From Registration to Activation: Your Complete POTA Journey

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Well, tonight we got something special for all of our
listeners We've got a listenersubmitted topic.
So you know what that means.
Well, welcome to the world ofPOTA, my friends Next on Live
Free and Ham.
Well, hello and welcome to theworld of Poetum, my friends Next
on Live Free and Ham.
Well, hello and welcome to theLive Free and Ham podcast.
This is our weekly show wherewe discuss ham radio topics In
New Hampshire, new England andbeyond.

(00:33):
I'm thrilled, we're thrilled,to have you here, whether you
might be a regular listener ormaybe you're turning in for the
first time, and we appreciatethat.
And thanks again for joining usfor tonight's episode.
So let's get into our show likewe always do.
I'm your host, eric callsignn1jur, and I'm with my co-hosts
it's paul and one og and toddw1stj.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
All right well cool.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well, as always, we like to catch up on a few things
before we dive into our topictonight.
Um, as always, you can go aheadover to our storefront at
livefreeandhamcom forward slashshop Check out all of our merch.
We are all sporting our hats,as usual, because, damn, they're
just comfortable and we lovewearing them and we definitely
love seeing other people wearthem.

(01:19):
Oh, and, once again, if you'rewatching this on our YouTube
channel, paul is wearing theLive Free and Ham sweatshirt.
I love that.
I wish I could fit into thatarmor.
The armor on those is just alittle tight on my shoulders,
but that's just my build there.
But a great, great quality,awesome stuff and you can find
all that stuff over at our shopthere and check that out.
But we actually had a couple ofpeople just recently purchased

(01:42):
from our storefront.
You know Roger McKinnon.
As always, he realized thatthere was an emergency rush.
Just like eggs are becomingsuch in high demand, just like
that live free and hams dramsare becoming such a commodity
that we aren't going to raiseprices.
But in essence, once we run out, we run out.

(02:03):
So you know, roger decided tojump all over that.
He picked himself up some twoMighty Fine Live Free and Ham
Drams and we thank you again forthat purchase, roger, and those
are coming your way.
And as always, you know, as wementioned in every show we try
to mention every show We've gotour hammies.
You know what those mean.
Those are our Honoré Jeep Tokenhammies.

(02:23):
That Paul is.
So I mean he's like ahandballist tonight, my gosh.
It's like you know, he startshis modeling career on Ham Radio
Clubhouse and now he's justdoing hand modeling for Live
Free and Ham man.
It's just taken off for him.
It's all good.
He's modeling our lovelyhammies there with our lovely
little pigs there, with a littletoken on the bottom with your
call sign.
And again, we're just followingkind of the leads of the Jeep

(02:45):
community.
We want to show other hams outin the world that hey, we see
your vehicles, we love yourantennas, we love your radio
setups and we just want to beable to show you in a way by
leaving one of these littletokens and spread some ham love.
So if you haven't run over topick up your own set, run over
to livefreeandhamcom, forwardslash shop and check that out,
or go to gethammedcom to learnmore about the story and why

(03:08):
we're doing it and how to getmore involved.
So again, thank you foreverybody who has purchased on
our store.
We appreciate all the supportand we're all blessed by it, so
keep it coming.
All right.
So with that, you can always geta hold of us in many different
ways, and our three favoriteways to always get in touch with

(03:29):
us is via our SMS link down atthe bottom in all of our
descriptions.
Just make sure, when you dosend us a quick text message,
that you actually include yourname or your call sign.
Otherwise you will forever bereferred to your last four
digits of your social securitynumber Not that that's being
present, but we're going to callit a social security number
either way.
So we'd love to hear from thatway.
But if you prefer to leave us avoicemail, like it says, you

(03:52):
can call 978-233-1142 for a goodtime.
You know you will.
You know you want to hear thevoicemail.
You know you want to leave us avoicemail and we want to play it
on our next episode.
So feel free to give us a ring.
Let us know that you know we'vegot to renew our HF warranties,
or that you know, I don't know.
Whatever you might be watchingus.

(04:13):
You might hear the audio levels.
Or you got something, a storyto share or you want to share?
Do good, you know.
Feel free to leave it on ourvoicemail line there and we will
make sure we play it in ournext episode.
And, as always, you have thetried and true old timers way of
sending us an email vialivefreeandham at gmailcom, and

(04:34):
we will accept it in all forms,in all languages.
So all good on that, and sowith that, we've got our usual
live stream every month and, asyou all know, you're come to
know that we don't always haveit scheduled for a very specific
day.
It's kind of random.
We just spin the wheel orwhatever tickles our fancy, or
we're kind of like a leaf on thewind in that approach.

(04:55):
So the only way you can get inon the action and be part of
that whole process is to headover to our YouTube channel,
subscribe, and if you haven'talready clicked the bell for
notification, then that's theonly way you're going to know
when we go live.
So make sure you go, do that,make sure your account status is
up and running and you're apart of that process because we

(05:16):
want you to be part of that funand get in on the action when we
do our live shows, because it'stechnically another bonus
episode for all of the four thatwe're already sending out a
week.
So you know, hey, you get extracontent offer free, you know,
and you get our lovely mugs.
You know, at least once a month.
If you don't watch us on thelive, all right.
And so if you want to be one ofthe cool kids, you know, I

(05:50):
advise you to head over to ourpatreon page.
That link is over on theliveryandhamcom website and as a
subscriber, you get immediateaccess to the shows before
they're released, sneak peeksinto our merchandise, you get
uncut, unfettered, unrelentlessconversation about everything
and anything before we actuallydecide to tighten up our
attitudes and steer us rightback onto the show.

(06:11):
So you get to hear all the coolstuff that we talk about in the
background and you get to knowus a little bit better.
Plus, there's always otherbenefits like sticker packs and
giveaways and discounts, and thelist goes on and on.
So head on over to Patreon and,like Bob Koff has always said,
it costs just $3 a month.

(06:31):
That's all.
It is $3 a month.
It's a very small investment,but you get so much out of it.
And again we thank folks likeBob for being supporters of the
club and we raise a glass, asPaul says here, to you, bob, and
to all the others that aremembers of uh the patreon page
over.
Live free and ham all right.
So with that let's uh dive intoour quick uh first segment here

(06:55):
ladies and gentlemen, can Iplease have your attention.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying News
story.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
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 (07:11):
I have reviewed ship's personnel captain.
Congratulations, you've gotmail Alright.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
What are you Todd?
No, we don't.
Oh well, nothing came in.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
We are not hitting a,000 tonight with mail, but
that is totally okay, dude,right.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
I guess so Okay.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, you could see the disappointment in Todd's
voice, in my voice you can'ttell, just because you keep
sounding like a raspy wild goathere.
But either way of the case, youknow we will, we will.
I promise no ham radio.
Can I see your ham radio?
I'm waiting for that one.
That's my favorite one.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Hey, walt, do you want to see my ham radio?
No, no.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
But you too can hear about our ham radio experiences
by sending Todd something.
He loves reading your stuff.
We love hearing about it.
So get together, put pen topaper, just ask an email.
Reviews can be sent via our SMSlink, can be sent via our
voicemail line, any which way itall works, so we want to hear

(08:20):
from you All right Well, withthat, let's dive into our next
segment.
Doing good, good Doing good youdo, that's good Do good Do good
You're doing good, absolutely Ido Good, good Doing good Bob,

(08:41):
doing real good Right now myonly outlet is my ham radio, all
right, well, we're going tospeed this one up too, because
you know I like Todd.
You know we don't have anydo-goods this week, so you know
the pot has gotten a little drythere and you know we don't have
anything cooking on the burner.
So you know we need your help.
We want to hear your do-goods,we want to hear stuff going on,
and there's always a couple ofways you can get it, you, and

(09:02):
there's always a couple of waysyou can get it.
You can send us through ourvoicemail, you can send us
through our SMS text, or you canjust head over to our website
and, if you feel so led to goover our comment form.
Fine, go use our comment form,but we've got a specific form
for you and you can head over tolivefreeandhamcom.
Forward slash.
Do good, click on that form,fill it out and it'll be sent to
all of us and we'll read thatin our next episode.

(09:23):
And we'd love to want to hearyou know.
This is the cool part of hamradio that we all like to share.
We all want to hear that othercool things are happening and
we're tired of hearing about thesad hams, and we're tired of
hearing about the people thatare complaining and bitching and
moaning and groaning about how,you know, it isn't the way it
used to be and you know why isspark gap not coming back, and
and on and on.
We want to bring the coolnessfactor back to ham radio, and

(09:44):
the way we do that is we sharesome of the cool good stories
that are happening among all ofour clubs here and all of our
friendships and all of our justgatherings.
So bring it on.
So all right With that.
I did forget that last part.
Again, if you are the type Awhich in this case we're going
to have more type A's send us aWinLink email and address it

(10:12):
only to N1OG, because Todd and Istill are working towards
getting our WinLink.
By the time Todd gets his extra, I think I'll have my WinLink
account, but that's just whereI'm standing here.
But you can email Paul N1OG atwinlinknet, I think it is.
See, I don't even know whichthe email address is.
Is that right, paul?
Okay, all right.
Okay, we'll go with that thenand you can share your Do Good
experience through that way andwe'll make sure we add you to

(10:34):
the roster because we're lookingto compile and have a private
live stream of all of ourfriends that have done Do Good
messages and hang out and justhave a small little gathering
online and be able to just sharesome cool stuff, and we want to
invite you to that.
So if you want to be part ofsomething like that, then send
us a do good and we'll make surewe get you in that process and

(10:57):
part of the coolness.
So, without further ado, guys,this is the number one segment.
Is Todd ready for that numberone segment to continue to lift
the rest of us up because we'redragging the rest of the show
down?
I guess so Okay.
Well then, if you are, then I'mgoing to just kick it off.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Good thing I'm here tonight.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Alright, he's a hole.
Here we go.
And now a little somethingextra with Todd WNSTJ, all right

(11:38):
?
Well, you've heard it here.
This is where we help Toddstudy for his extra class
license and, as always, in every, each episode, we pick three
questions from that extra classquestion pool to test his
knowledge, hoping he gets hisupgrade.
So if you'd like to followalong, we advise you to head
over to hamstudyorg, which is agreat resource to help you
prepare for your test and isrecommended by three out of four

(11:59):
volunteer examiners.
As always, the ARL is neveraround for comment, but heck, at
the time of this survey itdoesn't really matter.
So, without any further delay,I'll hand it over to the VE
Quizmaster.
Go ahead, paul, take it away,sir.
Uh-oh, uh-oh, now you're asmall little box.
What happened?

Speaker 2 (12:21):
The damn demo scene.
Wow, weird, squished you.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Oh, alright, okay you .
Oh, all right, okay.
Well, while you're doing that,I can remember to hit Stream
here.
It's doing weird things.
Surprise, surprise, right.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
All right, so, todd, are we ready to move on to
sub-element number nine?

Speaker 3 (12:38):
No, I haven't studied it, but I'll go for it.
Wow, the adventure You're goingto go for it nice well, I
haven't even looked at it.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
I'll give it a shot.
I love the love, the positivity, all right yes, all right.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
So then, starting with sub element number nine,
question number one, which isgenerally true for 160 and 80
meter receiving antennas Is it Alow loss?

(13:13):
Coax transmission line isessential for good performance.
B they must be erected at leasta half wavelength above the
ground to attain gooddirectivity.
C Atmospheric noise is so highthat directivity is much more
important than losses.
Or is it D?

