Airwave Doppelgängers: When Your Radio Twin Lives in Another State

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What would you say if I said that having ham every
day is good for your hobby?
Well, three out of six hams mayagree with that.
So skip your veggies, grab thatknife and fork and let's get
into the next Live Free and Ham.
Hello and welcome to the LiveFree and Ham podcast.
This is our weekly show wherewe discuss ham radio topics in

(00:20):
New Hampshire, new England andbeyond.
We're thrilled to have you heretonight and, whether you're a
regular listener or tuning infor the first time, thanks for
joining the episode and hangingout with us tonight.
So let's get into our regularshow.
Here.
I'm your host, eric call signN1JUR, and I'm with my co-host,
paul.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
N1OG and the general.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Todd W1SDJ.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
And we got.
I can't get over that everytime, I think I have to sell a
church or something like that.
So we got three special guestson tonight.
Go ahead and say hello one ofyou three step up.

Speaker 4 (00:57):
I'll go ahead.

Speaker 5 (00:57):
I'm James K8JKU and my name is Jim N8JRD.
We have two Jims in the crewhere and I'm Rory.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
W-A-K-N-X.
What I thought you were, rory.

Speaker 6 (01:13):
That's what I said, didn't I?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
I thought I heard Murray, but okay, whatever, I
missed somewhere or somethingalong the line here.

Speaker 6 (01:21):
We speak quickly in this part of Michigan.
Rory Got Michigan.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Rory Got it, rory, rory Got it.
Okay, murray, we're on, allright.
Well, as always, we love to getinto our topic, but we've got a
few things we're going to catchyou guys up on, as always.
Head on over to our storefrontat livefreeandhamcom.
You can check out all our coolmerch.
We've got my favorite newt-shirt which is on the way,

(01:46):
actually, because I finally putthe order in today that's called
RF around and find out that,and many other t-shirts are out
there.
You know, and if you want to belike tortoise overland man, he
has been on the prowl.
He just finished his secondorder of 25 pack of hammies
there, and so I pack of hammiesthere, and so I don't know where

(02:06):
he's putting them or what he'sdoing, but you know he's
spreading the love with our uhyou know hammies there, and so
if you want to learn more, youcan always head over to
gethammedcom check that stuffout.
But we thank uh, you knowtorres overlay for picking up
another set of uh 25 there.
So keep it going, buddy.
All right, as always, we do ourlive stream every month, and so
if you aren't part of ouryoutube channel, make sure you
head over there and clicksubscribe and hit that

(02:28):
notification bell so you getnotified because, like we say,
we don't always know when we'regoing to do our live stream.
So you know you want to makesure you're on in the end and
you're paying attention andyou're able to join in and make
sure you're part of our uhsubscriber base so you can
always, as uh if that's not yourcup of tea reach out to us via
SMS or you can leave us avoicemail at 978-233-1142.

(02:51):
And again, all those links arealways in our show notes for
easy reach.
So you know what are youwaiting for?
Like we've told you before,just stop what you're doing,
pick up the phone, leave us avoicemail, say hello, that's all
we're looking for, because youknow, todd's lonely.
But today, this week, weactually have something in our
mailbag.
So I'm super excited to hearthat.
And so if you always you knowwant to continue to support the

(03:14):
show, you can always become oneof our Patreon members or you
can head over there and buy us abeer.
Link.
And, as we always say, with allof our Patreon members, they
get access to all of our earlyshow releases, they get all the
uncut, unfettered, uneditedversions of our podcast and they
get to be part of this privatelive stream that we got going on
.
So with that, you know, wealways say as Bob Koff says.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
You can join for as little as three hours a month.
It's not a big expense.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Nope, you can't.
And Bob is right A hundredpercent.
You know, bob is one of ourloyal patrons, drivers, and he's
always part of a uh, you know agreat community of folks.
Um, so why don't you head onover there?
And we got one little lightcorrection here that came about,
uh, cause one of our listenershad mentioned it.
Last episode I accidentally madea snafu and said the wrong date

(04:06):
to our 24-hour POTA campout.
It is actually the September6th and 7th.
It's not the 7th and 8th, whichis the Monday, tuesday.
We're going to be thereSaturday and Sunday, so that
weekend.
So the registration form hasthe dates correct.
So if you're still interested,we are still, you know, looking

(04:27):
for folks to.
You know, come and fill outthat form.
Nothing, you know.
Lock you in until we kind ofget the final numbers together.
But you can learn more aboutthat by heading over to
livefreeandhamcom.
Forward slash 24H-POTA andthat's supposed to be a big
blast.
We are super excited to havethat.
H dash poda and that's supposedto be a big blast.
We are super excited to havethat.
And if you want to learn moreabout it, you can go back in our

(04:50):
catalog and check out theepisode where we talk about the
24 hour poda and all the stuffthat goes along with that.
Or you can email us atlivefreeandham at gmailcom and
we'll be glad to catch up on allthose details.
So those that have signed up,you guys are still on that list
and we'll be reaching out to youguys soon to let you know more
details and where we're going toneed to go with that.

Speaker 6 (05:10):
So tell us, for our newbies, for the people we don't
know, give us an elevatorspeech.
What's the 24 hours of POTA?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
It's exactly 24 hours POTA.
No, I'm just kidding.
Is that elevator?

Speaker 3 (05:20):
enough.
Go ahead, todd.
I was thinking one day.
I said, well, we do field dayand I said I don't think
anyone's done a 24-hour podaactivation.
So we started talking about itand then we finally said you
know what?
We're just going to camp outand camp out at a poda park and
run it for 24 hours.
See what happens.
So we're going to run onestation and we're just going to

(05:44):
switch off calling our our livefree and fan what's our call
sign again Whiskey one live freeand ham, yeah, whiskey one live
free and ham call sign and doit all night, all day, 24 hours.
See what we see what happens.
Maybe it'll become a tradition.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Quietly check my calendar See if I'm available.
Yeah, dude, yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
We have space open.
So this is my update.
So I talked to the the wardenis that what you call him, the
warden?
Uh, the park ranger, ranger,yeah, the park, all right.
So the park ranger and uh, he,uh, he told me he goes, yeah, I
go, this is where I want to doit.
He goes, yeah, yeah, it's allgreat, he goes um, just you
can't do it right now.

(06:23):
And I said, uh, he told me hegoes, yeah, I go, this is where
I want to do it.
He goes, yeah, yeah, it's allgreat, he goes um, just can't do
it right now.
And I said why he goes.
Well, it's underwater, so we'vehad like a ton of rain and the
lake is like maybe tops six feet, maybe 10 feet deep at the
deepest and it just floods andit flooded the parking lot in
the field.
He goes, but don't worry, hegoes.

(06:45):
If that happens in september,which it probably won't, but if
it did, he goes.
I got a whole space for youguys, so you guys are good, no
matter what happens.
So he's hooked us up and he'sseen a bunch of people.
They were closed last yearbecause we were going to do it
last year, but they closed thewhole park for the year because
they redid all the electric.
So I guess they were redoingtheir buildings and the

(07:05):
bathhouses and stuff.
So the place was closed down.
But I guess some of our clubmembers and maybe some other
hams snuck in and were doingpoda activations 24-hour poda on
a cruise you could.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
It might be boda instead of poda.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
But no, this is Greenfield State Park.
It's a cool park.
If everything works out, we'regoing to be right in the parking
lot, right where right nearlike a bath house, but right on
the lake and it's pretty openand campers can just pull right
in.
You know, we'll set it up andwe'll just have our little tent
and our just like a field daykind of operation.
And we just got to make suresomeone's working the radio, so

(07:45):
yeah, yeah, james, if you wantto come, you know, hit me up on.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
uh, you know you'd be email, you know like I said, I
have to activate New Hampshire,so I mean, that's not there you
go.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
We'll help you turn it green.
That's all we, you know.
All we want is people.
That's what we are, that's whatwe live for.

Speaker 6 (08:03):
It could also be a competition type thing, because
by September Whiskey 8, everydayHam will be a call sign.
Paperwork is in on that.
So maybe we'll have to do aMichigan thing that weekend and
see what we can do.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Do a 24-parter out there.
There we go.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Well, dude, that'd be awesome.
Even if it does happen, youguys are more than welcome to
come hang out with us.
We'd love to have you.
We've got plenty of camperspace.
Just let us know and we'll makesure we've got a bunk for you?

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, and if you don't hang out with us, at least
try to work us.
We will.

Speaker 6 (08:42):
We'll be looking for you, for sure.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, we'll be looking for you, for sure.
Yeah, the only the only thingis that todd wakes up in the
middle of the night, sometimesin cold sweats, worrying that
that's going to be the mostworst day, band conditions wise,
and we're not going to make onecontact whatsoever.
And so he, he just like he's,you know, he's praying, rubbing
sticks together for the bandgods, because you know, with the
conditions we've had these pastcouple of weeks, man, man, I
don't know what to expect inSeptember.
It will be great, don't worry.
I hope so.

(09:07):
Either way, we'll be able tohang around, drink a lot and eat
.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
I don't want to hear the weather man saying, oh, the
northern lights will beavailable in New Hampshire.
I'm going to be like no Dark,please.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
All right, cool, all right.
So, yeah, all right, cool, allright.
So, yeah, you know, hit us upon live free and ham, uh,
gmailcom or uh, feel free tohead over to that form and fill
that out, let us know and we'llreach out with you with more
information.
Cool, all right.
Enough of the usual stuff,let's uh get into our first
segment here.
Uh, as I queued up, somethinghere where did it go?

Speaker 2 (09:41):
um, there we go.
Ladies and gentlemen, can Iplease?

Speaker 5 (09:44):
have your attention.
I've just been handed an urgentand horrifying news story.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
Hello everybody, we got some news.
Slow down, boog, let me handlethis.
We've got some news.
I've got bad news and bad news.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
I have reviewed ship's personnel Captain.
Congratulations, You've gotmail.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Nothing is behaving right.
Technology is going to theshitter, so let's go on.
All right, todd.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
All right.
So our most famous Patreonmember, bob Koff.
He sent us a message, I thinkit was.
What was it June 3rd?
I think he sent it.
Yeah, he said another greatpodcast.
Sorry, I missed you guys whenyou were live, but sometimes
life gets in the way, even forus old retired guys.
He really likes to like shoveit in that he's retired.

(10:33):
He knows, I want to retire andhe likes to always remind us
that he's retired and I'm not.
I'll definitely try to catchyou guys for the next one.
You said the 24 hour activationis September 7th and 8th, but
on the calendar that's Sundayand Monday.
I'm wondering if you meant 6thand 7th of September.
Thanks, bob, we were wrong.
You were right.
It's always good to have youchecking up on us making sure we

(10:55):
got our dates right.
It is the 6th and 7th SaturdayProbably going to start.
I'm going to guess around noonand go to Sunday to around noon.
That's probably how we'll do it.
Should be fun.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Looking forward to it .
Definitely good to see a lot ofthe listeners and community
members and folks.
We'll see a whole bunch of newfaces because I know we have a
bunch of newer guys that we'vebeen hanging on with Northeast
Ham Radio and whatnot that haveall been super psyched that this
is going to happen.
Maybe, maybe we can get Izzo tocancel whatever his plans are
for that weekend just to comehang out.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Didn't he say he was working?
You're working on September.
It's like three months away.
Come on, Bob.
Thank you for the mail.
It's the first one in a longtime.
I think you were the last oneto send us mail Before that,
right?
Yeah, so much appreciated.
Glad we got you on there again.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Although he did send something In the Patreon side
that Paul's Going to talk about,because he was asking about
Some of his stuff.
But we're going to dive to ournext Segment here.
Watch us with NMOG.
Now A segment where we catch uswith NMOG.
Now a segment where we catch upwith Paul on his travels.
All right, Well, you know, along overdue, but always super

(12:17):
excited.
If you have been under a rockor you just, you know, have been
disconnected from the internetor whatever, you probably
haven't gotten the latest updatefrom the great Grouch there.
So you know, dude, take, takeit away.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
You got a lot uh, yeah, so I don't know.
I had a fantastic weekend, manyeah, you did.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
The stamp is still there, or no?

Speaker 2 (12:37):
no, no, and washed it off.
Washed off, yeah, okay, okay,okay.
But yeah, I got a couple reallygood jumps in on.
Friday morning and I was ableto satisfy the requirements in
26 jumps.
Minimum was 25.

(12:58):
Wow, I earned my A license inskydiving.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Nice, sweet Parachute Mobile, here we come.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
I'll tell you one of the coolest things, bo, was
being able to ditch that studentflight suit.
Just be in my own clothes.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Like the red shirt in Star Trek, what I had on
underneath the suit was perfect,because it was my someday shirt
.
Ah, nice, nice, that was uh inthe store still.
Uh, it's a grouch will jumpsomeday, which is now gonna have
to be taken out of servicebecause that's way way gone.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
It's going to be like grouches jumping every day.
I know, right, yeah.

Speaker 5 (13:47):
Yeah, no we have to finish that.
That was limited edition.
Now, that was limited edition.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Now it is.
It is.
Now.
I got to replace it with thethree, the three faces of Paul
and his skydiving.
You know we're going to getthat at the store, so that Sort
of like how we have the threefaces of Belichick.
It's going to be the threefaces of Paul when he skydives,
but one of them is going to be areally good one.
All right, cool, so nice.
Got the A license.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Big party.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
No, actually I just kept jumping.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
You didn't get the pie in the face.
No, I didn't get the pie in theface, that's all right.
No, I uh, I just just keptjumping, uh, trying to do like
learn belly formations, justbeing with other people and
working on that video right now.
It was just.
It was so cool um I got.
I got 31 in the log.

(14:42):
Now sweet that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Well, I saw that um jump you had, where you're kind
of like diving and your legs andthe parachute got caught
between your legs.
That was scary for me to watch.
That I just like holy shit, Ithink he just died.
You were lucky on that one,dude.
You pulled that chute.
You were like upside down, likegoing straight down.

(15:04):
That thing went right betweenyour legs.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
And the fact that he went back right away to do
another jump.
That would have been the endfor me.
I would have been like nope,I'm done.

Speaker 5 (15:21):
For us laymen.
How many can you get in in oneday, paul?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
So for me, I think five is my my max five.
Okay, yeah, I did five theother day um and just physically
I was exhausted yeah, yeah so.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
So next year with the uh greenfield state park it's
kind of close to Pepperell and Ithink Paul is going to do a
24-hour skydive jump while we dothe POTA.
It would just be keep jumping,and jumping, and jumping, keep
going.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Can you have Paul jump in with the live free and
ham flag yeah Right at the radio?
That would be excellent, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
That's actually.
Yeah, we should get one.
We don't have a Limpurian hamflag.
Put that in the notes.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Paul will be doing, so we can get our 10 contacts.
He'll just be jumping out ontwo meters like Carlos does.
Congratulations, man.
That's awesome.
I'm so happy for you.
It's been quite the adventureand I can't wait to see what
else you're going to be doing.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
I'm just going to keep jumping.
I've got to try and figure out.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
He's never coming back, boys, I'm telling you
right now.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
He's an Indiana boy now.
We may never see Paul again.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
I couldn't live here Cause I don't like the taxes.
But there's a.
There's a canopy course that Iwould need for my B license and
I could get my B license after50.
But I have to get that canopycourse.
That canopy course is in Julybut it's going to be like $700.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
That's for the canopy course.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well, it's the canopy course, it's 10 jumps, it's the
gear rental.
Like you know, all the expensescombined.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Oh, so it includes the jumps and the gear.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well, no, no, no, like it's all separate, I just I
add it all up.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yeah, so it's $700, but that's how much it is for
everything.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
I think sometimes you just like it's like ham radio,
groundhog day over and overagain when you're in the
parachute.
You know, skydiving world, it,you're just more money, okay,
yeah, just repeat the day overand over and over again.
It's like wow, you know it's,it's impressive, but my, oh, my
wall is hurting and I'm not evenin my back pocket now, what do
you get with the b licenseversus the a license?

Speaker 3 (18:01):
what's the benefits of it?

Speaker 2 (18:03):
it's, it's just your progression to a, b, c, d.
One more letter but it's.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
It's not like your ham radio license where you get
like more bands, or it's notlike that like you get, you can
jump from a higher altitude oryeah, no, there's, there's
different things you can do.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Um, I don't on the top of my head have it, you know
, ready to tell you, but right,like, but the, the big, the big
thing is uh, c, right, which is200 jumps.
That's when you can startgetting into, like you know, uh,
doing tandems and coaching anddoing different things.

Speaker 5 (18:48):
I assume.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
Eric and Todd are going to go with you to
celebrate.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
There's been talk that we're not going down.
We'll be on the bottom andwe'll be waving at them.
I'm not jumping out of myairplane.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
If I hear anybody repeat this statement, you know
I will deny it and I will deleteit out of the final video
before it gets posted.
But you know I said I wouldpossibly consider doing a tandem
.
I know Paul can't give me thetandem, but I might consider it.
But yeah, knowing hisexperience with a local
skydiving place here, you knowit's like renting from Hertz,

(19:28):
like you never want to go rentfrom Hertz ever again, kind of
thing.

Speaker 5 (19:33):
Did I understand, paul?
You're in Indiana for thisskydiving training that you're
doing?

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, I'm in Rochelle .

Speaker 5 (19:39):
Indiana, okay, traveled there.
For how long are you there for?
For the skydiving stuff?

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Uh well, I got here May 9th and, uh, I just achieved
my goal.
Uh, I don't know Right now.
I'm just kind of winging it.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
He bought himself a camper, a trailer camper.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
Okay, yeah, I was looking for perspective.
How the heck did you get thereand how are you still there?
From May 9th.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Let's go all the way back and let's talk about what
instigated this thing, or whoinstigated this thing from the
beginning.
You can do it at the elevatorpitch there, paul right.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, well, you can't completely blame Carlos, no,
but I like to, it's fun so well,last year in April-May time
frame, we had Carlos K9OL on ourshow and we talked to him about
how he does parachute mobileand so what he does it's called

(20:42):
a high pull right.
He jumps out at high altitudeand pulls right away, gives him
a lot of time under canopy, andso then he'll deploy his HF
antenna, he'll power up his rigand get on the air.
And I always said, someday Iwant to skydive.
And he said, well, I had alwayssaid yeah, and Carlos agreed

(21:08):
that he had also at one pointsaid someday I wanted to skydive
.
But then his wife bought him aticket and I was like, well, my
wife isn't going to do that, I'mjust going to do it for myself,
for my birthday.
That's what I was going to do.
Nice, and yeah, october 17th,uh, after many, uh, reschedules,

(21:32):
attempted live streams.
Oh, my gosh, yeah, I got, I gotthe first hand, I'm done.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
And uh, yeah, I just I wanted to keep going.
The smile on his face, like hiswhole body, was glowing and you
knew he was like totallyaddicted right then.
And there, like this guy isnever going to stop, nope, yep.
So so it's been.
It's been awesome to watch himgo through and he's posting his
videos on his YouTube channeland and he'll tell us what's

(22:03):
coming up, but when he said hegot tangled up on one of them,
and then I saw the video on thelast episode.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
I was listening to the audio version.
I was like you didn't just gettangled up.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yeah, you're lucky you didn't come down like head
first, like all tangled up byyour feet.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Well, that's where you practice the emergency
procedures.
Yep, if it had beenuncontrollable, I would have cut
it away.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Unbeknownst to the fact that you're heading towards
air hangers and all the otherthings, there's probably more
shenanigans to happen.

