getting to astart, but we have a cool little
community that's already formedthere and people are already
talking about their projects andthe things that are going on in
their ham world and the threeof us are in there, as well as
our friend, shane KFAPWN, who isalso helping with some of the

(01:12):
everyday ham stuff that you guysdon't get to see, and certainly
pop in the Discord and join theconversation.
It's certainly, like I said,it's a small crowd there, but
it's growing and we're enjoyingtalking and getting to know each
and every one of you that takethe time to pop in there.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
We just had Rodney join us from Texas AE5TX, and so
, thanks to him, we like tousually welcome one of our new
members here on the pod, so it'sfun to meet some new folks as
they pop in and introducethemselves and also just kind of
see what they're doing in hamradio.
So yeah, sorry, roger, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, no problem, it's certainly.
Post your photos, post yourquestions.
It's just a good forum for someconversation.
So what's going on in my hamworld?
It's been a pretty quiet weekin the shack at home, a little
bit of poda the last couple ofweeks.
I did have a first run with mybuddy pole dipole system and I
think there's a video on myexcursion out to Mayberry State

(02:12):
Park that will be dropping forthat soon.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think, maybe in a couple of weeks.
14th, officially Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, so that was a good one.
Jim and I went out and met outat Mayberry over here in
Northville Township and we had agood time.
It's a fun video to watch.
I enjoyed watching it back andcertainly learned a couple
things, and I look forward toeverybody's feedback on that one
of everything we did wrong withall of the things, because we
were certainly fuddling aroundquite a bit.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Let's be clear we demonstrated that we are
everyday hams.
Right, we do not know, know itall.
Sometimes we get out in thefield and things don't go the
way we expect I.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I have no problem with that, so that's fine in in
the shack, otherwise not much.
Tomorrow a couple of us aregetting ready to go and help out
our our local ham radio cluband do a little bit of quick
work on our repeater at the atthe water tower here in south
lion.
We have to do some fixes to thecellular network and the Wi-Fi
network that we piggyback off offor our all-star network access

(03:11):
and the repeater controller andall that.
Our club's chief engineer,steve N8AR, the smartest
80-something-year-old you'llever meet, he'll be out there to
help us and we hope to haveSteve on the show here with us
sometime in the near future.
I really would like to hear hishistory, and he's always got a
story.
I bet that one would go threehours, but that's about all I

(03:32):
have going on here.
What about you, jim?

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Well, I agree with you completely.
I will say that if that callsign rings a bell and you're
listening out there, you'rewondering why do I know N8AR?
That's because he sells thekits for hams the.
Sherry nodes, and so if you'reinto the Sherry or All-Star
nodes, it's highly likely thatyou've been exposed to one of
Steve's products, and he doesdevelop those here in Michigan

(03:56):
and it's a sort of family-runbusiness.
So if you are in that market wedo encourage you to go check
those things out.
He's a man that stands behind aproduct and he will make sure
that you get that thing set upand running.
And I found out last time hehas quite a guarantee when I
talked to you guys last time asfar as that's concerned, a
couple of new things in theshack which I think that I

(04:17):
thought were further out thanthey actually were Classic.
When we came back fromHamvention I said, boy, I'd like
to put a Flex in my shack atsome point, and why.
A man gets impatient and a manbuys a Flex.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Why wait?

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Why wait?
Just like a Snickers, I had tograb it.
The Flex arrived on QRZ and Idid end up buying a 6400 ATU,
which I call the sort of entrylevel flex at this point, given
the prices have fallen to thepoint where folks can kind of
dabble and not feel like perhapsthey're overspending.
Now I'm not going to say it'scheap right, it still costs

(04:52):
$1,500 to get it shipped, butfor a used HF radio that does
100 watts and has a built-intuner, I think it's pretty close
in line, and so I did put thatin the shack here recently and I
have been experimenting alittle bit with it.
And I will tell you, it'ssitting right next to the 101 MP
and we are doing a little bitof A-B testing between the two

(05:14):
of them, and there are someinteresting things that have
come from having two really niceradios sitting next to one
another.
Right, as soon as I put thisthing in the shack.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
What a problem to have.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Right, right, yeah, I'm living perhaps less everyday
ham life here.
I know, I know, sorry, there'sa couple of good, nice radios.
What I will say is, as soon asI bought it I made comment about
it and I had a lot of folksthat were hardcore Flex.
Folks say no-transcript a fewweeks with it.

(05:56):
So far.
I do appreciate some of thefolks on the Flex Facebook,
which I will give some credithere, who said, hey, brand new
6400, here's a few things youshould know.
Gave me some pointers on how towork the DSP to help me find a
noise floor that's acceptable inthis HOA ham environment that I
operate in.
So suffice it to say I thinkthere's more coming on the Flex.

(06:18):
But it's been really fun tohave two of these radios sitting
next to one another, really beable to kind of check them
against one another and alsoperhaps make a somewhat believer
out of Rory who said I don'tknow if I'm a Flex guy.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
I don't know if I'm a Flex fan.
As always, jim was welcomingand opened his shack for me to
come over and press all thebuttons.
Let's me sit in the big chairwhere you see him sitting there
right now.
All the virtual buttons KickBentley and Cash out of the room
and let me play the radio, andI very much appreciate that,

(06:52):
since Jim tends to have more newtoys than I do in my everyday
ham shack.
If anyone remembers, I thinkwe've spoken about the Flex and
my big thing about the Flex hasalways been I need a radio, I
need buttons, I need dials.
Well, the Flex has its maestrocontrol unit.
That can be a thing Jim doesnot have, that I've never had my
hands on one.
Perhaps someday I will, maybe Iwon't, we'll see.

(07:13):
But the Flex experiencebasically, I sat down completely
blind, never having used theinterface, sat down at Jim's
chair there and just startedusing the radio.
My big thing was I need a radio, I need dials, I need all the
switches right in front of me inorder to be comfortable with
the radio.
I was pleasantly surprised that, after maybe 10 or 15 minutes

(07:35):
of fuddling around with thescreen, what's it called the
Smart SDR?
Is that what it's?