(13:33):
All of these choices arecorrect.
I love those.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Apparently I've worn the button so much I have to, um
come on yet there we go.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Apparently I've worn the button so much I have to
really firmly press it.
Uh, at least a half.
I'm gonna go with A.
No, I'm gonna go with a.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
No, I'm gonna go with d okay, god said a, which is
100 incorrect.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Oh, d is also incorrect as c was it.
Yeah, it was C it is C.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Atmospheric noise is so high that directivity is much
more important than losses.
So to further explain,atmospheric noise at the low HF
frequencies referenced in thisquestion, so you got 1.8 to 2
megahertz is the 160 meter bandand 3.5 to 4 megahertz is the 80
meter band.
Those bands are dominated bybursts of RF from impulsive

(14:58):
events such as lightning strikes, wind and thunderstorms.
Since RF at these longwavelengths can travel quite far
due to refraction provided bythe ionosphere, quite far due to
refraction provided by theatmosphere, lightning effects
can be quite non-local and comefrom many directions, with
especially large sources inrainy parts of the world, and I
will attest to this.
The lightning noise can benowhere near you and be just

(15:19):
blasting over 160 and 180 meters.
But so relevant for thisquestion, the atmospheric noise
below 4 megahertz is very highbecause of these factors.
And so, if you are, if theatmospheric noise is 60 dB above
the background, the gain ofyour antenna is only helped.

(15:41):
You attenuate it by 20 dB andthe noise comes crashing in at
60 minus 20, which is 40 dB,which is 10,000 times over your
background noise.
So that means for any practicalantenna the amateur radio might
construct, the gain is notgoing to solve your atmospheric
noise problem and therefore thegain over a dipole is not

(16:01):
important.
Okay, Sure.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Thank you, you're welcome all right.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Question number two what parameter describes the
interaction of a load andtransmission line?
Is it a characteristic?
Is it A characteristic?
Impedance B, velocity factor C,reflection coefficient.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Or D dielectric constant.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
That was a close one.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
All right, I'm going to go with a.
Again, I can't you laugh.
I can't remember velocityfactor, reflection coefficient,
load and transmission line.
Oh man, I go with C.
I really think it's a, but I togo with C.
I really think it's B, but I'mgoing to go with C.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Okay, well, todd is definitely wrong.
Characteristic impedance is notthe right answer.
The correct answer is Creflection coefficient.
Something stuck, somethingstuck.
And so the reflectioncoefficient is defined as this
fancy formula for those that arelooking at the screen where Z

(17:34):
sub L is the impedance of theload and Z sub zero is the
characteristic impedance of thetransmission line.
No-transcript, silly hint.

(18:09):
The transmission line reflectedon his behavior the day he lost
mrs load.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
That's something to think about, I guess.
Okay, a lot of load in thatsentence.
There's a lot of load there.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
All right, todd.
Well, uh, I appreciate you, uh,wanting to do a sub element
that you haven't done at all,and so you're 0 for 2, but
that's okay.
The third and final question ofthe evening what is a folded
dipole antenna?
Is it A a dipole configured toprovide forward gain.

(18:40):
B a dipole one quarterwavelength long.
C a half wave dipole with anadditional parallel wire
connecting its two ends.
Or D a center fed dipole withthe ends folded down 90 90
degrees at the midpoint of eachside?

Speaker 3 (19:12):
It's probably wrong, but I'm going to say D Guess not
, I guess I got that one wrongtoo.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
It's definitely not A .
It's definitely not B.
I'm almost positive it's got tobe D.
I don't think that's that not A.
It's definitely not B, I'malmost positive, it's got to be
D.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
I don't think that's that far off, am I kind?

Speaker 2 (19:35):
of right.
Well, since you both said D,we're both wrong.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
You're both wrong, yep.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
The correct answer is C.
It is a half-wave dipole withan additional parallel wire
connecting its two ends.
So D, that would actually bemore like.
You know, it would have legs.
Yes, yeah, a curtain.
There you go.
Yeah, it would have legs.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
I only deal with ends that are half-ways.
So I donain, there you go.
Yeah, it would have legs.
I only deal with that halfway,so I don't know what you're
talking about.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
So the key to remember that this antenna is
one half wavelength long, foldedinto a thin loop.
One half wavelength long, soit's folded.
You got to remember it's foldedand so it's folded in half.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Okay, well, there you go.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
I think you should give it to me.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yep, I think this is a tough one, but hey, we both
scored pretty good.
I mean, we know we're equal, soI'm still an extra, but you
know, hey, it's okay.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
I guess I got to be on what some of them was, that
nine nine, yep, but hey, that'snot bad for no studying.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
I mean, at least you know that you're at the.
You know you're here.
I got a more wrong you know.
But you know you're consistent.
It wasn't like you were alittle bit hit or miss.
It's all good.
The worst part is.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
I guess it means if you don't study, you won't pass.
I can't even guess right.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Exactly.
His statistical analysis is themachine is broken Alright.
Well with that, if you're onyour journey to studying for
your technician general extraclass license, then in that case
hamstudyorg is always anexcellent resource for both todd
and I and yourself to be ableto getting your ticket.
So, uh, if you've recentlygotten your license, you're

(21:32):
upgraded.
We want to know, you know we'dlike to head out, you know we'd
like to recognize you on thenext episode for your hard work
and effort, and so, uh, withthat, I think we actually have,
uh, somebody we want torecognize on our show today.
And Paul, you got that contact,so go ahead and bring that to
our attention.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
All right.
So a huge congratulations toRandy Hale, whiskey 5, foxtrot
Oscar Mike, who just got hisclass license three days ago,
awesome.
So congratulations, randy.
And now there are two.
Count them One, two, two Halebrothers that are both extras.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yep One still balloon pilot though.
Great job there, randy.
We hope Shane you know honorshis.
You know we hope Shane you knowhonors his uh, you know his
request that you know he wouldonly allow you on his show after
you became an extra.
So you know we'll see, but youknow uh you know, call me.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
Is that what he really said?
Is that what he really said?
He said you can't come on untilyou get your extra.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
That's exactly what he said in his last episode and
he's confirmed it.
So, hey, randy, call us.
You know we want to talk.
You know, reach out, you knowif you listen.
So, anyway, thanks again, randy, for you know letting us share
that with everybody here.
And so you know, maybe you gotyour extra, or maybe you've
gotten an upgrade, or you justgot your technician.
You know, feel free to email usat livefreeandham at gmailcom,

(23:03):
and we'd love to mention ournext episode, like we said, and
we want to celebrate with you.
So with that, let's get intoour usual show format.
So, paul, hey, how's your hamradio week going, my friend?

Speaker 2 (23:16):
You know what?
My ham radio week, while itwasn't filled with a whole lot
of ham radio, I did get somereally cool ham radio stuff in
the mail.
So, um, all right, let's seenumber number one that I got the
mail was uh, I got a qsl cardfrom kilo five, victor oscar

(23:40):
papa, aka ham radio prep Paul,who, uh, who also sent me some,
uh, some, some rag chew crewstickers, and then the big one
here.
So I, uh, I have a project thatI've been wanting to do since

(24:06):
the fall.
I got an email.
There was a couple of fairlyexpensive commercial antennas
that were being sold and I saidwait a minute, I could build
both of those antennas for afraction of the cost of one of
those antennas and with theexact same parts and materials.

(24:27):
And so stay tuned to my channelfor that stuff.
But I'm really, really psychedabout the other thing that's in
the box and I won't give a fulldisplay of it.
But I got myself a new key.

(24:48):
Oh, yes, I heard about this.
So if you're not familiar withthe Nameless Key by Modern Morse
, I got my own custom key thatwas sent to me.
I got my own custom key thatwas sent to me, and I will
reveal the details of what thekey looks like in a special

(25:12):
video, so I won't spoil it,because it's really, really cool
.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
All I have to say is I love it when a plan comes
together because you had to pullsome really, really amazing
stuff to be able to get what yougot there.
So I'm impressed, my friend,and very jealous, so looking
forward to seeing that video.
For sure, even though I'm not alovely like I would probably,
you know, run out and grabanother key just to see that one
in action, just because youknow it's such a beautiful

(25:45):
design key.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Oh, yes, yes, it is very, very well made.
Um, I gotta say, you know, uh,props to Aaron.
Uh, Aaron's the owner of thecompany.
Uh, he's the one that designedand and makes the keys.
Um, he, he, he is a little bitslower on on manufacturing, but
it is only because his qualitystandards are super high.

(26:11):
He's a military guy and so, youknow, he, he, he, he doesn't
shortchange on anything.
He makes sure that everythingis exactly right on every single
key that goes out the door.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Very cool, very cool, all right, all right.
Well, yeah, it sounds likeyou're definitely loaded up
there and, uh, looking forwardto seeing some good stuff on
your channel.
I uh am uh happy to see thatthings are growing for you and
you know, like I said, that theour 3k uh a, you know, live
stream was a blast to have and,uh, definitely uh fun to uh be a

(26:44):
part of, even though I wastotally under the weather, and
and it was definitely fun to uh,you know, have you run the show
and kind of sit back a littlebit while I you know I was
catching my breath every once ina while since, since you
brought it up, I, I dude, Ihonestly I felt really, really
bad after the stream and I waslike, I feel like, feel like I

(27:05):
kind of stole Eric's thunder ina way, because, dude, I brought
all my friends into the mix,dude, it was fun, I showed up, I
showed up.
Well, you are his friend.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
I showed up just for Eric.
There we go, okay.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
I want an only friend .
Thanks, no, just kidding.
No, you didn't steal anything,dude, it was a blast.
Like I said, I was almost atthe point of fighting myself to.
Can't reschedule my 3,000giveaway just because the cold
was kicking my ass, and so Iappreciate you stepping in and I
feel bad because I didn't pullmy own weight a lot and I didn't

(27:44):
really fully, you know, haveeverything prepared and you know
I I feel bad for my ownlistener base and subscriber
base, but I know they knew I wassuffering.
Um, so you know I'm going tohave to do a, a eventual, a
video coming soon, where, uh,you know, apologize for my lack
of my man cold kicking my buttuh, well hey congrats to you,

(28:08):
thank you, same to you seriously.
Bye into another 4 000 more myfriend more, 4 000, more
together, so, and then we willbe able to sit around and
celebrate when todd gets to his4 000 whenever that is we're all
laughing, that'll be a whileall right cool over to you, todd
.
How is your ham radio week?

Speaker 3 (28:25):
speaking of 4000, um, well, my uh ham radio week is,
um, still working on redoing orupgrading, cleaning up my shack,
and I did get the uh table thathad my printer and all a bunch
of crap on it cleared away and Inow have a charging station for

(28:46):
all kinds of anything andeverything.
Uh, I did order a, a newercharger what do you call it Like
one of those charging hubs thathas you know a hundred Watts or
whatever.
And, um, I've got a uh, meshtastic little base station that
doesn't use a battery.
It has to be plugged in.
So I got that plugged in overthere.
And, uh, mesh tastic littlebase station that doesn't use a
battery, it has to be plugged in.
So I got that plugged in overthere.

(29:07):
And, um, yeah, so I'm, I'm.
I think I found the monitor thatI want to get.
Um, I'm still deciding.
I'll wait on that.
I'm going to think about it alittle bit, but I think I'm
going to go with a 32 inch uhscreen, with one of my current
screens as a horizontal on theleft side and a vertical on the

(29:30):
right side of that new screen,and I think that will be plenty
for what I do.
And I've been battling withAmazon and trying to find the
right shrink wrap for my bio-nobattery and found out that the
nine is too big, the five is toosmall, so go in the middle with
the seven or seven, whateverwe're going to call it, the

(29:51):
Goldilocks shrink wrap.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, look at that bad boy.
It's all back.
What size was it?