Speaker 5 (22:43):
I think I watched that part of the episode.
By the way, paul and you didland between a couple of hangers
and you were aiming for like asoft spot right, like yeah, oh
yeah.
So it was a hell of a landing.
It could have worked out.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
But you made it.
That cost them 45 bucks to getthe patch put on.
So did you ever fly with thatchute again With?

Speaker 2 (23:02):
the patch chute.
So I took the packing class andwe unpacked that specific
canopy so that I could see thepatch, and then I packed it and
then jumped with it.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
And you're still here to talk about it.
That's good.
Here's a light.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
It's only preventing you to fall to your doom here to
talk and you're still here totalk about it.
That's good.
There's a light there,impressed.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
There's a light there .
It's only, you know, preventingyou to fall to your doom.
You're fine.
It's on the side, you know.
It lifts a little bit more,It'll be fine.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
No, the patch was perfect, so I was.
What I've learned from this isas patches go.
But yeah, as a layman you wouldthink that just jumping out of
a airplane and pulling theparachute, you just kind of
float down and you can turn leftor right and you just kind of
go with it.
Didn't realize that there'sparachutes that go forward so

(23:55):
many knots and if the wind'sgoing you have to calculate that
and there's a lot more to itthan just jumping out of an
airplane.
And especially when he was,when he was trying to learn how
to keep stable, like like youwould think it'd be easy, right,
but from listening to him andwatching him I was like I don't
think that that's that easy.

(24:16):
Still, you know, I got a longways to go Well, I know, but
even like from your, from yourfirst videos, when you they
couldn't even get you like level.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Now you're just like, you're doing flips and getting
level and flips.
He's to earn the title ofapostle paul.
I mean, you know we haveparachute jesus for you know,
you know for carlos there, so wegot apostle paul and you know
we're all good yeah, no, it's,it's, it's been awesome.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
So keep going, keep going.
What's the top license A?
No, no, a is the bottom.
Oh, I mean D, e, or do you keepgoing After D?

Speaker 2 (24:53):
you become an examiner.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
Oh, okay, see now.
Paul said that he likes thecanopy flying the best and I'm
convinced, once he gets in awingsuit, that's going to be the
thing.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
I'll get him out of the sky.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
I'm telling you, Paul , you get in that you like the
flying part of it, the wingsuityou're flying.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
I'm telling you that's going to be a thing.
You're volunteering for thattandem jump.
I know Right.
Exactly, you've already signedyourself up, so just like you're
really in on this now.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
You're committed well you have a youtube channel
where you post all these videos,right?
Is that what I understand aswell?
Yeah, it's the grouch in newhampshire, nice.
All right, I have to check outsome more of those videos
because I'm very I'm going totake a look for sure.

Speaker 6 (25:42):
What is, uh, what is the weight?
I'd like all the gear and theshoot and all that that you're
actually jumping with on top ofyour own body weight.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Uh, so I I lost a little bit of weight since I've
been here.
Um.
So I'm 172 plus plus the gear.
I'm right about 200 okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
What's the?
What's the heaviest you can be?
To jump out of an airplane andsurvive.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
I don't know, is anybody?

Speaker 3 (26:09):
ever logged.
I'm probably too heavy to jumpout of an airplane.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
I'd be coming down like a bullet now you're just
trying to get out of it.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
I see what you're doing I think I I think I saw
her on the wall.
It said 260, is it?

Speaker 1 (26:23):
like those signs that they have.
You have to be this high toride the ride, kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
That's awesome.
You cannot exceed this weight.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Please step on the scale.
Wow, they do have scales.
That's definitely a humblingexperience, I'm sure, for a lot
of people.
Oh sorry, sir, you shouldn'thave had that latte, that extra
latte.
A humbling experience, I'm sure, for a lot of people.
Oh sorry, sir, you didn't.
You should have had that latte,that extra latte.
You're not going.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
So the tandem canopies are huge.
They're designed to carry twopeople, but that's where, like
you, can't exceed the weightlimit of the instructor and the
student can't be more than howmuch for them.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
What's?

Speaker 2 (27:11):
that like, like I don't know, but like the sign on
the wall said no, no one biggerthan 260 yeah, so I'd need.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
I just have to go there with a tandem parachute,
that'd be my first.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
A third drag shoot just for you, Todd, while you're
in tandem mode.
Okay.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
We're two side by side coming down.

Speaker 6 (27:31):
Yeah, I'm right at the limit, but that's okay, I'm
not, I'm not going, so that'sfine.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
You're one 72.
I was like one 72 in highschool when I was wet.
I mean, I'm like not anywherenear that now Like, oh my gosh,
I wish I could be back down tothat weight.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Well, I try to maintain 180, but it gets hard,
you know, when most of my foodis pasta and canned stuff, yep.

Speaker 5 (28:00):
It's true, it's camper food.
You know, it's easy.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
It's easy, it's just sodium you'll be fine, you'll
lose it.
Good, all the way down, justlet it out.
All right, cool.
Well, good deal on that one.
Like as todd said,congratulations for getting that
class a and you know we'relooking forward to seeing you
know what's going on, I know.
I know if you're gonna be inthe huntsville area, you know,
during huntsville A certainother individual might be

(28:26):
jumping too.
I won't say who, or it might bein this crowd, but there's
talks of that.
Oh, definitely, okay, there yougo.
You might be able to get anN1OG two meter contact.
Once again, I'll have to waitto get up this way, can you?

Speaker 3 (28:44):
wear cameras now as an aid.
Oh, you can't.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
What do you have to be?
So the stipulation for camerasis 50 minimum, 200 is
recommended and you have todemonstrate that you can handle
and be proficient in all of theskills.
Because the camera is an addeddistraction, they want to make
sure that you're going to becomfortable and not distracted

(29:11):
by it, even like your GoPro orwhatever.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah.
So if you're going to shoot foryour 50, I will personally ship
you down an Insta360.
If you got your 50, if that'sthe minimum or you need to get
above it, let me know and I'llship you down an Insta360.
If you got your 50, if that'sthe minimum or you need to get
above it, let me know and I'llship you a 360.
You can have it, because I wantto see that damn footage.
That would be freaking awesome.

Speaker 5 (29:31):
Eric is the hardware fairy here, just like James is
our hardware fairy.
Whenever we need something,james is like ah shit, I can
just pull that out of my closetand get it for you.

Speaker 6 (29:45):
Oh, you need some microphones, phones, a gopro.
Here we go.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Ironically, I have a 360 so I could just go get that
out of the closet.
I'm shocked.
Well, and you know that's likeyou know, you just never know
who's gonna need it.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
That's the way I look at it, you always gotta be
prepared.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
I think, yeah, right I.
I say I want to be prepared.
But the guy you know, og, hereis mr prepared.
There's like you ask him for.
You know, can you bring out asuture kit?
Yeah, sure, sure, he's gotthree of them.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
I mean when you're that calm while falling from the
sky twisted up.
I'm guessing you're pretty wellprepared.

Speaker 6 (30:11):
Oh yeah, in that regard.
Everyone has their specialties,I suppose, so that's fine.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
I will say this, though I definitely had a lot of
mental barriers to overcome inskydiving, like much more than
physical, like just kind of I'doverthink things in my head and
then when you're, when you're infree fall, it's better if you
don't overthink it.

(30:39):
You just kind of relax, and soI'd tense up and I'd start
spinning and doing shit that Ididn't want to do.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
It sounds like you're doing great.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, they're like just relax as you're plummeting
to the earth.
Just relax, It'll be fine.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, but that's just it, though.
The more you can relax, thebetter it is.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Have you ever tried to tell a crazy person to relax?
No, they just don't.
So, yeah, have you ever triedto tell a crazy person to relax?
No, they just don't.
Yeah, give you credit, man, youdeveloped this.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
then here's another Carlo-ism.
He said to me the ultimate isif you are relaxed enough that
you can fart and free fall.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
He needs to put these things on t-shirts.
This is like gold.
I don't know why he doesn't dothat.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
You can fart and free fall.

Speaker 6 (31:29):
How do you know if that's a training measure, if
that's a way they train you, I'mnot sure that's interesting.
Does that get in the book?

Speaker 5 (31:37):
Well, you just hit the taco place before you jump
and then you're good to go right.
Yeah, wow, yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Do they have a taco cut there at the, you know, at
the jump zone drop zone?

Speaker 2 (31:49):
There is a really good taco truck right down the
street, of course.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
That's exactly why you picked that same phrase up.
That's awesome, oh man, cool.
All right, well, I know therewas one question.
Bob cough did have it and uh,did you want to answer that?
Because he posted it in Patreonand I want to make sure we make
sure we got it.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Sure.
So Bob's question wasdetermining the spacing between
people exiting the aircraft, andso we follow the acronym called
SPACE, and so it asks forskydivers.
The pilot announces the groundspeed before everybody starts
exiting.
So you know, based on theground speed, how long you need

(32:32):
to wait, and so if you've got a7 second pause between once the
group before you exits, you canwait 1, 2, 3.
Then get set up in the door,the group before you exit, you
can wait.
you know kind of one, two, three, then kind of get set up in the
door for five, six, then you'reready, set, go, and it it just

(32:56):
keeps the timing good so thateverybody gets the where they
want to be.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, you're not jumping in somebody's back
pocket, cool, all right.
Well, uh, dude, that's awesome.
Thank you for uh bob,submitting that question.
And uh, you know, hey, ifyou've got more skydiving
questions or even ham radioquestions, you know, hey,
whatever, all is good.
You know, send it our way.
We always love to hear from ourlisteners.
And, uh, you know, thank youagain, bob, for uh sending it on
through.
All right, todd you ready.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
No Good, do it again.
It's everyone's favoritesegment.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
And now a little something extra with Todd W1STJ.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
Still a general.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
All right, okay.
Well, you know you've heard ithere.
This is what we do every week.
We help Todd study for hisextra class license, so each
episode we pick three questionsfrom that extra class question
pool to test his knowledge andhope he gets his upgrade.
Please, someday.
Someday it's coming.
I know I feel it deep, so youknow, if you'd like to follow
along, you can head over tohamstudyorg.
It's a great resource and helpsyou prepare for your test, and

(34:11):
is recommended by four out offour VE examiners, because the
ARRL is never around to answerany of my questions or comments.
So, without further delay, handit over to our VE Quizmaster
and, apostle Paul, take it away.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Alright Todd.
Question number one of thisevening comes from SubElement
number seven.
How does a switch mode voltageregulator work?
Is it A by switching betweentwo Zener diode reference
voltages.
B by varying the conductivityof a pass element.

(34:52):
C by varying the duty cycle ofpulses input to a filter,
varying the duty cycle of pulsesinput to a filter.
Or.
D by alternating the outputbetween positive and negative?

Speaker 3 (35:07):
you've had this one before, my friend.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
No, I think it's the oh yeah, you, I'm positive today
, but A but Jim James.

Speaker 5 (35:21):
I was guessing C on this one.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
That was my second guess.

Speaker 5 (35:25):
I was guessing C on this one.
I'm also Todd a general, andRory is too, so we need all the
practice we can get.
Buddy, we're probably going toget this wrong.

Speaker 6 (35:34):
I'm going A.

Speaker 5 (35:36):
I'm with.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Rory there.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Or Murray, alright, alright, todd.
Final answer D oh, alright isit A oh no?

Speaker 1 (35:53):
it's C is it, it's always C that was my second
guess.

Speaker 5 (36:00):
I was like it's duty cycle when I think of switch
mode, right like switching onand off.
So that's how I always rememberthat particular question right,
jim, here's jim.

Speaker 6 (36:10):
This one is a memory aid that you can you should be
able to remember.
Look at that, let's try this.

Speaker 5 (36:16):
Oh see, this is the super.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
This is the one I hated.
Never understood.
I'm not a Ford guy, so what'sthe Super Duty S mode?

Speaker 4 (36:30):
S mode is Ford mode in the Super.

Speaker 5 (36:30):
Duty which is hilarious because there's
nothing sporty about a SuperDuty.
It weighs about 18 tons and itgets about six miles to a gallon
and it goes about six miles anhour.
So I have an F-350.
It's a great pig to drivearound town at 15 miles an hour.
I have an F-350.
It's a great pig to drivearound town at 15 miles an hour.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
You're pulling a float in a parade.

Speaker 5 (36:45):
That's right.
If you need to pull 16 stumpsout with it, you're good to go,
all right, well, I?

Speaker 2 (36:49):
know who to call.
All right, here we go.
Question number two fromSevElement.
Number one what is the maximumbandwidth for a data emission on
60 meters?
Is it A 170 hertz, b 2.8kilohertz, c 60 hertz or D 1.5

(37:18):
kilohertz?

Speaker 6 (37:21):
Everyone should know this one oh my, it's um.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
That beer D is the one that's ringing a bell, but I
can't remember what it is.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Data emissions.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, so that's like.
Fta, PSK, that type of stuff.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
I'm gonna go with B.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
B.
Yeah D, you guys suck, d isright oh man, don't get it wrong
yeah, he's gonna bomb the nextone on purpose so yeah, maximum

(38:16):
bandwidth for data emission on60 meters 2.8 aren't all the
channels, all the 6 channels.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
So yeah, maximum bandwidth for data emission on
60 meters is 2.8.
Aren't all the channels, allthe six channels, or five
channels on 62.8?

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Is that what it is?

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, yes, of course I want it centered.
I have no choice.
My radio won't allow me to goanywhere except center.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
All right For the third and final question of the
evening from sub-element numberfour how much does increasing a
receiver's bandwidth from 50hertz to 1,000 hertz increase
the receiver's noise floor Is?
It A 13 dB B, 10 dB.

(39:00):
I've had this one before 13 dbb and had them all before c 3db,
or is it d 5db?
Yes, you just recently had thisone, that's why I was like it
triggered I think it's a.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
I think you're right, sir.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
I said B, I was way off I said B too.

Speaker 6 (39:25):
I was going B, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
This is the one long formula that we all go through
that Paul reads and I feel badbecause he reads the whole
entire thing.
I was like I don't care,Whatever it is.
13.

Speaker 5 (39:34):
DB.
I'll just memorize it.
That's a memory question.
Okay, I was going to say funnyhint, it's unlucky to be.
Oh, so it's just a memory.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah, yeah.
Let me ask you something.
Do you pick these in?
Are you just randomly pickingthem up?
No, they're random, so why do?

Speaker 1 (39:50):
I keep getting the same ones.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Because, it's remember how he said they were
smart and it makes you relearnthem.
Yeah, but it goes based off ofwhat you've seen and what you've
answered right, it's such agreat tool.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
It goes back through the pool and it tries to give
you the ones you get wrong morefrequently stuck in your head.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Alright, that's two.
Are we at four now?

Speaker 1 (40:17):
oh man dude, you gotta play the song hold on,
there it is thank you, meatloaf.
We appreciate you all right wellas always.

(40:39):
If you're on the journey tostudying for your technician,
general or extra class license,then HampStudyorg is a wonderful
resource because it grills youhard when you don't get a
certain sub element, the right,I'm dead 100%, or you're
proficient in it.
It'll work you hard on it untilyou do so.

(41:00):
If you recently received, maybe, your license, or you've gotten
an upgrade, we want to know uh,do we have uh anybody that you
bumped into at all?
Uh, paul, that's uh recentlyupgraded.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
I haven't seen anything in the discord at all
either um, I saw one on reddit,but they didn't post their call
sign.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
All right well you know, hey, if you, you get your
upgrade or you know, you know,any one of these guys down here
are generals if you guys getyour upgrade, send it in to us.
Us Let us know we want tocelebrate with you, we want to
rejoice, we want to give you therecognition, because going from
general to extra or eventechnician to general is a big,
tough leap sometimes and it's alot of memorization or just a
lot of, you know, kind ofrepetition.

(41:31):
But you know, once you getthere, you got to rejoice and
you got to.
You know, just be happy thatyou got there, because you got a
whole bunch of privileges youmight have had before.
You know, and you know, get outthere and have some fun, so
awesome, all right.
Well, with that let's finallyget into something around here.
So you know, we always do ourham radio catch up.

(41:51):
So with us always we've gotthree guests here, so we're
going to start with those guysfirst.
So, rory, how has your hamradio or not ham radio week been
?

Speaker 6 (42:03):
It was a busy ham radio week.
We had our local repeater herein South Lyon, michigan needed a
little bit of a checkup and Imentioned before the show our
friend Steve in town here is ourchief engineer for the club and
we went over there with Jim andmyself myself and we had to go
take a look at what washappening with our internet
connection.

(42:23):
So that took a good chunk ofone of the mornings out of the
week and that's, that's always agood time.
Turned out to be a lousycellular connection, which is
what we have to use to getinternet at the location, but I
won't bore you with the detailsthere.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
But that was the no, uncle Elon at all.
You didn't want to subscribe tohim.

Speaker 6 (42:42):
No, we have cheap ET mobile that we squeak every
little bandwidth out of their$10.
We don't use hardly anyinternet package, because
All-Star doesn't use muchbandwidth at all.
So that was the second mostexciting thing for the week, but
first most exciting, I'll leaveto the other, because they were
both there.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
You can speak in third person though.
It's up to you, all right, well, cool, good on the repeater
stuff.
Question with the repeater howbig is your coverage area for
your club?

Speaker 6 (43:13):
Probably 25 miles each direction.
35 miles each direction.
We're at the top of a watertower in a town that's high
elevation to start with, so wehave a lot on our side.
We're one of the probably justbarely the second highest
general town in the metroDetroit area.
We're almost the highest area,so that helps us out a lot.

(43:36):
We get straight into Detroit,no problem, which is probably
about 30 miles downtown to theriverfront and then north we
struggle.
There's some terrain against us, but south we do well and west
we do fairly well as well.
So good repeater coverage ontwo meter for us.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
About as high as can be for the lower peninsula of
Michigan.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
What's the height above average terrain for you
guys?

Speaker 6 (44:01):
I believe at the water tower it's 1050.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Wow, holy crap, that's nice.
Yeah, our repeater sits rightaround 8, 8, 10, and we have
really bad coverage to the westof us and everything else like
that.
We get straight coverage almostall the way down to the end of
Massachusetts, know, intoMassachusetts.
It's like all of us are fromNew Hampshire.
We don't go that far down.
Like, why do we have coveragethat far?

(44:26):
Like, no one ever calls us thatfar.
So, you know, we need to makesome adjustments for sure.
But, yeah, cool, good on that.
Yeah, always interested inhearing the repeater stories
stories because they, uh, they,those guys are the unsung heroes
man, they, they only get calledwhen the uh, you know, the crap
hits the fan and people, uh,you know, my repeater ain't
working and I can't make acontact, and so, yeah, is it?

Speaker 5 (44:48):
safe to say that it might be at this point a bit of
a lost art.

Speaker 6 (44:52):
Repeater maintenance and building at this point right
.

Speaker 5 (44:56):
They've existed for so long online at this point
that the folks that are usingthem right brand brand new techs
, enjoying talking on VHF rightor UHF wherever they are are
using these machines that have50-plus-year-old hardware right
and we're limping them along onreplacements that have been in
somebody's basement waiting tobe deployed.
So I do.