Speaker 3 (07:40):
called Smart SDR is the application.
The application.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
I was basically able to use it just like I would any
other radio and I didn't hate it.
Whether or not I would have aFlex in my shack it's very
unlikely that I would have aFlex in this shack, but it
opened my opinion to if I wereto want to set up a remote
station, which is something thatI as, being an extremely
controlled HOA in a condominiumthat is something I do have on

(08:05):
the plan somewhere ispotentially have a remote
station somewhere.
The Flex might find a spot inthat.
Again, I don't have enough timewith it to say that for sure,
but it did open up my eyes tounderstand.
Maybe I don't hate thisinterface.
Maybe it's not that bad of aradio to use.
Jim was also kind enough toshare the login credentials for
the remote login to it and Ithink I've used it three times

(08:27):
now, once that he knows aboutand twice that I don't think he
knows about.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
One time was 2.30 in the morning and I wondered if I
still have to get in there totry it out One time.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
I didn't know if I would start making noise in the
house, but I figured it.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Or go on 40 meters and start flipping the lights
and faucets that are touched.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
I wondered if I would do, but I've logged in a
handful of times, and theexperience remotely was good too
.
It's the exact same experienceas if you're sitting in front of
it.
A little bit of latency, thatmay or may not be my internet
here or Jim's internet there,but certainly fully functional.
So it's making me a believer.
I look forward to following theFlex saga with Jim, and we'll

(09:07):
see.
You never know what will showup in the shack of mine.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
But you had the people that told you it's just
another Windows box, it's not areal radio.
And then you had the peoplethat were obviously hardcore
believers, that really thoughtit was a revolutionary product.
So I think when you do deliveryour review, I'll be willing to
put some money out to do thattest, just to find out whether
or not it's going to change mymind.
Because I have been pleasantlysurprised in certain scenarios
where I bought a product that Ididn't think maybe I was going
to love and it ended up beingsomething that was one of my
favorite things that I hadbought in that particular class

(09:58):
of product, right.
So Flex is kind of in that bandof space where I wasn't sure if
I was going to be a believer ornot.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
But I had to try it because it just had some unique
functionality, especially, likeRory said, the remote capability
, and we've talked about theAurora being an attractive piece
of hardware with the 500 wattsand everything that goes with a
Flex.
So again, if this is theentry-level Flex, I'm curious.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
100%, yeah, this is it was at the price point now,
right, perhaps the only thingcheaper that you'll find on the
market is a used 6300.
That would be very close inprice.
So around the $1,500 marketappears is where these 6000
series flexes have landed, afterthe A Aurora announcement and B
the 8000 series coming out.
So it was a prime time to getmy hands on it and have had a

(10:46):
lot of fun with it.
I will tell you that I havemade a number of contacts on it.
I've gotten great audio results, um, and feedback from folks
that have heard me talking on it, so it clearly works.
Right, it's a 100 watt rig thatworks and and I had no doubt,
no doubts about it, right, flexhas been around a long time, but
I will tell you there are it.
It is a very divisive uh sortof uh crew when it comes to flex

(11:09):
, right?

Speaker 1 (11:09):
people that love it.
They have a very polarizingyeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
Polarizing is exactly the right term.
There's there are people thatlove it and there are people
that just can't get over theidea of flex.
They just don't love, theydon't love it.
And we had some of those folksin the club when I said, hey, I
bought a Flex, I'm going to betesting it out, and there was
some of that kind of feedbackthat I got, where they were like
oh gosh okay.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
The only other brand that maybe has some polarization
is Elecraft, but it's more of a.
Everyone agrees it's a decentproduct or a really good product
, but then the price point andthe a la carte of the options.
But Flex, they really drive apolarizing audience.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, yep, so I will, I think, spend another month
with it before we really developsome thoughts on it.
I will tell you the one thing.
Like I said, is if we'reputting 101 MP and Flex on my
desk today and I have to pickone, the 101 MP still wins.
And it's because it can controlthe noise in a more effective
way.
For me and I'm not sayingthat's for everybody If you live

(12:08):
out in the middle of Texas withnobody around you and no noise
and you have a great antenna,flex probably does a hell of a
job for you, right?
So that's where I'm at, rightnow.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
So those that don't know, jim also will sell his
children ie radios, for he'llswap them out and change in some
.
So what radio did you sell forthe flex?
Do you remember?
So this?

Speaker 3 (12:28):
one was originally the.
I built a desk riser and we wetalked about this.
I I kind of did a rebuild ofthe desk around the time that
the 101 mp showed up and I builtit with space for the flex,
because I always figured thatwas going to land there
eventually, right?
So I had it all reserved forflex perfectly measured to fit
the flex right next to the one Iwanted.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
And it fits just like that too, it does.
It's a glove, it's a perfectfit.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
But what I will tell you is I didn't actually move a
major radio for this one.
I kind of moved a bunch oflittle stuff.
I moved a number of myhandhelds which I had been sort
of amassing You're real childrenthough.
Yes, yeah, you do lovehandhelds.
So we've talked about, yeah,the love for HTs, but I've gone
and I completely think, ifBaofeng is where you need to
start, get a Baofeng man.

(13:08):
You've been refining yourcollection to your personal
taste, that's exactly right.
So I did end up getting rid of alot of that less expensive
stuff and I just said you knowwe're going to filter down the
collection a little bit there.
And it made space and it alsoadded up a couple bucks that we
could put the Flex on the deskand give it a real test.
So that's what's new in theshack.
I think we're going to talkmore about Flex in a little

(13:30):
while, but it's exciting to haveone here and the nice thing is
now you guys can get your pawson it whenever you want.
3 o'clock in the morning,perhaps.
See if you can turn my fauceton and make a contact across the
United States I'm probably.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I know you have some travel coming up to where you're
not going to be home andwanting to use it.
You know I don't want to get inyour way by logging into the
thing while you're trying to useit, so that's one of the things
.
I've kind of not done it toooften.
But I know you've got sometravel coming.
I probably will spend a littlebit more time with it, get to
understand the interface a bitmore and by the time we're ready
to talk Flex for real, I mighthave a little bit more to say

(14:05):
about it for sure.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, I've been really curious to try the remote
software.
I just haven't had a chancesince you shared it, so I need
to also get in there and do it,and maybe you know news to share
we have officially booked ourtrip to Hamcation in Orlando
this February, so while we'reputting, we can also flex this
evening yeah, that was anexciting time, rory.
Rory was right, we should havebeen recording that for its own

(14:28):
episode of us trying to bookflights on spirit, uh, but
that's uh maybe we're all true.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
We're all true, detroiters, we, we probably goes
back for me anyway to thenorthwest days flying out of dtw
.
I am a very loyal customer andof course there's no reason to
be loyal to an airline.
We could go on and on aboutthat.
But Jim, over there in frugalland, budget land I don't know
what land Got to leave room forflex spending.