Speaker 3 (29:57):
It looks the, the 7.9 or three or something right in
the middle, wow, so uh, yeah,this stuff's pretty awesome, it
does it doesn't look like a bomb.
I mean, I even think that thismight actually pass the TSA.
It should, because I printed Idon't know if you can see it, I

(30:18):
printed all the information onit.
Oh nice, and it's so tiny thatit actually looks like it might
have been.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Printed from the manufacturer.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Nice dude, that's sweet yeah yeah, yeah, so I got
that up and, um, yeah, so I'm,uh, I'm getting, I'm cleaning
stuff out, getting moreorganized and things are looking
cleaner around here, uh, sothat's basically what I've been
doing.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Your game chair visualization process helped a
lot, oh, yeah, and I got a newchair too.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, that was key because that was on sale, like
half off, and I sat in it.
I had to return an Amazon oneof the stupid shrink wraps and I
see this chair in there andit's like, oh, it's $160 off or
something.
And I sat in it and I'm likethis is what I need.
So it's got lumbar support,it's all good.

(31:05):
It's a gaming chair.
It happens to be the same oneEric bought, even though I
didn't know it was Eric's chair.
He just told me he got his atStaples.
So, uh, I don't know.
I'm happy with it.
So that was uh.
So now I'm hoping to get some.
Uh, and I haven't done one in awhile.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
But, eric, what was your day?
Well before, we have to say, wedefinitely achieved our goal.
Again for another episode, Sir,here is a check with my name on
it.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Write down any number on this piece of paper and I
will pay it.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Success on that market.
But yes, thank you again forasking, todd.
I had absolutely zero.
I was in negative territorywhen it came to ham radio.
For the past week and a half Uh, my gosh, this man cold flu, uh
, montezuma's revenge allwrapped in one over the past two
weeks has been literallysucking every little bit of life
out of me, which is reallysucks, because I've been

(31:58):
promising for a while on and I'msure everybody's been super
patient with me because I keeptalking battery boxes.
I keep talking about like coolthings that are coming on the
horizon, and I'm sureeverybody's been super patient
with me because I keep talkingbattery boxes.
I keep talking about like coolthings that are coming on the
horizon and I haven't fullyfinished yet them.
I finally got the 20 amp charger.
I actually found it was veryweird because I went instead of
I just happened to be droppingthe dog off the groomer one time

(32:22):
and I went into Harbor Freight,oh no, I went into Lowe's and
Lowe's had a 20 amp hour chargerfor lithium, which I was
totally actually it's multi, soit does everything and I was
just like, and it was like 89bucks and I was like, whoa, this
is 20 bucks cheaper than buyingthe you know bio and not the
bio, and all the um, uh, redondo, you know BioN, not the BioN,

(32:46):
the Redodo one.
And I was like I'll give it ashot.
I mean, I think it hadCraftsman on the side or
whatever.
I was like, ah fine, whatever,I'll try it out.
And so, you know, I brought ithome, plugged it in, charged the
battery.
It does a nice trickle charge,it does everything I need to.
It's pretty much idiot proof.
You press the button like thebattery, but you know I'm happy

(33:10):
with it.
It'll keep it uh where it's at.
So now I can kind of get thatproject done and I'm feeling uh
better every day.
So I'll be glad to finally getback uh with my feet underneath
me and and and get myselfunburied from work and all of
the other stuff that I've put onthe back burner.
Looking forward to that, staytuned.
There definitely is going to bea channel update on my own
channel Just to let everybodyknow that I am alive and that

(33:33):
things will be coming.
They don't have to feel likethey have to unsubscribe and
find some other person withbetter content.
Not that Paul is a goodcandidate for that.
Heck if I could even slide mysubscribers over to Todd if he
could publish maybe one or twomore videos.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
I haven't put anything on my official.
I subscribed to one of themusic things so you could put
music in your videos, and itwouldn't even allow me to.
It wouldn't allow me to put inmy youtube channel, because I'm

(34:16):
like, how the hell do I do this?
And they're like, well, youhave to post something first
well, there you go, there's soyeah, take, take your condom
video and put it up on your ownchannel.
I will I'm gonna make.
I have to make a intro video,intro to my channel video first,
so I'm gonna do that.
Well, you don't technicallyhave to like the to start out.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
You can just like.
Paul didn't do his intro videountil a lot later and I did mine
a lot later too, so just getcontent out there and you know
you I would say rebrand yourcondom video to condom 2.0.
That way you get another.
You know rehash of uh well yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
So if you think about it, todd right.
So I've had the new call signnow for what I'm like a week, a
week and a half shy of a yearand so yeah.
So I had, I had a KF4 TPI introthat I would put in my videos,
but I never made one for N1OG.
I just I just make my videosand I put them out there.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah, Well, good news is, um, you know, I've been
doing everything on my, on myiPad, but I did order my MacBook
and it comes the 18th because Imodified it a little bit.
I got, uh, I added some memoryand uh, but you guys are going
to be disappointed because Iended up going with, uh,

(35:37):
different video editing.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
That's okay, that's fine.
Sure, you can go with Androidif you like.
Unint, like unintuitive,frustrating, illogical user
interfaces, it's fine.
That's just gonna be your themeit was.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
It was actually.
It was actually.
It was a good deal because itwas everything and more and it
had even add-ons like for.
So I'm gonna give it a shot andI just threw it on there
because it goes into the monthlyexpense.
You know, through my there'szero interest if you buy an
Apple and it just goes on yourApple card and it goes for 12
months.
It was worth it for me.

(36:11):
I will have it.
I'm heading to California onthe 20th so I will have my new
computer and I have a six hourflight.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
What the hell are you doing?
I don't know what my camera'sdoing.
Here it's floating away.
It sounds like he's levitating.
Oh yeah, it's like I'm floatingaway.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Ooh, stop, so I'll have plenty of time to learn and
play with my videos and try toget some more stuff out.
And the reason I'm getting thislaptop is because I want to be
able to when I'm sitting aroundwaiting in court or waiting to
do something I can't do, my workI will.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Gosh Fighting my stupid camera.
Hi, eric, at the kid's table.
I know literally like I wentdown, like I'm like 10 years old
all over again, all right.
Well, sorry about thatinterruption there, todd, but
looking forward to.
All of a sudden, I see you likelevitating out of the screen
I'm fading away eventually, likeI'm ollie north and uh no
longer in existence, but uh I Ido want to say something, since

(37:10):
we're talking about poda tonight.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
uh, I I was running the net.
I run the net every sunday,which isn't probably the most
convenient time for me to runthe net since we record this
podcast and sometimes I have tomake you guys wait.
But the net was short today andI was the first one on.
You guys were coming in late,so I felt good.
Anyway, Dennis was doing a POTAactivation and he saw that I

(37:35):
had three activations on MillerState Park, which is Pac-Man
Adnock, and I just thought thatwas cool, that he had looked it
up, and I guess someone in ourclub and I forget what the call
sign was, but he's got like 14contacts, all CW at that.
So I let him know that acrossthe street now is Temple
Mountain and I said I haven'tgotten that one yet because it's
fairly new and I just haven'tbeen out there active and I

(37:57):
figured I want to do it on anicer day than snow-covered
parking lot.
So, yeah, it's pretty cool, butmade me think about like, wow,
I really need to get back upthere, Cause that's one of my
favorite spots to activate.
There's a great benchoverlooking the Valley and, uh,
one of the times I was there wehad smoke from the West coast
and it was just sitting in theValley and it was like almost

(38:20):
orange.
You guys remember that, Likewhen we had that smoke problem
and I went up there and I wasabove it and you could just see
it, all you know, kind ofsettling in in the valley of the
thing and we were like above it.
But I made some good contactsup there and it's it's a.
It's one of my favorite parks.
I think I'm with Paul, though.
I think my favorite park is the.
Where do we?

Speaker 2 (38:40):
go.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Russell Abbott, that spot is just.
You can't beat that.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
That's beautiful.
Let Paul finish kiloing it,then we can give out the
existence.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
But, that's a nice one too, totally, but anyway, so
yeah.
So I thought that was kind ofcool, because I wasn't expecting
that on the net, and that hesaid that he had seen that I had
activated it three times.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
I was like oh, yeah, I think it's even cool You're
talking about Dennis Sen when Iam W right, yeah, that is
awesome.
He is like I have never, everlike.
We know Dennis as the oldantique guy Like he buys and
sells radios.
He's like in that kind of horsetraders group that you know.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
Well, yeah, I talked about him about how he would go
and go to Nearfest and he'll buya whole bunch of stuff to sell
it so he could pay for the onething for free yep, never pegged
him like ever interested inpoda and he's a big cw guy.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
I love him and, uh, you know so it was that I was
surprised to hear that thatthat's who it was, and that's
even better that he's out doingit and and he said you know, and
he's been on the repeater a lot, which I'd never heard him on
the repeater ever until recently.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
So he's back in the, he's back in the game and he's
uh he's doing a lot of ham radiostuff.
And Dennis is a great guy, he'svery smart and I've learned a
lot from him.
So it's one of our uh membersthat uh I look up to and uh I
I'm always interested in what hehas to say and what he's got
going on.
So it was cool 100% agree.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Always good mentor, good guy and always fun to hear
a good story from him, for sure.
All right, well, hey, so withtonight we've got something
interesting, so we may havebrought in our last episode.
If you heard, we had a listenersubmitted email.
I think it was from Sean KB1Giy.

(40:26):
He had submitted an email to usthat I think Todd read on our
email segment and in it hesuggested maybe a couple of
suggestions around POTA or whatwe'll call a listener-submitted
topic.
So it kind of got me thinkingand I was like you know, I hear
other shows kind of do methinking.
And I was like you know, I hearother shows kind of do this in

(40:46):
different ways and you know theyask for listener feedback and
you know we'd obviously do thatwith ourselves here.
But I was thinking wouldn't itbe really cool that, if we could
, you know, like folks like Seanthat might have a topic that we
might've glazed upon or talkedabout, that might've triggered a
thought, but you know that theywant to share with us or they
want us to elaborate on or diveinto or you know whatever.

(41:07):
And it got me thinking.
I'm like heck, why, why don'twe do this?
So what we're going to do andI'm going to share just Sean's
in a second what his listenersubmitted.
One is.
But we want to kind of do things, you know, with the help of,
you know, our community.
So you know you can always headover to our Discord and we'll
have a channel over there calledSubmit your Show Topics or
something to that effect, andI'll leave that in the show

(41:27):
notes section where the link isspecifically so you can get to
it directly.
And we're just going to ask youguys to submit topics you want
us to talk about.
And what we're going to do isif we get your submitted topics,
we'll throw it on a wheel andif we end up having some gaps in
some of our regular scheduledprogramming stuff like that, or
maybe we'll throw it on a wheeland, you know, if we end up
having some gaps in some of ouryou know regular scheduled
programming stuff like that, ormaybe we'll do it once a month,

(41:48):
I don't know, we'll see how muchwe get We'll submit those to
the Wheel of Fish If thoseremember the good old Weird Al
days and you know all of thejokes around that.
But we're going to put all yourtopics on a wheel and we're
going to spin it, we'll build adigital wheel.
I don't care, a real man-madewheel, I don't know, but we'll
figure that one out.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
No whammy no whammy, no whammy, no whammy, no whammy.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
We'll do it in the whack-a-mole approach too and
the idea is, if it gets chosenby the wheel and uh, you win for
that week, we'll talk about iton that show and and we'll send
you a sticker pack as a way tosay thanks for submitting it.

(42:30):
So you know, if you've got acouple ideas or topics, so uh,
you can head on over to ourdiscord check it out.
There'll be uh more links indescription, uh details, uh in
uh this show episode to find outhow you can post there.
And we'd love to see what youguys come up with, topics that
we can talk about and we'll putthat on the wheel and see what
we can make out of that.