(45:16):
That's why we appreciate Steveat ADR.
Steve is the gentleman thatRory alluded to earlier.
He's, he's, our man thatunderstands all this stuff and
we are trying to, by osmosis,learn it before before Steve
decides that he's done withrepeater maintenance for the
club.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
And we appreciate Rory, also our tech, our club's
technical director or committeechair there.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
So I suppose so yeah, here's all the feedback.

Speaker 6 (45:42):
Mostly bad, nothing good the good thing about me,
though, is you can give me badfeedback, and I'll pretty much
give you bad feedback about yourfeedback.
It's not really a concern to me.
Jim and I are really tryinghard to get as much as we can
learn from Steve.
Steve's already 81, so he's ayoung 81.
You would never guess it by theway he moves or does anything.

(46:06):
You would never guess it.
But you know, we know, and heknows, that his time's limited
with things, so he's looking topass on all the information and
all the stuff.
He has a basement of stuff too,so that's the fun thing An
amazing collection of stuff.
When we need parts, his basementis probably there.

(46:27):
It's always good, that'sawesome.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
We've got a similar scenario with our repeater owner
, repeater manager, trustee kindof thing.
He's realized the same thing.
It's like his time's coming up,he wants to kind of retire.
So time to start passing thetorch on and the experience and
knowledge because, like you said, it's a dying art.

Speaker 5 (46:49):
It is absolutely.
The hardware is not cheap, butit's probably plentiful if you
know the right person.
That's always what we say.
There's a secret league ofrepeater owners and repeater
maintainers and if you know theright guy, they're probably
happy to fill your basement withall their shit so that you can
move on from it.

Speaker 6 (47:07):
Well, the excellent thing, especially in the metro
detroit area, is it's more tothe east.
There's a a group of repeateroperators that all happen to
also be their daytime job is thepublic safety radio system.
So there's a lot of stuffthat's falling off of trucks and
aging out in those systems thatthey don't keep for themselves.

(47:28):
If I were to put the word outto one of those guys saying you
know, this little club over hereis looking for an item, they'll
keep their eyes open for it.
So we're surrounded by a prettycool group of people in the
southeast Michigan area for sure.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
That's awesome.
The funny thing with clubs, atleast here in the northeast,
we're getting farther away fromthe idea that we don't own a
special area of ham radio.
Everybody does ham radio, sowhy do we wall us off from other
people and they're starting toshare stuff.

Speaker 4 (47:58):
That's always a good thing if you guys already have
that in place and yeah, you knowwe've done a pretty good job of
that over the last few years ofdefinitely breaking down some
of those silos of the differentclubs and we all communicate and
support each other ham fest,repeater work, anything and it's
honestly been really productive.

Speaker 6 (48:14):
So if you're out there, I gave a story on on our
show about a, a repeater just tothe north, closer to Flint
Michigan.
What was the story there, Jimor James?
Was it wind or was it part ofthe ice storm?
I don't remember.
It was a storm that camethrough.

Speaker 4 (48:30):
It was the same day as the ice storm that destroyed
northern lower peninsulaMichigan, but the wind was what
got it there.

Speaker 6 (48:37):
So the Lapeer Amateur Radio Club, their tower was,
you know, full loss, completeloss.
And the neighboring club hadthem back up on the air in less
than 24 hours at one of theirsites.
So you know, that's kind of howit rolls, which is cool.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Dude, that's awesome, awesome, well, cool.
Thank you for sharing that.
It's always good to see thatclubs are investing in their
technology and making sure thatit stands the test of time.
I'm excited to learn more, forsure.
Awesome, awesome, well, hey,cool, thank you.
So, james, over to you.
How was your Ham Radio Week?

Speaker 4 (49:13):
Ham Radio Week was busy.
So, the same as the other twomembers here, I actually helped
organize the Michigan POTAmeetup in conjunction with a few
other individuals, but alsoMike W8MSC and Mark K8MST
they're both POTA board membersso we used this as an
opportunity to sort of pilot howmeetups would function as well,

(49:36):
as kind of get the word outthere locally and what's going
on in Michigan Great eventfunction, as well as kind of get
the word out there locally andwhat's going on in michigan
great event.
We hosted it in fort custerstate recreation area, so near
battle creek, michigan.
So let me be a michigander hereand bust out the map.
So if this is the detroit area,it was uh, over here.
Uh, it was a great turnout,everyone that came.
So if you're listening, thankyou.

(49:57):
I know this is a new hampshirepodcast, but just in case, thank
you for showing up.
Northeast, we're everywhere,you know.
I mean it's the internet, Ijust figure it's everywhere.
Uh, but about a hundredindividuals show up Uh really
yeah, it was a big turnout, yeah.
Couldn't ask for more the SMARS,so South.
I'm going to butcher the club'sacronym.

(50:19):
I know it as SMARS.

Speaker 5 (50:20):
Southern Michigan Amateur Radio Society Area.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Make sure you say society, otherwise they'll get
very mad at you.
You know you've got to saysociety.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
Yeah, it was their home park.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
So when we got there to set up, even they were
already there, their territorialWow, I didn't know they were
that bad in Michigan we don'town parks around here in the
Northeast, you know.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
Hey, they welcomed us with open arms, so I can't
complain too badly there.
But they had their antennasalready up.
Their tent was booming outthere, getting the CQ POTA, CQ
POTA At 400 watts, by the way.
What.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Oh my Okay, they got a nap out there with 400 watts
they were.

Speaker 5 (50:59):
Now you've gotten me a little.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
You've ruffled my feathers a little bit.
I can't stand that.
You know I am a podopuristsometimes and there are a couple
of guys in Vermont that do this.
They have a trailer and theywheel their kilowatt amp with
them to a podopark.
I'm like, dude, you're really.
It's like you're bringing youknow.
I don't know what the analogy Iwant to use for this, but it's
got to be really big, becauseit's unfair, it's literally just

(51:22):
there's no limit if it's notlegal limit, buddy 1500 watts.
Whatever We'll kick you out, I'mwith you, Eric.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
If you can do it, why ?

Speaker 4 (51:31):
not Save some Koda for the rest of us?

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Dude because it's like the same guys who sit on
7.200.
They think they own thefrequency.
Come on please, they don't.
They will.

Speaker 6 (51:46):
That club I just pulled up on the POTO website.
That club call has 15,660 QSOsat that park, so they're there
every Saturday For the last twoyears.

Speaker 5 (51:59):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
Winter as well, which they're there every Saturday
For the last two years, wow.

Speaker 5 (52:02):
Like clockwork Winter as well, which Michigan has
some fun days during the winter.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
I'm sure you guys know, Dude, we're doing it all
wrong with our club because wemeet in a barn on Saturday
mornings.
We should be freaking at thepark every Saturday.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Man Dude, I've been saying that shit for like well
over a year, yeah yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Why aren't you out there in the middle of New
England, freezing cold?
There that are operating.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
Well, talk to Smars, get yourself an ice shanty he
does.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Dude, I can't crack on OG there.
He's our winter guy.
I mean, he's the first one thatwhen I did winter field day as
a coordinator I was like I'm notgoing to be there, he's our
winter guy.
He's the first one that when Idid winter field day as a
coordinator I was like I'm notgoing to be there, I'll come and
operate in the middle of theday, I'm not staying over.
He's like dude, I'm ready toset up.
He had everything.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
You go into his little ice hut shack for the
winter field day and you get itstripped down in your underwear.

Speaker 5 (52:53):
It's a sweat house.
It's a sweat house.
It's a sweat lodge.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
It's sauna and radio.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
But dude, you know if it's not the heat that's going
to get you, it's the whiskey orthe bourbon that you know.
He's already cracked out threeor four bottles.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
I'm in, I don't know what to tell you yeah.

Speaker 6 (53:08):
Yeah, maybe I'm doing POTA wrong.
Even that sounds pretty good.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Dude, you know you got to catch one of his live.
Check out his POTA livestreaming day for Winterfield
Day and you'll see it was twoand a half hours and it was like
, dude, this is from the momenthe started to the moment he
ended.
It was just like, oh, dude.
I hung on to every word andevery minute of it, like I don't
watch a live stream this long.

Speaker 4 (53:31):
Our club's a little spoiled because we rent a cabin
for field day both winter andpark in Brighton State Park
outside Metro Detroit as well.
It's a lot of fun.
Double credit for POTA, butcompared to an ice shanty, we're
doing pretty well for ourselves.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
Throw a little log on the fire and let me take my
sweatshirt off, kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
Other than this year all our masks got frozen.
Ice storm kind of rolledthrough and all our fiberglass
masks got frozen together.
So Jim had to bust out hisdiesel heater for about an hour
to slowly twisting mask closed.
But we made it work.

Speaker 5 (54:04):
It's basically a diesel power dryer to melt your
mask.
Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
So when you ran out of wood you basically just
cracked out the old hammerlinsand fired up the one kilowatt to
heat the room, kind of thing.
Right, exactly, we're a littlespoiled.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
Yeah, don't get it Awesome.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Busy week it, you know.
All right, exactly, we're alittle spoiled.
Yeah, don't get it.
Awesome busy week.
That was well I.
I gotta ask, though, first, youknow, in terms of actually
participating in the pod event,were you, you more of the kind
of coordinator, you know?
You know chief summarizer andchief, you know management, or
you actually get in there andactivate motivator as we like,
or whatever?

Speaker 4 (54:38):
yeah, uh, yeah, I, I would say, uh, we all did a lot.
All the organizers definitelychipped in, and we did our share
.
Uh, on the day of, though, Iwas, uh, what I do we help.
We had a lot of participation,and I would like to also thank
our local south lion club,because they came out in force,
uh, even not part of theorganizers, but they were all
there with their just helpingout with everything you can.
But, yeah, we, we set up up, wecooked, we tore down, we

(55:00):
socialized, we did a raffle,which was awesome.
So I didn't get any activationsin actually that weekend, but
it was worth it in the end.

Speaker 5 (55:07):
Were you serious?
You didn't get a singleactivation in it at Fort Custer.
I didn't have a chance.
No.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
It was busy.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
How many stations did you guys run?
One?

Speaker 4 (55:17):
No, there was a hodgepodge of stations.
Everyone brought their ownequipment.
Oh I hate.
They were setting up and thenkind of coordinating so it got a
little chaotic sometimes withthe bands, but it worked.
Your band pass filter cannothelp you here no, no, but there
was a lot of cw, a lot of uh oldworld war ii radios as well.

(55:37):
Oh my gosh radios.

Speaker 6 (55:39):
Yeah, it was wow people brought out there were.
There were lots of vans ofstuff.
It was.

Speaker 5 (55:44):
It was interesting, a lot of camper vans packed out
with radio stuff it was.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
I mean, for show and tell, there's a lot of new, uh,
first time poda people that alsocame.
Yes, so for them they werewalking around and they came up
to talk to me afterwards.
They're like this is, this iseverything I was hoping.
It would be to learn about POTA, because I can walk from
station to station to stationand see something new and talk
to the people and how they'reoperating and what their
experiences are.
It was Wow.

(56:08):
Couldn't ask for better,honestly.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Man, I thought we were doing good with like 40
people at one of our fall POTAsand whatnot, but then I was like
man, you guys put us to shamelike four times over.
It's like you know, at thatpoint I'm just going to take my
radio and go home.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
Listen, I was going to be.
I told myself I'm happy with 50.
So that exceeded expectations.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Yeah wow.

Speaker 5 (56:27):
This is the second year of the event.
It's also worth saying out loud, right?
So the first year of the eventwas somewhere around 40 or 50.
And if you do build it, folksshow up the next year knowing
what to expect, right?
And then they invite theirbuddies, right, and say, hey,
it's worth making the trek forthe weekend.

Speaker 4 (56:43):
We had some good lessons learned as well in
picking the location.
But if anyone's out theretrying to plan their own meetup
for their state, county, city,whatever, hit us up.
We're happy to help you out.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Yeah, it's funny With our club we usually do I do
most of our podo meetups or I'vekind of started the process and
we've got.
We do basically during SportsPark weekend.
So because that's the guaranteethat you know you bring a new
ham in, they're going to get acontact.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
It's easy.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
You know, it's like pretty much shoot fish in a
barrel right.
Unless you did last yeah, I wasgoing to say you did last.
Spring Sports Park weekend, myGod, Portia Park's weekend, my
god, these guys.
They were on one of the biggestmountains in the New England,
New Hampshire area TempleMountain, and they couldn't even
barely scrape together fourcontacts.
The bands were just so.

(57:29):
It was bad.
They ended up just grabbing theHTs and making peer-to-peer
contacts because that's the onlyway they could get 10 to be
able to get the park activated.
That was a tough scenario forthem.
It's awesome.
I love the meetups.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
It was a lot of fun, I wouldn't complain.
Also, shout out to Shane, hewas a big volunteer and did
absolutely everything to help usthere at the meetup that day.

Speaker 6 (57:55):
Shane always does everything to help.
Shane is just one of thosepeople.
He started to help.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Shane's just one of those people.
He's helping us.
He started to help us on theback end of our podcast.

Speaker 6 (58:02):
Even so, he's a big helper.
I do like calling thempeer-to-peer contacts.
I'll say that.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
What do you really?

Speaker 5 (58:14):
call the ones in the park.

Speaker 6 (58:17):
How are we rated here ?
Are we family-friendly, or what?
You can drop the F-bomb all youwant, okay, so then we're okay.
I call it the POTUS circle,jerk.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
That kind of works.
I like that one too, dependingon what environment I'm in.
So true, that's great.

Speaker 5 (58:34):
That's another t-shirt idea.

Speaker 6 (58:35):
I like that.
I am not a fan of that.
I avoid that at all costs.
But I will admit.
Both of my activations at FortCuster this weekend were On 2
meter FM.
Well, one was after 8 o'clock,after midnight Zulu.
The second one was all 6 metersimplex, so I did get a full
52.525 FM simplex activation,with us sitting around the

(58:58):
sitting around the campfire atJim's Jim's campsite.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
So yeah, and we had a couple of contacts on 7.200
sitting around the campfire, butyeah.
Another story for another day,nice.

Speaker 6 (59:07):
Light them up 14, 313 , light them up.
Or 14, 300.
If you're so daring, but anyway, I'm not daring those those so
daring.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
But anyway, I'm not daring those, those poor guys.
Those poor guys suffer enough.
I I leave them alone.
I usually said it's 14, 299,but anyway, uh, that's another
story for another day.
It's just a sideband.
It's exactly right.
You know, there's plenty offrequency space the way I look
at it.
Anyway, sorry, well over to you, jim, how was your hair video?

Speaker 5 (59:35):
week yeah, I mean, james pretty much recapped it
for me we were at michigan meet.
I went out not as an organizer,mostly as a supporter and
somebody to play a little bit.
It was me, the dog and a35-foot trailer this weekend.
So it was overkill.
We were living in style.
We had the air conditioning onand we were sitting at the table

(59:55):
trying to make the FTX OneOptima work for us.
And I'll tell you what thatthing is a piece of junk.
And I this morning called HR upand I sent it back.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
That's a skydiving face of the N1 OG.
Right there, that's going onthe t-shirt, but anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
That's the same idea.
It's funny that skydiving andhearing that the new YASU radio
is complete garbage makes meequally happy.

Speaker 5 (01:00:20):
I know exactly right that radio has gremlins, I'm
kidding a little bit fordramatic effect.
But, we did give a pretty fairpiece of feedback on the
Everyday Ham podcast, which iswhere Jim, james and Rory and I
come from, and we did try togive a little bit of a review.
But I did take it back out andgave it one more shot over the

(01:00:40):
weekend.
I thought you know what.
You were trying hard with ittoo.
That's right.
I thought I'm going to take itback out.
We're going to take it toMichigan POTA meetup I know
there are people there that canhear me right, and we're going
to try to activate.
I did get an activation onFriday evening, a real Canadian
friends up here in Michigan,easy to get to.
I'm sure you guys over in thenortheast can also talk into
Canada easily, in most casesright, and so had a number of

(01:01:04):
contacts, had some goodconversations, folks that
recognized the call and said,hey, we love the podcast, right,
I'm sure you guys run into thatas well, and we just we had fun
with it on Friday, but Saturdaymorning fired it back up and
the Gremlins were there again on20-meter man and I, just I
finally I said somebody else runit.
Let me know if I'm crazy and Ihad too many people telling me

(01:01:26):
you ought just send it back.
And so I said fine, I will callHRO on Monday and we will ask
them whether or not this is afair defect return.
And I did send her back, so Idon't know.
You know it's a little tie intoour own pod for promotional
purposes, but at the same time Ido think that is I I've been
fretting about it for a coupleof weeks now.

(01:01:47):
Right, it got delivered rightwhen they launched, right after
hamvention.
It's been the biggest news inham radio for like a couple of
months.
At this point, big news, yeah,big news, right, uh.
And and we were just, james andI, both stoked about it- and
unfortunately it just didn'twork for us.
I don't know if we got a coupleof poor setups or what.

(01:02:07):
I imagine they'll figure it outat some point.
They've got enough moneyinvested.
But that's me and Ham Radio.
This week, yeah, I worked withRory on repeater maintenance.
It was a blast.
We always enjoy working withSteve.
Got to do a little pro tosupport.
Did a lot more playing with thedog and activating than I did
actual supporting the park thisweekend, but had a blast doing

(01:02:28):
it.
That's okay.
That was me in a short blip.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
I will say only one thing and I'm not going to go on
a rant I agree 100% and I'mgoing to leave it at that.
I'm going to wait for the 3F tocome out whenever that does.
Ftx1 XDR 1B.
The 1Z is my preferred versionwith all of the right
enhancements, but we won't gothere.

Speaker 4 (01:02:56):
Jim and I have been very open about it.
We've had a lot of the sameissues in two separate radios,
12 serial numbers apart.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Well and dude, you guys confirmed it for me.
That's what stopped me from.
Well, my DX10 is still up forsale, but I'm going to just hold
the cash.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
I made the mistake, Eric.
I made the mistake of quicklyselling mine right when they
launched.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Well, I have one available if you're interested
in purchasing one.
It's a beautiful, great radio.
You can check it out.
I'll send you the link for it.
It's up on a couple of thediscords there Do we get a
friends and family discount.
We can talk.
We won't talk numbers on thisshow, but we'll talk offline.
I'm happy to work out a gooddeal for you.

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
During the swap and shop segment.
We never talk numbers on theair Phone mail or email.

Speaker 6 (01:03:38):
That's right phone mail or email yeah, we still
have a 40 year old line in oursunday night net that says that
send your, send your stuff byphone, mail or email, no prices
over there.

Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
That still is in there but I will say, eric, I
did make that move.
I thought I'll sell my dx10 andthen I'll just get this thing
on order and I'll be ahead ofthe curve.
Yeah, the gentleman that has mydx10 has said that when he
brings it to field day he hopesI don't abscond.

Speaker 6 (01:04:03):
Yeah, local club.

Speaker 5 (01:04:05):
member A friend of ours.
He has it.
He got a great deal on it, bythe way.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
I love my DX10.
First radio, long story short,it sits in a box in my storage
room.
The problem is our club hasfour of them.
Todd's got one everybody's like, so I can't bring mine out and
set it up, and I did not take iton poda, so it just sits there
and I take it out every once ina while to see if it actually
fires up, just to make sure it'sstill working.

(01:04:29):
Um, but outside of that, likeyou know, it's like god.
I, I'm the, you know, and I'vevoiced this on the podcast.
I'm the guy does not collectradios If it's not getting used.
Find a new home for it.
Simple as that.