(14:55):
Jeez, and I guess that's why Idon't have a flex is I don't fly
Spirit.
Well, we're flying Spirit toOrlando.
We're doing it.
The price was right.
My price cost me $50 more thanthe other two, for reasons
unknown, it kept kicking you out.
It kept kicking me out the sonof a bitch.
I'll tell you we never had itwas flight roulette.

(15:16):
I wish we were recording itbecause there was probably a
show.
It was a side of my personalitythat these guys have not gotten
to experience yet.
Well, I'm very convinced theywere doing it on purpose.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
It was like after 30 seconds or a random interval,
you get kicked out and you haveto go back to the very, very
beginning.
There's no save or you know youpass, go and collect $200.
It's literally right back tothe beginning and then you
frantically try to book again.
So if anyone with a spirit'slistening, that's maybe
something to look at.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
But that's a different story.
Also, if anybody is planning onmeeting us at a specific time
on Friday, don't cross yourfingers.
Maybe do cross your fingers forus, because we are Flying
Spirits, so we will be at.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Orlando Hamcation when we show up, yeah, yeah,
some point in the day Ifanyone's going to be down there
and you want to catch us for abeer.
I'm sure that can work out.
We're looking forward to it.
Beer or poda?
I guess yeah, beer or poda.
We will definitely be gettingat least one poda activation to
light up Florida on the map forall of us.
I think I don't have a Floridaactivation.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
This will be my first Florida for poda.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Okay cool.
So that makes it for all of us.
Yeah, certainly looking forwardto it.
I joke about the Spirit.
It'll be.
You know that Spirit Airlines,it'll be fine.
You know it makes sense to gowith a flight that's half the
price of something else for aflight like that.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
For a two-hour flight to Florida.
Right, right, it's going to behorrible when we get off in this
warm weather in February versusthe Michigan weather, you know
what, though Feel bad for us.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
I've done a number of quickie February trips to
Florida.
It's such a great thing to dowhen you're in the dead of
winter Michigan, to get out ofhere for just a minute and then
you really only have a littlebit of winter left.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
A real hamcation.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
So maybe a couple of quick updates from my side
before we move into one of ourmain topics.
Special thanks, by the way, toRay Novak, n9ja, who joined us
for a special episode.
I do apologize so I have goodinternet today, but when we were
recording my internet was notthe world's greatest.
It failed to upload some of theaudio tracks, so there are
parts where it dumps the audiotrack.

(17:12):
I apologize, that's not Ray'sfault, that's my fault.
Also, ray was live from an airshow, so you do hear some jet
noises, as you would expect tohear, but Ray gave us a lot of
his time.
We really appreciate it.
About an hour and a half ofpersonal stories with Ray who,
for those who don't know Ray, heworks for ICOM North America.
Awesome dude, really friendlyand, honestly, some of the best

(17:35):
ham stories you could ever everfind.
So if you're interested, theepisode is up on YouTube.
It's also posted on our audiopodcast platform, so be sure to
check that out.
Other update I have relates tothose that know.
I'm one of the organizers for aMichigan POTA meetup that we do
every year in June.
So we will have our meetup June6th at Hartwick Pines State

(17:56):
Park in Michigan.
So that's up near the Grayling.
So for those watching onYouTube, let me get out my
Michigan map hand.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
That's going to be awkward, but for those not in
Michigan, it's shaped like amitten.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yeah, it's in the Get out my mitten here and it's
about in the middle of the state, northern portion, near
Houghton Lake.
A lot of really beautiful areas.
It's an old growth pine foreststate park.
It's beautiful, one of probablythe best in the state, if not
the country.
So if you're interested inattending, mark your calendars.
I think camping reservationswill open November sometime it's

(18:26):
about six months before, if Ibelieve so.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
And this will be the third annual Michigan POTA
meetup.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yep.
So last year we had a lot ofcampers.
We had about 80 plus attendeesthat showed up.
Yeah, it was a great, greatevent, Really awesome to meet
other POTA enthusiasts or justshare your ham knowledge.
So again, if you're in the areaand you're interested, be sure
to stop by and check it out.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
I'm looking forward to it.
I don't have the.
I've never been to that parkfor as many up north trips I've
taken as a kid and as an adultI've never been in that park.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Me neither.
I've driven by it a thousandtimes.
It also has a chapter too.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
It does.
Indeed, as a person that wentto Gaylord School System, it was
a required field trip for theyoung kids to go to.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Hartwick Pines.
So Jim has lived Hartwick Pines.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
I actually joined the school system too late so I
didn't go, but my brother did goon the requisite Hartwick Pines
field trip.
It's a really cool park, though, and it will be an excellent
spot to camp.
Middle Michigan at that timewill likely be nice and
temperate, so it should be areally good outing.
So looking forward to it, James, and thanks for all the stuff

(19:31):
that you guys are doing on thatto get it set up.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
So if you're looking for more information on it, it's
michiganpodameetupcom.
Hopefully by the time thisepisode posts, the website will
be updated to reflect theinformation for Hartwick Pines.
If not, just give it a littlebit of time, it'll be up there
in the next couple days,absolutely so.
With that, why don't we go intoour first main topic?
So we want to put this in somecontext.

(19:55):
The focus of this is reallyaround our spectrum defense and,
as hams are we worried aboutsome of the news we're hearing
related to frequency allocationand also maybe the intrusion on
our frequencies from corporateentities.
So the first piece we get, justto give a little bit of
background.
Recently the FCC granted anexperimental license to a

(20:16):
Texas-based company called ASTSpaceMobile.
For those that aren't familiar,they are another company
similar to SpaceX that does lowEarth orbit satellites that you
kind of see around.
Internet is a common frequencyuse, but also this one is
actually used for cellularconnectivity.
So if you don't know, alsoSpaceX has now a license

(20:36):
agreement with T-Mobile, so whenyour cell phone is out of
coverage you can connect to asatellite and use satellite
phone calls on your normaldevice.
So SpaceMobile has a contractwith AT&T and Verizon, so two
major players in the US market,and the license for AST,
spacemobile directly, is on topof the 70 centimeter spectrum.