(42:51):
So it'd be kind of fun.
So with that it kind ofdovetails into tonight's show
and so, like I said, sean, hesubmitted a couple of ideas but
he wanted it more POTA focusedand he said in his you know,
maybe you could have a listenersubmitted kind of topic around
showing how to schedule orannounce your activation and
we're talking all around on POTAtonight Maybe post your planned

(43:13):
activation on the POTA website,how you submit your logs, you
know with what software, howhard you have some of your
hardware you know or and talkabout some of the tricks of
trade that we do, and so we'regoing to dive in pretty deep
tonight with all the stuff thatwe do, with our POTA submissions
, how we've leveraged the POTAwebsite, what some of the tips
and tricks that we do, as wellas some of the tools that we use

(43:34):
that you know, may not be socommon for a lot of people that
might be just getting into POTA.
Or maybe you've been in POTA fora while, maybe you've been in a
potter for a while.
You just never heard aboutthese tools you know.
So we're going to share themwith you.
We're going to make sure we gotlinks to those in the bottom of
the description in the shownotes, so if you want to reach
out to grab those tools, they'llbe available there.
But so tonight let's kind ofdive in.
So I know Paul's been queuingup a bunch of stuff there and

(43:56):
he's all ready to kind of divein, so I'm going to okay.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Well, let's start at the beginning, which is getting
getting to the poda site andsetting up right.
So for me, when I get to thepoda site and I set up, um, the
way that I log is going todepend on whether or not I have

(44:29):
cell service.
If I have cell service, 100%,I'm going Polo, m2k, polo and
that's going to be my logging.
Because when you have cellservice, it's just, it's a very,
very well well done app where,if I'm doing a poda, well well

(44:54):
done app where, if I'm doing apoda, uh, it shows me the park
that that is near me.
If there's a you know, a twofer, I can add them both in.
If I'm doing a combination podasoda, I can do that through the
app.
Uh, if there's not cellular,then I'm going to use hammers,
then I'm going to use hammers.
The reason why I do that isbecause on the after, when you

(45:17):
get back to your house andyou're going through your log at
least in my opinion, hammers ismuch more intuitive and faster
calls that I've logged, lookedup with QRZ and all of their

(45:37):
information populated into thelog, so that I can then finalize
the log and what I do,regardless of which app I use, I
export it into an email and Iemail it to myself.
I export it into an email and Iemail it to myself.
That way, it doesn't matterwhat computer that I'm going to
use to submit my logs on.
I can just access my email andI can do that.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
And so then here, if you, if you will indulge me for
those that are on the POTAwebsite podcast, head over to
our YouTube channel.
Check out some of hisbackground screens here so you
can get a better idea.
But continue yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
So, so, uh, for those that can see, uh, for those
that can't, um, um, I'm on theparks on the air website, which
is POTAapp, and I am currentlylogged in.
That's a key you you have tocurrently logged in.
That's a key, you have to belogged in.
You go to, you click onyourself and you go to my log
uploads and here you can, youcan click and drag from windows

(46:43):
file explorer and drop it in, oryou can, you can click on it
and it'll bring up the windowand then you can select your log
.
So, like my last log processed,geez, I gotta do it, I gotta do
a poda.
It's been, it's been a couplemonths.
My last log process was uh, 12,8, 24, uh, at miller state park,

(47:06):
which is a combination poda andsoda, um, and so I had 21 QSOs
that I submitted.
The nice thing about it is,once you submit it, it's really
really fast on how it getsprocessed and if you don't have
your park-to-parks logged aspark-to-parks, you don't have to

(47:28):
worry about it.
Poda does all the hard liftingfor you and they will link your
log with the other activatorslog and they will say hey, you
know what that is, a park topark, um, and let's see, I know
there's a.
I know there's a way you canlook at it.

(47:52):
I don't remember exactly whereI got to click, but I know
there's a way that you can lookat your log and it'll say, yeah,
that's a park-to-park.
Yeah, you have to go into.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
My Logbook.
Oh, it's my Activations.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
My Activations.
Yeah, alright, so if you gointo my activations and you
click on view the log, uh, soyou can see like this first one
was a park to park.
Uh, it was between myself andkilo delta eight, juliet, juliet
, foxtrot.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Well, you can filter from there too.
So just go up to that top andsay p2p only and then see all
your p2Ps.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly there you go.
So there's just thepark-to-parks from that
activation and, like I said,it's great because it doesn't
matter.
You don't have to make surethat you get all the
park-to-parks logged inappropriately, you just lock.
Don't stress about it, justlock.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
So let's hold it there, because I know we can
bring todd and I up to speed andthen we'll kind of continue on,
for there's some good stuff.
So, todd, kind of give yourrough, you know description of
where your, your general flow,for you that works when you do
your potas and kind of.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Uh, in a nutshell, well, you know, if I'm going, if
I'm going to a new park, I do alittle research just to find
out where I'm going.
Um, and what do I need to uh toget there?
You know, is it, is it uheasily accessible?
Is what do I need to bring?

(49:26):
Um?
You know all those kinds ofthings taken away.
So I look up the the park, I goto the other activations, I
read there's normally when yougo to the park website or on
poda there's an information andsometimes a link to hours, costs
, if there's any cost to get inthere, etc.
And I do most of this when I'mtraveling.

(49:46):
So I kind of figure out whereI'm going and then I look on a
map like, okay, how many parksare there and which one is going
to be the best one to to meetto do so I do that.
And then, uh, like, like Paul,um, I use um, the same operating
uh or the same.
I do it on my hand 2k, on myiPad, which has um cellular on

(50:10):
it.
So for me it's pretty good.
Now what I do is I used toemail it to myself when I didn't
have cellular, but now what Ido is I just I have a POTA log
file in my files folder and thenI just kind of, like you said,
drag it or just add it to thePOTA thing, and I normally do

(50:33):
that right away.
If I have good cell serviceI'll do it right at the park.
And it used to take a while,could take like up to a day.
Now it like literally happenswithin.
I mean, I think if you go morethan five minutes you know
something's wrong.
So it goes pretty quickly.
Um, so it's pretty cool and um,yeah, that's how I do it and
it's it's not too hard.

(50:54):
Uh, you know and the.
You know the old way you usedto have to name your log and it
was all a certain way to do it.
Now it's pretty simple.
I just put my call sign, uh,the name of the park, uh, where
it is, and and and the number,and, uh, it goes all right.
I'm like you, paul.
The last time I did anactivation was December 16th, so

(51:15):
I am due for it.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Wow, I actually have a couple of months ahead of you
guys.
Wow, I feel happy, I guess.
I just looked at my activationslist and I last activated the
rail trail on February 7th.
Okay, I at least activated inthis year, so sweet, finally I'm

(51:37):
ahead of something.
But that's all tongue-in-cheekguys.
You know we.
I only got lucky because I thinkI ended up having a quick, you
know 20 minute break and, youknow, had hf in the truck, so I
took advantage of it.
But, um, you know, no, no, nocomplexity.
Yeah, exactly right, thank you.
And I used the voice, you know,the voice recorder too, on top

(51:58):
of it.
I'm not bad anyway.
Um, yeah, for a whole 21contacts that day.
That, yeah, that really neededit anyway.
Yeah, so I think my flow um, Imay have touched upon in past
episodes, here and there, I'mvery much a mix of these guys.
I bounced between.
I started with Hammers, wentfrom Hammers to Polo because of

(52:20):
feature functionality andcontent tool sets being better.
I streamlined a lot of my iPadprocess and logging process to
an iPad with a keyboard and,because of my job and nature of
being on the road, it's justcell-enabled, so I use that to

(52:42):
its advantage.
And then from kind of just mywe'll say a bit of like Intel
and you know tracking stuff down, a lot of times I'll just um,
you know where I'm currentlysitting.
So here's an example I drivefor work.
You know I might go to a clientsite so somewhere down in South
shore where I'm at.

(53:03):
If I'm done with the job andI'm like, hey, I can fit a poda
in, I'll fire up the poda appand I'll just go to the map
section and I'll look for POTAparks in and around the area,
like, is there one that's 20minutes away?
Is there one half an hour away?
What's the closest one?
And then I kind of do thededuction thing.
So I've got a set of tools thatI think will get into a little
more details that I use to dothat research of you know,

(53:26):
location, street views, kind ofthat type of stuff, to figure
out whether I can get in quicklyand get out.
You know I don't have to.
You know if it's got plenty ofspace, you know park benches,
that type of stuff, depending onthe weather, you know I'll
leverage all of the GoogleStreet Maps for that and then
I'll.
Google Maps is great for that.
Oh, it is, it's a lifesaver.

(53:51):
Pull up the coordinates off the,and I always take the Latin
line off of every park and justpaste that into Google maps to
give me the exact, precise taglocation, and then I kind of
back out of that pending left orright, because it's not always
maybe on the park or the parkmight be a, you know, a forest
area and you know there's.
It's not where the entrance isto, where you could park or
whatever.
So you know, I'll kind of playaround with that, but the street
views definitely give me that.
You know, intel, that I need toget a, you know a fast answer

(54:14):
of like, hey, am I going to beable to set this up, or am I
going to be on a side you knowside road of a neighborhood,
looking sketchy while trying toactivate with all these antennas
, and then have people slowly,you know, pass by and I have to
roll down my window becausethey're ready to call 911.
And I'm like, no, I'm justactivating, you know, at a park
that's not so obvious, or it'slike a plot of land that the

(54:35):
state owns or something.
It's okay, I'm just a famousham-tuber, don't mind me, that
is not a tagline you use withanybody.
You try to be as plain and openand honest as you can and say
I'll be done in a couple ofminutes, don't worry, and you

(54:57):
get the hell out of there.
You don't become a problem.
So, yeah, I leverage a lot ofthe tool sets but a lot of my
activations are kind of what Icall in the moment type stuff.
So I don't I rarely have everplanned per se unless I was
traveling to, say, another statea kind of of consistent, what
I'll call a mini rove of acouple of parks on the way in
and a couple of parks on the wayout.
But I haven't had done that ina couple of years.

(55:18):
So you know most of my stuff isimmediate, like kind of day type
trips.
So I kind of build my podaactivation experience around
that stuff and you know heavilyuse the poda's website, the poda
app website, and I think weshould definitely take a little
bit of a dive into that in asecond or two um of how we, what
the best kind of you know usecase is to getting set up with

(55:40):
that, why you'd want to get setup with that.
We can talk more about that,but uh, yeah, I'm like these
guys.
Podo app is the the place to be.
Obviously, it's got all of yourresources and everything in it.
It's a great tool for uploadingand stuff, but it's also an
awesome recon resource too aswell.
With that, let's pick up theconversation again when we want

(56:02):
to take this from logging now,what's the next best direction?

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Hold on Two more resources that I just want to
throw out there.
Uh, so, photo map dot us okay.
Um, yeah, carlos just did avideo on that and that is.
It is a really, really coolwebsite.
Remember to link that videowhere you can.
Yeah, you can select your state, nearby states, whatever you

(56:31):
want to see, and it'll show youthe GIS information as well.
Other one that I wanted tomention is if you're an Onyx
subscriber because you're intohunting or for whatever reason,
you're not.
You're an on X, uh, member.