Speaker 5 (01:04:41):
I'm somewhere in the middle, Eric.
I'll tell you that I have 17handhelds.
I think it's 16 now because Isold one.

Speaker 4 (01:04:46):
Somewhere in the middle, but as far as other
ridiculousness, there's otherstuff Jim will liquidate
immediately.

Speaker 6 (01:04:52):
That's the thing.
He has all those handheldssitting there, but other stuff's
out the door as soon as itdoesn't have a use.

Speaker 4 (01:04:57):
Jim is Mr Swapmeat.
He will buy, sell and tradeanything.
Do you want me to make you?

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
feel better, Jim, Because we have our club
president, Ralph KC1TY.
He has over 34 Quan Changs, allHDs.
Oh God, You're way below thatnumber.
So you're okay.
You haven't gotten to thecriticality of the critical mass
kind of state, but you'rebordering.
Don't give him a target?

Speaker 6 (01:05:22):
Is he just buying more and more to find one that's
actually stable?
What's he trying to do?

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
He buys them the same one.
Oh, it's cheaper, it's $10today, so buy another one.

Speaker 6 (01:05:34):
I'm not far behind on handhelds.
I think I'm at $14 or something, but I've never sold one that I
bought.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
You have two hands.
How many more do you have?

Speaker 6 (01:05:44):
I've never sold a handheld that I own.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
It's like watching Spinal Tap, Like you know.
Oh, don't touch this one, itgoes to 11.

Speaker 6 (01:05:54):
I joke, it's like old people, they put reading
glasses in every room.
I have HDs in every room, thebathroom, I people they put
reading glasses in every room.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
I have hds in every room.
So, oh my god, the bathroom.
I do not want to have youanswer your answer my call.
Well, you've taken a dump.

Speaker 6 (01:06:05):
I mean, here's not.
Neither bathroom in this househas a handheld in it nor reading
glasses.
So that's thank you.
Yeah, you mentioned youmentioned eric radio.
No, I don't, I love that one.
You mentioned not taking a DX10out for POTA Eric.
That is Jim's POTA Rick.

(01:06:27):
He takes that battery-hungryheavy thing out.

Speaker 5 (01:06:31):
I do POTA with DX10.
There's a lot of guys that POTAwith 7300s and let me tell you
what, if you put them next toone another, really not that
much heavier.
I mean an extra two pounds.
If I'm already going to put itin the back of the F-350 and
drive 15 miles over the park,right, like, eh, I mean you
already have the F-350.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Doesn't put that F-350 over the weight limit on
the legal road?
Probably.

Speaker 5 (01:06:51):
I'll tell you what's over the weight limit is the
battery pack that I need for it?

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
I'll field day with the 7300, but I won't photo with
it.
You won't photo with it 891 areyou?

Speaker 5 (01:07:03):
891 across the board.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Rory and.

Speaker 5 (01:07:08):
James too.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
I love it.
I love it so much I bought twoof them one in my mobile and one
in my photo bag.

Speaker 6 (01:07:18):
I'll have two at some point, because the one is going
to get mounted in the, in the,in the front of the mobile.
So that'll, that'll happen.
I'll need to.
Can't have the inconvenience ofhaving to take it out of the
car, so I was supposed to be theFTX one, but it failed.
And that is true.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
No, it was never intended, just cut it off here.

Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
We need a special episode one day.
I know right, you can invite meon directly just as N1JUR.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
We'll just talk at 1F the whole entire time and Paul
could be in the chat telling meI'm a total ass.

Speaker 5 (01:07:50):
We're having a little fun at Yaesu's expense.
It's okay, we do like.

Speaker 4 (01:07:55):
Yaesu products too, but FTX1?
.

Speaker 5 (01:08:01):
That is a tough sale, alright well let's hold this
for later.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
So, todd, how was your hair radio week?
Real quick.

Speaker 6 (01:08:10):
I forgot we were still running a segment.
I know right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
We're still on a segment right.
That's what happens?
Our rabbit holes get held.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
So back on the Yaesu radios.
I am purchasing a Yaesu five 10.
I sold my 400 and put my 300 inmy shack.
Uh, I purchased a new Jeep anduh, figured, if you get a new
Jeep probably need a new radioand Wrangler.

Speaker 4 (01:08:35):
Yeah, yeah, I got the new Jeep.
Or like a old, old Jeep.
No, like new Second Jeep JL.
Yeah, I got the Like new Jeep,or like old Jeep.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
No, like new Jeep, it's the hybrid one.
Ah, okay, so I was paying like$100 a week to commute to work
and now I've only used I foundlike what 700 miles and I've
only used a quarter tank of gas.
I mean, we're clearly a Detroitmotor city here and I've only
used a quarter tank of gas.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Yeah, I mean we're clearly a Detroit, you know
Motor City here, but the 4Xneeds it.
It's actually pretty nice.

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
Yeah, it's pretty, the more I drive it and
understand it it actually is.
It's a pretty good idea on howit works and it's got 375
horsepower, so it moves.

Speaker 4 (01:09:19):
Compared to most Wranglers.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Yeah, exactly right, If it's not blowing ahead guess
it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
Yeah, for a Wrangler.
I mean, the one I had beforewas a Willys.
It was a six-speed on asix-cylinder so it really didn't
have a lot going for it.
And this one, and because it'sgot these huge-ass batteries
under the back seats, it reallyhandles better.
So when you're going off longoff ramps, like with curves, you
don't feel like you're going totip over.
So I was like, oh, that's prettygood, you know they had crazy

(01:09:49):
incentives like $20,000 off thetop, like just right off the top
.
And then the guy's like oh,we're having employee employee
pricing and it was like too goodto be true.
And I'm like, all right, I'llgo for it and I'm glad I did.
I love it, it's been good.
So put in a new radio, sold my400, shipped it out today and

(01:10:09):
probably buy it tomorrow orWednesday.
I just got to get down to HRO,so you didn't want the 500?
.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
No dude, you wanted the ASP option?

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
Yeah, the ASP, because you know all those guys
in our club that use those damnQuan Changs that I can never
hear them.

Speaker 5 (01:10:27):
I'll tell you what it does a hell of a job pulling
out the intelligible signal fromgarbage the 510 ASP does.
It doesn't sound like somethingI want to listen to all day
long, but if I can't hear theperson and I can still have a
conversation with them, itcertainly does work.
I have a 510 ASP that I boughtat Dayton Hamvention.
In fact, I sold my 400, soldanother 500, and I've got two

(01:10:50):
500s and a 510.
And I'm actually prettyimpressed.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
Are you an HRO distributor?
I mean, you have so manyfreaking brands he loves.

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
HRO.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
Is there one in Michigan?
I actually should ask thatquestion.
There is not.

Speaker 5 (01:11:04):
I deal with Milwaukee .

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
Dude, you would be poor and in debt if you lived
here in New England, becauseliterally we have one in Salem.
That's literally half been out,so tempting we went over to
pick up our camper.

Speaker 5 (01:11:18):
We were in Milwaukee, wisconsin.
It was 30 minutes away, but thetraffic in Chicago at that hour
I couldn't get up there and Istill regret my decision not to
stop by and buy something Ididn't need.

Speaker 4 (01:11:28):
How far is this HRO from the 24-hour POTA event?

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
It'll be about an hour away.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
Not even 45 minutes yeah it is Actually.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
you can fly into Manchester, go south to Salem,
where it is and then drive northto the park.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
If you fly into Manchester and you drive to HRO,
it's 20 minutes Perfect.

Speaker 4 (01:11:51):
That's dangerous.
Put it on the list, Jim.
Put it on the list.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
Besides that ASP stuff, I also like that it had a
speaker in the head.
Yes, so what I had done with myJeep is I had the radio
underneath the seat and Icouldn't hear anything, because
Jeeps are kind of loud andwhatever.
So I got this mount that wentacross the back of my headrest,

(01:12:15):
it was like an arm and I had alittle speaker on it.

Speaker 4 (01:12:18):
Well, it was cool, it worked, it was good until I
reached something back, and thenI'd rip out the wire or I'd get
it the thing would fall off, orI'd bend it, or and I was like
I'm not going to lie, I was justlooking at that as an option
because I have my 400 mounted inthe Jeep, and then I did run an
external speaker to thepassenger footwell, but my kids

(01:12:39):
keep kicking it.
Yeah, it's not working well.

Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
So this thing worked.
It worked well, except Icouldn't figure out a way to get
the wire Like.
I bought these like little.
They look like these littlemagnet clips so I stuck them all
over and trying to keep thewire down.
But you know, as soon as youreach back and you forget it's

(01:13:05):
there.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
You, you know you'd knock it and yank the wire out,
then you'd forget to fix it andit was kind of like and I'm
clumsy, so that will happen yeah, so basically what you're
saying, todd, is that instead offixing the wire problem, you
just bought a brand new car yeah, right a new radio.
Nothing more ham about it thanthat it's gonna be a lot cleaner
that was the problem not theradio right exactly keep the
radios

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
yeah, so, yeah.
So I put the 300 and now the300.
I believe, like things happenfor a reason, I have a little
shelf that my monitor and the300.
I just took it out, plugged itin, put it in and it.
It fits like it was meant to beunderneath that shelf perfectly
.
There's not even a space.
It doesn't need to be wedged inthere, it fits perfectly.

(01:13:45):
I'm like, see, it was meant tobe.
So now I've cleared out most ofmy shack.
The radio is all flush, I don'thave the external 400 kind of
sitting out in an awkward place,so it's working out.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Did you call your wife over to say you know, look
how great it fits in the corner.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
And now I have to go get something from my vehicle?
No, but she did.
She just said she goes.
Were you up in the attic CauseI was looking for the box for
her and I'm like, yeah, I'mselling one of my radio.
And she's like, oh good, Idon't think she knows I'm buying
another one.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
I don't want to break this to you.
I think she does.
Yeah, looking for a box so sojust a quick funny story.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
So she just got a new job and she's working in the
office where my shack is, to theother side.
So we kind of like she made a,I got T desk, so like the one
side is my shack and then theother side is where she does her
work.
So yesterday I was messingaround with the um, with the 300
, and I had left the volume upand it was dead and she's in the

(01:14:43):
middle of a conference and Itook today off and I was cutting
the grass and I come in just toget a water and all of a sudden
I hear our guys calling outlooking for people like blabbing
, and she's literally on a liveconference like zoom, I'm sorry,
that's my husband's ham radio Ihave to apologize for him
directly.
Thank you, I had to come in andshut the volume down.

(01:15:05):
I was like, oh shit, I forgot Ileft it on so, but anyway, it's
all good.
So I'm looking, I'm lookingforward to doing that and I I'm
changing the mount of theantenna.
So I I used to have it behindthe spare tire and it didn't
work out too well, it wasn'treally the best of spots and
what's the?
antenna.
I haven't gotten it yet.
It's gonna be.
It's gonna be to be determined.

(01:15:26):
Yeah, I'm gonna look at when Iget there, but what I saw at
near fest, which is you guysknow what near fest is it's like
a ham fest we have here in newhampshire.
So I saw a guy with a jeep andhe had this like metal molly
rack on the outside of hiswindow of the back and I'm like,
oh, and he had his antenna onthat.
I'm like that thing is sweet.

(01:15:46):
So I found one on.
I found it on amazon, believeit or not, because I looked at
all the jeep plates I couldn'tfind it.
Yeah, found it on amazon boughtit, and so we're gonna mount the
antenna to that.
So it'll be on the side outside, not behind the tire, not kind
of wedged in there, and it'll uh, it'll.
Let me open up the gate, andyou know there was problems,
like if I had to open up thegate all the way to get the

(01:16:09):
window to pop up, and so thiswill be a little experiment.
We'll see, but I think it'sgoing to be a little bit cleaner
and it's going to look a littlebit better I'll have to uh
share some photos afterwards.

Speaker 4 (01:16:18):
Yeah, I'm going to do a video on it you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
You need to watch james's video.
He he's got his a-task mountedon the front of the hood of his
jeep, his jk.
I do, I tried the packoriginally and yeah, yeah, yeah,
okay, so you know I, I, when Iwas seeing that, I was like, wow
, you know, todd's got hisa-task.
He hasn't figured out wherehe's gonna put.
You know, we were for a whilethinking we might, you know,

(01:16:40):
kind of pull our money and sendJoe Brett, you know the ATAS,
because he's been waiting forhis ATAS to show up somewhere in
the world, wherever.
You know, jim was supposed tosend it to him.
Long story short.
So you know, todd still got it.
So you know, I can, you know,maybe you lead him towards your
video.

Speaker 3 (01:16:56):
Yeah, I'll look at it , but towards your video, I
think I'm going to put it on the.
So this Jeep that I got had atow hitch on it.
My other one didn't.
So I think I'm going to setsomething up on the tow hitch,
make a jimmy rig something whereI can attach it to that and
then just run the wire in.

Speaker 4 (01:17:11):
I'm telling you you're grounding on that ATOS
though, like it's got towhitches are good for that, but
it's got to be really grounded,got to be really grounded.

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
We're going to play around with it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:19):
40 meters it does.

Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
That means I'm coming over to help Todd install his
antennas.
That's what that means.
Friends too, eric's job andspend money.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
I'm only friends with Eric because he knows how to
fix my computer and he does thisthing Wow, I'm done.
See you later.
Definitely coming out of a planeone day when I got in the ham
radio, I just I got I just wasgoing to be a technician and use
the repeater and be done withit and he's the one who started

(01:17:51):
he basically wasn't the only one, but yeah, but you're like,
listen, you got to get yourgeneral and then he said, oh,
we're going to this other hamthing and you're getting your
general.
That day was like what, liketwo weeks away, and I had a
crash burning.
So I got that and he took me tomy as we were coming home.
I just got my general cominghome, he goes, oh, let's go do a
park parks on the air, and Iwas like, yeah, and that was it.

(01:18:14):
I was like, oh, yeah, and thenI think the next one we did,
paul came and the three of usdid it and then that was the end
of him and we've been doing itever since.
So it's been it's been superfun and that's cool.

Speaker 4 (01:18:26):
So Andrew, going to be an extra one day, so yeah,
hopefully hopefully soon,because I'm really getting tired
.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
This is running really really long episode wise.
We've been a year into this.

Speaker 3 (01:18:37):
We did the statistics analysis.
People normally drop off thepodcast.
That was just to make you feelgood.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
That was just to make you feel good.

Speaker 3 (01:18:47):
If it was something extra with Todd, the whole
podcast would be a flop.

Speaker 1 (01:18:53):
Out of all of our audience.
Two of them were like I reallylove the questions.
Can you read the detail into it?
I feel bad for Paul becausesometimes the detail explanation
is like a dissertation at likea you know college fair and it's
like, oh my gosh, this is solong the whole equation on that
last one yeah, exactly, he'sread the whole equation
literally I got that one wrong,so I want to go back.

Speaker 4 (01:19:15):
Paul, can you read the equation?

Speaker 6 (01:19:17):
unlucky 13.
That's all you need to know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
Okay, go ahead, paul.

Speaker 3 (01:19:23):
No, I'm just kidding.
You know it's like for me.
I I've always been a bad testtaker and I and when I take the
questions, it's like there'salways two that are real similar
and I'll mix them up.
You know, it's like one wordand that's what's killing me.
But I've been very consistentof getting 25 to 29.
Right, every time Like I hadn'tstudied for two weeks, I've

(01:19:44):
been too busy.
Good foundation yeah, and Itook the.
I took it.
Again, I hadn't studied, I tookit.
I'm like I think I did prettygood on this one for not
reviewing it in a while.
And again 25, I'm like Jesus,come on.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
One day, man.
One day, one day.

Speaker 6 (01:20:01):
All right For me.
I'll hit it hard.
One day It'll be a month ofthat's all I do.
I go to work and study.

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
I'm hoping that.
So I've been coaching a lot ofbaseball, like a lot and it's
just been consuming my life andit's coming to an end soon, so
hopefully I'll have a lot moretime.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Yes, you will.
We're looking forward to that,that and all the other videos
that you got like wrapped up inthe queue that you gotta get put
together.
So you know I feel bad.
You know we finally get to paulhere, because I'm just gonna
probably skip over my high hamradio week.
I'll just go real quick we arenot anywhere near the ham radio

(01:20:43):
workbench numbers yet.
We're like only an hour and 20minutes in.
So you know we're okay, allgood, paul.
How was your ham radio week, myfriend?

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
well, uh, because I was so busy skydiving, I didn't
do any ham radio.
However, uh, what the one hamradio-related thing was, I
finally got around to a hamradio-related video.
I did my Support your Parksweekend video.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
Spring Support your Parks, not fall, but anyway.
That was what Aprilil, thebeginning of april, yeah dude,
that one's gonna be a strugglebus one, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
yeah, 100 percent.
Um, and then I, you know, maybeI'll I'll get to my near fest
video after this, next, shortlyafter that you're gonna confuse
too many people.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
They're going to be like what am I seeing?
Like I feel like I'm going backin time, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:21:44):
Yeah, but next April views on that will be tremendous
, true?
He'd be way ahead of the curve,right?
Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:21:52):
In front of really When's Fall Near Fest that's
coming up right October.

Speaker 2 (01:22:01):
October?
I think it is.
Yeah, so I'll do my SpringNearpest video right before the
Fall one.

Speaker 1 (01:22:05):
Dude, you know, what you should do is you should make
your Spring one October andthen run it that Thursday before
we actually go to the FallNearpest, just to really confuse
people and make it a premiere.
They'll be like how did he getthere Just at the very end,
making a time machine video,kind of thing, dude, that would
be awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:22:27):
What'd you do?

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Oh, I know what you did you barely activated, so let
me say the actual good thing,the credentials finally came in
there, paul, so I'm finallyofficial.
I can wear this around my necknow.
So I'm a VE.
That only took me a littlewhile there, you know, because
you know that test was so hardto take.
You know, paul kept telling meover and over again, you know

(01:22:50):
it's an open book test and I'mlike, yeah, I know, and Todd's
still studying for his extra.
So you know, that's kind of theway I looked at it, which is an
open book.
No, no, but the way we run thepodcast it could be.
Outside of that I did thisweekend was an interesting,
we'll say quick event.
I did a video and you can headover to my channel and check

(01:23:10):
that out.
I had Digital Rancher.
He pinged me on Discord andsaid, hey, I'm coming up to New
England for a family event.
Any good, parks, parks, youknow, and you know if you're a
poda guy, anytime someone sendsyou an email, you send them
literally everything and thekitchen sink about that one park
or a couple of parks, just tomake sure that they're super

(01:23:31):
successful, because you want tomake sure that you know they
have everything they can andyou're super excited to share
all that information.
I know I do that a lot and so,and so I said, dude, hey, here's
a couple of parks, here's abunch of my favorite outside the
Boston area.
But what are you doing?
Let's do a dual activation.
He's like, oh cool, okay, allright.
So Saturday was just a rain out,it was total rain.

(01:23:51):
Sunday we decided to activateearly in the morning Minuteman
National Park, which is one ofthe birthplaces of the battle of
our colonial history and stufflike that we set up there and
Robert decided to use his 599and antenna.
I can't tell you that we barelyactivated the park in five and

(01:24:16):
a half hours.
It was bad Five and a halfhours, five and a half hours and
we had a hard stop becauserobert had to go to a family
function which was the partyafter at like two o'clock and we
were getting so close that wehad literally like two contacts
each to be able to get to 10.
And we're like we were.
We went from 10 to 15 to 20 to40, to two meters.