(20:58):
So it is in an area where itdefinitely could interfere,
especially if you're not in theUS where the 70 centimeter
spectrum is a lot smaller.
A lot of the European countriesare protesting the FCC and
granting this experimentallicense because they are
concerned that it will haveharmful interference with HAMS
on those bands or on that band,I should say Also the

(21:22):
application.
So you see ARL posting andother European entities and hams
giving feedback to the FCC andobviously they're really
concerned that they feel theapplication is very vague and
they're concerned again aboutthe harmful interference that it
can cause.
So the FCC has assigned atemporary call sign to Whiskey,
papa 2 X-Ray, romeo X-Ray andthat expires July 1st 2027, and

(21:48):
that is held by that SpaceMobileAST.
Now the other bit of news we'veseen so again looking at the
context of our spectrum defenseis the FCC's ability to spectrum
auctions.
That expired some time ago upuntil recently when a new law
was signed by President Trump onJuly 4th restoring the
commission's ability to haveauction authority.

(22:10):
So the only thing that the FCChas said that they're looking to
auction off.
At this point is unused what'scalled AWS3 microwave band,
which is some already allocatedto FUG.
However, you are worried nowthat the FCC has granted this
temporary license to SpaceMobile.
This administration is obviouslyvery pro-business.
That's currently in the office.

(22:31):
Are we concerned that our hamspectrum is under attack?
Do we see that there is?
Do we feel that we have theright people, let's say the ARL
for example, in place to sort ofhelp defend that spectrum?

Speaker 3 (22:46):
And I kind of open it up to the group here yeah, so
it looks like AWS 3, which isthe initial thing that they're
targeting for sale, is 1.6, well, 1.7 gigahertz to essentially
2.2 gigahertz of of band spaceand there's about three sections
of that that appear to be apart of this.
So, very interesting, andobviously not many of us are set

(23:09):
up with microwave capability ora small, I would say, gigahertz
capability.
I won't call it microwave, butwe're not set up with that
capability here as hams.
But as we talk about this moreright, it's the slippery slope
theory which always comes up was, if you start someplace where
you're not set up with thatcapability here as hams.
But as we talk about this moreright, it's the slippery slope
theory which always comes upwhich, if you start someplace
where you're not going to drawmuch attention and you establish
yourself as able to do a thing,do you then allow that person

(23:31):
then to feel empowered to dothat person, that organization,
to then feel empowered to makedecisions that then do become
more and more detrimental oraffect larger groups of folks
like hams?
Right, and and the, the spacethat we're talking about right
now is 430 to 440 megahertz,which would be part of the ast

(23:51):
space mobile temporary testinglicense, if I understand this
correctly, right, james?
so so what we have here is is isa small slice of our ham space
and already a small part of aband right.
We have in the United States430 to basically 450 megahertz.
We technically have 420 to 450,right, right.

(24:12):
We have to observe theadditional rules from the 420 to
430 megahertz part of thatrules from the 420 to 430
megahertz, part of that.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
So you can look at that and say there's not a lot
of space they want.
But for those of us that areaffected by Line A, which takes
out 420 to 430, there's parts ofthe United States that have 420
to 430 at their disposal.
They can use it just like we doeverywhere else.
But those of us up here inMichigan and along the Northern
border, line a, we we don't getfour 20 to four 30.

(24:43):
So now they want.
You know there's the potentialof losing four 30 to four 40 or
having having to share it nicelyperhaps, depending how you word
it.
Well, what's goes on in that?
Four, four 30 to four 40.
People might say, oh, that'snot a big deal.
All our repeater outputs arebetween 440 and 450.
Well, there's a lot of stuffgoing on in the 430s.

(25:04):
There's a lot of satelliteactivity in the 430s.
People who run sideband do itin the 430s.
Most of us that are runninghotspots in our house for DSTAR,
AllSTAR, MMDVM are in the 430s.
So there's a lot going on inthe 430s.
Even though it may not seemlike a big use, it's something

(25:24):
that would affect us all in someway, if if they chose to share
that in a way, that's not greatfor ham radio no, and I do have
concern too, because we didn'teven mention this yet.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
There was a few months ago also discussion with
the FCC about auctioning offsome bandwidth or frequency
spectrum for the fast day trader.
So they use radio wavecommunication to broadcast from
city to city to basically to domore real time or more expedient
day trading or stock tradingexchanges, and that was also

(25:57):
being very considered, and theyhave a lot of money to throw
against that in terms oflobbying as well.
I'm also sharing on the screen,for those that are watching,
the ARL filed comments toprotect the 70 centimeter
amateur band.
You can obviously go up therein the ARLorg and you can find
and read this whole article aswell if you're interested in

(26:18):
learning a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
I think that, again, James asked the question right
out of the gate, which is to say, us as amateurs.
Right, who is lobbying for theinterest of the amateur?
And first and foremost it's usthat are licensed.
Right, we do need to beactively commenting, sending
responses to the FCC when thereare open opportunities for

(26:40):
comment, and we need to speakfor ourselves.
But James asked a fair question, which is to say, are we
getting enough from our largestlobby, which is the ARRL?
At this point, I don't thinkthat anybody would argue any
differently when it comes toamateur radio, and it's good to
see that they put a comment inon this.

(27:01):
But we were wondering you know,maybe comment below if you're
listening here what are yourthoughts?
Right, what else should the ARLbe doing and what should we be
trying to do so that we don'tlose what little band space is
left for us here on the 70centimeter segment, right, and I
think that's really importantwhen we look at this.

(27:21):
Rory, the line C thing didn'teven I'm sorry, the line A thing
didn't even pop into my head.
And I'm in Michigan, but itdidn't even pop into my head
until you said it.
And it's even more interestingnow to me because we already
don't have access to those 10megahertz.
So you cut another 10 outbecause it might be used for
this very likely, very widelydeployed commercial solution.

(27:44):
And that starts to make mewonder, right, if with enough
money it can be bought, and thatdoor, if it's open already with
the AWS 3.0 space or whateverthere.
Is that where we're headed?

Speaker 2 (27:58):
I don't know, it's very I use the line I think the
ARRL needs.
I mean they're good at we werekind of talking about this
earlier in our show prep.
The ARRL seems to be doing wellwith writing comments and
placing comments and writingthese articles that we see, but
are they really actually goingand banging on the doors and
getting political with this?

(28:19):
And again, we're not wanting totake this down a political path
because that's just not the waywe want to go, but we certainly
want to advocate for ourselvesand advocate for the spectrum
that we all use.
And it's that same thing Onceyou give it away, like you guys
said moments ago, once you giveit away or you start slipping a
few pennies, a few megahertz outthe door to do this or that.

