From Scanner to Transmitter: How Everyday Hobbies Lead to Ham Radio

In this episode of Everyday Ham, we explore how everyday hobbies — from scanning police channels to using walkie-talkies with friends — can spark a lifelong interest in amateur radio. James (K8JKU), Jim (N8JRD), and Rory (W8KNX) share their personal journeys into the hobby, along with highlights (and regrets) from the recent Toledo Hamfest. We also talk storm preparedness, building your first antenna, and why welcoming new hams matters more than ever. Whether you're a seasoned operator or radio-curious, this one’s for you.

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 to episode four of theEveryday Ham Podcast.
I'm James Mills, k-a-j-k-u,joined here by Jim Davis, n8jrd,
and, of course, rory Locke,w8knx.
So we've had the last month alot going on, so I'll kick off
to you, rory, first.
What's been keeping you busy inthe world of ham radio?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
So let's see we had.
When were we, we all togetherlast?
I think one of the things wewere all together last that was
down in toledo, ohio, at thetoledo amateur radio swap that
was.
That was a good time.
I think we all had a good timewalking around and seeing the
things and talking to the peopleand buying what we needed to
buy or not buying what we shouldhave bought.
How's that?

(00:41):
What did you not buy, james?
You want to tell us that story?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
So, to preface, we all went on spring break that's
also partly why we haven't seeneach other in a while so I was
saving my Disney World money,but there was an FT-840 for sale
.
Jim, being the swell guy thathe is, actually talked the
gentleman down to a super, supergood price?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
It was an excellent price, the FT-847 being the
Earth Station, thesatellite-capable setup, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
And it's a radio I've been looking for for some time
as well, and I regret that I didnot pull the trigger.
It was one owner with the box.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
It was clean, well taken care of.
It was yours.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, I made a mistake, but we learn from our
mistakes and, jim, I think youcontinued your being an addict
of handhelds as well.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, I was going to just say, you know, you saved
your $480 on the 847 and youbought one dinner at Disney
World.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
So it was probably worth it.
In the end.
I needed one pretzel.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
I don't know what you're talking about Continued
my ham swap experiences withbuying another handheld.
Last time it was the Elinko MD5, which is my first DMR handheld
.
It was a very inexpensive one.
I think I gave the guy $60 forit.
Exciting, this time I got anIlens, which is actually made by
Redivis.
But Ilens is some new brandthat they're trying that uses

(01:58):
some of the Motorola spec andstyling.
I think it's supposed to looklike a more commercial radio.
It certainly is built like abrick.
It does feel nice in your hand.
It's an Island's HA1UV and itis a dual band handheld.
At the end of the show I thinkthe guy had $40 on it I said
would you take $20?
And he said it's all yours.
And I said, well, it lookspretty nice, I'll take it.

(02:19):
And I did ask James before Ipicked it up.
James, because he already ownsone.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
I said James, which for the viewers on YouTube I can
see I actually have one in myhand.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
It's a solid looking rig.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Super durable radio.
There it is, here's mine too.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
So, anyway, not a bad little handheld, and I was
excited to get it.
But I said, james, you got one.
Is it worth buying for 20 bucks?
He said, oh yeah, great buy,great buy.
And I said it looks good, yep,yep, good, yep, yep, yep.
So we get it home and, uh,turns out this is the story of
all of the things that I got attoledo, by the way, with the
exception of one that theprogramming cable, which is
supposed to be included in thebox, because it's a rather
strange programming cable as faras cables go was not included.

(02:53):
So I crafted one out of acredit card, a prolific 2303
chip, uh, that I tore apart fromanother cable and a couple of
test leads from my shop, andit's the funniest looking cable
you've ever seen.
If you're watching YouTube, yes, that's a door card that I used
to get into a Hilton threeyears ago.
It worked.
It took me seven tries toupgrade the firmware.
It failed multiple times, but Ican definitely say that, in the

(03:16):
true spirit of ham, I crafted athing and I made it work.
So that was probably my mostexciting buy.
I had a few other misses as faras that was concerned.
I bought a SureCom power andSWR meter for 2 meter 440.
Thinking that I was going toget a power meter that would be
reliable.
I got it home and when I tookthe battery out of the back of

(03:37):
it which, by the way, takes thewhole case apart to get to it,
the battery had exploded inside.
It's another lithium batterystory.
Everybody that's been to a hamswap has been sold something
that the lithium battery isbloated on.
This one was bloated andexploded.
Thankfully it didn't burn upthe board.
I pulled that out.
It was a 14500 cell, which is apretty standard AA size, but
with four volts.
I swapped that in and that'sworking.
What else did I get from theswap?

(03:58):
I bought an antenna switch fromone of our local club members,
which was funny.
He had a table down at Toledo,so he made his way down there
with his father and in doing soI thought I'll put it out in the
backyard.
But when I got it home and sathere for two weeks looking at it
, I said there's no way that Ineed four antennas in the
backyard, considering I live onless than an acre.
So off that went to QRZ where Iwas able to sell it to a nice

(04:20):
gentleman in Texas who I'm surewe'll find far more reasonable
use for.
So there was a couple ofexciting things down at the ham
swap in Toledo from me, rory howdid you do?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
That's a big risk of the cable you made there.
It's exceptionally easy tobrick a radio when you're doing
firmware, but I guess when it'sa cheapy handheld it doesn't
matter.
I certainly wouldn't try doingthat with, for example, motorola
Apex series or something likethat I would go find the real
cable.
Well, I think I came home withthree good items from Toledo.
I got a new antenna that'sgoing to end up in the attic
once I get the courage to goback up there For our listeners.

(04:59):
I took a good tumble coming outof the attic a couple of weeks
ago and took a spill Directdownward fall.
Long story short, you scale ashelf to get up through the
little attic door in the sparebedroom closet and the shelf
didn't like you know whatever.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
You know there are better ways to get into an attic
than scaling the shelf.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Well, I'll tell you something.
Now that the shelf is gone andI can get the ladder right in
there, it is much easier to getinto the attic.
At least you solved one problemthe shelf will not be going back
in the way it is.
There will be a new shelf thatcan be removed, or a different
series of shelves.
I haven't decided yet.
I like it.
Since I am in a condo, my 2meter 440 antennas and my HF
antenna are all up in the attic.

(05:39):
So a replacement antenna that Ineed to get up there here,
probably later this week, Ithink I'm ready to do that.
I did pick up a Baofenghandheld.
I believe it's a UV21.
I actually picked up two.
I'm going to give one away to afriend and that was attractive
because it does also do 220.
And us and our friends areplanning to use 220 to
coordinate at Dayton this year.

(05:59):
So I wanted to get an extraradio on hand for that and the
microphone I'm using right nowfor this podcast.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Which sounds great.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yes, I'm glad.
80 bucks from a gentleman whobasically said I like to play
with microphones, I'll buy one,use it and sell it.
And he gave me a good price.
And here we are, so that was agood thing.
A very cool thing happened aswe were walking out.
We had all done our thing andwe're leaving and a gentleman
says to us hey, are you guysfrom michigan and are you guys
the podcasters which you know?
That was?