(01:24:39):
We were on five, two callingand nobody was responding.
I mean it was like, dude, are weplugged in in dummy loads?
Because it felt so like such aslog and, like everybody we
talked to, you know, that, youknow, was like I even put a plea
out on our discord on I said,if there's anybody in the area,
please fire up your radios,because we need to make a
contact.

(01:24:59):
And I totally forgot that weprobably, you know, could have
passed the mic, robert and I,just to be able to make two you
know four contacts on 440 andyou know two meters.
But, yeah, we finally squeakedout the park and, yeah, I felt
bad because I didn't want Robertto leave.
He was going back to Texas andI didn't want him to tuck tail.
I didn't want him to tuck tail,I didn't want him to say he had

(01:25:20):
a failed activation when he'strying to turn Massachusetts
green.
So, you know, we got him on themap, thank God, and yeah, so I
did a video on it.
It's on my, you know YouTubechannel.
It's called the Struggle Bus.
So, you know, go check that outbecause it was and, yeah,
outside of that, you of that, Ilike this punishment so much

(01:25:40):
that Rob N1 NUG wanted to gettogether on Thursday to activate
the same park again.
Hopefully, knock on wood thatthe bands are not going to be
the same thing again all over.
They've been better, hopefully,okay, good, I like to hear that
okay, because I was tempted toactivate today but I ended up
getting sidetracked with workDamn work getting in the way.
So I decided that I would waituntil Thursday and make another

(01:26:06):
stab at it.
So hopefully Knock on Wood willactually be able to make
contacts, because literally twodays before that Thursday of
that week, I went out andactivated a park in our local
area that is surrounded bymountains and I got 33 contacts
out of that entire park.
So I was like I was like ohcool, we're going to roll into
the weekend, it's going to begreat.
You know, we'll activate in anhour.

(01:26:27):
And you know, no shakesthemselves.
No, dude.
I was like it was like dude,what is going on?
Like I out, like we got onecontact with one of the you know
the boats on the air that's invirginia.
They were doing the ships onthe air competition.
One contact from that and theneverything else.
Like robert just kept calling,calling, calling, calling.
Nobody responded, no respond,or we someone to respond, hey, I

(01:26:49):
hear a park to park, and thenthey would go away and, like you
, wouldn't hear him again.
It was like literally, someoneshut the bands off and said,
nope, sorry, no contact.
And then we fire back up andthey'd park to park and then
he'd go away again and it's like, oh my gosh, this is horrible.
So yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:27:03):
Yeah, two weeks ago when we were out at the park,
that was the same.
It would be like 5-7, 5-8, andthen it would just dive to 3-1.
You were lucky to maybe make avoice out in there.
I am curious so is this thefirst time you've run the Lab
599 at 10 watts in a park?
Robert?

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
probably.
I mean, he's done it in otherparks.
The one thing I think was alittle bit.
You know, we all do this.
It's like, hey, we get a newantenna, what do we do?
Oh, let's go to a park andactivate, and so we have nothing
, no testing of the antenna, nopre-conceived notion to how it
operates.
And so Robert took like a good40 minutes to an hour to try to

(01:27:41):
get the tuner to work.
And for a while his tunerwasn't even clicking, Like it
was, like it couldn't evenfigure out how to, you know, to,
to, to find a what relays toratchet.

Speaker 5 (01:27:50):
But yeah, I got a pack tenant here that I haven't
even run yet I bought it at girl, but you know the other ones
uh-huh, yeah, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
That's my fear, as I've learned that lesson very
early on don't bring an antenna,you don't.
You know, you haven't fieldtested yet absolutely I did.

Speaker 5 (01:28:06):
The other funny thing that you said there, eric, was
you got 33 and you're feelinggood about it and, like in
february, I was going out withmy dx10 in the back of the truck
and I was setting up at thelocal parks and I was minimum
150.
I would.
I would take nothing less than150 how long, though?

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
what duration?

Speaker 5 (01:28:25):
an hour and a half I was.
It was like 25 seconds ofcontact, so you would have a
pile up for days you.

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
My battery was dead my 33 was in my truck with my
mobile 891 and I had 15 minutes,literally 15 minutes, on the
atAS.
That's killer.

Speaker 5 (01:28:40):
30 seconds of contact is excellent.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
So that per cue was way good in my book.
But yeah, I've been down thatroad 150, 200.
I mean, Todd, he's been out inthe middle of the same park in
the middle of the dark,forgetting to look up and see
that he can't see his hand infront of his face, kind of thing
, and he's already up to 200contacts.

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
Yeah, it was my first pile up ever and all of a
sudden I started getting texts.
You're doing great.
Keep going, keep going.

Speaker 4 (01:29:07):
Keep going.
I still got power in thatbattery.
Keep going yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:29:21):
So I'm just like.
I did it until there was likeno more pile up and there really
wasn't anyone there.
I finally looked up and it waspitch black.
Oh my gosh, I'm this park andI'm sitting at this back and
literally I had my phone use myflashlight.
The antenna was like out in thefield.
I'm like, oh, this is gonnasuck pack it all up.

Speaker 5 (01:29:30):
Just, I'll pack it up the right way.
When I get home I'll just stopin the car or the truck and get
it out of here, right?
Yeah, that was, that was myexperience.
It was funny.
Like I said, in february, thebands were up and I you could go
out and you could easily get 80, 100, 150.
I was getting 200 in some casesand then I went out.
I took a long break because Isold the radio right and I was
waiting for the new one to bedelivered.

(01:29:51):
And I got out there and I waslike holy cow, the bands have
changed.
It is a whole different ballgame out there now.
I'm getting 15 or 20 and I'mlike I guess I did all right, I
got the activation right I get,I get 11.
I'm like yes yeah right, it'snailed it.
I'm trying to get my, my secondkilo over at island lake here,
which is three, three, one, fiveup here in in, uh, brighton and

(01:30:12):
uh, it's just been a slog toget the last 160 contacts, it's
just I haven't.

Speaker 6 (01:30:17):
I haven't seen more than more than 50 in an
activation.

Speaker 5 (01:30:20):
Yeah, I'm telling you , man it used to be, you could
talk to anybody anywhere, noproblem, it's wild.
If this is what the bands aregoing to be like in a couple of
years, I'm going to be sad.

Speaker 6 (01:30:30):
It'll swing quick, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:30:33):
You know, when I have to travel and I have to go down
, I do juvenile probation so wehave kids like down South in
residential, so no one likes tofly and I love to fly.
I'm like, oh, I'll go downthere, so it's easy over time.
So I all I bring is my POTA bagand I'll shove some clothes in
there, like if I have to changeand you know.

(01:30:54):
But so I go down there and Isee the kid for like 15 minutes
and I'll I'll schedule likeeither a late flight or a flight
like first thing the nextmorning, so I have the whole
afternoon to get paid to do POTA.
And so I I go out there.
And it's crazy Cause when yougo out there and you use like a
W1 signal, like people down inFlorida and Mississippi and

(01:31:16):
Arkansas are like holy crap yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:31:21):
I'm like oh yeah, I'm , oh yeah, I'm right next door
to you.
This is ground wave, actuallyGround wave, dude, they're in.

Speaker 3 (01:31:25):
Envis contact Because I guess down south the guys
tell me that they really need toget Vermont.
Vermont's hard for people toget.
It's kind of like MontanaMontana's a hard state to get
because there's not a lot ofpeople there, let alone hands.

Speaker 6 (01:31:42):
Vermont was, I think, my third to last POTUS state to
get a park in.

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Vermont for me was literallyjust.
You know I drive over to thestate, activate it.
Good to go.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
Yeah, when I go to Vermont and activate, it's like
it's crazy because you get likeso many people, people want to
reach it, you know, even ifthey're because a lot of people
don't have you.
So, yeah, it's.
I know you're saying, thoughit's it can be crazy.
Uh, you know, sometimes you getbands are going and you know,
other times it's like all I wantto do is get to 10, just
activate the park.
I'll be stuck on that, likewhen I was in california

(01:32:15):
visiting my brother.
I'm at huntington state beach,like beautiful, right, big, open
beach, nothing around me, noone's there, and I barely got
what did I get?
Like 12 contacts, 13 barelyscraped together.
I was trying to figure out toget eric.
I'm messing with all thedifferent bands and he's acting.

(01:32:37):
He's like, oh, I got like 150and like california was in like
a dead zone.
I'm like dude, I couldn't, evenI could.
I got the same guy on threedifferent bands.
It was.
I thought it was just me andhim out there doing poda it was.

Speaker 5 (01:32:50):
Yeah, well, I appreciated eric's also his
comment about uh calling in thediscord to uh to rescue you from
a bad activation.
We do it all the time aroundhere.
By the way, there are a ton ofmetro parks that are central to
the Southline area, so if youget in real bind, you get on
Discord POTA for the Slark Cluband you say, hey, I need some
help.
You get at least three or fourfreebies because people get out

(01:33:12):
of bed and click over to yourband on 40.

Speaker 3 (01:33:15):
Did you use your daughter, eric, did you?

Speaker 1 (01:33:22):
Okay, you use your daughter eric, did you okay,
guys?
Cheating method.
I it's not cheating, it's anemergency break glass option I
have.

Speaker 5 (01:33:26):
I have a club call too right?

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
actually I do at the time I don't, so I could,
probably could.
But my daughter's a ham um, andlong story short.
She went on a photo with merecorded.
I recorded her voice on my 891and I forgot to erase it.
Not that I intended to do itthat way, but yeah it works it
works.
Yeah, you know, it reallythrows them for a loop, for sure

(01:33:47):
.
But you know, hey, I got thecontact, they can't take it back
.

Speaker 3 (01:33:50):
Yeah.
So he sends her out on the calland then he answers like hey,
where'd the girl go?
And it's like, oh, she steppedaway.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:34:00):
You where'd the girl go?
And it's like, oh, she steppedaway.
Yeah, you'll have to tell mehow you got your daughter to
become a ham in the first place,cause that's what I've been
working on, well, not so well,field day, field day is what it
did it Like.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
So my daughter brought her friend to field day
because I said, oh, come checkout these old guys hanging out
playing radio.
And she's like, oh, okay, cool,you know, which I thought was
really weird, but whatever.
And so, you know, she showed upand I said, here, come sit in
front of the radio.
And they started makingcontacts.
And the worst part was it thatwhen she first sat down in front
of the radio, start calling,every guy was like, oh, dude,

(01:34:32):
you get a female voice a whileon the radio they'll be tracked
in the mirror.
Like she got nothing, nothing,literally nothing.
I was like, oh, that's the worstthing and so I took her out to
her poda and she was like shegot nothing, nothing, literally
nothing.
I was like, oh, that's theworst thing.
And so I took her out to herpoda and she was like she got on
and she started, you know,making contacts and I think that
was like one of the big, bighits for her.
She was like, oh, it's reallycool and she loved doing it and
she's like, you know, she got toa point that she was like, oh,

(01:34:52):
okay, well, I should study formy test.
But then she stopped and, longstory short, um, like's day I
think it was like two years agoshe surprised me and she's like
hey, dad, here's my call.
I'm like you're what?
And because you know, I guess,one weekend the wife was in
cahoots with her and they weretrying to keep me out of the

(01:35:13):
house because she was doing aweekend crash course for her
technician through another clubin Nashua that you know, you
basically take the weekend andthey'll test you and you get
your technician.
So she got her technician fromzero.
That's pretty cool, that isawesome.

Speaker 5 (01:35:27):
How old is your daughter, and it's mostly just
to see if it's comparable toJames' older daughter, I have
the same question, 23.
Oh so she's a little older.

Speaker 4 (01:35:35):
James, you have some room, mine's 10, so I got a
little runway.

Speaker 6 (01:35:41):
You got a little runway.
You got a little runway.
James is getting frustratedthat the two girls, who are
still young, aren't takinginterest in this quite yet.

Speaker 1 (01:35:46):
I think he has two or three years to even have a
chance.

Speaker 6 (01:35:50):
But I think at least one of them will bite.

Speaker 4 (01:35:52):
I mean, I just try to bait him to any park because
Jim has two poodles, the dogs.

Speaker 6 (01:36:00):
That's how it attracts my dogs.
Dogs are a big thing.

Speaker 1 (01:36:02):
Paul's got his dog Watson, and so that's kind of
what led Emma to go hang outwith us on field day.
It's like, oh, dog there, Ilove dogs and so Watson was a
big hit and that kind of kepther there for a while, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:36:15):
Not last field day, the field day before I couldn't
make a contact, last field, orthe field day before I couldn't
make a contact.
No, not because the this is,yeah, my, my finals died on my
dx.
Oh no, I made five contactswith no finals, which was pretty
impressive.
But I'm like into a buddy hex.
But anyway, I'm like.
I'm like why doesn't anyonehear me?

(01:36:35):
Why?
I mean, this is ridiculous.
So anyway, I think I got ourold president's radio in there
and a thing.
And again I'm trying to work apile up trying to get in and you
know, 45 minutes I can't getthrough to this guy.
She goes.
You want me to try?
I'm like sure, good luck.
First call, boom, and then shewas like and that was it.

(01:36:57):
She took over the radio and shewas probably there for a couple
hours.

Speaker 1 (01:37:01):
So james, here's, here's the tip you want to try
if you can't do.
I mean, obviously she's notdriving yet.
But what I did was is I got mydaughter roped in to doing a fox
hunt live fox hunt.
So I gave her my truck.
She brought three of herfriends.
I said you got to keep it clean, but you're going to retransmit
at this frequency.
And I gave her a schedule onthis you know, band and stuff

(01:37:22):
like that and I sent her out.
I said this is where you'regoing to go sit, go park your
truck there.
And so she transmitted and she,like I have a video on my
channel, you can go watch.
It's hilarious.
Uh, she did like can I get oneof the girls did a reading of
can I give the mouse a cookie?
Another girl, my daughter didbad dad jokes for 45 seconds.
The third girl did uh, another,you know.

(01:37:43):
And so they continue to rotatethrough all this random, like
weird stuff and they were a bighit.
They never got found.
And so, like my daughter stillholds true to the fact that they
are the foxes the live foxes inour club that have never been
found, you know, and everybodyliterally drove by them every
time.
They're're like oh, I rememberthis, someone was parking over
there.
We just figured it wassomething else and drove right

(01:38:04):
by it.
That's kind of what the impetuswas to get her to get into ham
radio, let's be clear if it wasthree gray-haired dudes sitting
in a truck, you would have beenfound.
Oh yeah, let's be clear Reading.

Speaker 5 (01:38:17):
Good Miles of cookie.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
Yeah, yep, star Wars, you know all good stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:38:23):
James, my, my son is 12 and he's been kind of into it
, not really into it.
Someone gave him a key here tolike.
It was like a practice gearthat would make things when he
was like maybe eight.
So he got into that till helearned his name and then I

(01:38:46):
would run a net, um, our, everylike every sunday.
I used to run the uh, our clubnet, which we do every night,
and uh, and I'd go on that.
So he'd always remind me, dad,dad, you're gonna miss the net,
you're gonna miss the net.
Even if I didn't want to do thenet like, he was my reminder.
But what I got him reallyinterested in was when the space
station flies over and you puttwo frequencies in your radio

(01:39:09):
and you let it go through, hecan start hearing people.
I said, oh, that's coming fromthe space station, it's flying
overhead.
And then one time this guy,fred, in Hollis he's one of the
six people that can run hisstation to schools and the kids
in schools can talk to theastronauts.

(01:39:30):
So, for that to happen, thespace station has to fly over
New Hampshire so he can pickthem up and you get about 10
minutes of them hearing pickthem up and you get about 10
minutes of them here.
And so when he heard theastronauts talking on the radio
you know from our, you know fromour house he was like that's
awesome, that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:39:49):
Yeah, that would be exciting, even for me.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:39:51):
I mean it's kind of cool to like to hear that and
then.
But he's still like he's toointo sports right now that he
could care less.
But I think down the road, youknow, especially if he comes to
a field day or if he stops by,that he might want to come to
that 24-hour podo and camp outor whatever.
I don't know that might get himgoing.

Speaker 4 (01:40:13):
I tried to get my kids to camp this weekend and it
was an adventure.

Speaker 5 (01:40:18):
So we'll see.
They had a poodle babysitterfor like half of it, so it was
all good.
I am entertained though the ISS.
We do an event called Astronomyat the Beach here in Michigan,
the southern Michigan area.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
You guys have beaches in.

Speaker 5 (01:40:35):
Michigan.
There's some lakes around here.
I don't know if you've heard ofthem.

Speaker 1 (01:40:41):
I don't know, some body of water that's a large
candidate or something.

Speaker 5 (01:40:46):
Anyway, they do an Astronomy at the Beach event and
actually, and actuallyironically, it's not at one of
the big freshwater lakes, it'sone of the inland lakes here by
uh, south line and uh, theybring the telescopes out and
hold nine yards.
And one of the club members ispretty involved in the astronomy
club down here at university ofmichigan and so he says, hey,
why don't we go out there anduse as an outreach event for the
club, right?
So we, we put a couple ofradios up, we run fta, we put a

(01:41:08):
lot of you know lots of colorfulthings that are moving with
bands and scopes and whatnot,and try to entertain the masses,
right.
And so last year we got all thefolks out there and and and me
and the dog are sitting there,and that was one of the funniest
things is we, we had all theseyounger folks come up and they
wanted to first see the dog, butthen we used it kind of suck
them in and talk about the radioa little bit.

(01:41:28):
We did end up getting a coupleof folks interested.
So it was really fun to to seethat.
And I, I appreciate the idea ofthe ISS because our two of our
guys in the club also do the um.
What are you, what do you callit, james?
You have it too the 5, in andout bounce.
I don't have this, so I don'tfully understand it.

Speaker 4 (01:41:48):
I mean I've never made a contact through satellite
.
I've been trying but I've nevergot it to quite work.

Speaker 5 (01:41:55):
Yeah, yeah, but there's a couple of guys that
have made it work and I willtell you, when you talk to the
space station, there's somethingabout that.
A person hears that and theythink that's the coolest thing
ever and it's a great way topull people in and get them
thinking about the hobby moreseriously, right, and then they
can kind of discover the rest ofit, and so, yeah, I think
that's an awesome way to to getpeople interested and if you

(01:42:17):
work the astronauts like I guess, the Russian astronauts or
cosmonauts up there they they doham radio, probably more than
anyone else, probably more thananyone else, and if you work
them they'll send you a QSL cardfrom the space station.

Speaker 3 (01:42:29):
So I was like I think if, if he was able to do that
and work you know, we were ableto work the an abstract flying
over by and then get a postcardthat says you work the space,
that he'd be like dude oh yeah,oh yeah, that's, that's cool,
that is cool, that is cool.

Speaker 5 (01:42:44):
Yeah, the cosmonauts do a bunch of SSTV as well, if
you ever get in, you know, ifyou ever set your radio up to
listen to that.
It's pretty neat to see thepictures come down.

Speaker 1 (01:42:52):
Yeah, james, just keep doing radio in front of
your daughter.
Eventually they'll think it'scool.
Just when they get to 20s andthe boys start getting involved,
then things just you know, theystart to tell Like, start to
tell like.
I almost got to the point ofgetting my daughter to put a
dual band ht.
I was literally going to say Iwill put that radio in your jeep
and I will put the antenna andwe'll install it.