(28:44):
Once it's gone, you don't get itback.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
My biggest fear, too, is we put a lot of pressure on
the ARL to go do something, butI do really feel it's a David
versus Goliath situation alittle bit as well.
100%, I mean.
You look at these companiesthat have this big revenue AT&T,
Verizon.
I mean ARL is a volunteernonprofit organization.
We all have our opinions on theARL, but their money is still
limited.
I really do, Jim, hit the nailon the head.

(29:07):
I think HAMS, regardless of yourARL affiliation or opinions,
really is the best tool to useand I think, yeah, call the FCC
or write letters and submit totheir applications or their
requests for feedback, but alsocall your senators, call your
congressmen, congresswomen, andalso give the feedback there.
You know, emails, phone calls,whatever it can be.

(29:28):
I think radio does play animportant role in things like
emergency communication,technical development, training.
It's a good proving ground fora lot of development in terms of
developing your technicalexpertise or testing new things
or learning how to experiment,and it's you know, there's a lot
of benefits that we need toprotect in this hobby and I
think that is one of the pathsthat I worry.

(29:49):
Even if you put the ITU, theGreat Britain Amateur Radio
Society, the ARL together, it'sstill small compared to some of
that lobbying power that thoseother entities have, and that's
really my real concern.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
You nailed it on the head, james.
It is 100% when it boils downto it funds to make a thing
happen, right, and we all knowthat with enough money most
things can be made to happen.
And that's what is going to beessentially.
The ham's uphill battle in thisparticular argument is to say
at what point are we not able todemonstrate with funds that we

(30:25):
are interested?
But, simply put, this is part ofthe amateur radio hobby and
there are many other intangiblethings that come from the
amateur radio hobby that I thinka lot of folks benefit from.
Right, it's not just amateursthat benefit from this.
And let's zoom out a little bithere.
Right Over the weekend, asamateurs, we were out checking

(30:45):
the storm sirens here in ourcounty to make sure that they
were functional, and we wereusing our amateur privileges to
make sure that we could check inwith the net control and let
the emergency services folksknow whether or not those things
were functioning.
And those are the types ofthings that I don't think folks
understand happen as a sidebarto us in the hobby.
Right, we are using ourprivileges to help many facets

(31:09):
of everyday operation aroundyour town probably.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
And a lot of the feedback there will be.
So what?
Just pick up your cell phoneand use that.
And I look at it from twoavenues right.
One, if some of these sirensare in remote locations for a
good reason, so self-serviceisn't always possible,
especially if we look at some ofthe rural Michigan areas.
And two, if it really is a realemergency, and I know a lot of
hams have their opinion on isham radio a real emergency

(31:35):
prepper situation or useful inan emergency situation, whatever
?
But if it is a real emergencysituation it's a good test.
The amateur radio will alwaysget out.
You pick up the mic, you hitthe button, it will go as long
as you got power.
Yeah, it goes someplace.
So it really is a good practiceas well for all of us, if
there's an emergency situation,to provide support and practice

(31:55):
communication also on atemporary basis.
So I think also the argument ofwe'll just pick up the cell
phone and call, sure, I meansome users have used.
Echo Link also to call in tothe net as well.
But you're right, it's one toolin the toolkit.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
That's one tool in your toolkit and I think that a
well-prepared prepper hasnumerous redundancies.
When we talk about this and incommunication, we have
redundancies.
In our food stores, we haveredundancies.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
In our ability to generate heat and cover
ourselves, to protect ourselvesfrom the elements.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
We have redundancies right, and so when I look at
that it is simple to say well,your cell phone is working now,
but what if it isn't right,which happens Periodically.
There are outages had aStarlink outage last week and
folks had said, well, shoot,what am I bothering with?
What am I bothering with anyother method?
I'll just get Starlink and I'llhave internet wherever I go
right?
Well, that was true, and theydid actually have very
impressive service levelagreements and all that in place
, but it failed and it went downcompletely for a fairly

(32:56):
significant part of a day.
So I mean, it's veryinteresting to me that when we
look at this right, let's keepin mind that there are some big
benefits that we have here andthings that we offer as hams,
and I don't think we should sellourselves short.
That's basically the simplepart of it.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
I think the value that comes behind the people
that are amateur radio operators, that because we're allowed
this very healthy spectrum thatwe can use for for a lot of
different causes, differentfrequencies, for different needs
, but the value you get byallotting that spectrum to
people okay, sure, you couldpick up a phone and call the
County and let them know thesiren worked or didn't work.

(33:33):
But when you're allowing thespectrum you suddenly get, you
know, in the United States747,000 people that are licensed
amateur radio operators thatare likely going to be willing
to go and help their community,help with a siren test, help
with things as simple as a pointof distribution.
You might get these people whoare able to, you know, using

(33:55):
their.
That might not be a radio-basedevent, but you're going to get
these people that arecommunity-minded because of ham
radio that are willing to help.
And when you get volunteerslike that, it becomes a value
multiplier to all of our publicservices.
There you go.
It's very important.
It's almost not just a spectrumthing you could talk about that

(34:15):
too but it's giving a group ofpeople who have a lot of
goodwill a place to practicetheir hobby and do all the
things that come with it,including public service.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Not to mention ham radio is fun and I don't want to
lose spectrum because I enjoyhaving it and I wanted to use
for my hobby.
So I'm going to be a littleselfish there as well.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Well, the 430 to 440 megahertz is not a repeater
space generally, right, that'smore of a space where a lot of
experimentation happens, a lotof interesting employment of ham
radio technology happens forthe purposes of trying new
things right, If you have anMMDVM node on your desk, you're
probably running it somewhere inthat spectrum.

(34:56):
Right, If you have a Sherrynode on your desk, you're
probably running it there.
If you're experimenting withlow power point-to-point network
things for the purposes ofmonitoring, like temperatures or
any number of things, right,You're probably using a part of
your spectrum space there forthat type of thing.
Be using a part of yourspectrum space there for that
type of thing.
So it's an experimental spaceand we need to keep that in mind

(35:18):
.
And one thing that really Ithink, as you guys were talking
more, it made me think right,it's easy to simplify something
when we're arguing well,business has this much upside
right, and it's a very bignumber.
It's a big number that we can'tnone of us can fathom because
we're not AT&T or whomever elseis going to benefit from it.
But the easy thing to say iswell, without that big number,

(35:39):
these guys are just sending CWand contesting and rag-chewing,
and it's easy to make thisanti-argument that the amateur
space is not important becauseright, because right and I think
that that is where, if you'reasking me, what can the ARL do
more of, it's to highlight,emphasize those things that do
show value to non-hams.

