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April 21, 2025 95 mins

When a listener submitted "How your lives have changed now that you're famous content creators" as a topic, we couldn't help but laugh—while simultaneously feeling a curious mix of humility and quiet appreciation. Truth is, none of us started this journey seeking any sort of recognition, yet here we are, two years later, occasionally being approached at hamfests by folks who know our voices before they know our faces.

Our conversation meanders through the surprising evolution from casual ham operators to content creators with actual followers. Paul "The Grouch" N1OG shares his reluctant journey from social media skeptic to Weekend Warriors creator, now approaching monetization milestones he never imagined possible. Eric N1JUR recounts the surreal experience of being recognized during POTA activations when someone realizes they're speaking with "that YouTube guy," while Todd W1STJ muses about balancing his future content aspirations with baseball coaching duties.

What emerges throughout our discussion isn't so much about "fame" (a term we still find uncomfortable), but rather the profound connections we've formed across the amateur radio community. From collaborations with other creators to speaking with listeners who implement our suggestions in their own ham setups, these moments have transformed a simple podcast into something far more meaningful than download numbers could ever reflect.

If you've ever wondered about the human side of content creation—the countless hours mastering video editing, the late nights recording, or the genuine thrill of receiving that first comment from a stranger who appreciates your work—this episode offers an unfiltered glimpse behind the microphone. Because while we may joke about being "ham-famous," what truly matters are the friendships, skills, and community we've built along this unexpected journey.

Have you connected with us yet? Join our Discord server, leave a voicemail at 978-233-1142, or simply reach out on social media. After all, it's the conversations that happen off-air that often mean the most.

Leave us a Review via Text Message!

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Call and leave us a voicemail with comments or questions, or tell us how to do our jobs! 978.233.1142

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YouTube Channel:
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Eric (N1JUR) - @N1JUR
Paul (N1OG) - @NovemberOneOscarGrouch
Todd (W1STJ) - @W1STJ

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tonight it's a listener submitted request and
we're going to get into how ourlives have changed now that
we're famous content creators.
You and me don't believe thatfor a second?
All right, well, it's next onLive Free and Ham, so stay tuned
.
Well, hello and welcome to theLive Free and Ham podcast.
This is our weekly show wherewe discuss ham radio topics in

(00:20):
New Hampshire, new England andbeyond, and we're thrilled to
have you here, whether you're aregular listener or tuning in
for the first time, and weappreciate you and thanks for
joining tonight's episode.
So let's get into our show.
I'm your host, eric call signN1JUR and I'm with my co-hosts.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Paul N1OG.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Todd W1STJ.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
All right, cool.
Well, as we always like to doand warm you guys up before we
get into our featured eventTesting with Todd, you know we
got a few things we'd like tocatch up here.
As always, please head on overto our storefront at
livefreeandhamcom forward slashshop.
Always check out some of themerch and you know all the stuff
they're putting in the store.

(01:00):
We got some really cool stuffthere that we always have and
you know, anything you guyspurchased there helps the show
and helps us keep uh uh this upand running.
And you know I have to say westill have a few of the whiskey
drams still sitting out there.
You know, if you want to grabone, I know I've been saying you
know you're going to miss out,you're going to miss out, but

(01:20):
I'm telling you you'reeventually going to miss out, so
you don't want to wait anylonger.
Head on over to the store, pickone up, pick a couple up.
It won't be disappointedwhatsoever and it helps support
us and the channel.
You have something that's aunique creation from the
Lifferingham guys here as well,because once they're gone, they
are gone.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
There's only five left, right.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Close.
Yeah, I think we have a totalof seven.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Okay, so there you go , like get those last seven
before they're gone.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yep, you heard it here, uh, and well, uh, we've
been having a uh, somewhat of arush on our hamlets.
They are, uh, still available.
We've got, uh, packs of 3, 10and 25 still uh, waiting for you
guys to pick them up.
And so you might might beasking this is their first time
here in the show.
What is the Hamlet's all about?
Well, as you see, paul is soeloquently displaying and

(02:12):
balancing his little Hamlet onhis mic.
If you're watching on YouTubehere, but if you're, say, a
podcast listener, well, you canalways head over to gethammedcom
and that link is in our shownotes if you have a chance to
take a look at that and pickyourself up one.
And so you might be like, whywould I want to pick one up?
Well, let me tell you, ifyou're a jeeper and you know the

(02:35):
jeep community has their loveof the duck well, I'm tired of
letting them have all the fun,and so we created this little
grassroots thing called hammies,and basically all they are is a
small little, you know, pinkham.
That's well-identifiable, andactually this weekend I told out
two or three on a couple ofcars that I saw in the mall that