(01:43:12):
She's like oh, it's great.
And then somewhere along, whenshe got a boyfriend, and then
that's just a fleeting.

Speaker 4 (01:43:17):
That's right.
Pre-teen girls are going tothink their dad's cool for their
hobbies.
That's exactly how that's goingto work.
Yeah, well, for a while Thenafter that, forget it, keep
trying.

Speaker 1 (01:43:28):
Yeah, exactly, that's all you can do, right?
It's a dad.

Speaker 4 (01:43:31):
Yeah, I mean, they tolerate me so I can't complain
too much.

Speaker 3 (01:43:35):
All you got to do is find another.
How old is your daughter?
10 and 8.
I have two daughters, so youneed to find a 10 and 8-year-old
old ham, like over in Europe orwherever you get up in Canada,
or something that they can talkto on the radio and then they
might think it's cool, like, oh,my ham buddy.

Speaker 6 (01:43:57):
I did find that 8 year old general class ham that
was running POTA that I reallywas surprised about.
I don't remember the call, I'dhave to find it.
But here's a random story foryou, for kids, for daughters, on
the air.
So there's a family out ofHowell, michigan, to the west of
us here.
Guy had three daughters and Iknew them when I first got

(01:44:19):
licensed.
They were all on the localrepeater back in the early 2000s
and they all proceeded to marrynon-hams three girls and those
guys are all now hams.
So that worked that directionfor them.
That was their dad.
Their dad's name was Ralph.
I think his name was Ralph.

(01:44:39):
Anyway, you guys remember atDayton there was the one booth
with the old military pickuptruck bed thing, big old thing.
That was their booth and Iwasn't in the mood I'm sorry if
they're listening I wasn't inthe mood to reminisce so I
walked quickly past that onethis year.
I don't see you, I'm good.

(01:44:59):
I'm not a nice person, but yeah, he got all his daughters into
it, so it's possible.

Speaker 4 (01:45:08):
And they married non-hams.
And those ladies all got theirhusbands in.
Was it Steve N-A-N-A-R Steve?
He was the one that told us hewouldn't let his daughters drive
free cell phones until they gottheir license, their radio
license, their technician, sothey could use the repeater to
call in.

Speaker 6 (01:45:21):
I think that might have been a little bit with the
people I'm talking about too,because that was still very
early cell phone age when theywant their phones.

Speaker 3 (01:45:28):
be like get your license first, then you can get
a phone.
You'll get it right away.

Speaker 6 (01:45:33):
Dmxb would be like what?
Are we maintaining thisrepeater for Use radio first?

Speaker 5 (01:45:38):
Yeah, my original technician license was granted
in 3-13 of 2002, which, by theway, was before I got my first
cell phone, so that should.

Speaker 1 (01:45:48):
Dude my license was granted in 1993.
I had no cell phone.

Speaker 5 (01:45:53):
I thought I was dropping a real bomb there.
I was in senior year of highschool and Dad said I'll buy
your radio if you get yourlicense.
So we went and got tech, me andmy brother both.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
I had to burn down my kitchen my parents' kitchen, to
be able to get my first HT.
That's how it worked.
Yeah, we'll get into that story.

Speaker 5 (01:46:09):
But anyway, you can ask my dad.

Speaker 1 (01:46:10):
I feel like there's a backstory on that, yeah there
was a long one, but yeah, thelong story, short of it was, is
we had a fire caused by me, butwe won't go into that and in
that grease fire that I left oilon the stove to make french
fries for some reason, I don'tknow why, but uh, I went

(01:46:31):
upstairs to go, you know, checkout a few things or whatever,
and I came downstairs thekitchen was on fire and I don't
know how it happened.
But, um yeah, my boy scoutingskills apparently, you know, was
what saved our house from, youknow, becoming, uh, you know,
total ruin.
So my parents figured theywould reward me.
And so what did they reward me?
With a yezu ft 470 dual band ht.

(01:46:52):
Now, that thing was literallylike.
If you see the pictures online,it was literally like six feet
tall and it was like the firstdual band yezu ever put out.

Speaker 5 (01:47:02):
And we all go to the web right now yeah, 100, google
you go, you go, see the pictureyou go look at that radio, it is
.

Speaker 1 (01:47:08):
Yeah, it was a brick.
Imagine putting that thing onyour hip like it literally had
an hour and a half battery life.
It was pretty bad.

Speaker 5 (01:47:15):
But do you still have it?
Do you still have it all dude?

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
I my my history, long story short, was as I you know,
basically by the time I gotmarried, which was a right
around 2000, I sold all the hamradio gear and for 20 years
basically didn't do ham radio,kept my license up.
But then my brother yeah, mybrother got back in.
He's like, oh, dude, you're inCOVID.
He's like you ever check intoham radio again?
I'm like why would I do that?

(01:47:39):
I sold all my gear and he'slike you got to check into it.
And so, long story short, lookedinto it and then I got hooked
and so wild how much it changed,right, oh, freaking crazy how
fast it all changed.
And and I was a no-codetechnician, so I never really
got a chance to play on hfexcept during, like field days
and that was always the blastbecause all the old guys would
be like give it to the young kid, give it to the 18 year old,

(01:48:00):
he'll be there for 48 hours.
So I'd bring us 24, pack a jolt, set it up there right next to
the radio and I'd be poundingthose things down and I'd
operate all night because thatwas the only time I ever got a
chance to play on an HF.
So yeah, yeah, dude.
So I went fast through generalonce COVID hit and then at that
point I was in an HOA, so Ireally shot myself in the foot

(01:48:22):
fast.

Speaker 4 (01:48:23):
I'm the definition of a COVID ham.
I started studying even for mytechnician right before COVID
general, during the middle ofCOVID, and then extra right
after pretty much.

Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
So yeah, I did the same thing right before a
lockdown.
I was like I got to get myextra, so I did the Zoom you
know weekend kind of extra crashcourse and never looked back.
I was like I was done.

Speaker 6 (01:48:42):
I guess I should have done my extra.
Then my COVID thing was go getthe real estate license.
I should have done my extra.
Then my covet thing was go getthe real estate license.

Speaker 1 (01:48:48):
I did that during dude.
Here's a tip and like this isthe one thing and I'm trying to
tell todd, do this.
There's a club here in newengland called national amateur
radio club.
You might have heard them.
They're big arl kind ofpromoted, whatever.
We love to hate them aroundhere.
Um, long story short, they do areally good zoom.
Three-day crash course forextra and I went in not testing
anything whatsoever and by thetime I got out of it on sunday I

(01:49:10):
was literally an extra.
So it was like it was likecrash course.
They do all hands on stuff.
You know you literally have todo nothing prior to getting into
it except be a general and, youknow, have at least some you
know skill.
So for 60 bucks it was wayworth the effort to be able to
understand how to read a smithchart.
You know, read all thequestions that you know Todd
gets tested on.

Speaker 6 (01:49:29):
My focus is about three days, so that's pretty
good.
The only thing I've ever heardout of Nashua, new Hampshire and
this goes back to the early2000s when I was doing a bunch
of NTS traffic is there was somedude out of Nashua, new
Hampshire that sent a bunch ofSAM messages over the national
traffic system.
I don't remember what they wereabout, so that was that's the

(01:49:53):
only reason I know know thattown.
So, wow, I think they were allwelcome to the hobby messages
sent over national trafficsystem.
So yeah, I'll have to think ifI, if I sit here long enough,
I'll remember the call of whosent them.

Speaker 5 (01:50:00):
But yeah, eric, had you done a crash course before
on on some other it relatedtraining or was this your first
real three-day crash course tomake an achievement like that?

Speaker 1 (01:50:12):
From a ham radio perspective.
I only did it because I wantedto get it done fast and I was
just making no progress testingon my own General I did the cram
and slam right before COVID hit, where they did the lockdown.
So I literally it's kind offunny, because I tested with the
club that I'm with now anddidn't even know that I was
testing with them and so theywere only doing walk-ins so I

(01:50:36):
literally walked in with thewhole mask and the whole setup
and everything else like that,and I crammed the night before I
was studying, you know, and Ikind of came out of it like,
yeah, I'm a general, I'mstudying, you know, and I kind
of came out of it like, yeah,I'm a general, I'm like, okay, I
don't have HF gear, what do Ido?
It's like I was like I justshot myself in the foot.
So what did I do, guys?
I ran down to HRO.

Speaker 5 (01:50:56):
I was going to say obviously you bought something.

Speaker 1 (01:51:00):
Yeah, I ran down to HRO at that point I realized I
don't have the budget right nowfor that uh, and we actually had
a club member who had a 450 uhft, 450d loved that radio.
It was the best radio I everhad.
Tutor in it, that was my firstradio and so I got on the air
and started making contacts andyeah, the rest is kind of sort
of history.
But well, but everybody knowsmy story with this whole podcast

(01:51:21):
.
I mean, in essence we we gottaturn the tables on this because
in essence you guys are ourguests there.
You know there's a lot to knowabout you.
So you know, it's kind of funnybecause I was talking to paul
today a little bit offline andwe kind of saw the parallels
that it felt like you guys werekind of our mirror, reverse of
like you know who we are as apodcast and it kind of like got

(01:51:42):
almost more, you know, comicalas we kind of dove into it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:47):
Yeah, exactly right.
It's the perfect line up.
Yeah, exactly right.
This is the alignment.

Speaker 4 (01:51:50):
Okay all right.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
So those that are, you know watching the live
stream here, you'll see thatbasically we're all lined up top
to bottom and yeah, this is aperfect matchup.
So, you know, it's kind offunny.
I was doing a littlecorrelation and Paul and I kind
of talked about this.
But, um, if you, if you haven'tclued in already, these guys
you know that are in front of usare everyday ham.
You know you can go check themout at everydayhamcom.

(01:52:13):
Um, they also have a youtubechannel and a podcast and and
how long you guys been?
It was about a couple monthsnow you guys been doing the
podcast six months yep sixmonths since january uh we
floated the idea at the end ofthe year, in 2024.

Speaker 5 (01:52:28):
It was kind of a joke .
Right Sitting at the bar wesaid, hey, wouldn't it be funny
if we did a podcast?

Speaker 1 (01:52:34):
Sound familiar.

Speaker 5 (01:52:34):
Todd and James is a gentleman that refuses to let
anything lie.

Speaker 6 (01:52:41):
So as a pusher forward of all things, things,
we had the invite for thesession before we agreed to
anything.

Speaker 4 (01:52:48):
Yeah, I mean, it's not a builder invite out there.

Speaker 5 (01:52:51):
That's right, that's right, okay, I just built the
whole brand and he said we'redoing our first podcast in
January.
You in wow, here we go.
Yeah, we, we, we did it overbeers.

Speaker 1 (01:53:09):
We were basically people that I kind of thought in
our club would be the good fitfor it and uh, yeah, it
originally was just Todd, I andRyan.
But, uh, you know, ryan, uh,definitely, you know, had more.
He's a private pilot, so heflies every which way, so it was
always tough for him to be ableto find time, and so we're like
we got to find somebody else.
That's a good fit.
Well, you know, heck, I waslike dude.
I know Paul, he's a perfect fit.
I know he's like, you know he,he doesn't have any YouTube,
he's not on the, you know, theInternet's, whatever, you know
he'd be perfect.

(01:53:30):
You know he's blunt, he'sawesome, he's, you know, great
resource.
And so, yeah, he said, come on.
And you know, two years later,oh my god, yeah, you know he's,
he's the anchor of all this crew.

Speaker 4 (01:53:40):
I want to tell you I have a complaint with my
doppelganger, though, that onejumps out of planes upside down.

Speaker 1 (01:53:45):
Yeah come on, james, you're really like you know.
I lose this battle pretty youknow, you have so much more
space to work towards you know Imean a lot of space to work
towards.
But thank you, yeah, so yeah,just one day, just why you might
.
Eventually, if Paul keeps goingthe way he is, he might be able

(01:54:05):
to take you with him.

Speaker 4 (01:54:07):
You can jump with Todd first and then call me up.
Then call up James and I'll gosecond Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:54:14):
So I started kind of jotting down some stuff.
So these guys are the EverydayHam, like I said, and they have
their own podcast.
So check them out.
If you haven't subscribed tothem, definitely subscribe to
them.
I have to say I'm a littlejealous because we took for two
years to get to 500 subscriberson our youtube channel.
But uh, you know, you guys shotoff pretty quick, which is cool,
um, but uh, yeah, the, uh, thekind of parallels I saw and you

(01:54:39):
guys can chime in if you saw afew yourself.
You know we are the reverse.
So all three of us todd I andpaul we're bald guys, you know.
And you know jim and james androry still have their hair,
still, you know, I mean, I knowRory's sort of there, but you
know a little bit, you know.
So that's obviously easy one.
You know you guys obviously metthrough your club and you

(01:55:00):
decided that, heck, why can't wejust hang out more?
So let's do a podcast together.
You know that's the mostlogical thing to do, exactly
right?
Just hang out more.
So let's do a podcast together.
You know that's the mostlogical thing to do, exactly
right?
Yeah, instead of just sittingaround drinking beers, it's like
, let's just record this stuff.
You know what better than tocapture them?
You know the, the craziness, so, uh, yeah, and then you know
you guys are big poda guys,which we all are.

(01:55:22):
We all, uh, you know,influenced each other in some
form or fashion when I everwatched your first episode and
heard all of the intertwining of, oh, I invited this person,
this person from this club, andit's like we all did this and it
just kind of clicked.
That was kind of one of mythings there.
Obviously, I made thecorrelation earlier.
James crosses very much overinto the Jeep world with Todd

(01:55:43):
and Todd's offline again, sowe'll get him back on in a
second.
James, uh, or sorry, jim you andI kind of share the same
parallels with the family.
So, like my brother is a ham,my dad finally became a ham
after, you know, encouraging histwo sons to become hams, you

(01:56:04):
know.
So we we didn't have a farm.
I have to apologize that.
We lived in, you know, suburbia, so the closest thing we had
was a looking farm house.
So you know, they have thatkind of growing up is growing up
.
But yeah, my brother, you know,kind of encouraged me and you
know he's still a ham, althoughhe's still a tech no
co-technician, but yeah, it waskind of that type of stuff.
But so, outside of that stuff,you know you guys have the floor

(01:56:27):
kind of tell us a little bitabout you, what you know, what,
what's going on with you guys,how did this whole kind of
process I mean, obviously youshared a little bit of that, but
uh, you know, kind of startthere and we'll just let it
unfurl.

Speaker 5 (01:56:37):
Yeah, it was.
It was definitely, I think, abit of a joke that we would
start a podcast, uh, but it's a.
It's a crew that I think uh waswas well fitted, uh, to having
a conversation in a casual way.
So that was how james, uh, roryand I got together.
Uh, I met rory on the repeaterjust about a month to the day

(01:56:59):
ago or, I'm sorry, a year to theday, rather ago, uh, and that
was how I got back into hamradio last last year.
um, right before field day waswhen I picked up my vhf radio
again and got on the repeaterand said, hey, uh, here's my
call sign.
It was kc8 tgb at the time.
Uh and uh, I haven't used mycall sign in 23 years.
Is anybody out there?

(01:57:19):
Uh, rory answered.
Uh, and at the time he wastalking to a gentleman ke8 wsk
blake is his name and he said ifyou ever hear us chatting, feel
free to toss your call out andget in the conversation, right,
and it was that interaction thatencouraged me to be all right
with getting on the radio again.
And that was awesome and it wasjust kind of a bit of a

(01:57:40):
snowball from there right Aroundthe South Lyon area James was
on the radio, lewis was on theradio, there's a number of other
folks that are regularly on theradio and they were all real
friendly, right, and I thinkthat at least in this Metro
Detroit area there's a lot offolks that were encouraging
folks to get back on the radio,even if you hadn't run it for a
long time.
So it got me stoked about itagain.

(01:58:01):
And then I started starting forgeneral, because I bought an
FTDX10 for $850 from some randomguy have to put it to good use
too.

Speaker 1 (01:58:10):
And I had to.

Speaker 5 (01:58:10):
Apparently I was like well, I can't run the radio
without a general license, so Ihave $850 into it.
She wasn't thrilled with thatpurchase, but I thought it was
super shiny.
I stuck a wire in the back ofthe antenna port, so it's pretty
.
I stuck a wire in the back.
I didn't even have an antenna,nor did I have the right cable
to connect to it.
I stuck a wire in the back anddropped it out the back window
and at least I could hear somestuff.
I was real careful not to hitthe transmit button.

Speaker 1 (01:58:34):
At least you had that common sense.

Speaker 5 (01:58:35):
Yeah, boy was it a neat-looking radio when I bought
it from the guy and he was likeI hope you make good use of guy
.
But anyway it ended up thatRory knew the gentleman.
Unfortunately it was a silentkey situation.
As many of those things areright, when you find a great
deal like that, it ends up beingsomebody that unfortunately has

(01:58:57):
passed away and the estateauction doesn't know what to do
with the stuff in many casesright and so I saw it, I bought
it and it kind of was my littlesegue back into getting a
general license, getting on theradio and meeting these guys and
the rest is kind of history.
So it's kind of my ham birthdaythis month and that's pretty
exciting.

(01:59:17):
Soon after I got my generallicense I upgraded my call to,
of course, initials, soN-H-A-R-D.
James Robert Davis, jim BobDavis we can all make the joke
here today.
Right, there we go, and sothat's how it kind of ended up.
But these guys are excellentfolks and James is really kind
of the producer, the brainchildof the Everyday Ham.

(01:59:39):
So I'll send it to James tomake some thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:59:41):
Yeah, I think you're being a little kind there.
No, I mean, similar to what Jimmentioned I talked about a
second ago, I was a covet ham.
My grandpa was always intoradio cb and everything we
talked about in one of ourepisodes and how we got into the
hobby and watch listening tothe scanner.
So, covet hit.
I said you know what?
This is something I've alwayswanted to do.
I'm going to go ahead and do it.

(02:00:02):
So I got my license, went tofind a club, found the south
lion club.
Just out of chance.
It had a good online presence.
I said, you know, like anymillennial would, it's got a
good website, so why don't I gocheck it out?
So I went down there and,ironically, first meeting, and
they were like oh, where do youwork?
And I, you know?
I said where I work?
And they go oh, do you knowLewis N-A-L-E-K.

(02:00:25):
And I go.
I don't think so, but why?
And they're like oh, he workswith you in the same building.
And I said, well, that's acoincidence in a kind of way.
So next day at work the guywalks down and goes I heard
you're at my club meeting.
What were we doing there?
That work is already spoken.

Speaker 6 (02:00:43):
I can see that happening too.

Speaker 4 (02:00:45):
Yeah, exactly, and I was like, oh well, it's nice to
meet you.
And he was really friendly andactually he was like you should
come back and check it out.
And discovered POTA, actuallythrough Lewis and the Southline
Club there they're a pretty bigPOTA club.
I would say we do the Supportyour Part weekends and really
anything POTA related and I gothooked.
I loved outdoor operating, Ilove hiking, I love off-roading

(02:01:08):
with the jeep.
Actually that's where my callsign comes from is the jku yeah,
you're gonna say that's jk yeah, yeah.
I would like to say, though I'mnot as bad.
I didn't pick that call signout myself.
My daughters actually picked itout.
They said well you like yourjeep, so you just go by.
Jku and I was trying to pick avanity call sign, so not quite
that vain and and je, but that'sworked, worked out.