(36:02):
Right, Absolutely Show thatvalue to non-hams in a better
way than when I read throughthis particular comment.
This comment, it talks aboutsemantics of the words and
whether or not this is aprecedented move, and that's
fine.
That's part of that comment.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
But in this comment there needs to be other
expanding thoughts that arguethat it isn't just the money,
right, there are other thingsthat we gain by having these
folks with access to this spacewhich, regardless of the reason
ARL should always be doing that,I feel Always be on the horn,
basically trumpeting the valueof ham radio regardless of the

(36:37):
situation.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
But it's like I said.
It's easy to say like well,it's just contesting and it's
just a rag.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
They're just talking to people in Miami.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Oversimplifications are it's really easy to bundle
that all up and say, well,that's just ham radio, right,
and that we know, because we'reexposed to it every day and see
the breadth of the hobby, whatit can do.
But folks outside of it don'tunderstand that.
And I think that that's perhapswhere I would argue.
The ARL perhaps has moreresponsibility there to make
those non-hams more aware, andthat might be something that we

(37:06):
could say we would like to seemore of.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
I think they're trying Well, and that the hobby
is alive and well.
I really do believe the hobbyis alive and well because you do
get the people If I try toexplain to people at work, well,
what do you do?
Hey, I'm radio.
And at first people were likewait, that's still a thing that
people do in this world and theywould laugh at me like you're a
nerd.
But now what's funny is, well,you are a nerd.

(37:29):
But funny now is people come tome and tell me stories about,
like, oh, I was talking to myneighbor and they thought they
had a ghost.
Actually it's kind of why it'sfunny about the Rory logging
into your flex in the middle ofthe night.
They thought they had a ghostbecause they moved into a new
condo and their faucets andtheir lights kept going on at
like three in the morning.
And it turns out they went downand talked to their neighbor
about how their house is haunted, no-transcript technical

(38:21):
development and other skill setsas well I want to say one last
thing, and then I think rory'sgot a thought here, because I
can see it on his face yeah, wekeep cutting rory off.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
We're sorry, bud or if you listen to the ham radio
news line, which happens, uh,once a week, right, and there's
a couple of interesting articles, right.
They talked to tsunamis thisweek and how folks were ready if
a tsunami were to hit so thatthey could be first responders,
that type of thing.
That's not what I'm thinkingabout, but what we did here was
this past field day and I knowwe were critical of field day

(38:47):
for some reasons perhaps was oneof the most well attended ever.
I think it was the most wellattended ever was one of the
most well-attended ever.
I think it was the mostwell-attended ever.
So it should go to show youright there that there are folks
that are operating in the hobbyand it is not dying by any
means.
We have new hams joining thisclub here in South Lyon every
week.
We have new hams that we hearon the air that we're
shepherding along as technicians.

(39:08):
There is a serious interestright now and that's why this
podcast started right.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Generally speaking, all three of us are basically
new hams again.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
We're reborn absolutely yeah, I'm actually a
first time I'm literally the newham here so there you go.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
That's my argument.
Rory, go ahead, take this oneaway a couple things.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
yes, I, I think you're.
You're right there what youjust said about the club, our
club, our local club, and thetrends and clubs in the area.
There seems to be more new hamsjoining and getting involved
now than I recall from myearlier time being active in the
hobby.
I don't recall seeing theinterest that we see on a
monthly basis from new people.
I mean, we hear from people onour repeater and in our club on

(39:52):
a monthly basis that we've notheard the month before.
And you know you might say, oh,that's just one person here,
one person there.
You happen to get two in thismonth.
But you know, after 12 monthsgo by, that's 12 people or 20
people that suddenly are veryinterested in the hobby and then
suddenly it spreads from there.
Their families are interested,their wives are noticing the

(40:13):
antennas.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
on top of things, my kids don't make fun of me.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Well, you'll have that all the time, but that's
fine.
But I think someone did make agood comment about the ARRL.
They'll abdicate to a certainpoint, but we do need to
abdicate for ourselves.
And I think some people kind ofdon't understand that writing
Congress and calling Congress,calling your representative,
calling your senator, people say, oh, that phone call just goes

(40:40):
into a circular file, or thatletter just goes into a circular
file.
That's not true and I'll tell astory.
As I've told before, as I'vementioned on here and elsewhere,
I'm a member of Civil AirPatrol.
Civil Air Patrol gets moneyfrom Congress every year and
every year CAP members get alldressed up in our weird Civil

(41:01):
Air Patrol uniforms and we goknock on the doors of our
senators and congresspeople andremind them why they should
continue helping to fund CivilAir Patrol patrol.
Well, what happens with that isthey start seeing these people
all the time.
Every year come through, everyFebruary, they come through

(41:22):
through DC.
Then magically, their staff andtheir people suddenly remember.
They may not know what CAP is,they see these weird people show
up, but they know somethingabout it and it has their
attention.
So I think we can all workcollectively to help keep
amateur radio and the spectrumon the minds of our
congresspeople and send a letter, make a phone call.
Like I said, you might feellike it goes into a circular

(41:42):
file, but I'll tell you myexperience with CAP on the Hill.
It's surprising how much theyremember, even if they just had
one random phone call or onerandom conversation with someone
in an elevator about theorganization.
That same goes for ham radio.
So don't give up.
Definitely, certainly, advocatefor yourself, advocate for all

(42:03):
of us.
Make a phone call and write aletter.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
I was going to end this with.
So do we collectively feelwe're well defended?
Or, you know, should we bedoing more?

Speaker 2 (42:13):
I guess, Write a phone, make a phone call, a
letter, that's, that's what Isay so simple, simple no, yeah,
that's, that's my that's myanswer.
Um, are we?
Are we?
No, it, just like you guys said, it's going to be terribly hard
to go up against big ma bell.
It's not called that anymore,but you know what I mean.