(06:27):
That was.
That was a surprise, but firsttime ever first time ever.
I mean, we haven't done thatmany of these.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
We don't have that many listeners but it's not bad
for our episode.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
You know four right but here comes that tom k-r-8b
chasing us out of the place andI wanted to give a shout out to
Tom.
Thanks for saying hello to us.
That gave us a big smile therest of the day, so very good.
So something else that'shappening in the world right now
, especially if you're inMichigan or the Midwest in

(06:56):
general.
Lots of series of storms keepcoming across.
I think we're due for anotherseries of thunderstorms through
southern Michigan tonight.
That's right.
Northern lower Michigan hasbeen hit profoundly with an ice
storm that will not melt,essentially.
Jim, I know your dad lives upthere and you might be able to
give a quick brief of some ofthe situation up there as far as

(07:19):
that's concerned.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, that's right.
Kc8 NTE.
My father is a ham as well andhe's up there in the midst of it
all right now.
What happened?
Rory gave a pretty goodsynopsis there is.
During the weekend we did havesome storms blow through down
here, but in the upper part ofMichigan, where there was still
quite a bit of cold weatherhappening, those storms meant
sleet and that sleet stuck toeverything that was around that

(07:42):
was antennas, that was trees,that was bridges, that was power
lines, and you can just imaginethat as you add the weight of
ice and it coats these types ofstructures, eventually they
exceed their design expectationsand they fail.
And that is exactly what'shappened.
And if you've never seen theice coatings that can occur

(08:03):
because you're not in a coldarea like us, you can definitely
Google it.
It's beautiful really.
The trees look really awesomewith it all coated, nice.
But it is extremely hard onstructures.
It's extremely hard onvegetation.
Dad lost numbers of extremelynice mature trees.
The farm is a complete mess upthere, so it's going to take
some time to not only clean upthe damage from that but also to

(08:26):
get power back to many of thosefolks that were affected,
including my father, which hasbeen out of power.
Now we're on Wednesday evening.
He's been out of power foralmost four days.
He's, fortunately, awell-prepared gentleman, so he's
on his generator.
He's making do with theprovisions that he had.
He's hunkered down and I'm surethat he's just fine.

(08:49):
We've heard from him each day,but it's been a really wild
experience up there and thereare many people up in the
mid-Michigan and tip of Michigan, the tip of lower Michigan area
, that have been impacted invery dramatic ways.
So go ahead, rory.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, and that was what I wanted to touch on is
just a reminder to all of us,because we're all guilty of this
.
Right, we all have batteriessitting around the house that
are not fully charged.
We have generators that wehaven't tested since the last
time we had to use them in anemergency.
But this is just a reminderjust for everybody, to make sure
your stuff is charged, makesure your generators start.
People up north are looking tomaybe up to two weeks without

(09:17):
power.
It's going to take some time.
If you get online and look atsome pictures of the devast mean
power lines and poles arebroken like twigs.
I mean it's some serious damage.
Also in that storm system, ourfriends at the Lapeer Amateur
Radio Club out of Lapeer,michigan, took a full loss of
their tower with the wind thatcame through and they posted

(09:38):
online about their loss and Iwill say they were not asking
for help, but basically theamateur radio community came
circled around them, a bunch ofpeople offered help and some of
our other friends at the CentralMichigan Emergency Group
especially that is led by FredW8FSM.
They got them a spot on anearby tower and got their
repeater back on the air in lessthan 24 hours, so they're not

(10:00):
planning.
I don't think the new spot istheir permanent home, but their
repeater is up and on the air.
That's one of those things.
It's always a pleasant surprise.
People reach out, people checkin on each other and in that
case they help them get theirrepeater relocated and back on
the air.
Always keep those things inmind.
Make sure you've got a plan anda backup plan and a backup to

(10:22):
that plan.
I think that will keep youahead of most.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, if you hadn't seen the pictures, that Lapeer
tower was folded in half.
Essentially right about themiddle it failed and it bent
back over on itself.
It doesn't look like it causedany person-related damage, but
certainly very much an equipmentproblem.
It's awesome to hear, though,that they were able to get it
back up so quickly.
Depending on where thoserepeaters are located, they
could be one of the linchpins ofthe community, right for hams

(10:47):
to be chatting back and forth.
I know if ours went down, Iwould certainly be missing it,
so it's nice to hear that theywere back up and running it
under.
You know, in short order.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, that Lapeer machine has always been fairly
popular up in that neck of thewoods so I'm sure they were glad
to get it.
Get it back on the air.
Another tower failure on thecommercial side, uk HQ up out of
Petoskey.
They lost their 630 foot towerin the storm as well, so that
came, that came.
I was able to reach with reachout to a, an associate with one
of the large networks up northwho's in in charge of four or

(11:18):
five tower sites for varioustelevision networks and all of
his were fine.
He wasn't able to get a link tohis Gaylord tower but he
figures that's because of thepower outages and other problems
at Gaylord.
He wasn't concerned about afailure there but certainly a
big mess for anything up therethat the water and ice was able
to freeze to.
Just that little bit of weightjust can't handle that extra

(11:38):
weight and they come right down.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yeah, gaylord was for the most part shut down for at
least the first two or threedays.
They called school off for theentire week.
Of course, no power, no heatfor the schools, slowly as they
restore some of those majorinfrastructure things Big lines
for fuel, of course, like Rorymentioned, being prepared and
having a few extra gallons offuel a good idea so that you're
not running in and waiting inline and wasting time doing that

(12:02):
.
So, yeah, definitely take alook.
If you're not from the Michiganarea and it hasn't crossed your
radar.
It's very interesting news.
It's sad news for many who aregoing to be majorly financially
impacted from it and I expectrecovery will carry on far into
the summer, given all of thedamage that has occurred out
there.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
I know we'll be making a trip up north.
And Michigan is used to someice storms, especially this time
of year, especially sleet.
But again, as everyone has said, look up some photos, because
this was this is unprecedented.
Yeah, michigan's never reallyseen something like this.
And then you add in the stormsthat rolled through more of the
Detroit across Grand Rapids.
So the west side of the state,lower left side of the state,
across to the east side, therewas a high wind.

(12:42):
So it was a lot of differentweather systems all at once and
communities trying to respond tovarious situations.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
So as Rory said, be prepared.
I believe the count in Michigansouthern Michigan, non-ice
related was over eight tornadoestouched down, many EF0s, so
small tornadoes on the groundfor only seconds at a time, but
we did have a few EF1 tornadoesthat came through, so it has
been an extremely unsettlingweather week to start our spring

(13:09):
here in April.
So yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Hopefully it's not a sign of how our summer is going
to be storm-wise, becausethat'll make it interesting.
And I did read this afternoonthat the National Guard the
governor of Michigan didactivate the National Guard to
head up and help out up northwith some of the tasks.
Because you have to think aboutthose counties and cities up
there.
They are not big counties andcities, they do not have
hundreds and hundreds ofemployees and within the first

(13:32):
couple of days those guys startgetting pretty tired and I'm
sure they're glad to see thehelp.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, the linemen especially, are out there
braving not only the storms butthe extremely treacherous
conditions on those lines, notknowing what status are I mean
those guys are out there doingsome serious hero's work.
And the other big thing ifyou're not in tune with this is
Mackinac Bridge was completelyclosed to standard traffic.
They're, of course, escortingany emergency folks, like

(13:59):
linemen, back and forth acrossthe bridge with a police escort,
because the falling ice fromthe trusses on the bridge and
it's a suspension bridge, ifyou're not familiar with the
Mackinac Bridge is the bigenough pieces of ice to smash a
car, take out your entire car,so you wouldn't want to end up
in there.
So it's a very, very serioussituation even up there and

(14:19):
right now they're not sure whenthe weather will break to the
point where that will thaw toallow traffic again.
Very unusual to have theMackinac Bridge closed for this
long a period of time.
So many unprecedented eventshappening in this part of
Michigan.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
So, yeah, with that, everyone stay safe out there,
because we also know there'sbeen a lot of weather systems
going throughout the country aswell.
The storms we got also sweptthrough the lower parts outside
of Ohio and below as well.
So everyone stay safe and beprepared.
So with that, let's transitionto our main topic today.
So we wanted to talk about thelaunch pad to ham radio, and

(14:56):
what I mean by that are what arethe gateway?
Drugs or hobbies that we allhave seen or had that have
brought new hobbyists to hamradio and amateur radio.
So I know that some of the easyones we can talk about are, of
course, gmrs General MobileRadio Service, frs handheld
radios.
Meshtastic has been a big one,but I'd be curious, jim, when

(15:18):
you were starting, what reallywas your gateway into the hobby
itself?