(56:52):
Um, you know, being able to seethose actual physical boundary
lines, cause sometimes there'slike a park within a park and
you don't realize what thoseboundary lines are, and so, um,
you know, that's where the GISinformation really comes in
handy.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Although pull the map does that too, which is nice
because it pulls all the gisdata too, so you don't even
really have to use it.
Like onyx is awesome if you doit for a bunch of other stuff.
Um, and especially theiroffline system is mint in terms
of being able to be useful.
But uh, yeah, that podo dot map.
If that could make thatdownloadable dude, that would be
so fucking awesome on a phoneso go ahead.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Well, you can make it , you could, you can make it
into a.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
Just add it as a yeah , offline though I'm talking
about like, so like you could goin and offline.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, one of the things too you
can do is, uh, if you get thecoordinates and you want to
don't want to look at a map youcan just put it into ways the
coordinates and it'll send youthere.
The problem is it sometimessends you like if you've looked
at a big park and you might havelike the dot in like the middle

(58:02):
of the park, which is likeunaccessible by road, um but um,
but that's why you have to dothe research to kind of see,
like, okay, is there an entranceway?
Is there?
You know, that's why you haveto do the research to kind of
see, like, okay, is there anentrance way?
Is there?
You know where's the best spaceto go and you know like where
where Paul and I do that park?
Um, we, it's not exactly wherethe dot is right, like it's,

(58:26):
it's still, it definitely is.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
That is a.
That is a very hidden little,hidden little entrance to a
separate part of the park, whichis awesome.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
So again you got to be creative and look into and
explore it a little bit.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
On a sidebar with that, though, if you're looking
on Google Maps and you use thelat-lon off of the POTUS site,
you can actually, when you getto Street View and you find the
entrance, you can just put a dotthere, get the lat-lon for that
and throw that into Waze andthat'll bring you to an actual
like location that you can usesomething with.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
but yeah, yeah, it doesn't turn you into like, just
like a brick wall or a bunch oftrees or wetlands and you're in
the back roads.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Snowmobile.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
Trail.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
You hear banjos playing while you're driving
through the woods, kind of thing, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
I mean, I'll tell you , one of the things with doing
poda is I've gone to places I'dnever go to, right, Like I've
just seen places that I justwould never think to go to.
You know, even when I'mtraveling, or even like around
here, like I'll have to do atrip, um, up North and, uh, I'll
have time to kill before mynext one.

(59:35):
And like I, I was up in, uh, Iwas up in Warren, new Hampshire,
and I had to come down toHillsborough and I decided to
just cruise out to the Vermontborder and I cranked out a park
that was on the way down, but Ihad like two hours and it was
only going to take me an hour toget to where I was going.
So I had an hour to kill.
So it's either sit in a parkinglot and wait or catch a park on

(59:57):
the way, and that's what I didand, you know, had a cool
activation.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Yeah, that's the.
That's the cool part of POTA.
It's not like it's a scheduledtime or a date, or you know it's
, you've got time.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
You just have to have your gear with you.
Like you got to leave your gearin the car, like, cause you
never know when the like.
I was pissed because the otherday it was so fricking warm out
and I could have gone and donethe rail trail at lunch and I
had taken my bag apart, cause Iused it for my trip to Arkansas
and I had the bag in the car.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Oh, you did.
Cardinal rule number one, myfriend Wow in the car, just oh
you did cardinal rule number sin.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Number one, my friend .
Wow, you bastardized your ownbag.
I don't never rob for one bagto supplement I was just robbing
the bag I say you know I guessI have to get another.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
I guess I have to get another.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Five, five potamaris, and uh, you know a couple of,
uh, you know 10 point contacts,so you know, but it's, you know
10-point contacts, so you know,but it's all you know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
With that said, it's also really good to go through
your bag every once in a whileand take everything out and
check everything and make sureyou know you have everything in
there and that you know.
Stretch out the coax a littlebit, yeah, if you haven't used
it in a while, for sure, and Ifound stuff that I don't use
anymore that was still in thebag.
I'm like, oh, I don't use thisanymore, I don't need this, but

(01:01:13):
yeah, so that's like how I do itand you know, I think everyone
does it pretty much the same way.
But those of you who have neverdone poda, you know I challenge
you to give it a shot becauseit is a blast and you will get
addicted to it and you will wantto go out all the time and um,
and you don't need a lot of timeto do it.
You know you, if you're out andabout, you could get something

(01:01:34):
done a half hour, an hour tops,uh, depending on the conditions.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
So yeah, that's not totally the slam.
Those guys that love going outfor four and a half hours or
have the bandwidth to go out forfour and a.
Us we all leave busy lives insome form or fashion, so we just
need to call the poda dogs andjust go out and do stuff, and
that usually takes an hour, twotops, you know, although
sometimes it's stretched to fourhours because we're like I

(01:01:59):
don't want to go back to theworld I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
I'm happy where I'm at and sorry yeah yeah, I find
that once I'm there, like I haveto set an alarm on my watch to
it's time to leave, because I'llforget what time it is and I'll
miss the whole day and I'll belike, oh hey, todd, where you
been, you missed that, thatmeeting you had.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Oh shit.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Yeah, I got caught in another meeting.
Totally A lot of communicatinggoing on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
That's the most efficient form of communicating.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
So, to touch on one of the things that todd said,
right, if you've never done apoda before, uh, I would.
I would highly encourage you toreach out to somebody that you
know that has done podas beforeand go with them for for at
least one or two.
And and if you don't havesomebody like that, but you've
got a park that you really like,it's nearby or whatever, and it

(01:02:55):
seems like it would be reallyideal for you, on the POTA page
for that park it'll list the topfive activators and you can
click and you can reach out toany one of them.
Throw their call sign into QRrz, send them an email.

(01:03:16):
Um, I I've gotten emails frompeople that have asked me
questions about different parksthat I've been, that I've been
at, and I'm happy to answerthose questions.
So you never know, you knowwhat I mean.
So just don't be afraid toreach out to somebody that's,
you know, familiar with thatpark, because they've activated
a number of times, and say hey,would you mind walking me

(01:03:39):
through?
You know, I've never done aPOTA before.
I want to activate this park.
Maybe they'll, maybe they'llinvite you on their next
activation.
You never know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
And that's the nice part about the community and we
all have been reciprocated tothat and been a part of, you
know, being able to experiencethat is that I have never met a
ham, especially in the podocommunity, that has turned my
email away.
And if they have, we know why,but we just won't get into that
conversation.
Um, then you know, uh, you arealways going to be treated, you
know, like, oh my gosh, like youwere a lost son, because

(01:04:10):
they're like hey, you know, trythis.
And you, it's funny Cause I'veanswered those emails Paul's
talked about and like I startand I feel like I feel like I've
exploded all over this poorperson because all they probably
have was three simple questionsand I gave them literally a
Bible's worth of like everythingthat they could possibly think
of.
And then they send me a bunchof more and it's just like you

(01:04:31):
kind of, I'm like dude, let'sjust go do a poda.
Basically is why you know itgets to, and that's that's what
you hope, is that if you, if youhave those good conversations,
then just cut to the chase andsay, hey, let's go find a warm
day, let's go activate together,and you know, I'll show you
what I do, and and you can buildfrom there, and so that that's
the the joy of being in the POTAcommunity.
All right, so we've beentalking, obviously, a little bit

(01:04:57):
of the setup.
We've been talking.
Let's kind of dive in.
We've talked about, or touched,I say very lightly on, the POTA
app as well.
So let's dive into a little bitmore with that, I think,
because it's a good place tostart, because that's where
you're going to spend a majorityof your time.
Paul alluded to some of thefeatures in your profile and

(01:05:17):
whatnot.
But let's back the train up alittle bit.
So if you've never been in POTA, you've never done it, you
don't have any idea about it.
Or maybe you're just hearingabout it in your club and maybe
one or two people do that andthey all say, just go up to the
POTA website and register anaccount.
Well, the first question islike, why would you want to do
that?
Well, it's kind of importantbecause it gets you a free
ticket into the community.

(01:05:38):
And two, it gives you a lot ofgreat cool information.
And so you know, paul's got hisscreen up here, so let's kind
of dive into a little bit ofjust his profile.
And so, once you've got youraccount created, and the only
tidbit I'd throw in therebecause Paul alluded to it when
we were offline was don't useyour Facebook email.
Use just a generic email.

(01:05:59):
That way, for whatever reason,if you have to recover, you
don't have to be reliant on somestupid service like Facebook or
whatever to be able to set itup.
Just get an email account thatyou know you have access to and
set it up that way.
You won't get spammed.
I have never gotten any emailsfrom the POTA community
whatsoever on solicitinganything, and so that's.
The nice part is that you won'tget any more emails, except

(01:06:21):
from people that want to reachout to you to talk about an
activation or confirm a contactor whatever.
So, paul, go ahead and diveinto a little bit of the profile
there and talk about some ofthe fun things that they may be
interested in and wanting to getinvolved in.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
So a couple things of note right when you are setting
up your profile.
The profile picture so you cansee mine is a picture of me from
Winter Field Day in 23.
That profile picture isactually pulled from Gravatar
and that's kind of an old methodof generating profile pictures,

(01:07:09):
and so I changed that picturein Gravatar because that's how
the POTO website pulls it up.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
And they're working on changing that.
Yeah, they are.
It's just been a while.
Took me a while to figure outhow to get my picture on there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
Well, yeah, there are a couple of videos out there
and I'll try to dig those up andthrow those in the show notes
where people have been able tochange their Gravatar icon and
it's not terribly hard to do butit requires a couple extra
steps.
But, yeah, if you're the personwho wants to put yourself out
there, that's a good way to dothat.
Paul's got a shot of our winterday field day photo there.

(01:07:49):
That was a really good one ofhim.
I can't see watson in there,but he's, you know, further down
.
You know mine.
I can't, actually I can'tremember what my photo.
I've changed it twice at least.
I have to go back and look atmy profile.
Um, I'm doing it now.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Oh, yeah, I know what this one is well, yeah, so,
while you're, while you'repulling that out, uh, I just
want to mention one thing.
So, so, once you create yourprofile, you're actually going
to be surprised, and you haveprobably hunted POTA parks that
you didn't realize, you know,and so while you were logging
those contacts, they werelogging those contacts and

(01:08:23):
submitting them to POTA, and so,once you create that profile,
it automatically links and syncswith all of the activators that
have said that they've alreadymade contact with you as a
hunter, and so you might have awhole bunch of awards listed
just by creating an account andand and hunting those parks that

(01:08:45):
you've made contacts with inthe past.
Uh, so, yeah, so you might, youmight be completely surprised
to find you create an account.
You got oh, geez, uh, I gotbronze hunter, silver hunter,
gold hunter, platinum hunter,diamond hunter, sapphire hunter
see the pattern arizona hunterlike I've been hunting a lot, I

(01:09:07):
didn't even know, yep you know,uh, and Rubio Hunter, wichita
Mountain, goldenrod Hunter, Imean, there's a whole bunch of
them.
Like, more of my awards arehunter awards than I have
activator awards, and you, justlike I said, you won't know
until you create your profile.
But once you do, you createyour profile and then you can

(01:09:30):
look at your awards, you canlook at your statistics and see,
you know, okay, well, you know,this is what I've activated,
this is what I've hunted, thisis what I've done, late shift
and late shift hunting, but dudeyou just glazed over the
biggest thing you can downloadyour own awards without paying
for anything.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Oh, yes, 100% all PDFs.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
You can download your own awards without paying for
anything, oh yes, 100%.
Yeah, pdfs there's, yeah, thesebeautiful little PDF icons
Totally.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
It's a yeah, it's probably there we go, and so,
yep, so there's.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
there's my award right there.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
It's ready to be printed and framed with this,
with this call, signed it andeverything.
So it's all good stuff.
Yeah, there we go.
That's a freebie and you're noteven paying for POTA and
they're giving you awards.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Right so do continue and so, yep, uh, so under awards
.
Then you've got your stats andso this will show you like cw
data phone, uh, what contactsthat you've made the parks that
you've hunted?

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
speaking of, have you finally surpassed your voice
contacts with your data onlycontacts, uh so, yes, uh.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
So I've got 85 on data and 544 on phone.
Oh wow, I'm proud of you, manyou finally graduated and and
and as as a serial digitaloperator, when I first got
licensed right like that wasthat was my thing I didn't want
to get behind a mic.

(01:11:10):
And once I got into field day,once I got into POTA, that's
when the mic fright kind of wentaway and I started to find my
rhythm.
And you'll find your own rhythmright.
But that's the key is, you findyour rhythm.
You understand what theexchange is, because the
exchange is very simple.
It's hey, this is who I am, I'mat a park and I'm calling CQ.