(42:34):
Go it's.
It's going to be hard for us togo against at&t lots of deep
coffers right people with moneyand more money.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Behind it we're picking on at&t, but there's a
lot of organizations yeah I lovethis is just an example sweet
spectrum.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah, just an example , right this one though I think
the international community andI was trying to find the list of
countries, a lot of the othercountries.
We mentioned the differentamateur radio groups, but there
was a whole list of countriesthat are already responding to
this worldwide and it is gettingsome attention that way too.
So it's not just a.
Thing in the United States.
It's not just an FCC or ARRLthing, it's definitely

(43:11):
throughout Europe.
I believe a lot of the similarorganizations there are starting
to respond and we'll see.
It's going to be interesting tosee.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
So I guess the one more thing I want to say on this
topic right is I'm all forprogress, right, and I'm also
for competition, which I believeright now Starlink is fairly
uncontested as far as its reachand also the capability of it to
do certain things,notwithstanding, of course,
failing for whatever period oftime.
But obviously this company herehas a similar idea and

(43:43):
competition is good, right, andwe do want to see folks continue
to explore space Right, and dothings with satellites and do
interesting things withsatellites that benefit us here
locally on Earth, whatever youwant to say.
So just because we're againstthe idea of using 430 to 440
megahertz does not mean we'reagainst AST in any means.
I think that what we'resuggesting is do it a different

(44:05):
way or figure a way that canplay harmoniously with the space
that we are using for otherthings.
So the argument here it's easyto find what we call a bad guy
in this situation.
I don't think that there isnecessarily a bad guy, unless
we're talking about perhapsvilifying the FCC for
potentially selling the space.
But I'm kidding a little bitthere.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
But what I'm saying is let's not blame-.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
I feel there's a little bit of a bad guy.
Okay, but let's not blame thefolks that are trying to
innovate here.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
That's, I think.
The last thing that I'd like tomention is true let's, let's
keep innovating, because if wedon't, uh, then we're just going
to keep buying the sameproducts, rebranded over and
over again uh, the prices aregoing to keep going up and
there's not going to be anythingnew and fun for us to play with
.
So let's, uh, let's encourageinnovation, but do it in a way
that doesn't encroach on thevery limited band space that us,

(44:55):
as amateurs, have already.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
I think you said it well right there and I think to
maybe keep this good time traingoing here.
Jim, you had one other topicyou wanted to touch on briefly
which was related to NOAAsatellites, I believe.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah, while we're talking satellites, it is a bit
of a sad day, and I mentionedthis, I believe, on almost our
first podcast, which was to sayhow did you get back into
amateur radio?
And when I was a fledgling newham again here about a year and
a half ago in January, I hadbought a RTL-SDR and I had
plugged it into my computer andI said, well, what do I do now?

(45:29):
Right, what do I listen to?
And I found a couple of reallyinteresting articles that said,
why don't you do automaticpicture capture or APT capture,
right?
And I thought, well, that'spretty cool, capturing pictures
from satellites, awesome.
And so I did, and it reallystuck with me.
It's something that I did quitea bit.
I built a number of differenthomebrew antennas for it.

(45:53):
I built tiny dipoles, two feetopposing at 120 degrees, and I
stuck it out my window and thenI turned it to try to find the
best orientation to the horizon.
And, all that being said, itwas a really cool way to kind of
get it back into radio, right,how do I build an antenna?
How do I tune it to a specificfrequency so that I can maximize
my ability to capture and hearthese satellites that fly

(46:15):
overhead a number of times a day, right, polar satellites, poes
satellites is what they were.
So NOAA-15 was launched in 1998.
Noaa-19 was launched in 2009.
These satellites have been inthe air for 20 plus years going
on now, and we just got word inJuly that they are being

(46:35):
decommissioned.
Sadly and it shouldn'tnecessarily come as too much of
a shock, because in June we gotword that NOAA 18 was going to
be decommissioned.
But we kind of expected, Ithink maybe us being optimistic
about APT as having a longerfuture than it ended up having
was NOAA 18 had already sufferedquite a few onboard failures of

(46:56):
its equipment, right, and so itwas on life support when they
decommissioned it.
And when we looked at 15 and 19, one being older than 18, and
also one being a little youngerwe said, well, those ones are
still running.
Well, there were a number ofthings that were still operating
very nicely and we were stillgetting cool images from those,
and so we thought, oh, theymight have some time.

(47:16):
But we found out that thosewere also being scheduled for
their end of life, and so NOAAdid announce that in August.
Mid-august, here we will seethe final transmissions from
those satellites, and it reallydoes end an era Really soon.
Yeah, it was announced in Julymid-July.
It does end an era Really soon.
Yeah, yeah, it was announced inJuly mid-July and we are

(47:46):
finding out now that thedecommissioning of both of those
satellites will happen August12th for the 15 and August 19th
for 19,.
Which is kind of fitting for 19.
But it really is an end of theera for what is a very, very
easy to capture and impressiveimage from space Didn't take a
whole lot of equipment.
It didn't take an advancedantenna.
You could build all of it withtwo by fours wire and a $30 SDR
that you got on Amazon and youcould show somebody and be like
I captured this from space bymyself.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
I never realized it was that easy until I saw what
you were doing with it way backthere at the beginning.
And the coolest thing was right.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
When you captured those images, it was as the bird
was coming over your position.
It wasn't that you werecapturing a cached image that
was taken and then sent down.
That was a real-time scannedimage as it was flying across
the horizon, and so it reallywas one of the coolest things
that I've done yet with radio.
I can say it even to this day.

(48:33):
I built a QFH antenna for it,which is a it looks like an egg
beater.
Essentially, if you haven'tseen those antennas, they're
really cool looking.
I put that on my roof because Igot so interested in it in
getting better captures of thesatellites as they tumble
through space.
Right, the radio waves arepolarized differently and you
build a special antenna to getthose pictures.
So, yeah, it's a bummer to seeand I don't know what to say,

(48:54):
much more than to be surprisedthat this equipment, which still
appeared to be quite functional, is going to be decommissioned.
Now I've heard some pretty goodarguments that say, at some
point or another, cost to runthese outweighs their benefits
for the folks that are usingthem.
Right, and we do have a numberof new digital satellites that
are doing these things better,are providing more detailed

(49:16):
pictures, but they requiresignificantly more high end
receiving stations.
So for us as amateurs, forthose folks that might have been
interested in dipping their toeand learning a little bit about
it, it is a little bit sad tosee 19 and 15 seeing their end
of life in the middle of thisaugust.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
So I will tell you, if you've never done it and you
have one of these things.
Cheers to 19 and 15 as theyboldly go, or Noah satellites go
.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Are you going?
To try and get one last capture.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
I was just going to say.
You have a couple moreopportunities here to grab some
captures, and if you haven'tdone it, it doesn't take much.
If you're a ham, you probablyhave enough stuff on your desk
to get a picture from these guys.
They are so easy to capturethat you could be standing in an
open field with an ht and ifyou tune it to the right channel
, you can hear these things uhflying overhead when they pass.