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Well, I'll tell you two things here.
First, I'll agree with youcompletely on FRS and GMRS being
kind of a starting point,because even back in 2002, which
is about the timeline where Igot licensed with my tech the
family was using those radiosbefore Of course, we've talked
about this a little bit inprevious episodes which is to
say, times were different then.
Not everybody had a cell phonein their pocket that was capable

(15:43):
of text messaging very easily,let alone T9 style where you had
to tap nine times to get a wordto come out of your phone.
It was a lot different.
So everybody was carrying thoselittle FRS radios around.
So that was what the familyused.
When we were together, we wouldbe walking around places,
whether they be field days,malls, being out in a city, and

(16:04):
we would be using those to talkback and forth as a family, to
rendezvous for lunch, to gettogether and plan where we were
headed.
So that's definitely one ofthose common, I think, starting
points.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
And we should say FRS is Family Radio Service, so
Unlicensed Radio Service.
So think those bubble packagewrapping radios that you can get
at Walmart or some other store.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yep, and they do share bands with GMRS.
Of course I'm sorry they doshare frequencies in the same
band with GMRS, so it's one ofthose interesting sort of
crossover points for radio.
But when I look at how did Iget back into it more recently,
amid all of the working fromhome and kind of being stuck
doing things that you couldentertain yourself with?

(16:42):
I sort of found SDR radio, sosoftware-defined radio, right,
and it started with me thinking,well, that's pretty neat, right
, I can buy a broadband receiverfor 30 bucks off Amazon that I
can plug into a USB port and Ican scan from zero to a thousand
megahertz.
Like it's nothing, right, andwhat an inexpensive way to start

(17:03):
again listening to what's goingon on the bands.
Right, and with the rightantenna.
And of course I didn't have theright antenna when I got one of
these out of the box, right, itcame with a little telescoping
thing.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
It wasn't the mag mount on the cookie sheet then
at that point.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
I mean that was one of the options, but no, I
remember when I got it out ofthe box I bought the RTL-SDR,
which is actually a repurposedthe repeater's chatting with me,
sorry, if you heard that it's arepurposed TV tuner chip, the
RTL is, and so the RTL-SDR is aproject that has really gained a
lot of traction and it's anawesome general purpose SDR.
So when you get it out of thepackage it comes with a little

(17:38):
telescoping TV you know likebunny ear style antenna, and you
can kind of tune that bypulling those in and out to
whatever length and you canlisten to different frequencies.
And so I started doing that andhad a lot of fun listening to
AirBand right.
We're just under the Detroitairport out here, 45 miles kind
of west of the area where thoseplanes come in, and so I was
listening to them as they landedin right Like back and forth.

(18:00):
You can scan from what?
120 to 135 megahertz, oh yeah,Rory's got one on the screen
here and you can listen to theplane chatter and those guys are
funny.
They're very to the point andbrief, so there's not much to
hear.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
But if you know what to listen to.
I like how they operate.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, very to the point, brief, and so that kind
of started me down the scannerpath again, and I do credit the
RTL-SDR as being one of thosevery strange little gateway
drugs to getting back into radioin a much more serious way,
because it's so powerful, right.
You know, scanning doesn'trequire a license and so you can
listen to a lot of differentthings.

(18:33):
You could probably hear some ofyour dispatch emergency bands.
You're not going to find thetrunk stuff that requires
digital or otherwise, but you'regoing to find a lot of like
paging-type frequenciesotherwise, but you're going to
find a lot of like paging typefrequencies.
You can probably hear Rory willtell you the local locomotives
coming through, the trains beingoperated on specific
frequencies and you'll stumbleacross those things as you do.
But where this all leadsessentially is with the RTL-SDR.

(18:55):
I was looking for somethingmeaningful to do with it.
I was like, okay, I've got thisthing, what could I do?
Right?
And I started reading aboutNOAA weather capture and NOAA
had orbited satellites manyyears ago now.
These are old satellites, right, 15, 18, 19.
But there's been many beforethose that project images.
It's continuously scanning theweather and they have infrared

(19:19):
cameras, they have visualcameras and they provide a
really, really powerful way tokind of see how awesome amateur
radio could be, or radio ingeneral rather, could be,
because you get those neatamateur satellite pictures.
So it was the first thing thatreally got me back into it.
I got really excited abouthanging those budding ears out
the window.
I tuned them in a V shape,pulled them out to 137 megahertz

(19:42):
give or take lengthwise I thinkthat was 19 or 20 inches long
and I had a 2x4 hanging out mywindow with a 10-foot pole
erected up over my eave and Iwas listening to those
satellites and the pictures wereterrible because the antenna
wasn't tuned up properly and Iwas using the worst coax cable
from RadioShack 25 years agothat I had in my closet.

(20:03):
But it was awesome to just startgetting re-interested, start
understanding what you could doif you had better equipment, if
you understood the process more,if you understood the antenna
more, and so I started thinkinglike, okay, what do I need to
learn?
How do I build a better antenna?
And I started looking at what'sa better satellite antenna, and
that's where it led me, was Istart to read about how do you

(20:30):
build antennas, how do you getit, and then you naturally find
this door opens and it's like,well, why aren't you just
researching amateur stuff, right?
So for me, one of the bigthings, the big transition
things that got me back into it,was the NOAA weather capture.
And if you haven't checked itout right, WX2image, which is
the old weather captured app, isa really cool tool.
It's basically, at this point,abandonware, but you can find a
repurposed version of it thatcan be downloaded and used

(20:51):
freely.
And then sat dump is an awesomeprogram that basically
automates the whole process.
So if you, if you buy one ofthese things, can find a place
to stick an antenna out on yourback porch, you can use sat dump
and, while you're at workearning your keep, that thing's
capturing weather images thatyou can check out on your way
home, and you might put thoseinto like a network folder and
share them to a website, andthen you could see them wherever
you're at.
So it's just an awesome tool,and that, for me, was one of the

(21:13):
things that I got re-excitedabout with radio, and it led to
me upgrading to general andmeeting you guys in the South
Mind Club.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
And the rest is history.
So, Rory, what about you?
What was your gateway?

Speaker 2 (21:26):
let's say so my gateway goes back to playing
with a scanner in mygrandfather's apartment every
Sunday morning.
So when I was fairly young, mydad and I had a routine we would
stop by my grandpa's place inWixom and say hello for about an
hour.
They would drink coffee and Iwould sit and eat a cookie and
probably have a milk, because Iwasn't having any coffee and I

(21:48):
hadn't found coffee at that age.
Nowadays I would have a lot ofcoffee with them.
But my grandpa always had histoys around the house.
He should have been a ham, andactually his older brother was,
and I did know that it wouldhave been my great-uncle Joe.
I did know him a little bit buthe was already in his 90s at
that point so didn't really havea connection there, but I was

(22:11):
aware of him and his ham radiohobby.
Anyway, they liked their toysand my grandpa always had
something, some little gadget orthing, floating around his
place there and the one thingthat he had was his little I
think it was a 30-channel unitand police scanner, which I do
have.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
It's stored away safely in the room with stuff
over here.
Oh, that's nice Room of stuff.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, and the fortunate thing about that is he
was very, very strict about the30 channels that were
programmed in it and he had thislittle half sheet of paper with
what was programmed in it andthen which channel, and that's
what had to be in there becausehe wanted to listen to what he
wanted to listen to.
But I was allowed to get outthe police call book Radio

(22:51):
Shack's Police Call, is thatwhat it was called the green
book and dial in whateverfrequency I wanted to play with
or listen to.
And there was a section inthere that talked about ham
radio and they were generic hamradio frequencies, probably
146.52.
And a few of those, maybe one.
It wasn't localized.
So I never really foundrepeaters until much later.
And I was listening to I had ascanner on my own by then and

(23:13):
stumbled upon a series of localDetroit area repeaters, mostly
the smart 14714 out of the Troyand Royal Oak area, a couple
other ones.
Those are the guys that I wouldlisten to and it was just
fascinating to me to listen tothese guys.
So I always had a scanner.
Eventually my dad convinced methat go get licensed and see.
You know, he said the basic.