(01:11:35):
Okay, now you make a contact.
You say this is your signalreport.
What's my signal report?
That's my signal report.
Okay, thank you, conversationover and you move on.
It's, it's just that simple.
There isn't a whole lotexchanged and, like I said, you
don't have to stress about, uh,collecting park numbers from

(01:11:59):
other park to parks.
It you can if you want to, youknow, but you don't have to
stress about it because theparks on the air website will
link your logs and all your parkto park contacts will get
sorted.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
Okay, anything you want to throw in there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
That's new, though, paul, that's something that has
been upgraded, because you usedto have did you always, I think
you used to have to do the park.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
to parks I would say, yeah, probably the last year
and a half, anyways, did youalways, I think he used to have
to do the park to parks, whenyou I would say, yeah, probably
the last year and a half,anyways, you haven't had to
worry about it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
I always try to get them.
But you know the the loggingsoftware does a really nice job
now, where you don't have to putin like the U S you just if
it's a U S.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
I think the coupling excuse me, I think the coupling
with the improvement in thelogging tools that we have and
the fact that the POTA databaseis now trying to make activators
jobs easier, because thepopularity of POTA has gotten so
crazy that it's almostliterally like I don't know if
they'll ever get to that pointwhere you never have to do a log
.
But the log is almost going tobe like a one line eventually

(01:13:11):
where it's just going to be liketo prove that you were there
the time, the park, and then youwere done and it's just going
to know where you matched up.
But you know all the contacts.
But you know it's going to bephenomenal when that time and
place we all have been waitingfor, when the logs get auto
uploaded, andploaded and wedon't ever have to worry about
the sync the sync is almostautomatic It'd be like, hey, I

(01:13:32):
did a pod activation fiveminutes ago, paused for 15
minutes, and then did anotherpod activation and it tracked
all the crap and you never hadto submit a log and you got all
your credits and everything wasgreat under the sun.
So, yeah, I think that day willbe fun.
But yeah, for all the changesthey've done now Todd, yeah, so
yeah, I think that day will befun.

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):
But yeah, for what they're all the changes they've
done now, uh, todd.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
I think they've done some big improvements.
Yeah, I mean it's, it's andit's fun to look through it.
I mean I like to periodicallylook through and see like, when
am I getting my next award?
Like, like I had just gotten a50 activated, I'm at like 53.
I next one, 75, hunted.
Um, I Next one's 75.
Hunted.
I'm working on 1,000, so I gotabout 942.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
So just motivate your meat.
Yeah, I mean the pie charts.
I love them, but at the sametime, I also get annoyed with
them because I'm like I'm notmoving fast enough.
I need to get to my next big,and then I get confused with the
.
What's the one that I gotEntities hunted?
It's like what's the one that Igot Entities hunted?

(01:14:32):
It's like our, yeah, and that'slike our unique entities.

Speaker 3 (01:14:34):
I had to do some right so I had to look that up.
So entities hunted is like anew place that you've made
contact with.
Like if you picked Zimbabweright.
If you never worked Zimbabweand you got a park to park on
Zimbabwe, right.
If you've never worked Zimbabweand you got a park-to-park on
Zimbabwe, that would be a newentity.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
Or entities activated , meaning that also parks you've
activated that aren't the sameones you've done repetitively.

Speaker 3 (01:15:02):
Right, yeah, it gets confusing.
Yeah, it does, but you don'thave to worry about that,
because it just does it for youdoes it all together, it does it
for you.
And, like I said, if you don'tlook at it a while and you've
been doing a lot of hunting orwhatever you go on, you'll be
like oh wow, look at, I got.
Like.
Like I remember I got like myfirst.
Like you told me that I got myfirst award.
You're like, hey, you got acouple awards.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
I'm like I did yeah you're like oh my gosh, I got on
the board.
So.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
So okay, and going back to what Paul said a while
ago, when he was saying like youknow, if you've never done it,
go with your friends.
I remember Eric, when I got mygeneral, eric took me to do my
first park and you know I wasreally nervous and screwed it
all up, but anyway.
But then the second time helike met Paul and I at the
parking lot.
We got there before him and I'mlike do you know what we're

(01:15:48):
supposed to do?
He's like no, not really.
I'm like did you bring any gear?
He goes, no, he goes you.
I'm like nope, I'm like I thinkEric's going to show us what to
do.
And that was a cool activationthat the three of us did and
that was like all right now,this is good and then.
So definitely try to get outthere.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
And there's got to be people in your clubs that do
podo, because we get more andmore in our club every day, even
if you can't find a local clubthat does it like, like I said
paul mentioned, go go to theparks that you want to activate
near and reach out to thosepeople.
I guarantee they will take youon a run and they'll show you
how to do it.
Yeah, so, and if they don'tcall us up and we'll make sure

(01:16:27):
we can put you in touch withsomebody that will help you get
into poda, because that's howserious we are, simple as that.
I'm willing to travel, we don't.
Well, todd will travel, but inessence, you know we we follow
the national standard.
Uh, no, poda left behind, youknow.
So this is, this is how we'regonna deal.
So this is, yeah, we'll laythat down there for you going in

(01:16:48):
advance.
So don't feel like you have tobe freaked out about getting a
hold of somebody.
We'll help you out there.
So just reach out to us atlivefreeandham, at gmailcom, or
hit us up on our Discord andwe'll make sure we link you up
with somebody to get you ropedin, all right.
So I think it's a good startthere.
Anything kind of in yourprofile that you kind of want to
bring to attention that youfound that was useful for you.

(01:17:11):
I mean we glazed on some of theawards and stuff a little bit,
but any of you guys want tothrow in on that?

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
Well, I think the spots Okay.
So one of the things before weget to spots.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
Just on your profile.
All right, just one quick thing, quick thing.
So what you're looking at is mypark-to-parks from the Rhode
Island activation.
When I did the beach activationin Rhode Island, one of the
contacts that I made was withthe VE3Z, juliet Charlie, and,

(01:17:45):
if you can see on my screen,I've got him in my log four
times Now.
The I've got him in my log fourtimes Now.
The reason that I have him in mylog four times isn't that I
logged him four times.
I logged him one time.
However, he submitted fourdifferent logs because he was in
a four-for situation.
He was in a four-four situationand so if you are within 100

(01:18:09):
feet of another park boundaryand you're activating that park
close enough to another park,then you get credit for both,
and sometimes that can be up tofour or five, depending on your
location.
I know DC is a big one for that.
I know DC is a big one for that.
But so you don't have to, onyour end, worry about logging

(01:18:33):
that contact multiple times,because once you log them, once
your logs are going to sync andif you are doing a twofer or a
threefer or a fourfer, whateverthe case may be.
All you have to do is duplicatethe same log and resubmit it

(01:18:57):
under the new park, and so youdon't have to go through a whole
lot of process of creating aseparate log for each park.
That you're doing because allyou've got to do is duplicate
the log, and I think we're goingto get into that stuff, but go
ahead with the spotting, justreal quick.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Before we touch on the spotting, the reason why you
got four in there is because hewas in a twofer.
You got one contact for him asa hunter and you got the other
one as a park-to-park.
So you didn't get four becausehe was at a four-fur.
He was a two-fur because yougot two For every park-to-park.
You get the contact for theindividual and you get the
park-to-park.

(01:19:38):
Okay.
That's a trick that a lot ofpeople don't realize is that
when you hunt park-to-parksfirst if you're looking to get
to 10, that's the fastest wayyou can get to 10.
Because for every park-to-parkyou get, you get two contacts,
basically the hunter and you getthe park-to-park.
And if you have two operators,yeah, then you get a four-four.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
It kind of starts to multiply pretty fast.
You have one contact.
You already activated the park.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
You're like what, and so you know if you're a group
and you like to go out andactivate a park and you have
eight people, you can imaginehow long that might take to get
through, but at the same timehow quickly you get to 10 very
fast.
So you know, it's kind of oneof those things.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
So going on the spots .
So the reason I brought that upis, if I have time, what I like
to do is get to the park, setup and look at the activity and
then like, let's say I'm justdoing 10 meters and let's say
there's 15 guys at 10 meters Ijust start at the very bottom,
let's see if I can first hearhim.

(01:20:37):
If I can, I call CQ or I callback to them, try to make them
and I'll go all the way down.
Once I get done with that, thenI find my own frequency and
then call CQ.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
Now I got a question Are you doing that in, like the
polo apps, or are you doing thaton the poda app page?

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
Well, no, well, you can do it on the polo app.
But I go on the, I go, I haveall my phone and I just go
through and you can also do iton the pole, the polo app.
You can also do it on the Poloapp, you can do it, you can see
it.
So normally I'm just doing iton the phone, but it's on the
Polo app as well and I just godown and I see what's spotted
and I just turn the dial, startat the low end and go all the

(01:21:19):
way up to the end, see how manyI can get.
I might get two, three or four,whatever.
Then, once I do that, I go backto my own frequency and I call
CQ and then I'm just looking forpeople to call me Right and
then when I'm done, I'll go backto see and the Polo app is

(01:21:39):
awesome because it'll show youwhich parks you've already
worked, so you don't have toremember Um and then I'll go
back and try to hunt again.
You know, for park to parks andthe benefit of if you're at a
park and you're hunting oryou're doing you're hunting
parks while you're at the parkinstead of just calling cq, is a
lot of um, the activators wantthe park to park so you might

(01:22:03):
get called ahead of someonethat's been trying, who's not.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
Who's like sitting in their shack just although
that's getting a little less now, I find, but anyway, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:22:11):
Yeah, but but it it still happens.
But you know, then you, youknow you get what you want.
And then you get, you know, andthey're going for the
statistics, right, like the, thepark, the parks.
You know they get an extrahunted park as well as the
active activated park.
So activated park, so it's all,it's all fun and, like I said,

(01:22:32):
it's it's just a way I like todo it, just to kind of ease into
it, and then at the end theykind of like see if you can get
any more contacts before youknow, before you leave.
Now I can't always do that,especially like when I only have
an hour, so I'll, I'll rushthrough it.
Normally I just call CQ and seewhat's happening and then, if I
don't, maybe I'll try to hunt,and I'll do that before I switch
bands too.
So if I'm going to go from 10to 20, I'll, I'll start on 20,

(01:22:56):
I'll go hunt and then call cq.
How do you?

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
uh, use the spotting page, paul, or do you spend much
time on it?