Speaker 1 (02:01:27):
I like only fine dude .
You can't be as vain as me who,first 50th tattoo, decided to
get his call sign put on theback of his arm.
You know, yeah, so yeah, that'sthat's.
That's pretty.

Speaker 4 (02:01:37):
Yeah, that's at the bottom of the barrel, oh yeah,
but then I met Rory and Jim andthen the rest is kind of history
, and I think the best thingabout our show is Similar years.
As you mentioned, we provide apretty good balance to each
other.
I'm probably the least tech asthe extra, I'm probably the
least technical of the two ofthem, uh, but I, you know, I
learn a lot from them as well.
So for me it's really actuallya benefit because I'm learning

(02:01:58):
as I'm doing these recordingsand watching Jim's unboxing
videos and everything of thatnature.
So it's uh, it's a pretty coolexperience and I'm happy to be
here and again, as I said, it'sit's we just like to hang out
and record what we're talkingabout.
So there's no bettercombination than that.
So yep unscripted technical,non-technical anything in
between, exactly, I'll ask thedumb questions.

(02:02:19):
That should be obvious, andthen that's okay.
Yeah, well, that that, thatjust kind of falls in line with
paul's famous shirt.

Speaker 6 (02:02:25):
We know the answer.

Speaker 4 (02:02:27):
Yeah, exactly Exactly Now we have to hear Rory say
nice things about us.
So go ahead, Rory.

Speaker 6 (02:02:36):
So first I'm having that issue I was having earlier,
where my receiver audio isawful.
I can get about 65% of what youguys are saying, but I'm
piecing it together, but youguys are hearing me, okay, yes,
so far good.
We'll hope it recovers.

Speaker 2 (02:02:55):
We hear you, just fine.

Speaker 6 (02:02:58):
See, that's the problem.
Everyone needs to stop talkingfor a second, it'll recover.
But we've all been talking somuch it hasn't had a chance to
do that.
So once that happens I thinkit'll be okay.
But yeah, so I've been a hamsince 2002.
And when Jim mentioned his dateI had to pull it up just for
sake of my own.
I can't remember.

(02:03:18):
But 2005 of 2002, so all of sixweeks before Jim had his first
license, it seems like I got mytech license.
I had no hams in the family.
I basically was a scannerlistener for the longest time
and started listening to localrepeaters on the scanner and my
dad, whose uncle was a ham mydad was familiar with it.

(02:03:40):
He's like well, try and studyand get the license and my dad
encouraged me to do it as anon-ham.
So that was the story there.
I tested once somewhereprobably two years before I
actually got it.
I didn't pass but I studied upsome more and finally, I think
junior year of high school, Igot my technician license and

(02:04:02):
all was good there.
So I was fairly active onrepeaters and all that locally
as a tech for a very long time,eventually got the general but
wasn't super active, kind of putit aside with work and
finishing school in a veryroundabout manner and all the
things that happened betweenhere and there.
But a coworker, the guy Jimmentioned a little bit ago,

(02:04:23):
blake, who was he knew I had aradio license on my car.
It didn't mean anything to himbut these letters were on the
plate.
He started asking me ham radioquestions and I'm like, yeah, I
have radios and things but I'mnot super active.
But Blake's like, well, I'minterested.
So I helped him through some ofhis basic startup of picking

(02:04:44):
equipment.
It started to get my attentionagain.
You know I still had a radio inthe car.
I just turned it on whenever itwasn't super active.
But then one day Blake said,hey, do you know anything about
this South Lion Club?
And I'm like, yeah, I was apretty long-term member there
for a while.
I had been vice president atone time.
Even so, you know it's been anumber of years.

Speaker 1 (02:05:12):
He's like I'm going to their meetings so I'm like
all right.

Speaker 6 (02:05:14):
So I I dragged myself to my vice president in the
past.
Yeah, okay, fine, it was funnybecause there's all sorts of new
people there.
But then here's, you know, ahandful of the old timers who of
course knew me, and and they'relike, yeah, you know.
So we pick up where we left off, essentially the guy we
mentioned early, steve and theythey are.
He promptly brought me up todate on like something.

Speaker 1 (02:05:34):
What happened with that wasn't me.

Speaker 6 (02:05:37):
I thought that was me , yeah, yeah, one guy promptly
brought me up to date witheveryone who became a silent key
, and suddenly I was a a clubmember again.
So that's fine, but you knowwhen?
What we did then is is we allbecame pretty, pretty quick,
friends.
We're, all you know, same, veryclose, same age group, very,
you know, like-minded in enoughways to make it work.

(02:05:59):
Um, the one thing that that Istarted pushing for when, um
when I got active again, though,is is that we leave no call
unanswered on the repeater.
That's kind of what we.
It's something I picked up froma ham club out in California
when I spent a little time outthere, the Papa System of
Southern California.
That's kind of their mottoleave no call unanswered.

(02:06:20):
So we started trying to do thaton our repeater, and I think
that's one thing that's gotten alot of attention in the club
and a lot more people happy with.
You know you get a brand newperson.
They give their call sign out,and how many times do you hear
the story?
No one's on this repeater, noone's on this repeater.
Well, no one's taking the 10seconds to tell the guy he's
making it into the machine.

(02:06:40):
I mean it's if you don't.
You know everyone can afford togive someone 30 seconds of your
time.
If you, if you're just pullingup to your stop or wherever
you're trying to, whateveryou're doing, just say hello,
tell the guy he's making themachine, his radio works, it's
worth that quick interaction.
So that's something we all havetried to adopt and that's, I

(02:07:03):
think, one thing out of manyright now that has built to the
club's success.
And then, of course, we allbecame acquainted with each
other, which led us intobecoming the everyday ham
podcast.
So there is a short story.

Speaker 1 (02:07:16):
You guys all have used the words like acquainted
and bumped into and you know, dotell this connection, because
Paul, I and Todd all know how weconnected and we've obviously
shared.
You know it was POTA and youknow Paul had.
You know we're all part of theclub in some form or fashion.
So was it like y'all justshowed up at a meeting and said,
hey, you look good, let's gettogether, let's be friends, kind

(02:07:39):
of thing?

Speaker 5 (02:07:40):
I think it was like the go ahead.
I was just going to say I canremember.
So I was just going to say Ican remember.
So I actually went to MichiganPOTA meetup at Sleepy Hollow,
which was James's first run, Ithink, at putting this whole
thing together.
Generation one yeah, G1 ofMichigan POTA meetup.

Speaker 1 (02:07:57):
And this was soon after.
No, no, it's not G1.
It's 1F, so let's continue on.
Oh sorry.

Speaker 5 (02:08:03):
I'm sorry, thank you, oh boy.
I'm sorry, thank you, oh boy.
I I showed up there, uh,looking to meet some folks from
the club right, cause I had beenon the repeater for two weeks.
At that point, I think, give ortake right Like, ah, they said
there's something going on, I'lldrive up there.
I worked at the office whichwas 40 minutes from the, the,
the place that we were camping.
I snagged a late campsite.

(02:08:24):
It was an open campsite, wayfar away from the rest of these
guys, but I walked over.
I had just built a new truckcamper in the back of my truck.
So I was like, ah, it'll be anexcuse to go truck camping in
the back of my truck that I justbuilt out with the whole nine
yards.
Me and the dog walked over andI met, and I don't know, james.

Speaker 1 (02:08:42):
His sort of nonchalant personality, as far
as that's concerned, appealed tome, that's a nice way of saying
it, but yeah, okay, because Ishare that same personality.
I'm sure it's not nonchalantand some people might say
abrasive and oh my gosh, why isthis guy up in my face?
But yeah, it's all good, Idon't know how else to say it.

Speaker 5 (02:09:00):
Like James' approach to things appeared to be my
speed and so I was like I likethis guy, that's all right, and
I'll I'll make note of thatcheck and we moved on right.
But I didn't want to have theman crush on him or anything, so
we went about our day, right.
And then I saw it.
So I saw everybody at themeeting and of course I had been
talking to rory on on the airas well.
Uh and uh, kind of we, we hadfloated and joked about this

(02:09:22):
idea.
So, yeah, I, as far as meetingis concerned, no, no, it was
certainly through the South Lyonarea amateur radio club, but
also a little bit of a MichiganPOTA meetup right, where a lot
of those guys supported theexperience.
And then we do have a pretty,pretty active get together
before the meeting.
We actually meet for beer anddinner before the meeting, which
is great, because theneverybody's in a good mood for

(02:09:44):
the meeting, right.

Speaker 2 (02:09:45):
So you have a couple of beers before the meeting?
Ok, good idea.

Speaker 5 (02:09:46):
Any topic can, because then everybody's in a
good mood for the meeting.
So you have a couple of yearsbefore the meeting.
Okay, good idea.
Any topic can be interestingfor an hour afterwards.

Speaker 4 (02:09:52):
I would like to say similar to Jim just said.
I'd like to say it's someprolific moment where we just
realized but it's kind of likestepbrothers, did we just become
best friends, I think.
So I'm testing to see if youhave that drop right now too, by
the way.

Speaker 1 (02:10:05):
I wish I did.
I will.
We will add it.
I don't have my OBS running soI can't pull up all of my quick
videos.

Speaker 4 (02:10:14):
By the way you're making Rory over here jealous,
so now I've got to start makingall these drops.

Speaker 1 (02:10:19):
You're the most amazing guy.
There we go, Paul pull up thewig.

Speaker 4 (02:10:25):
Yeah, so I think it just clicked and things work and
we got a Rory.
That's all we need.

Speaker 1 (02:10:30):
Yeah, all right I got to ask.

Speaker 6 (02:10:33):
I don't know what they needed me for, but that's
fine.

Speaker 2 (02:10:35):
Go ahead, paul.
Okay, so I'm the baby in ourgroup, right, I'm 43.
Eric's 50.
Todd's over 50.
Yeah, 54.
All right, ages.
What do we got?

Speaker 4 (02:10:52):
42.
39.
41.

Speaker 5 (02:10:57):
Rory is our baby in the group.
Rory's the young guy in thegroup.

Speaker 1 (02:11:00):
I am Wow, dude, we're in trouble.
Our podcast is really slacking.
Then I thought we were doinggood for a while.

Speaker 5 (02:11:10):
I think we've said you know it's good to have folks
on the air that are of all ages, but, like I think it is nice
to see some younger folksinterested in ham radio, the
Southline Club has certainly gotthose folks that have been
testing and getting involved.
I think having events thataren't just strictly technical

(02:11:31):
events is really key toattracting those folks to come
out.
Having a social event that youmeet out at a brewery or that
you go out and do somethingthat's just ham radio adjacent,
so that you can pull those folksin that aren't sure yet that
they're ready to commit.

Speaker 4 (02:11:44):
And bring family members in as well.

Speaker 2 (02:11:47):
You can bring the spouse, you can bring the kids,
yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:11:51):
All three of our spouses all tolerate ham radio.

Speaker 4 (02:11:55):
Mine too, don't always invite it.

Speaker 5 (02:12:00):
She did ask if this was the third, fourth ham radio
meeting I had in the last weekand a half and I was like it's
half.

Speaker 1 (02:12:07):
I get all that.
I get the oh bye, honey, we'llsee you tomorrow, kind of thing,
as I go down to my ham shack torecord the episode.
100% it's all good.
Interesting.
I like the idea of beer eatingbeforehand, because that's one
thing we don't do with our club.

(02:12:28):
That I think would be waybetter.
But one of the things we do alot, we love a lot of, is, uh,
just uh, you know we try to doham adjacent kind of stuff.
So like we did a whole meshtastic night which was freaking
awesome, and so like that.
Like we dragged in like a wholebunch of people in the
manchester, you know nashvillearea that are like like just
fantastic people but they heardabout us and they were like, oh,

(02:12:49):
what's this ham radio thing?
And so then at that point, likewe had five, ten you know new
people, you know Paul's been,you know big Manchester guy too
as well, and so, yeah, it's likethings like that.
So like we kind of alwaysthought a little bit outside the
box with our you know kind ofhow we can get other people
connected, because you know it'sall electronics, you know,
whatever way you look at it, butyou know, you know the sad part

(02:13:09):
about ham radio is if you'redie hard ham radio operator, you
don't communicate.
Like I don't understand that,like I can't get my head around
it.
It's like it's a mode ofcommunication.
You should be picking up themic and, like you know where
rory was saying sharing the youknow, no, no repeater left
behind, kind of thing.
I subscribe to that dude.
I must annoy a lot of the oldguys on our repeater because I

(02:13:31):
put my call out every time I'min the truck, every five minutes
, like, oh, I want JR listening,I want JR listening.
I maybe get one or two people,but outside of that I'm sure I
piss off a lot of people.
They're tired of hearing mycall, but I'm not going to stop.

Speaker 2 (02:13:49):
Not going to hearing my call.
But yeah, I'm not gonna stop.

Speaker 1 (02:13:51):
Not gonna stop now I will say I'm a terrible
communicator, but I'm a greatamateur radio operator.
Yeah, exactly, oh man.
Yeah, that is so true.

Speaker 6 (02:13:57):
That is literally how we, I joke with our, I joke
with our repeater that it's thejim and rory repeater, because
that's how it feels sometimes.
But at the same time there'sbeen a lot of other people that
have trickled in because youknow, we're talking about
nothing and we leave it open.
We always leave it open.
The conversation is nevernothing that someone can't jump

(02:14:21):
into.
And we've gathered a lot offolks on the machine, for sure,
so I don't feel bad about it.
Gathered a lot of folks on themachine for sure, so that's, I
don't feel bad about it.
I think there were some, someof the, some of the older folks
that, uh, there was one inparticular who was bothered
because, uh, because he couldn'tmake his, his cord, his plans
for walking around town withanother local ham it was the

(02:14:41):
repeater was too busy.
One night they had to call eachother on the phone to make
their plan.

Speaker 1 (02:14:46):
So it's funny, like I heard I met paul through
originally sort of the repeateryou know in our local repeater,
and he would always leave alarge gap in between.
And I thought like I wassomething wrong with my radio
for a long time, because it waslike this is long pause.
And I'm like, and then I askedhim one day I'm like, dude, why
do you leave that gap?

(02:15:06):
He's oh, I leave a gap sosomeone could jump in and have a
part of the conversation.
I'm like that's brilliant, like, like it makes total sense,
like, why not?
Because, like, how many of uslike have that problem?

Speaker 5 (02:15:21):
Like we already mentioned like people.

Speaker 6 (02:15:23):
Yeah, I'll even make mention when we're in a long
queue so that, uh, you knowanyone's, anyone's, welcome to
join, because I I do have a badhabit of picking up the mic
quick.
I I'm a very impatient fellowso I'm going from from one to
the next, so I'll.
I'll pick up, uh, before thebefore the courtesy tone
completes, if I in some cases.
So uh, but I'll make thecomment.

(02:15:45):
If someone wants to join, I'llease up, but uh, yeah, I I'm,
I'm a quick key person I think Imade it.

Speaker 5 (02:15:52):
I think I made it two months on the repeater before I
said is sunday night at eighto'clock the best time for a net?
And and I started to pose thatquestion, right, and that's when
the uh, the official slark nethappens every week.
And, uh, some folks can makesunday and some folks can't.
And and I said, what if we hada thursday night late night
round table, like something latenight for us folks that aren't

(02:16:13):
going to bed at 6 30 in theevening?
Right, what if we had a latenight round table?
So I floated the idea toronnie's like you should start
it, see what happens.
He said I'll show up to it.
And I said, well, two is a twois a crowd.
So I, uh, I started the, thelate night roundtable on
Thursday night at 10 o'clock andit took a life of its own.
We're almost at its birthdayhere in two months It'll be a

(02:16:36):
one-year-old and we averaged 10,15 folks, depending on the
evening, and it ended up beingkind of a hit.
It's one of the only repeaterslit up late at night here in the
metro area.
We a hit it's one of the onlyrepeaters lit up late at night
here in the metro area.
We've got folks calling in 20,30 miles away, right, and it's
nice to hear activity at thathour and it takes on a whole
different tone.
Right, late night roundtableyou can have a couple of beers
and you can talk about anything.

(02:16:57):
Right, it doesn't have to benet control.
Can I have my turn?
No, that's not how late nightroundtable works.
We put up a line of folks.

Speaker 6 (02:17:05):
You get yelled at if you take that approach.
Yeah, we put up a line of folksand we hear what you have to
say.

Speaker 5 (02:17:11):
If you time out the repeater, you get an extra award
for being long-winded, right,but on, we go with our evening
right, and I have the thing atfour minutes.

Speaker 6 (02:17:20):
I have the time out timer on our repeater at four
minutes, which is more than theactual three that a lot of
repeaters give.

Speaker 4 (02:17:26):
You may take a championship too.
I definitely went with thegentleman.

Speaker 6 (02:17:31):
He has done it.
If you're in the all-star worldThursday night 10 pm, 454050
will get you into our repeater.
Give me that again.
What is it?

Speaker 2 (02:17:47):
454050.
Is that also linked in thehamstack hotline?

Speaker 6 (02:17:53):
no, that's on the list of things to do.
There's a couple couple bridgesand things that, uh, that we're
working on actually I don'tthink echo link's working right
now.

Speaker 5 (02:18:02):
Echo link's down right now.
We have echo link and allstarted working.

Speaker 1 (02:18:04):
No echo link echo link is repaired, so also echo
link n-a-s-l as well yeah,n-a-s-l-r those repeater nets
like so we, we started a covidlike welfare check-in net with
our would you know way back whenand it's been going strong for
five years.
Every night, every night,there's uh, you know guys are

(02:18:26):
doing you know kind of a tworound kind of thing.
Yeah, it's a tough thing to do.
Like I.
I give our ncos a lot of creditbut at the same time I'm also
supporting them a lot to sayinglike, hey, you got to get more
people involved because you'regonna burn those guys out and
like you know it's, it happenstoo much.
Like I.
I, when I first got back in thehobby, I'm like, oh dude, I'm

(02:18:47):
dude, I'm going to be an NCO forTraffickerNet and it was like
every Sunday for 52 weeks andI'm like, okay, read the script
again.
And at that point I find myselfjust pushing it off, pushing it
off, and then I just bowed outbecause it wasn't interesting.
It was like, okay, I did myfrill and that's tough.

Speaker 2 (02:19:04):
I mean that's tough.
I mean those are tough.
The problem is you weren'thaving enough fun with it.
You've got to be like goodevening.
Granite State Amateur RadioAssociation.
This is your net controller.

Speaker 1 (02:19:19):
November 1, oscar Gall.
Paul is showing me the light,you know, and I need to like.
We did a live stream fromNearpest.
Yeah, we did a live stream fromNearpest and one of our NCOs
for our local and that's likeyou guys are going to be at
Nearpest.
Maybe, paul, you know you couldbe the NCO for that night.
So he's like, sure, no problem.

Speaker 5 (02:19:50):
Of course he had three or four scotches in him at
that point and you knoweverybody in that tent on that
live stream was like having ablast, but it was fun.
I will give him that.
No doubt.
In my mind it's one of thosethings that rory encouraged me
early on.
He said if you can actuallyestablish a schedule right and
people can expect to hear you atthe same time, whether it's
every night or every tuesday andthursday or whatever it is it
starts to become a sort of thingthat you can, you can listen to
, right, and, and if you haveyour radio, you tune over to the
Southline Repeater on Thursdayevening.
You see what those idiots aretalking about, right, and slowly

(02:20:13):
you suck some folks into thewhole idea and it ends up kind
of being kind of a little win.
It's another way that you canpull people in that may not
otherwise have been.
We had a funny post.
We found a Facebook post and itwas a gentleman had his handy
talkie on a tripod in his garage.
He's out there working on hiscar and he said listen to the
N8SL late night round table.