(23:33):
My dad knew enough about thetechnician license that it was
easy enough to get at the age of17.
And he encouraged me to do itand just try it and if I liked
it I'd have it.
If I didn't, you know, you justmove on and I'm glad he did.
But something that that ledinto for me shortly after I got
licensed and I was part of theSouth Lion Club the first time I
met some folks that weremembers of Civil Air Patrol and

(23:55):
for those who don't know aboutthat organization, it is the
auxiliary of the US Air Force,primarily focusing on aerospace
cadet programs and emergencyservices, and each state kind of
has a different programdepending on the needs.
But as part of that they dohave a radio communications
program and there were two folksin the South Lion Club that
encouraged me to come join CivilAir Patrol because they played

(24:17):
radio.
That's how it was sold to me.
I'm still a CAP member allthese years later and have done
all sorts of other stuff, butthat's a story for another day.
But that kind of, as a littlebit of a segue for a gateway for
other people, what startedhappening there as I met more
and more of the communicationsfacing folks of Civil Air Patrol
is.
There was a guy, unfortunatelysilent, keynote Chuck Cook N8SN.

(24:39):
He did an annual thing calledHam in a Day and that was
extremely popular for the cadets.
And the cadet program in CivilAir Patrol is youth 12 to 21.
And you would get all thesepeople kind of with the same
story.
Someone in their family had ascanner, someone in their family
had a radio, their uncle was aham, their parents run CB when

(25:02):
they go up north, all thesethings they were interested in,
and they would get littleglimpses of all of us playing
with CAP communications, whichis similar but also not similar
to ham radio.
Again, another story foranother time.
But that became a gateway forall those people and a handful
of those people as they'vegotten older.
I have bumped into them on arepeater here and there and it's
super fun.
So you get those organizationsthat are youth-minded, that have

(25:24):
the component of radio.
Boy Scouts does a similar thing.
Our friend Frank on FADOM,another local member here.
Both of his kids were BoyScouts and he continues to be
active in Boy Scouts, scouts onthe Air events, and you hear
about that too.
Someone was a kid in the BoyScouts and they were encouraged

(25:46):
to get on the air and play withradio and suddenly they become a
ham someday too.
So there's all these avenuesand a lot of it is just exposure
.
I think and that was my thing Iwas exposed to not necessarily
ham radios but electronics ingeneral, and I think that opened
the door for me, and I see itdoing the same for others as
time goes on too.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
I have to comment, by the way, your scanner that had
all of its channels programmedand very specifically, so it
sounds like somebody I knowU8KNX programmed and very
specifically, so it sounds likesomebody I know u8k and x.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
So my dad, my, both of my parents, both of my
parents tell me I am extremelylike, like my grandfather, of
that, that and uh, I guess forfor sidebar because why not, I
digress all of my radios.
So if you go back to theoriginal scanner, I of course
started finding repeaters andhad to program at them in the
scanner and that was a basichundred memory scanner, handheld
scanner, and I had all thepublic safety stuff in first

(26:40):
from 1 to 19,.
But all the ham stuff startedat 21.
And to this day, exactly how Iprogrammed the scanner back in
the mid-90s are how all myradios are programmed.
The Southland repeater is stillin slot number 21.
The smart repeater is still inslot 26.

(27:02):
And I could tell you thosenumbers exactly.
So what happens if they take arepeater off.
There's rules In my specialbrain here, there are rules.
Let's hear them For example,anyone who has been a hammer on
the Detroit area for a whilethere used to be a very popular
repeater in Northville, the14517, which was on top of the

(27:25):
state hospital on 7 Mile andthat was in slot 24.
That was probably the mostpopular repeater in the metro
detroit area um for three yearsand I left 24 vacant all these
years until we brought up the uhthe so the south lion, the

(27:46):
south lion 440 machine has gotslot 24 all these years.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Wow, I didn't know you gave it now a prestigious
memory it got 24, yeah folks,you don't understand how big of
a deal that is for Rory toassign a treasured repeater.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
I have other friends who make great fun of me for my
programming scheme, but it worksfor me.
I can find any radio you knowwhether I'm looking or any
repeater, any memory in there,whether I'm looking or not
looking, and it works for me.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
I have one more basic question on your memories here
while we're talking about it,because I do think this is such
a personal question, right?
Every ham that's listening canrelate here.
Everybody does it a littledifferently.
Everybody titles them a littledifferently.
How many do you have and how doyou title them?
Do you use the call sign of therepeater or do you use a
geographic location?
I'd love to know.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
So I try to use what the repeater is called.
A lot of repeaters have a name.
For example, we call ours aSouth Lion repeater, so it says
South Lion, but the Hazel ParkClub repeater is called the Dart
.
So it's in there, the Dart.
The Smart, of course, is inthere, the Smart.
It's basically what it iscalled.
There's one on the far eastside called the Echo I think
that's when the lance cruiseradio club operates.
It's a, so that's what I go byif I don't know that it's either
in there by the city or thecall sign I was gonna say I

(29:01):
would say name, name first.
Yeah, nickname for the city andthen the call sign if I really
have to okay, there's some weirdones in there, if I need to
differentiate, there's some odd,odd quirks, but it works for me
my biggest fear right now isrory will never be my friend if
he ever borrows one of myhandhelds or mobile radios,
because I gotta tell you thereis no rhyme or reason on how I

(29:21):
ever couldn't take every channel.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Oh god, I'll just go ahead and spin the dial or hit
the scan until I find what I'mlooking for couldn't do it how
many do you have in your, inyour, your machine rory?

Speaker 3 (29:32):
how many?
65 probably, I I mean they'renot.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
The other problem is they're not exactly sequential
because I do have, as time'sgone on, I did start at one,
believe it or not, when Istarted learning of different,
so number one in my radio is notmy most used repeater, sure,
sure, which is bizarre to a lotof people um, and and there's
some.
There's some different rules tothat.
I say rules.
Life is made up, there are norules, but I say rules.

(29:58):
There's some high numbers, myD-Star hotspot, all-star hotspot
.
They're up in the 80s, sothey're kind of chunked together
.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
I do keep some Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan
stuff for travel.
I love this because it's apersonal question, but at the
same time I always like to hearhow other folks do it because it
is such a daunting task toprogram a new radio, right.
And so until you've got someformat established, like how do
I name it?
What should I put into it, youkind of have a blank slate, and
they're not useful.
Until you put memories intothem, right?

(30:32):
Because when you're drivingaround and you don't have your
phone with you, you're nevergoing to remember what the
frequency was.
Well, rory might remember.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I won't say you won't .
Rory will remember.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
Yeah, some of us like myself, won't remember, so I
need to dial it in right.
And so for me I have probably25 now that I've got and, like I
said, I started doing this inthe middle of June.
But my first one is of coursethe South Hawaiian repeater,
because that was the first placeI talked and I've slowly
geographically circled out fromthere with my numbers of memory.
But I also have some strangeones, like my All-Star node is

(31:04):
number 19th, because theAll-Star node uses 433.900 with
a 91.5 tone and it's number 19in the memory.
So I have all the nine thinggoing.
20 is my APRS beacon, even ifthe radio doesn't support APRS,
because I want to hear voicealerts.
And 21 is my MMDVM node.
So I've got some strange littlequirks in mine as well.