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
yeah, no, so, uh, I do.
I do very similar to Todd,where I'll use the spotting page
and I will sort it by frequencyand I will start at the bottom
of the frequency and I'll tune.
If I can hear them, I'll tryand work them.
If I can't hear them, I'll moveon.
But yeah, I always start myactivation the same way where I

(01:23:30):
I go through the spots, I startat the bottom of the band and I
work my way up and then I'll gookay, well, the band is good, so
I'll find a hole and I'll allright, now I'm going to spot
myself and I'll say okay, nowI'm calling cq and I'll call cq
okay, I find similar kind offormat, little variants on me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
I don't.
The only time I ever really usethe spotting page per se on the
podaapp site itself is when I'musually at home in the shack
and I'm hunting.
I'll log in.
I'll kind of just scan theoverall you know frequency list,
filter it stuff through and seeif I can find some call signs I
recognize, just so I like towork those guys and gals out

(01:24:15):
there as much as I can just togive them the credit but at the
same time kind of test my homesystem.
But when I'm out like theseguys out in the field I do a lot
like Paul already describedfilter by frequency, and I'm
doing this in hammers or I'mdoing this in Polo and doing it
on the spots tab.
So if you're not familiar withthose apps, they have the same

(01:24:36):
spotting filtering capabilitiesthat you see on the Poloapp
website in those apps directly.
So you don't have to worryabout it and you can actually
access the contact data tofilter to your log when you want
to work a park to park.
So it's just a couple of tapsand you're off and running.
Um, the one thing I kind of usethat that list is, I'll do it

(01:24:56):
like twice and I I almost have arhythm now, even when I'm on a
short run is I'll run the list.
You know, work them if I canhear them.
If I find a big pile up with apark to park that I can't work,
I keep moving on and then Imentally write down.
Or I write down um, you know,hey, I gotta go back to that
same frequency again and I'dwork them a second time.
And if I pretty much got allthe contacts there, I then at

(01:25:19):
that point look at the wholeentire frequency list and I
decide you know, hey, um,where's there a gap, where's
that?
Where's there a hole, like pauldescribing?
And so that hole is where Iusually try to park and activate
.
Or I'll pay attention to when Ihear park to parks activating
and they call last call.
And while I'm going through myhunting list I note that because

(01:25:41):
then I'll go back to theirfrequency and I guarantee that
unless they forget to do I'vegone QRT on the Polaroid app
page they still will be listedin the spots page and I can
respot myself on that frequencyand I'll bubble right back up to
the top and people then willjust pile back on again.
So it's a quick way to keep theflow going, because hunters,

(01:26:02):
they get ADHD sometimes and theyfind everything everywhere and
they can bounce around butfrequencies that they remember
they'll go back to.
There was a pile up there andthey just didn't want to, you
know, wanted to wait for it todie off.
And you can be a, you know, oneof the beneficiaries to.
You know a poda activator thatyou know is moving off frequency
and done for his activation, oreven ask nicely, like I've had

(01:26:31):
a few people ask me directlywhen I was in the middle of my.
Uh, he's like hey, I didn'tknow if you were going to be on
this frequency for a littlewhile.
Are you almost done?
I'll be like oh funny, you justsay that I was going to do last
call and I do a last call andthen I then I hand it literally
off to him and introduce all ofthe hunters to this new podo
person and you know they justpick up.
That's a couple of cool thingson the spotting page.
So you know we've been at itand we could probably talk for

(01:26:52):
five, six hours on this andwe'll probably have to break
this up a little bit, but let'skind of you know swing this
around because we touch on bagprep, but I don't want to talk
about that because I think wecan devote a whole kind of you
know philosophy structure tothat in a future show.
So let's put that on the table.
For now.
Let's talk about.
You want to dive in a littlebit of the third-party app tools

(01:27:13):
that we kind of use to kind ofdo some of our log manipulation
and other things around that, oryou want to focus on something
different.

Speaker 2 (01:27:22):
Yeah, no, we can cover a couple quick things real
quick on how you adjust yourlogs if you have to make changes
to them.
I personally I use Adafmaster.
It's simple, it's free, it'sfairly intuitive and, yes, it
just works.

(01:27:42):
It works very well.
So that's what I prefer to useif I have to make any changes,
because inevitably there's goingto be a poda activation where
you are going to get somebody'scall sign wrong and you're going
to be reviewing your stuffbefore you submit it, you're
going to go oh no, there's noway that I got that person in

(01:28:07):
that location.
I must've goofed the call signum for us, right, like Eric and
I, we we record our POTUS and sowe have that benefit of being
able to go back to the footageand go.
Wait what?

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
was that again.
I guess I don't think I everhave, but oh, you have to see.
It's funny you say that Cause II'm the worst when it comes to
error correcting and checking mylog.
I just submit it as is.
I'm sorry hunters that arecritical and having accurate
data, but I'm a slacker when itcomes to that because I just

(01:28:41):
want to get it up there and moveon to the next one.
So, yes, I'm not like Paul, andso please forgive me in advance
.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
Well, I'll tell you.
So there was, um, it was atleast two that I had goofed on
uh, the Pac-Man, adnock, potaSoda, and and it, thankfully I
had the video, you know, and Icould go back to the video and I
could go oh, wait a minute, oh,that's what the call sign was.

(01:29:09):
And then I went into Adafmaster, I fixed the call sign, then I
submitted it correctly.
But yeah, adafmaster, it's agreat simple editing tool.
It's free.
So I highly suggest somethingalong those lines.

Speaker 1 (01:29:30):
There are plenty of other options.
How about you Todd?

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):
Anything.
Third-party tools like that.
Yeah, I mean, I've usedAdafmaster.
It's a great little add-on.
Yeah, I mean, I really just usethe Polo app and then Polo to
log.
Polo has a lot of cool features,like it'll show you all the
states and it'll put lines onall the ones you've worked, um,
during that activation.

(01:29:58):
Um, it'll, it'll show you, like, obviously, the map of the
spread of how things are going.
It'll show you how many you'veworked.
It'll show you how many you've,what your rate is over the last
10, over the whole thing.
Um, you know how many contactsyou've been in so many hours or

(01:30:19):
whatever.
So it has a lot of cool dataand it also, if you're connected
online, it pulls up your, ifyou set it up with likeZ, it
pulls up the other guy'sinformation.
So it's automatically just getsthrown in there so you can, um,
it helps with pileups and stuffand you can really get into a
groove and just, uh, you know,get through it as quickly.

(01:30:41):
But uh, yeah, I mean, that'sthat's really the only apps that
I use.
You know, specifically for Podo, only apps that I use.
You know, specifically for POTA.
Um, I do use other apps andthings for, uh, ham radio.
That, uh, I don't alwaysnecessarily need for POTA, but
really I mean, between my phoneand my iPad, that's really all I
need, and I just use the phoneas the POTA app and the iPad as

(01:31:03):
the um, as the logger, and, uh,I just go to town and see what I
can get, and you know, myproblem is just putting an end
to it.
Like, if there's someone outthere and I keep hearing people,
I just cannot quit.
It's like a drug, it's likeNope, I'm not going.
Yet I heard something, I know.
I just, you know, it's justcause I really don't, normally

(01:31:27):
when I leave, I don't want toleave, it's like I have to leave
for some other reason.

Speaker 1 (01:31:32):
It's like that little you know toddler that you know
is at the amusement park anddoesn't want to go anywhere.
He can't get his agreement.

Speaker 3 (01:31:39):
Well, I mean, I mean it's like it's like oh, you got
to go back to work, or do I want?

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
to help this poor hunter out there that's just
trying to work my work me to getanother, another, another uh
park on his list.
So I'm not done.
Cool, all right.
Well, so I've got a couple ofapps that they're kind of will
say I mean, obviously,everything you guys recommended
we we've shared and used heavily.
I've got a couple of ones thatI use on my phone HamAlert.
We've had a I don't know if wehad a whole episode.

(01:32:16):
I know I did a whole videoseries on how to use it.
I use that coupled with the,we'll say, activations page.
And here's the thing was that ifyou're somewhat chasing awards
and I do that sometimes,especially when I was trying to
get my 50 states is that I wouldlook through the activations
page on podaapp and find thestates that I needed the awards

(01:32:37):
for that had the activations inthem, and then what I would do
is I'd trap those of theirprofiles to figure out how much
they activate a certain park orsomething like that, or what
their status is in terms of howactive they are.
I'll throw them in my ham alertand then I was using them to be

(01:32:57):
able to actually trap when theywere going to basically do an
activation, which helped me alot because it got me more
opportunities to be able to makecontacts with them or try to
make contacts, which helped me alot because it got me more
opportunities to be able to makecontacts with them or try to
make contacts.
The other thing to do isHamAlert also does a nice
filtering where you can filterby state too and say, hey, I

(01:33:20):
want to see contacts oractivations coming from the
state of Hawaii or the state ofAlaska, and it will blow your
phone up every time there's anactivation there.
That method I wouldn't advisebecause my phone literally would
die by the end of the daybecause I was getting blasted by
everything and everyone.

Speaker 3 (01:33:32):
Well, I've got mine for Hawaii and Alaska, so you've
got yours on permanent cradlecharge Every park in.
Hawaii and Alaska.
So it goes off a lot.
But with my luck it alwaysseems like it's going off like,
oh, I'm driving, or I'm in court, or I'm in a a big meeting, or
I'm presenting something, andthen when I'm sitting there at
my desk and I'm just staring atthe computer wishing my day

(01:33:55):
would go by, it's like ghostquiet but yeah but ham alert can
get ham alert's good, uh, butit can also get really annoying.
Um, you know, I was puttingeveryone I I knew in there.
I put like K-Murder in thereand I'm like God, that guy's
activating like 24-7.
I keep getting that FTA.

(01:34:15):
If he's not doing anything,he's doing FTA and I'm like holy
crap.
I'm like so I had to like mutehim.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Sorry, murder, we had to put you out of your misery.

Speaker 3 (01:34:24):
Yeah, it's like I didn't want to, but man, I'm
like I gotta I can't be doingall this stuff.
But you know it's cool, like II always have.
Like I have Paul and Eric in it, so like I know, when Eric's
out activating cause I'll getthe little alert and I'll say,
oh, he's working the rail trailagain trying to get past me,
yeah, so the only other two apps.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
The.
The only, sorry, the onlyperson I don't have in ham alert
specifically has to be a parkreference is Carlos, and that is
only because when, when, whenhe's doing parachute mobile,
like he's not at a park.
But I want to know, you know,and so everybody else that I've

(01:35:05):
got in my ham alert, it has tobe at a park.
I don't give a shit If they'rejust calling CQ, I don't care,
it has to be at a park.

Speaker 3 (01:35:16):
Okay, carlos, he technically could.
I wonder if that counts If heparachutes over a park.

Speaker 1 (01:35:24):
No, why not?
This conversation's alreadybeen had.
It has.
It cannot count, he's tried.

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):
He jumps over.
No, why not this?

Speaker 1 (01:35:29):
conversation's already been had.
Yeah, it has.

Speaker 3 (01:35:30):
Yeah, cannot count, he's tried.
He goes over, he jumps overlike a Yellowstone.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
Yeah, cq barks out of the air 10,000 feet, so you got
to be within 100 feet of thepark.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
Yep, so at that point he's already parachuted, like
100 feet, he's like got verylittle time to make any contacts
before he hits ground, so itcould happen.
So I've got a couple other twoapps that I really like.
So we used to be heavily tiedto that stupid.
Remember how, when we firststarted activating, we would be
like, oh, what's the solarconditions?

(01:36:01):
And we were constantly, alwaysusing solar data, that app, and
we were always pissed off andaggravated and we devoted a
whole entire show talking abouthow to interpret solar data and
all that other stuff.
I found another site thatactually is way freaking easier,
um, and couples the solar dataand a whisper component to it,
and I'll throw the link in here.

(01:36:22):
It was a.
It's an actual website that Igot as a shortcut.
It's called hf band and and itliterally does it by geographic
region and it shows it by color.
So if I'm in a day that likehey, I'm just like it feels
crappy, I've heard that there'sa geomatic storms or something
like that, I usually pull thisapp up and it gives me an idea
because it it's using whisperdata with you know really like

(01:36:46):
accurate, almost up to theminute.
You know how is is the band atthis time in this geographic
region, and then it couples thatwith a couple other bits of
data.
I'll put that in there.
It's a really good updatedwebsite and it's just really
cool because I can look at itand go, oh yeah, if I'm looking
at like if I pull it up now andI wish I could put up my phone
here that if I'm looking at, say, the 40-meter band for zone

(01:37:06):
five, which is what we're in,it's in um a, basically a black
dot with a red box, whichbasically means the band is hot
and that there's more than um Ithink 100, 25 or 50 whisper
spots you know that it'sdetected, that have very strong
signals over some noise ratio,which I can't.
It says here's listed at thebottom.