(02:55):
had a few antennas.
So it was pretty fun to go dothat.
It's almost a little bit of athrill and a rush.
But you know, you just takeyour little hammy, fill in your
call sign on the disc and thenthe little disc gets affixed to
the bottom of the hammy and youcan place that anywhere on that
vehicle and lo and behold, Iguarantee if you want to sit
back and watch the action playout, I tell you it's a blast,
because when people get thesethings they're like looking at

(03:21):
them, going what little.
We've been getting a lot offeedback from them and again,
it's just a great cool way to beable to show people.
Hey, I see your cool antennason your car and, uh, you know, I
want to.
You know, make sure you knowhow cool you are as a ham radio
operator.
Um, and, like I've always saidso far, you know it is getting
warmer around here and guesswhat ham fests are coming out.
And so what better place to,you know, plant your little

(03:43):
surprises to show off how coolpeople are in our ham radio
community.
And you, like I said, you canhead over to get hamcom, pick
yours up there anytime, day ornight.
So, continuing on, we always saywe love your feedback, we want
to hear from our community.
So you can always reach out tous in three different ways.

(04:03):
You can obviously use the SMSlink in all of our show notes.
That's available in thedescription below and make sure
when you do if you send us aquick text message that you
include your call sign and yourfirst name.
That way we can give you credit.
Otherwise you're just a fourdigit number and you know we
have no idea who to apply thecredit to, and we'll love to
share that in our next episode.
You can always then leave us avoicemail.

(04:25):
I can't tell you how many timeswe've had a bunch of voicemails
already.
You guys have heard them.
Every time we get them.
We like to play them for folks.
We love the creativity that youguys are throwing at us, so
keep it coming.
And again, you can always reachus anytime, day or night.
And if you're listening to thison the podcast right now, heck,
hit the pause button dial.
If you're listening to this onthe podcast right now, heck, hit
the pause button Dial.

(04:46):
978-233-1142.
Leave us a message, let us knowyou're listening and we'll be
sure to mention you on the nextlive stream and throw you some
love that way.
And you know, as always we liketo make sure that you know.
You guys really know that verywell.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
And so with that we're going to just kick into
our Midnight snack.
They've got the scoop Neverlooking back, Stories, news and
quirky bits.
It's the podcast that's full ofhits.
So live free and have you knowyou can Join the fun.

(05:38):
Be the biggest fan, Call thatnumber and land a near Live free
and have it's crystal clear.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
It is.
It's crystal clear.
It is spelled out literally inthat jingle there.
If you haven't gotten it,commit that number, make us not
regret it, because we'll have tocome over and tattoo it on your
arm or something you know, justto get the point across that we
want to hear from you guys.
It's simple as that.
So leave us a voicemail,anytime, day or night.
We want to.
You know, hear what you guyshave to say and you know we'd

(06:11):
love to.
You know, see what you guyssend our way.
As always, we always can acceptthe typical emails and you know,
if you're that type Apersonality you really want to
send us one.
You can send N1OG there aWinLeak email, and if we read
that on the next show, then youare definitely in an elite club.
And there are some really coolthings by being in that elite
club that we'll go into a lotlater.

(06:32):
But if you've listened to theshow, you know what, you know
when.
You know.
All right, well, as we alwayslike to say, we have our live
stream every month.
We want you to head over to ourYouTube page and click our
subscribe button, if you haven't, and make sure you hit that
bell, because you'll never, everknow when we go live if you
don't hit that bell.

(06:52):
It's as simple as that.
Oh, wrong bell.
That was close.
It was almost like that one.
There we go, yeah, so you gotthe right button there this time
, excellent.
So, yes, that is the bell soundthat we expect you guys to be
hitting so you get to notifiedwhen we go live.
And you know we are getting uhinto our april month here, so

(07:12):
you know we're going to bethinking about putting together
another live stream.
So, with that, you're going towant to pay attention to that
and, uh, you know, make sure youare subscribed and you're
setting the notificationsappropriately.
So hope to from you, I hope tosee you on our next live stream
and so, that way, you getnotified.
And if you aren't already aPatreon member, we got a little
secret for you.
You can always head over to ourPatreon page and that's over on

(07:35):
our website and in ourdescription below.
As a Patreon member, you get acrap ton of stuff.
You know there are a bunch ofPatreons scrolling If you're
watching our YouTube channel atthe very bottom.
We thank all those folks uh,being uh contributors and
helping support the show.
Um, they get all of our coolperks every week, uh, from our
show, but some of those thingscan be as early access to all

(07:56):
our uncut episodes, uh, beforethe release to the public.
Uh, you get a members onlypodcast which is also the uncut
audio feed.
So, if you still like thepodcast in that form now, you
can actually listen to us frombeginning to the moment we start
recording, to the end, and thenwe stop, and it's totally
unfettered back and forth.
Whatever you know is on ourminds at the moment and, trust

(08:16):
me, you'll be very surprised.
Sometimes I go back and listento it myself thinking what the
hell were we talking about?
Anyway, so, um, and there's abunch of other stuff and, as
always, um, you know, as our fan, uh, bob koff, says, you can
join for as little as threehours a month.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
It's not a big expense nope, it is not.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
So be like bob and come join and be part of our
patreon crew.
We gotta make a shirt like that, so just be like bob, join our
patreon on the back there we go,you're here, bob is going to
get his first free shirt, and hedoesn't even know it's coming
his way.
Alright, well, with that let'skick off our usual Ladies and
gentlemen, can I please haveyour attention?