(31:26):
But I'm always curious to hearhow folks do this, because I do
say most folks buy these radiosand then when they get to the
programming step it's sodaunting to think about that you
just stop there and then younever do it and it won't serve
you well until you sit down andput a few things in.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
They're all the same.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Again.
I'm the Wild West ofprogramming.
Every radio is different.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
James has no rhyme.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
But I mean Rory always makes fun of me because
he says I'm never on therepeater.
You're notater, you're not.
I mean you're not.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
I mean there's, there's 21, there's, there's a
subline repeater in slot 21,that's where it belongs 7 0 4 0,
1, 10.9 I mean, I still got toget the antenna on my roof.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
That that, by the way , will be a more longer video of
the future here.
We're not going to let rory geton a shelf and climb up on the
roof but, we do plan on puttingup a two meter 440 antenna here
in the summer project.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Summer project That'll be exciting to do Now
that you know that James ischaos incarnate when it comes to
radio programming and Rory is,I would say, like the mint level
of programming and I'msomewhere in the middle.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
I don't know.
We also learned Rory takes hisoperating tips from the pilots
on their crisp, clean radiotransactions.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
I like a quick radio transmission, no fluff, no extra
, no carrying on.
I can ramble.
I guess that's kind of How'dyou get into podcasting?

Speaker 1 (32:48):
I feel like this episode's turned into an expose
of Rory.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
I don't shut up, that's how Well you guys talked
me into it.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
We've now gone into his inner soul.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
You guys talked me into it.
That's how we got here.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
We appreciate your color commentary.
We also talked you into buyingthat microphone, so we're doing
two for two.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Oh it's very good, it's very good.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Well, very good, james, anything new in your life
, radio or otherwise, that isgoing on.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
I mean, I guess from the back to the launchpad topic
I'm not much different than youguys.
Growing up I always had thebubble wrap FRS radios.
I love those and none of myfriends would ever play radio
with me, and I was always upset.
So my grandpa was a big CB-er.
He loved his CB radio alwayshad in the car.
Never really, so maybe alsoRory this is where I get it from

(33:31):
Never really talking on the CBradio.
However, I was always listeningon the CB radio Also had the
scanner.
I was not smart enough to savethat scanner and I don't even
remember what I remember it wasa black scanner, probably some
Panasonic from Radio Shack orsomething around those lines.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Realistic, probably.
If it was from Radio Shack,You're probably right.
Yeah, I wish.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
I would have saved it .
I did not have the foresightfor that.
And then I always just likedradio and during COVID I was
looking up, I knew ham radioexisted.
I always was interested in hamradio.
I'm a big electronics nerd ingeneral as well.
I like building basicelectronics.
I've always been learning.
I taught myself to program andthings of that nature at a

(34:11):
younger age.
Big computer person in general,like most millennials I guess
Most millennial nerds, I guess,is a better way to say that.
And COVID hit was looking forsomething to do.
I said you know what It'd befun to start to get my license.
I actually just wanted to startlistening to two meter
frequencies and get a handheldgoing.
And I took the test and got mytechnicians and then I started

(34:31):
to do more and more research andI just kind of got excited
about building my ownelectronics, the kits that were
out there, radio repairpotentially, which I have not
gotten into that.
But that's something for myfuture and actually, jim,
probably something you couldhelp me out with in the future
here from a training course,yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
No, seriously.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
And I look forward to it.
But I started to just study formy general.
I got onto HF Radio.
I found the South Lion Club,got a demonstration of Hoda and
I was hooked.
Just the ability to be mobileand to be talking around the
world and different setups andeach kit is different.
Every person shows up with aslightly different variant, even

(35:08):
how they set up their radiosand the programming and what
their target is.
Do they operate digital, dothey do sideband, do they
whatever?
And it's on and on and on and Ilove it.
It's like an endless.
It's a hobby within a hobby,within a hobby within a hobby,
and for that fact it's fantastic.
But it just goes back tofinally someone will talk to me
on a radio, unlike my friends inthe neighborhood when I was a

(35:30):
kid, because it wasn't cool andI guess I'm living my childhood
dream a little bit, not to soundcorny, but I do enjoy it.
And also I would say thecommunity is probably one of the
better parts people don'treally talk about.
So Rory was saying you know theexposure to it and I really
think that is the communitybuilding.
You build friendships withpeople and you start to
understand what they'reinterested in, and you know

(35:51):
there's Louis N8LEK in our clubas well.
And you know there's LewisN8LEK in our club as well.
He always kind of makes fun ofus for FT8 operation and we rib
him about stuff right back.
But you know it's talking aboutwhy we do things the way we do
and having those relationships.
That's pretty cool.
And I don't really know ifthere's, you know, outside of
sports.
I don't know if there's reallymany other hobbies, not to
compare ham radio to sports here.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
But I'm not sure there's really many other
hobbies where you build thatdeep community which is, I think
, important.
You unlocked a memory for mewith the FRS and friends on FRS
when I was a kid and it's acomplete chapter I skipped.
We did have a series of us inmy neighborhood growing up,
which is not far from where Ilive now.
We were all on FRS and therewas a time where there were
probably 10 or 12 kids in theneighborhood yakking on the FRS
at 10, 11, 12, 1 o'clock in themorning, jeez, and we were all

(36:44):
close enough, you know.
And once in a while, you know,especially I remember
Christmastime.
We probably did this for a year, two years.
Around Christmastime people gettheir Christmas presents and
all these extra FRS radios youstart getting random people on
there.
But yeah, there were a number ofus that used the FRS around the
neighborhood and had what well,I probably was aware of ham
radio at that point.
But what they didn't realizewere big old round table QSOs on

(37:07):
the FRS channels.
That's funny.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
James, you mentioned go ahead.
No, I was gonna say I need toGoogle it.
I remember the FRS radios Ieven had at one point and I
loved them were Jurassic Parkthemed and I should Google them.
There were so many I know, butthey were so cool and I just
remember thinking they were thecoolest things ever.
I had some cheapy forever.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
And then I had Motorola came out with a line
and I'm sure I could find it ifI looked for it, but they looked
like real radios.
So I had to have that specificMotorola FRS.
I probably still have one inthe room of stuff, I guarantee I
do.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Our timing is impeccable because I remember
when we got our FRS radios, mybrother and I and I always
thought it was novel because mygrandparents lived here in
Livonia, michigan, which isn'ttoo far from where we all
operate here in South Lyon, andfolks were always on the radio.
So you could pull up an FRSradio and there would always be
something chattering across oneof the 14-some-odd channels.
Right, we got Audiovox FR-130radios.

(38:08):
You can look that up.
It is an ugly little Audiovoxradio.
It's about what you expectThree buttons on it, a dial and
a little stubby antenna.
And those were in our Easterbaskets.
They had broken the clamshellopen.
One in each of our Easterbaskets.
Yes, we were still gettingEaster baskets because my
grandparents loved us.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
There's nothing wrong with a good Easter basket here,
let's not.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Among the Cadbury eggs there were FRS radios for
that particular Easter and Iremember that was spring break.
We were down, that was ourlittle thing, and so me and my
brother were running around theyard with those things and
listening to folks, of course,all around the metro area as we
were traveling, carrying thoseoff, going to dinner with them,
had them in your pocketeverywhere you went because they
were just the coolest thing atthe time.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, I mean, what's your take too on if you were to
pick a gateway hobby and I knowagain, we talked about how this
is a very personal experience itreally is to what gets you in.
But a lot of the push right nowin amateur radio is how do we
get the younger generationinvolved?
And I do have two young kidsand they make fun of their dad
pretty regularly for being intoamateur radio.