(50:04):
So it is, it's very cool.
It is very sad to see these goand I I was a bum bummed out by
it.
Apt is a really neat technology.
It also it doesn't sound asannoying as SSTV to my ear, as
far as it goes.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Where are they?
That's one thing I've neverknown.
Where are they atfrequency-wise?

Speaker 3 (50:22):
They're around 137 megahertz, the ones that we
would capture for APT.
So those are going to be reallyreally easy to get with a
fairly small antenna right.
You don't need a big antenna,you don't also need a very
advanced antenna and you didn'tneed to have it pointed directly
at the thing the whole way.
It just they were very flexible.

(50:42):
So that is what I think is alittle bit of a bummer, an end
of an era Near and dear to myheart.
Sad to see this kind of end ofthe chapter, but I figured it's
worth announcing and saying outloud if you're not aware, go
check them out.
It is a really cool technologyand what I expect I'll be able
to do is I have a lot ofrecordings from them that folks

(51:02):
are saying you should uploadthose so that other folks can
recreate the experience or atleast see how it worked, right
For the purposes of not losingthat stuff to time.
You have recordings of theaudio.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Is that what?

Speaker 3 (51:13):
you mean oh, that's cool, yeah, that is cool.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, definitely Keep an eye on those.
I mean, that's or keep a what'sthe word?
Am I saying?
Keep a lock on those.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
Archive Archive there we go.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
They've been offloaded to the cold storage
the words were not coming there.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
I've used, done it.
I'm sure I have very minimalreceive capability here but,
even if I get a bad copy, I'llbe glad that I tried it.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
We should have a brief NOAA party.
Go out to a park.
Do some POTA capture.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
One last image Didn't take much man.
I built at least threedifferent antennas probably four
or five total in my pursuit ofNOAA, and the QFH was the kind
of final one.
It was the first antenna I puton my roof before I got back
into HAM, so it was a huge buildproject.
I burned the hell out of myhand because I brazed pipe for

(52:05):
the first time and I had allthese templates built in the
shop and it turned out actuallyto work fairly well for this
particular application.
So yeah, it's a really coolthing, and if you haven't done
it, I encourage you to at leastgo read up on it a little bit.
But not all is lost.
Satdump is a program that makesit even easier than ever to go
out and capture some of thesenew images from the more

(52:26):
advanced digital satellites.
So check out SatDump, if youhaven't checked that out already
.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Is that an app software?

Speaker 3 (52:32):
Yep.
It's a software applicationthat you can download and it
will, basically it'llautomatically get all the passes
for those satellites.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
That can give you that information.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
It'll tell you where you need to tune and then you
basically set up the physicalinfrastructure to get those
things tuning.
Some of them are more difficultthan the APT stuff, but there
are some.
I've captured some images fromthe digital stuff and they are.
It is amazingly sharp, thestuff that you can get from
those birds.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
I'm going to share my screen really quick, jim, while
we're here looking at this, orat least I'll attempt to share
my screen here while we'relooking at it.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Yeah, I was going to pull it up, but if you want to
share, that would be good.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Yeah, I'm kind of curious on if this is the right
app.
Since we're here looking at it,let me go back.
I just Googled SatDump.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
Yep, that's the one.
That's the one yeah, satdump,it is a essentially it's a broad
applicable.
It's a broadly applicablesatellite capture software that
will also help you track thesatellites and then decode the
things that you're hearing fromthem.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Okay, cool.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
So it offers kind of a number of things all packaged
into one.
And if you're trying to put allthose things together
individually, right, when is thepass happening?
How do I decode the sounds thatI'm hearing or the thing that
I'm hearing from it, the digitalstream, and then where do I
point my antenna or any numberof things?
Right, this software pulls itall together for you and it
works well.
Interesting software pulls itall together for you and it
works well.
My late APT capture stuff fromthe NOAA satellites was through

(53:56):
SatDump.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
And, for those listening, it's wwwsatdumporg,
and that will take you to theSatDump website.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Yeah, that's completely new to me.
I'm going to give that a look,for sure.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Yeah, it's pretty cool to go check out.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
So we'll pour our final one out for the NOAA
satellites.
They are just really, reallycool and they had a number of
applications in practice thatwere far beyond what we're
talking about here on theEveryday Ham podcast.
So if you're even interested inpassing space or satellite
stuff, go out.
Check out just the technologythat they packed into these

(54:33):
things.
They were full of sensorpackages.
They helped with search andrescue in many ways, so they had
deployed these things for anumber of different applications
that were far beyond, I think,their original design intentions
when NOAA sent these things up.
So really the end of the aptera here and we'll see what

(54:53):
comes next and what thecommunity rallies around as the
next big satellite capture thing.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Interesting.
Well, I feel like we've spentthis whole episode of get off my
spectrum lawn and my oldtechnology is going away here,
so we're true hams, guys, we'retrue hams.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
One thing I forgot to mention at the beginning that I
was thinking about for a futureepisode, as everyone's well
aware, the FTX One.
We gave our opinions on that.
It's been out there quite a bitof time at this point and I've
seen some stuff online wherepeople have had some good luck
with it.
So we're looking for someonewho's willing to come on and sit

(55:29):
with us for 15 minutes or so,maybe even 20 if we're feeling
good vibes from you.
But just a short interview.
We're curious at this point.
It's been out a while.
We've not had a chance for usto have our hands on it,
especially with any of theupdates or the firmware or even
any of the hardware updates.
So if any of our friends orlisteners out there have an FTX

(55:49):
One, where are you at with itnow?
We'll like to to set up alittle 15 20 minute chit chat
with you just to see how thatradio is doing for you safe to
say.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
We want somebody that has had it out in the field and
has operated it effectively andis actually satisfied with its
performance, so we're notlooking for.
Hey, I just pulled it out ofthe box and it sure looks cool,
because we did that too, andthere's a video of me doing it.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, no, we're looking for someone If you
actually have made it work foryou, someone who's had a good
experience with it.
I'm very curious to talk tosomeone who's a couple months in
and having a good time with it.
So, everydayhampodcastgmailcom,or leave a comment below or
join our Discord and we'll getin touch with you and set that
up.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Yep.
So with that, a quick reminderas well.
Uh, everydayhamcom, be sure tolike and subscribe and leave us
a rating, and with that, 73everyone thanks for uh, episode
8 is in the can here good tohear you guys tonight.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
Bye.