(02:20:34):
He wasn't checking in but he hadit stuck up and he's got a
video of it playing on the thingand it's us just BS-ing about
random things, right?
Superbly entertained, right, itis superbly entertained, right.
It has become a thing in in themetro detroit area that you
could tune into at 10 o'clock onthursday night and expect
there's going to be somebodytalking about something and that
that is what's cool?
I think about, about that, andit's just another way to to pull

(02:20:57):
people in and say like, hey, ifI had my license, maybe I could
chat with those folks too.
I have an opinion that I'd liketo share, and we've had lots of
people come and go, so neatidea anyway.

Speaker 1 (02:21:07):
Yeah, I mean our NCOs .
They always throw a curve inthere on a Saturday.
They'll do like a question ofthe diet, or they'll do like you
know they'll do something.
That's always like a little bitoff kilter, so it doesn't
always just, you know, becomethe droned on same thing over
and over again, where peoplejust kind of tune out after like
, oh, I went to the doctorstoday, or hey, I went to the

(02:21:27):
dump today for the fifth timethis week, and it's like thanks,
yeah, great.

Speaker 6 (02:21:32):
Which medication are you on now?

Speaker 1 (02:21:34):
Yeah, Actually funny story was one of the guys who
does our Saturday night nets.
He was one of the guys alwayssaid on the you know when he did
it during the regular week islike his dump story.
So he decided like we're goingto do Tales of the Dump on
Saturday.
You tell us your Tales of theDump on Saturday and give us
your best Tales of the Dump.
Gotta go from there.

(02:21:55):
I love it.

Speaker 6 (02:21:55):
We're always looking for fresh topics.
Yeah, we did find with theThursday night thing that adding
in a light topic keeps theconversation, keeps it going a
little bit better at that timeof night I was kind of against
it and jim was like, well, itseems to be working.
I didn't like the idea, I justwanted a round table.
But you get too many uh, toomany dump stories, too many uh,

(02:22:15):
too many colonoscopy storiesstories.
You get too much going on it'slike two meters.

Speaker 1 (02:22:21):
Why are we talking on 80 meters tonight?

Speaker 6 (02:22:22):
yeah, exactly, yeah you know so that that it
actually works out.
And our we mentioned himearlier shane kfe bwn, his uh,
his uh fiancee is very muchoften listening to the handheld
he found out, even if he's nothome.
So that's fascinating.
Yeah, um, she's a future, butshe's a future ham.

(02:22:42):
But anyway, this, this list oftopic ideas came from her
through Shane of things and Iused one of them.
I led the roundtable this pastThursday, so we even have people
like that listening.
It's pretty cool, but it is agood list.
And I don't remember probablylast fall I was driving to

(02:23:03):
northern Michigan and up in WestBranch Michigan, which is kind
of central northern Michigan, Iwas driving through Michigan and
up in West Branch Michigan,which is kind of central
northern Michigan, I was drivingthrough they have a morning
round table and up north it's alot of retirees and they were on
a Friday morning having adiscussion about how they all
felt about their CPAP machine.
That was the topic and I didcheck in and I let them know I

(02:23:29):
do not use one, but that's.

Speaker 4 (02:23:32):
Broke their streak.

Speaker 6 (02:23:34):
But the funny thing is I actually do.
I have an All-Star node at mydesk at work and a handheld so I
actually do some mornings dialinto that repeater through
All-Star but the conversation isusually better than CPAP
machine.
But that's her.

Speaker 2 (02:23:51):
Well, you just remind them every day that you don't
use the CPAP.

Speaker 6 (02:23:54):
There we go, I should do that.
Still no CPAP machine.
I wonder at some point that'sgoing to change, I'm sure, but
still no CPAP machine.

Speaker 5 (02:24:04):
Hold out hope, then you'll have common ground and
it'll be great yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:24:07):
The building brain.
That machine.

Speaker 5 (02:24:08):
Then you'll have common ground and it'll be great
, too funny.
Well, shoot, I might be gettingclose.
What do you think, eric, are weabout there?

Speaker 1 (02:24:17):
Yeah, dude, totally up to you.
I mean, in essence, we probablycould talk forever, but you
know.

Speaker 5 (02:24:21):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (02:24:24):
Once you get going.
But either way, it was awesometo have you guys on.
Like I said, thanks again forresponding back to the email.
Nevertheless, it was definitelysome fun stuff, I guess.
From a standpoint of what'sgoing forward, just to wrap it
up a little bit, what's goingforward for Everyday Ham, for

(02:24:44):
you guys, what are your plans?
Obviously, dayton's come andgone, so you've already talked
about that a little bit.
You guys got any big thingscoming up.
Did you want to share with that?

Speaker 5 (02:24:54):
I think from James, I think yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:24:55):
I think from my FTX here I got to find an old priest
and a young priest to get outthe gremlin, I mean my.
I was literally joking.
It blew up my computer.
Well, I can't say it did, butmy computer blew up earlier,
right before this show started.
So I had to scramble and nowit's sitting in here as a
makeshift laptop stand.

Speaker 6 (02:25:15):
Most expensive one you've ever owned.
By the way, he took a blast ofRF into the check somehow just
before we got on here, so I'mcurious what happened there.

Speaker 4 (02:25:22):
It was probably something I did, but I'm not
quite sure how, but it's got agreat speaker.

Speaker 6 (02:25:26):
It's USB-C to USB-C.
What could you do wrong I?

Speaker 4 (02:25:31):
have no idea.
I don't think it was me, butI'm just going to go with it,
Just remember whatever side youput the cable in, just turn it
over, it's the other side.

Speaker 5 (02:25:39):
Exactly USB-C so it counts both ways.
You no longer have to guess.

Speaker 4 (02:25:43):
And then my corded headphones failed somehow during
the show sitting next to thisFTX1.
So I don't want to say anything, dude.

Speaker 1 (02:25:50):
I'm telling you, it's putting out some bad juju.
Oh my God.

Speaker 4 (02:25:54):
Bad juju man.
So with that, I think our bignext project for us is Rory and
Jim are coming over to the oldCasa here to put up a 2-meter.

Speaker 5 (02:26:06):
We're getting them on the air.
Finally, he doesn't have todial in to All-Star.

Speaker 4 (02:26:13):
Rory can stop giving me crap about not being on the
repeater more.
That's really where it goes.
But no, I live a good distancefrom Southline actually.
I'm more north a little bit,more country as well.

Speaker 5 (02:26:28):
Elevation is up to James from the repeater, by the
way.
Oh, so he's in the hole.
I'm in a void.

Speaker 1 (02:26:35):
Paul and I have big giant mountains or hills here in
New Hampshire shadowing ourrepeater.
I literally have to go out inmy backyard on a pole 25-foot
pole with my HT, listening tothe static, to see which way I
could tune in the best.
And at that point, yeah, forgetit.

Speaker 4 (02:26:51):
So I think that Otherwise, I'm not really sure
if we have any other big topicsplanned.
I think we're kind of focusingon more news-breaking news,
trends and whatever else we feellike talking about, I guess,
wherever the wind takes us.

Speaker 5 (02:27:03):
I think that the argument here is it's the first
year of the everyday ham right,so we're literally trying to
just make it through a firstyear with a consistent schedule
of at least delivering thethings we promised.
We would deliver you on January1st, which is a podcast a month,
and we might come up with afresh mic check video, which is
our sort of colloquial term forfun things that we're doing in

(02:27:24):
between the podcast.
Right, that might be Jamesgoing out and it's cheap to do a
pod activation me unboxing theFTX one, or are you renting a
cabin for Michigan QSO party orotherwise.
So I think that in betweenthose, those episodes, we're
looking for interesting topicsthat are relevant to us hamming,
and we're going to try todeliver those to you guys.

Speaker 1 (02:27:43):
Do you guys do like?
Is it there some likerestrictions for the contract
agreement that you guys can't doa poda together?
Like I'm just curious, like Isee individual videos, are you
separate?

Speaker 4 (02:27:53):
No, we do.

Speaker 5 (02:27:54):
We do all good plans a little bit there, but yeah, we
try to the intention wasactually this weekend to put
together a video of Michigan QSOparty, but guess what happened?

Speaker 6 (02:28:04):
James had two kids.
He was grilling hamburgers.

Speaker 5 (02:28:07):
I who so party.
But guess what happened?
James had two kids.
He was grilling hamburgers.
I had a dog in my hands.
I was the line cook.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So james is busy running theskillet and I'm busy making sure
that my dog isn't biting people, and very well, he just shows
up and does what he wants.
Uh, so yeah, we, we kind ofjust uh, we never record
anything.
So we're not perfect.

Speaker 1 (02:28:22):
We're still trying to grasp this content creator
thing six months into it, dude,pa, dude, paul and I were, like
you know, in the middle of apodium.
We're like did you turn on thecamera?
No, did you turn on?

Speaker 5 (02:28:32):
the camera.

Speaker 1 (02:28:32):
No, damn it.

Speaker 5 (02:28:34):
It didn't help that I broke my tripod in half putting
it into the wagon to take itout.
So at that point I was like,well, it might not be meant to
be here.

Speaker 4 (02:28:43):
I think one big thing for our show, too, is Jim did
an excellent job with thatunboxing, actually, and it was a
hit from a video standpoint butdid a really good technical,
deep dive into the first time,looking at the radio and
everything like that.
And I think for us too, it'salso important that this is a
platform for all three of us aswell.
So we of course, love doingcontent together and that's the
primary focus.

(02:29:03):
But if, if jim wants to do anunboxing, jim can do an unboxing
and I'm here to support him andsee how I can help that, you
know, produce or edit it or dowhatever he needs to do to get
it out there, and I think that'sone thing that's strong for us
too.
If we feel it, then we're justgoing to do it as well, and and
that's where that mic checkseries really comes in handy and
I think that's one of ourstrengths as well- kind of a
unified front for three guys.

Speaker 5 (02:29:24):
If you have have three guys, well you, you should
at least have some kind ofcontent out there at some point.
None of us have our own channel, at least that I well not, not
not one that's meaningful atleast, but uh, so that that's
what we're doing right now Ithink I agree with.

Speaker 6 (02:29:38):
Okay, we're doing remembering to turn the camera
on, because this is my first goat anything like this.
So that's to remember to recordmyself is a challenge.
I even doing the Michigan CUSOparty up north in the middle of
May, I had all.
James gave me all sorts of toysto use and I'm like, oh, I got
to remember to do this.
So it was.
I got a little bit of video outof it.

(02:30:00):
I could have done more, but itwas.
It was okay for the first goand I just don't think about it.
It's a matter of making myselfthink about turning on the
camera.
I think one of these repeatertrips we should probably do a
little bit of something withthat That'll get people's
attention.
You know, it's all sorts oflittle things.
It's not just a matter ofmaking the habit and doing it, I

(02:30:22):
suppose.

Speaker 5 (02:30:23):
Well, I want to compliment Eric a little bit
here, right?
So, eric, eric, you invited uson this evening and we
immediately as we got startedhere said man, the production
value here is killing us already.
And we were just impressed byall of the sound boards and the
panes that you have planned outand the extra segment and the
whole nine yards.
So it is awesome to have youguys bring us on and kind of see

(02:30:44):
how it's really done, becauseit shows us that there might be
a way to do it in the future.
I wanted to just say thank youto eric for bringing us on here
and reaching out in an email.
Uh, it is a nice opportunity touh kind of collab and it's been
a pleasure chatting with youguys this evening.
Uh, as the everyday ham and thethe live free ham.

Speaker 4 (02:31:01):
It was really nice to actually get to spend time with
you, todd and paul as well, andbasically have to interrupt all
your segments, and that's whatwe're here for go ahead, paul,
you had something to add no, soI just I just wanted to say that
, like I appreciate you guysbeing here and I I think that
the similarities between our,our two shows are uncanny.

Speaker 2 (02:31:24):
It's awesome, you guys.
You guys are just a a littlebit younger, right, so you bring
a a different perspective, sure, uh, although I'll say, jim and
james, like you probablyweren't raised too far off from
where I was raised, where mostof our life was free, you know

(02:31:44):
technology, yeah, or you freetechnology, or go outside and go
freaking play, right, I'm notthere yet I am a 1985 child, so
I do remember pre-internet verywell.

Speaker 4 (02:31:57):
I remember the world before the internet.
I haven't crossed 40.

Speaker 1 (02:32:00):
I was watching MTV on TV.

Speaker 6 (02:32:04):
I haven't crossed 40 yet.
That'll happen sometime thisyear, which, by the way I
remember these things.
I remember these things.

Speaker 4 (02:32:11):
I'm not that young, yeah it blows my kids' minds at
10 and eight that I lived beforethe internet and trying to
explain to them American online.
They just can't comprehend it.

Speaker 5 (02:32:22):
So what was your screen?

Speaker 1 (02:32:25):
Oh God, that was my last name?

Speaker 4 (02:32:28):
I don't remember.
Oh, oh god, that was my lastname.
I don't remember.
Oh, I think it was, uh, mymiddle name jim aka stew, jamaka
stew, I think that was it.
I haven't thought about that inprobably a decade.
I wasn't a clever kid, so justbear with me, we're talking a.

Speaker 5 (02:32:39):
A I am oh, yeah, yeah , yeah.
Yeah, it was oaken fan for mebecause I listened to technoo at
the time, so I love Paul Oaken.

Speaker 6 (02:32:48):
You still listen to Techno.
What do you mean?
I listened to Techno at thetime.

Speaker 5 (02:32:53):
It's changed a little bit.
It's evolved.

Speaker 1 (02:32:58):
Todd, stop playing with the scenes.

Speaker 6 (02:33:01):
There's a lot going on there.

Speaker 5 (02:33:04):
So, anyway, we just wanted to thank Eric and Paul
and Todd for having us on thisafternoon.
Thank you guys, it's been apleasure chatting.
Throw it back over to you guys.

Speaker 1 (02:33:14):
No problem, dude.

Speaker 4 (02:33:15):
It's been a lot of fun, thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:33:18):
Glad to have you guys on.
You're more than welcome tohang out with us anytime.
Like I said, even in the livestreams, the door is wide open.
If you guys happen to catch usin the live streams, the door is
wide open.
You know, if you guys happen tocatch us in the live stream,
come hang out with us.
We always, you know, we love,uh, you know the company.
I'm even thinking, you know,heck, we, you know, as I know
kyle, a alpha, alpha zeros thatare, you know kyle at all.
Um, he does his cahoots kind ofyou know team, you know kind of

(02:33:40):
competition quiz stuff.
I'm thinking, you know, wemight want to put toe to toe to
each other, you, you guys, andsee how we do, you know, and and
I kind of play in those spaces.
But uh, yeah, you know heck,you know I'm open to anything.
You know we do a little bit ofcollaboration.
You guys want to come on andmess up your show.
Feel free to let us know.
You know I, we could probablytalk for a ton more hours, but

(02:34:07):
you know, you know I used to.
Once you break the seal, youknow, you just end up
interrupting the show.
What the heck, todd, stopplaying with the scenes, oh man,
so uh, yeah, outside of that,if Todd was here he'd say you
know, share the same sentiments.
I'm sure right now he's off.
So yeah, dude guys.
So all right.

(02:34:27):
So it kind of wrapped things up.
How will you know who wants totake the end of the load?
You know and share.
You know how folks can get toreach out to you.
Guys know more about your show.

Speaker 4 (02:34:43):
What's the easiest way to get ahold of you guys,
james, james, the best spot toout there and find our Discord,
our Instagram, our audio versionand everywhere that that
podcast is posted, as well asour YouTube channel, so
everydayhamcom, and that willpoint you to all the directions
you need to go to.
So we'd love to have you.
Please remember to like, clickand subscribe as well as this

(02:35:03):
channel right here.
I'll get that plug in there foryou.
Again, thank you so much forhaving us on.
We learned a lot as well.
It was really nice to get tomeet you.
We're down for anything in thefuture.
I'll speak for the group here.
Let's do it again, let us knowhow we can derail your show more
, and we'll be here.

Speaker 1 (02:35:19):
We'll do the same.
We'll bring that Ford F-350 andwe'll just drive it right on
into the front of the store andpark it there.

Speaker 4 (02:35:26):
There's enough room.

Speaker 1 (02:35:27):
But they're good for it's a Ford Found on Road Dead.
We all know that I'm a Ram guy.
Come on, just throw the Rams.
Todd, you're not going to comeonline.
We go to your video and noaudio from your friend.
It's your Mac.
Figure out your Mac.
Anyway, cool, it was awesomehaving you guys on.

(02:35:48):
I'm glad we finally got a chanceto hook up and hopefully we'll,
you know, maybe you guys get achance to come out this way
during our 24 hour party.
We'd love to have you come outand hang out.
We'll, you know, bring thebeers, we'll share.
You know great stories, youknow.
If you can break awake, we'dlove to have you guys.
Otherwise, yeah, let's do somestuff in the future together.

(02:36:11):
For sure, I'd love to.
Once you guys get your callsign, let us know.
We'll definitely try to do.
You know, maybe we'll do a dualactivation on a weekend or
something like that, with all ofour club call signs and see if
we can make contact.
And yeah, I know, for at leastthe past couple of months, if
not the year, I have a directpipeline in uh, you know, uh,
michigan all the time.
So I have a bunch of guys thatI talked to a lot that are in my

(02:36:32):
portal log that I uh work a lot, so it's always good to see all
roads uh lead to Michigan.

Speaker 4 (02:36:39):
So, I mean I know Paul's already in the Midwest
here he's halfway here.

Speaker 1 (02:36:41):
He's halfway there.

Speaker 2 (02:36:49):
Yes, yeah.
So I yeah.
I don't know how far I am fromyou guys, but I mean if we could
make something work like, let'sdo it sweet, that'd be cool.

Speaker 1 (02:36:53):
Yeah, todd, now that you're back.
Oh, I'm back.
Yeah, we see you now.
I don't know what you did, I'vebeen watching.

Speaker 3 (02:36:59):
I've been trying to talk and you guys are like
ignoring me.
I'm like what's going on withthese guys?
Anything you want to add, myfriend?
No thanks for coming guys.
It's been fun.
I was there the whole time,even if I was black.

Speaker 6 (02:37:13):
It said offline.
I don't know what happened.

Speaker 3 (02:37:16):
I just, but you can see me messing the screens up,
right.

Speaker 4 (02:37:20):
Oh yeah, you were changing everything.
I wasn't sure if it was you orthe.

Speaker 1 (02:37:23):
FTX1.
It could have been both.
There he goes, the FTX1 heard.

Speaker 3 (02:37:30):
That was Paul.
We know that one.
You're taking me off.
I have no idea what happened.
It's been a lot of fun, thanksfor having us.
It was good.
Definitely, like I said, lookat the podcast and the YouTube.

Speaker 1 (02:37:45):
Go to two weeks.
Try to go to two weeks, notonce a month.
I can't.
You know the content's good,like I have to say your reviews
like Jim gets into deep.
You know, like in the weeds alot with his radios.
James, you're the same way.
Like you guys have a reallyjust good like overall, like
general content.
When you're individual for yourwhole channel, I don't worry.

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