(39:12):
But what do you think would bethe modern-day gateway?

Speaker 3 (39:16):
That's a tough one.
First, I'll pay a little bit ofkudos to James, because James
has two daughters and both ofthem are very science-tech
educated right out of the gate.
Both of your daughters arepretty experienced with that
type of stuff, which think isawesome that you do with them.
That's cool, but I think it'sfunny.
At some point I bet one of themwill do some radio stuff with
you.
I just think they're a littleyoung still across our fingers.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
I'm not gonna get my hopes too high here.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
You know, I think you've had a dream, but they
come to meetings with jamesright and james and you make it
fun.
You know they don't have to doradio stuff when they're at the
meetings, but I think justbringing them and exposing them
to the idea of it and maybe thatthere's some community there, I
think that's one of thosethings that it will mean more to
them later on in life.
They'll think about that, whatyou're doing with them now, and
I think that's going to mean alot to them later on.

(40:01):
I think about those sort offormative experiences that I had
with my parents and those arethe types of things that you
don't know you're making alasting impact till far later on
.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
And so I will say that Like us in the scanner a
little bit right.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, like Rory and his grandpa, right.
That's one of those formativethings that his grandpa had no
idea at the time.
He was having coffee with yourdad, right, and they were
sitting at the table, but youwere learning something there
and you made this strongassociation with him that still
sticks with you to this day andI think that's really important.
That's just how the mind works,I find.
But how do we attract new folks?

(40:35):
That's a tougher question.
That I don't know.
I think we're still trying tocrack that, even in our own club
here.
But I do want to say out loudthat being an inclusive club and
being welcoming of folks thatdon't understand a darn thing
about it but are curious isreally going to be one of the
things that continues to makethis hobby continue to thrive.
Right Is if you wall off thegarden because everybody's too

(40:59):
cool for school.
Right, because I already got mylicense and I already know all
the things.
That is a huge turnoff tosomebody that doesn't know.
You have to have those folksthat are willing to walk both
sides.
Right, I can be an extremelyexperienced operator, but I'm
willing to sit down and chatabout the new things that were
fresh to me when I was new, thatare fresh to you right now, and
that fresh to you is like youjust got your first bow fang.

(41:22):
Bow fangs don't mean shit to meI apologize my language right,
because I've got many other coolradios but I understand what
they mean when we start out,right, it's so affordable.
It gives you that opening tounderstand what these radios can
do, and I think that's reallyimportant, right.
And so you have to really thinkabout, as we're trying to draw

(41:42):
new people in, you have to goback to when you started and
think about the things that werefun for you, that were
interesting for you, and you'veevolved over time, because
you've spent a lot of time doingthis, but those folks that are
just starting haven't gottenthat far yet.
They're going to be thereeventually, I imagine.
But it's really important toput yourself in that person's
shoes, I think To your point.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
don't smother the spark the spark is just starting
.
If they show up at a clubmeeting and they have a bao fang
encourage them, That's'sawesome.
There's no such thing as a badradio.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
I realize they're maybe not the best quality and
whatever, but they're affordable.
They get you started there.
There is a bad radio okay, anyradio that the person has the
roger beep still turned on allright so if you buy a bow, fang
let that be said yeah, we've gottwo different ones going on our
local repeater.
Yet I know who one of them areand at some point I'm going to
have to be mean to the new guyand tell him to turn it off.
And I haven't figured out whothe second one is.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
But this is a silent warning.
Let's turn off the Roger beeps.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
No, roger beeps.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
But I guess don't.
I think the thing is there's nosecret sauce.
Jimmy already said this.
There's no secret sauce, jim,you already said this.
There's no secret sauce to getthe younger generation
interested in amateur radio.
There's not I think we said it.
Be present, be welcoming, don'tsmother the smirk.
If someone loves their bow fang, let them love their bow fang.
That is awesome and there'snothing wrong with that.

(43:03):
Let them grow, let them go downtheir path and just help them
along.
And maybe you're right, my kid,going back a little bit, I'm
sorry, but she is into FIRSTRobotics and if you're not
familiar, that's the school'sbuild robotics to complete,
basically, a robot platform fromstart to finish, from scratch
and they build it to compete ina very difficult competition.
So it could be picking upblocks and throwing them into

(43:25):
targets or whatever it may be.
If you haven't seen them, verychallenging and very cool.
And these high school kids atthat level because that's the
top level of first, I mean theyare impressive kids.
But she loves that and I think,if you know, I'm always going
to be supportive of her, ofcourse, but if I can help her
develop that hobby, maybe oneday she'll develop a love for
electronics and that can leadinto maybe, you know, going to a

(43:46):
park with me and doing somepoeta one day.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Well, go into a park with me and doing some podo one
day.
Well, you've got it.
You've got it set up very easyand I I'm sure one of your
daughters will pick up the micwith you at some point.
I don't doubt that at all.
But what?
What I think makes it supereasy for you is you have your,
your radio in your jeep, readyto go all the time.
One of these days you're goingto say oh, I'm going to stop for
this quick activation.
We're coming past a park thatI've never been to before.
I need to activate it and andmagically, one of the daughters

(44:09):
will have interest in and we'llend up with the mic in her hand.
It just will happen just try itwhether, whether or not, that,
whether she gets licensed orcontinues with it.
But I fully anticipate, andwhile you don't ever come down
to 40 meters when you activate,so I can't ever hear you in
michigan because my antenna isnot grounded well enough all
right, are you atos folks?

Speaker 1 (44:30):
I won't, I won't hear it it's not because I don't
want to be on 40 meters, it'sbecause I can't be on 40 meters.
It's so hard.
No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Well, it's so hard to get states get parks within the
same state, but anyway therewill be a a very young voice on
there calling cq from fromwhatever park.
K you know, k jku, and it'll bevery funny, it'll be cool.
But we go back and some it'llbe very funny.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
It'll be cool, but we go back to Some people will be
very confused.
But yes, you sound much younger.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Suddenly sound younger.
Yeah, Different voice.
Your voice has changed.
We go back to the Baofeng hateand my hatred and everyone's
hatred towards the Roger beat.
But that is one thing, and I'vesaid this before the barrier to
entry to the hobby, cost-wise,has essentially been eliminated
with with the bow fangs andsimilar radios.
And I, you know, we have seenthat some, you know, when you
mentioned, you know, someoneshows up to the club with their

(45:18):
brand new bow fang and they'reproud of it.
But would that, would that, youknow, guy or gal, would she
have been able to enter thehobby with, with having to go
buy a two, three $400 handheldright off the bat?
That keeps a lot of people out.
I think that's one of thethings.
And we mentioned also the beingencouraged of that person,
encouraging of that person tolearn more and get on the air

(45:39):
with that radio.
And that's the other thing youguys know I push, especially on
our local machine here.
Try not to leave any callunanswered.
When you hear someone come onthat you've never heard before,
with a brand new Kilo Fox 8 callthat you know is fresh off the
press, at least take a moment tosay hello to them, Let them
know that they're in the rightplace, that they're welcome
there, that they should comeback, they should invite their

(46:02):
friends, get their friendslicensed.
If that happens, it's importantto keep that door open.
I see too many times you getnew hams that give their call
out and no answer just becausesomeone doesn't want to talk to
someone they don't know.
But how much does it take outof your daily life to take five
minutes to talk to this personand make them feel welcome.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
There's nothing wrong with saying I'm responding.
I'm sorry, I only have a moment, but I wanted to say hi.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Absolutely.
That's all it takes.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
We'll talk soon and you can sign off from there as
well.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
You know I take that leave no call unanswered thing
from.
I adopted that from some of mytrips out to California.
There's Southern California, thePAPA system is a series of a
ton of linked 440 machines inSouthern California and that's
their rule.
The guy who owns that,cecilwd6f, said hey, he's like

(46:52):
we have 35 repeaters linkedtogether.
Someone better answer the guywhen he gives his call.
Sign out, because you would Imean, you think about that 35
repeaters linked from San Diegoto Las Vegas and then up to
they're probably almost to SanFrancisco now going to the North
all linked together and that'slinked before All-Star.