(01:37:27):
But ultimately it gives youreally good, like accurate
information and the reason why Isay I rely on it because I've
used it and I like I was likewow, I'm impressed, like this.
One time that I activated I wasway better that uh, you know it
was uh used in a place that uhhelped me stay, you know, in
good band conditions and pickthe right band versus just kind

(01:37:48):
of hunting and pecking.
So that was a good app.
I always have that on my phone.
And then the last app that I'vegot that I use a lot is called,
well, the Podo Maps has alwaystaken.
Actually, podo Maps took theplace of that, but the other one
was Whisper Watch.
There's a bunch of YouTubechannels that put that stuff out

(01:38:08):
the place of that, but theother one was whisper watch.
There's a bunch of youtubechannels that put that stuff out
.
If you want to test it, if youhave the time, it's a great
little tool because you coulduse whisper on your phone and
just tune to the whisperfrequency and use your
microphone to, you know, put outwhisper signals to see how you
get out.
If you want to test yourantenna, I've used that a couple
of times.
But the one app that I use thatI heavily don't uh, you know I
only rely on because it's aweather thing is a radar scope.

(01:38:29):
I bought the license for it.
Josh had used it on his websitea long time, or mentioned it on
one of his live streams a longtime ago, and it's a great
up-to-the-minute radar tool.
So if you want to go into anarea and you know you're
possibly going to get rain, thisone's really good and accurate
because you can pick your radarsites quickly to determine where
the cloud cover's coming or ifa storm's just going to blow

(01:38:50):
through or blow by.
So it's always made myactivations a little bit much
easier to manage.
So I can decide, hey, I'm goingto go activate on a park bench
or hey, I'm now going to reservemyself and activate from the
truck.
So it kind of gives me a littlebit of a way to leverage my
activations a little bit better.
So I use those and we'll makesure those are in the show notes
links there so you guys cancheck those out for yourself.

(01:39:12):
So, okay, any other things wewant to talk about, like
third-party apps that we want tomention, that you know we can
wrap that section in.

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
Well, if you're looking for whisper information
as far as graphical interfacesgo like, yeah, that's a good.
I don't think it gets betterthan this.

Speaker 1 (01:39:37):
That's pretty cool that's just geek factor.

Speaker 2 (01:39:40):
So times a thousand yeah, but that looks so freaking
cool.
That's all the whisper datathat is currently out there.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
In a ghost looking format.
I love that site.
That is a total awesome site.

Speaker 3 (01:39:56):
So yeah, well, you definitely could check out
there's absolutely zero whisperactivity going on in Africa
right now.
Hmm, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
Nothing at the bottom , usually nothing in.

Speaker 3 (01:40:09):
Russia either or China interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
Nothing in Australia either.
Wow, I would have thought thewest coast would be pounding
them.
Well, there you go, just all USbased in Florida.
Maybe that's the filter you goton it could be it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):
Cool, there's some Central America in there, okay,
yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:40:36):
And Europe.
So, yeah, we'll throw this outto you.
We'll post this in the Discordas well.
If you've got some apps that wefailed to mention, feel free to
throw them in the Discord.
We'd love to share them withother people, because it just
makes us much better.
And, like Paul mentionedearlier, the Poda Maps US site
is a blast.
That's a small web app shortcuton my phone.

(01:40:58):
I always have that available,especially when I have cell
service where I'm at, and thatis way easier to be able to get
all your data in one quick, easyview.
So let's kind of wrap this up.
I think, um, you know, if youwant to, paul, you get the maps
up there.
You got something you want todive into or no?

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
this is just that, that pota mapus yeah that is.

Speaker 1 (01:41:22):
That's a phenomenal.
Like they that is.
They spent a lot of good workand effort in developing that.
So, yeah, I applaud them and Isay keep it up, because maybe
the POTA team will say, hey, weneed to just absorb this and put
it directly into our database,which would be awesome.
That'd be really cool to haveone in person.
So, all right, well, let's kindof wrap this up as a kind of

(01:41:48):
all-in-one kind of put it in abow summary.
What would you guys kind ofoffer as a last bit of words of
advice to someone who'sobviously starting this process,
maybe in the middle of it?
We'll kind of go from there.
If folks have more interest, wecan obviously branch out and

(01:42:09):
we'll throw it in.
You know one of our listenertopics that you know we can talk
more on, so go ahead.
Who wants to pick it?

Speaker 3 (01:42:15):
up.
Yeah, I mean, I would just sayif you've never done it and
you've got questions, reach outto either us or other members of
your club and get out there,because it's a blast.
And you know, I find it moreexciting because one it's
quieter, I don't know.

(01:42:36):
You know, sometimes in my shackit's a little bit noisy.
You go out in the woodssomewhere or in a park, there's
nothing out there.
So it's really good signals andclarity and you know you'll
work a lot of stations, I meanin a short period of time,
especially if you're calling CQ.
There's so many hunters outthere that want to work you and

(01:42:56):
it just makes it a lot of fun.
And you know, really, for meit's basically what ham radio is
all about.
I mean, I'm a poda geek.
Like it's really the only thingI really like to do when it
comes to ham radio.
I like the mobile operators orthe field operations much better
than sitting in the shack.
Yep, totally.
What do you got?

Speaker 2 (01:43:15):
Paul, yeah well, so just to expand on what Todd said
, because I completely agree, asa new poda activator, right,
like you don't have to worryabout your equipment, you don't
have to worry about what youneed to buy or what you need to
have, like, just find somebodythat you can go with, go out a

(01:43:39):
few times, activate withsomebody else, use their gear
right, have an understanding ofwhat they're using and why
they're using what they're using, and then figure out what's
going to be best for you.
Because I'll be honest, likeyou can, you can activate a park
very minimally or you can go asextravagant as you want, right?

(01:44:02):
And so I mean, if I wanted to,I, uh, I could load up my ice
fishing tent and my buddy heaterand my 7,300, and you know
anything and everything that Icould ever want.
And and I could I could make ita big freaking thing.
Or I could go out with just abackpack with my radio, a

(01:44:25):
battery and an antenna andaccomplish the same mission.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
I would change that or to an and sir it's an and
Crash can.

Speaker 2 (01:44:36):
Yes.
So yeah, you can do it, youknow, just get out there, get
with somebody that has donePOTUS before and go have fun.
Go have fun, because that'swhat it's all about.
Yes, it's a practice inemergency communications.
Yes, it's a practice in uh,setting up a station in adverse

(01:44:58):
conditions.
But at the end of the day, ifyou're not having fun, then why
are you doing this?

Speaker 1 (01:45:05):
yeah, I, I, I, I 100% subscribe to all you guys ads
there.
I would say only two things.
One in the, in the mighty finewords of ted lasso don't be
judgmental, be curious, get inthere, play around, learn, ask
questions.
This is not a place where it'sa pissing contest.
We are not like and no slam tocontesters.

(01:45:27):
But a lot of times you go intothe contesting groups and it's
all about how big your stationis to kind of prove your muscles
.
You know, strategy you know andhow you know where you kind of
sit in the picking order else,like WD4DAN or Kyle Alpha, alpha
, zero, zed or any of those guysthat are out there, because we

(01:45:51):
all do poda the way we like todo poda.
And that's the nice part aboutit, because I can appreciate
Paul's style, I can appreciateTodd's style, they can
appreciate how I do poda, andwhen we get together and do it
all together, it just makes itthat much freaking sweeter
because at that point we get tolearn we to you know, see each
other's styles, we get to tripover each other's freaking words

(01:46:11):
and we get to learn how to doawesome things like how the heck
do you fix the past, the micproblem.
Well, you know, here's atechnical solve, you know, and
just find real cool ways to makeexperiences like that so much
better.
And then it kind of justdovetails into like cooler
things, like well, you know, hey, uh, you know I see paul's got
the fricking cool relaxed.
You know spring based chairs.
I got to go out and buy youknow something similar to that

(01:46:33):
just because I want to befricking more comfortable.
And you know all of the, youknow all of that stuff kind of
builds upon it.

Speaker 3 (01:46:38):
So you know, or or when you you're you're doing a
photo with someone else and youjust start talking.
You start talking gibberishbecause you've done it for so
long like you, just like youdon't even know what you're
saying.

Speaker 1 (01:46:50):
You're like five, five, nine, nine, nine, moving
on yeah, I've been there likewhat did I just say, yeah, yeah,
and, and no one.
You know you get to learnsomeone's lovely you know we'll
call poda love language therevery quickly on how they handle
a pile up to how they handle youknow, the, the, the, the rag
chewer when they want to talkabout everything and your dog

(01:47:10):
and everything kind of inbetween, and so it's just, it's
a very welcoming hobby and weaim to keep it that way.
So if you come up here andfucking things up, you know
we're gonna fuck you up, assimple as the way I look at it.
So with those words, I say youknow, hey, let's put a bow on
this and close this out fortonight, but again, thank you.
Thank you, sean.

(01:47:30):
Right, yeah, sean was thesubmitter there for you know,
basically submitting this topic,and so, like we said, you know,
head over to our Discord postthere.
You know, if you've got a topicyou want us to dive into, you
know, and we don't have to be,you know professionals, you know
professional experts on it,because we'll tell you if we
don't know anything, if we don't, then we're going to try to
figure out more before it, andyou know, heck, you might be a

(01:47:53):
topic that's even not even hamradio related.
Might be a ham radio adjacent,who knows?
That's okay too, totally.
So we're all welcome to all thefun stuff.
We want to have fun with youguys and what better to involve
our community, like you guys, tohelp shape the shows going in
the future.
So with that let's go to theusual ends here.

(01:48:13):
So, as always, thank you againfor joining and hanging out with
us over here at Live Free inHam.
It's a great community and wetruly appreciate everybody here
and we love all you guys and howyou support the show.
We can't thank you enough.
And so if you want to connectwith us, you can always head
over to our Discord.
We always mention it in everyshow.
We want to make sure come be apart of that.
Come hang out, learn more aboutthat by heading over to live

(01:48:37):
free and ham or checking inanyone or show notes is all of
our discord links and come joinin and hang out in the fun and
be part of a, you know, a reallycool community, and you can
always subscribe to our YouTubechannel.
Again, that's the best way tocatch us live and learn more.
When we go live, make sure youhit that notification bell and
check out all that excellentvideo content, because it's
basically us in live movingpictures.

(01:49:00):
If you are only a podcastlistener, you can check us out
there, because all our episodesare posted there and, as always,
leave us a review, let us knowhow we're doing, share us a
great funny story, share usabout your do-goods and anything
in between, and you can do thatvia our SMS link in all of our
show notes or you can do ourvoicemail at 978-233-1142.

(01:49:21):
And, as always, you cancontinue to support the show
through our Patreon and buy us abeer links and, as all
scrolling through the bottom, wethank you for all our Patreon
members who have joined andcontinue to support the show
going forward, because withoutyou guys we can't continue to do
this, because there's alwayssome costs and some expense, and
you know the cost of eggs.
You know, because we all suckon them.

(01:49:42):
You know.
We, we, we got to keep the showgoing somehow, anyway.
So without that, we list all ofour paid members there.
So if you want to come be partof that and support the show,
you can always head over to ourPatreon link and with that you
can check out our website atlivefreeandhamcom or
justlikemencom.

(01:50:06):
Oh freaking A, those guys upnorth.
I forgot the link already.
Anyway, I'll have to go backand dig that one up.
Just like men.
Oh freaking A, I can't remember.
Just like men.

Speaker 2 (01:50:17):
Is it just Carlos, just like men?
Yeah, just for men like Carlos.

Speaker 1 (01:50:21):
That's it, thank you.
Just for men like Carlos, yes,and those guys up north, I'll
bring us to your front door hereand you can see all of our
podcasts, live streams and allof our other content up there.
And, as always, make sure youcheck out our latest swag and
all of our host contact info atlivefreeandhamcom.
And with that, thanks again andwe appreciate you listening
from all of us from Live Freeand Ham, 73.

(01:50:43):
73, guys 73.

Speaker 2 (01:50:46):
73 guys, 73 77.

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