(47:12):
That's actually all linked overRF at the time but I think some
of their links are All-Star now.
But anyway, that was his thing.
We have all these things andsomeone gives their call out and
no one can bother to answer.
That's not cool.
So leave no call unanswered.
I always.
We have right now a couple newfolks on our repeater that are

(47:33):
trying to get their station upto speed and I try to get back
with them.
Let them know whether they areor are not making it in.
You know that's all important.
Say hello to someone whenthey're at a meeting.
I had someone.
I think it was at either oursocial event, our beer social
event, or at our last clubmeeting.
I don't remember.
Someone was there he mentionedhe had been to another club.
He had been to another clubmeeting.
No one said anything to him.

(47:54):
He came, he sat around, no oneeven said hello, you know who
are you, how are you any of that?
So you know, it's all the basicstuff, I think, getting people
engaged and the more people youhave in your club, the funner.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
The fun is not a word .
More can have the differentevent types.
You can learn from differentpeople.
They bring different things inthere.
So yeah, be kind, Jim, you weregoing to say something.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
No, I was just going to say I think funner actually
got made a word eventually, bythe way.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Oh my God, yeah, I think they actually.
You say more funner.
Would that be proper English?
Probably not.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
It's more funner, I believe more fun is the correct
way to put that.
I believe, funner is now acomparative adjective for fun.
Anyway, that's a totally nerdthing to say.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Another launchpad or gateway, though.
When you have all these peopletogether, you start playing with
new things.
You start playing with theMeshtastics.
You start playing with newthings.
You start playing with themesh-tastics, you start playing
with the APRS, you start playingwith all these things.
That are some new technology,some old technology and that
might be attractive to someonewho's trying to get into it as
well.
We have a big push.

(49:06):
It's interesting in our arearight now, there's several of us
that are going backwards intime and starting to explore
packet radio of all things.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Wait before we go too far wait before we go too far,
because I have one morestatement on our thoughts of
like new folks on the radio andI have a challenge to issue for
us folks that have been on theradio, that are hearing those
new folks, which is you have totry to draw some conversation
out of these folks, because theydon't yet feel comfortable
enough to be talking on themachine, right, the machine

(49:32):
being the repeater or thefrequency that they're calling
on.
I would challenge you and it'stough for me even, because
whenever I try to run a thing orwe have a late night round
table that Rory and I run andI've been trying to expand that
a little bit come up withinteresting ideas.
When you get folks on the radio, why are they there, right?
The idea is and I like thetechnology and I like buying

(49:53):
radios, so I just like pushingthe button.
But the idea really, I think,for the radio is for you to
connect to people, and so Ichallenge you when you key up
every time, what are youbringing to the table
meaningfully, ask a question ofsomebody, ask them what they're
up to, tell them what you're upto, try to give them something
to build on.

(50:13):
And that, for me, is another waythat repeaters.
Right now I find it extremelychallenging because when I am in
the car and someone calls, ifit's just a test call and
they're looking for a response.
I'll give them a signal reportand I'll say hey, you know, I'm
coming back from Taco Bell, Ijust picked up my lunch.
Weather out here is realbeautiful today, although it's a
little bit chill.
Give them a little something,so maybe they can take a bite

(50:33):
and then chew it up and give itback to you right Like.
I think that that's for me.
One of the things that I wouldlove to hear more of is don't
just say yes, no, I want you togive me a little something.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
I've always been fortunate or curse, depending
how you look at it.
I can more or less remember asnip about everyone.
The next time I see or talk tothem.
I have a memory for, for, fornames and voices and things.
So oftentimes, even if it'ssomeone brand new, I'll remember
at least a snip of what I hadspoken to them about previously

(51:10):
or something I heard themtalking to someone else about,
and I'll bring that into theconversation and that helps
connect to people as well.
You know, sometimes if you heardsomeone was talking about
having difficulty getting theirmobile installed, you might be
able to ask them.
You know, were you able tosolve your problem?
You know, did you get yourantenna taken care of?
You know, to get those.
That's exactly and I'm notsuper conversational.
You know to get those.
That's exactly and I'm notsuper conversational.

(51:32):
You know I struggle with it fora variety of reasons.
But you know, in general I canpull it out and get a good
conversation going.
But yeah, you'll get those cues, those on the repeater,
especially with new folks wherethere'll be just a very short
response.
You'll say you know how's yourday going?
Where are you off to?
I'm out to lunch and you getthe repeater beep and then they

(51:52):
say yep, mcdonald's.
And then they unkey.
It does take a little bit oftime for them to get courage to
go on and on on the repeater andtake it to the limits of the
timeout timer, like some of usalways do.
But you have to help encouragethem, both directly and
indirectly.
That is an excellent point, jim.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
The challenge goes both ways.
You get what you give when itcomes to a conversation, right.
So when you think aboutoperating on the repeater,
that's what I'm always thinkingabout is, if you're going to be
conversational, what do you haveto give?
And that's what you're probablygoing to get back.
If you're terse, if you'reshort about it, intentionally or
not, expect that you'reprobably going to get back.
If you're terse, if you'reshort about it, intentionally or
not, expect that you're notgoing to get much engagement on
the machine.

(52:33):
And I think that's what you haveto do is encourage it being a
conversational experience whenyou key up the radio, because if
you're not operating FT8,digital with a defined exchange,
if you're not operating CW,where you're working calls and
formatted exchanges in mostcases there are many people that
do more on CW.
I'm not making light of that.
But when we're talking sidebandor FM on a repeater, right, you

(52:55):
got to give us something rightso that we can give you
something back, and that waswhat I wanted to drive at.
I know we're getting tight ontime.
This has flown by, as ouralways does, but I think, james,
go ahead.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
No, I was going to add my monthly reminder.
New hams were not to goFacebook when to go to ask
questions.
The repeater there we go.
It's a much more reliable andfriendly source of engaging in
discussion than the old Facebook, because nothing will kill your
new spark faster than Facebook.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
There's one dude on the pod of Facebook and I'm not
going to call him out.
I hope to meet him in personone day and tell him how
pleasant I feel he is.
But Great, why respond?
That's the other thing.
Why take the response?
Someone's asking a question.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Rainbows, butterflies and kittens everyone.
Let's keep it happy, and thisjack wagon reply.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
I wish I could have pulled it up, because he's a
dick.
Okay, I would call him out.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
I've got his name and call sign right here, but I'm
waiting to do it in personbecause he'll be a dick.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
This is the PG-13 episode 4 version here.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
You already cussed it's okay, it was going to
happen eventually.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Yeah, Just like everyone times out the repeater
for the first time, everyonecusses for the first time there.
But I mean, okay.
So someone posted on the POTAFacebook thing and I wasn't
going to make this a rant aboutFacebook, but here we go.
Okay, someone needed to know.
I don't even know.
He wanted to know.
You know, is the trail that Iwant to go activate within the
park or not?

Speaker 3 (54:20):
Fair question, by the way.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
And yes, it's in the documentation.
Yes, you can find it online.
But help the guy out, you knowit's the same thing.
Maybe this guy's just wantingto get tips and ideas from
people, not with some terseanswer of well, you, you've
asked three different parks andgo look it up, go off and fall
in a lake or something I meanwhat?

Speaker 1 (54:39):
what are we doing?
I look forward to thosemidwestern response to that I
didn't want to be vulgar, james.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
I mean that.
That's why I said that weappreciate it was.
It was going to be vulgarotherwise.
So I mean, just you know, I, Ireally, and this same fellow is
on the on the.
I think he's in both the podadiscord and the poda.
What is that logging thing?
I'm blanking the, the goodlogging we use for poda and polo
.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
There we go polo that that you know discord.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
He's in there too a little longer out there it is,
by the way but I mean anyway,sorry, you guys got me fired up
about this gentleman if we cansay one more thing comes to
social media before you wrapthis up, james, because I know
you're ready no, I'm good he'safraid I'm gonna go off the edge
again, that's what he's.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
I don't want to go to the r rating here oh, we, we,
we could take it further, butthat's only in the aftertaste
today.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Yeah, that's the after show.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
No, the.
The one thing I'll also say is,right, when we look at those
places that new hams are landing, facebook's an easy place to
land because you're getting fedaggregated things based on the
interest that you're searchingat the time and you often do get
fed that, so be careful.
The other thing I'm going tosay is Reddit is another place
where, if you go to slash Reddit, our amateur radio, there are

(55:48):
some jerks on Reddit.
Slash Reddit, our amateur radio, there are some jerks on Reddit
and in the Reddit amateur radiosub, can be quite a tough place
to get a good answer and get apositive response.
And so I do caution when youbrowse those types of forums.
Right that you take what you'rereading there and you maybe
check it in with the local club,right, you've got local
resources If you don't use theones that you do have around,

(56:10):
yeah, I agree with you, man,it's tough.
I try to add meaningfulconversation to the amateur
radio Reddit.
On the regular I'll type athought like hey, this is my
experience doing this and I'llget downvoted into oblivion
because it's not the popularreply to a question on a
particular topic and that justbothers the heck out of me, and
I've said it out loud beforethose types of forums are

(56:31):
damaging the reputation of thehobby.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Because you've got new arrivals that are asking
legitimate questions that seemsimple to an advanced operator
and they're getting snarkyreplies.
They're being downvoted,they're getting responses that
are not helpful and when you putyour thoughts, your experiences
in, those are the things thatthose people can benefit from.
So I would encourage you to goparticipate, add positivity to
those things, add your ownexperiences and call out folks

(56:58):
that aren't supporting thatlevel of engagement.
If somebody's not supporting it, call them out, ask them what
they're adding to theconversation and ask them maybe
to go find a different place tobe.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say
anything.
There you go.
This is Ben.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Someone needs to tell this one guy and I just did a
little research while you wereranting that same fellow is on
Reddit as well, that I I'm notsurprised.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
Yeah, On the regular I get pretty assaulted on the
Reddit stuff, but that's a wholedifferent topic.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
So I think we will wrap it up, but maybe my last
big point here is join a club.
I still really do believe inclubs 100%.
If you are in one of theselaunchpad hobbies FRS scanners,
sdr, gmrs, whatever it may be,even if you're not a licensed
ham or you're not even sure ifyou want to go get licensed,

(57:46):
find a local club in your area,show up, get to meet the people
and you know what?
Here's the crazy thing reallyget along with those people.
Or you don't feel that's theclub for you.
Try a different club, join twoclubs shop around.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
Yeah, shop around.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
There's nothing wrong , it's not a uh, it's not a one
and done, it's not a marriage,so you can have multiple clubs,
I promise I actually challengedon't join the club until you
actually feel like you found aclub that's the right one for
you.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
And if you find a couple that you like the people
in both of them join too, right.
But don't just join a clubbecause you showed up.
Most clubs are open to folksshowing up in the public and
experiencing that and if youfind that the folks there are
meaningfully helpful, seem likea crew that you could get along
with, that you'd like to hangwith on the radio, maybe do some
social type events with, that'sthe club that you want to join,

(58:34):
right.
If you don't find that in thatclub, that's okay, there's
probably more around you.
Go check out the next one untilyou find one that fits well.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
And again, different clubs are different people.
Yeah, ham radio is a hobbywithin a hobby.
Within a hobby, even clubs willhave different flavors.
Some are social clubs, some areparks on the air clubs, some
are digital clubs, some areDXing clubs, some may be
whatever clubs.
So you know, you may over timeeven voyage out and see what
other clubs are doing or go toother club events, and that's

(59:01):
awesome.
And that's why you know, that'swhat makes this hobby great, is
meeting other people.
So with that, Jim Rory, anyclosing remarks on our Launchpad
topic.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
What's on the docket for May?
I think there's a big, bigevent in May.
There may be, Could it?

Speaker 1 (59:20):
be near Dayton Ohio.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
It could be near Dayton Ohio.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
So that does bring a question which I'll ask you guys
, and if you feel like we needto defer, we will.
But because Dayton and theHamvention happens in the middle
of May, I suspect that ourepisode in May will be slightly
delayed as a result, becausewe're actually going to record
something there.
Is that the plan, guys?

Speaker 2 (59:40):
I think we were talking and we haven't come to a
decision.
I think you might see a littlebit of a different format out of
us in the month of May.
You might see some shorter formstuff pop up.
You might see some longer formstuff pop up.
You might see some on the scenestuff pop up.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
And watch for our mic check videos on YouTube which
James piloted our first one thislast month.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
I'm so sorry for that too.
It was an excellent video.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
It was an excellent video.
Go check it out.
The mic check videos will besupplementary to the podcast,
the intention being more in thefield operating, more hands-on
type videos, and those are goingto be probably YouTube specific
.
So if you're not alreadyfollowing us over on YouTube,
check it out.
Don't feel pressured tosubscribe, but we do think that
there'll be some fun contentthat will supplement the podcast
experience over there in videoformat.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
I do have plans to get some content together for a
mic check of my own, Nice Forthe Michigan QSO party which is
coming up in two Saturdays.
So whatever the 19th.
Easter weekend, so as part ofthat, I haven't decided where I
will be yet.
I will be in a rare county, butthis weather man, I was hoping

(01:00:45):
to make a run up to KeweenawCounty up in northern Michigan,
but they're still getting snowedon my backup to that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
But you can't cross the bridge either.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
I could go through Chicago, but that's wild.
My backup to that would havebeen the Mayo area and do one of
the four counties thatsurrounds that, but that area is
mostly closed, so we'll seewhere I end up, but I will be in
a county that's not superpopulated to give people that
are county hunting a betterchance of getting someone on the
air that that day.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
So get W8KNX in the old uh spotter app there ham
alert.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
I'll be out there somewhere, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Yeah, so we will, we'll publish.
We'll try to publish our plansbeforehand on what we're going
to do for hamvention.
Yeah, jim raises a good point.
There will be some hamventioncontent and we'll make sure that
we we get that out to you guys.
But, as always, if you have alaunchpad thing that worked for
you, your own personal story,put it in the comments, send us
an email.
You can find the podcast atwwweverydayhamcom.

(01:01:40):
You can also find links to ouryoutube channel.
There are various podcastingplatforms that we're on for the
audio version.
We're also on Instagram atEveryday Ham, so go ahead and
follow us there as well.
We do post some shorts andcontent there in addition to
those other channels.
But with that again, thank youeveryone for joining.
Be sure to like and subscribeand all the things everyone

(01:02:03):
always tells you to do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Make sure you comment as well.
We enjoy interacting witheverybody and we do respond, so
certainly if you have a commentto make, feel free to reach out
absolutely looking forward toseeing folks next month at the
ham venture.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
We will be in the caesar creek campground so if
you see us we may have somesmall sticker swag to give away
and you might get a everyday hampig for your own poda case,
vehicle or other place that youmight stick stickers like a
toolbox in your garage that noone ever sees wow, that was
quite the selling point so 73can't get more exciting than
that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
So all right, everyone, thank you and uh 73.