Speaker 4 (08:59):
I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news
story.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
We got some news.
Slow down, boog, let me handlethis.
We've got some news.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
I've got bad news and bad news.
I have reviewed ship'spersonnel Captain.
Congratulations, You've gotmail.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
We've got no news.
No news is bad news.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, dude Lonely at the top right, Apparently.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
You know I'll give this, so I'll uh our friends uh
tim kc1 qdk and his wife kim uhdon't mention it yet.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Don't mention it yet because we got that.
You know when we get to yoursegment we're going to bring it
in.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
So don't worry, don't , don't, don't give that advance
notice out yet oh, all right,I'm going to congratulate them
and I guess you'll find outlater.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yes, that'll be in our segment.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
That's good news.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
It is good news, but you know, if you want to send us
a review or, you know, tell ushow bad our breath smells I
don't know if you can even smellit from through our microphones
, but want to hear from you guys.
You know, we know stuff's goingon, and so there's nothing in
the the win link bucket there atall either win link is.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Uh is empty other than our, our last submission.
Uh sending us a regular emailaddress so that way we can uh
invite him to join us.
There you go well, all right.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Well, so, todd, how can they send us, uh, a, a
review, or, you know, an email?
What's the best way?

Speaker 3 (10:29):
let's go to our website and send me an email.
I'm about to give you my uhpersonal cell phone number
because everyone else calls me.
So, uh, you can do our discord.
You can call us 978-233-11 whatis it?
1142, and there's a lot of waysto reach us.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Just send me something, come on, please we're
trying to get this numbercommitted to Todd's brain
there's some news?

Speaker 3 (10:58):
yeah, I'm never gonna .
I'm really bad with numbers.
I have to look up my wife'sphone number.
They always say, oh, what's theaccount?
Account.
I'm like, oh, it's my wife'sphone number.
They always say, oh, what's theaccount?
I'm like, oh, it's my wife'sHold on let me look.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Do you have your luggage passcode?

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Do you know that there's nothing in my luggage
that anyone wants to?

Speaker 1 (11:18):
steal, they could have it.
You've heard it here.
All right, well, we'll bumaround that one.
But you know it's not to saythat.
You know there's a whole lot ofdoom and gloom, but let's go
into doing good, good, good.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Good, that's good.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
Good, good Good.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Absolutely, I do Good .

Speaker 4 (11:39):
Good, I'm doing good, bob, doing real good.
Right now, my only outlet is myham radio.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
All right.
Well, this is our Do Goodsegment.
So if you, if I could find myfreaking notes, why did I lose
everything here?
Oh boy, I think I already havethis memorized here.
So you know, man, I was justgoing to read your little extra
segment.
Sorry, way to get ahead of thefire.
If you're all inspired to dogood in ham radio, how about we
start there?
That's a good place.
So you know, whether you mightbe just sitting in a disaster

(12:09):
providing communications forthat local road race or hosting
a POTA meetup, which is going tobe one of tonight's messages,
we all love to participate inham radio activities.
So I'm going to say we've gotone in the mailbox.
They sent it to my personaladdress, but in essence it's
still all good, I don't care.
Like Todd says, we don't carehow it gets to us, just send us

(12:29):
something.
So this one came from Alan ofthe Police Amateur Radio team in
Westford.
He says that he at his next clubmeeting they're going to be
talking about POTA.
So it looks like they'restarting to turn up the poda
machine there, get a little bitmore hams active and into poda,
which sounds awesome, and thumbsup to him and appreciate, you
know, uh, adding to our ranks um, and he wants to send it, to

(12:52):
send it a little bit of an earlynotice that they're planning
and holding a club activationusing their call sign, wb1, gof,
and they're going to be over atgreat brook farm state park and
that's over in Carlisle and ifyou guys are keeping tabs on
park numbers, that's US 2435.
And if you're in around an areaand you're in the local New
England area, they're going tobe doing that on Saturday April

(13:14):
26th.
So if you don't have anythinggoing on that time or you want
to learn more about POTA, headon over to their club site
website, check them out or reachback out to us and we'll get
you in contact with alan hereand uh he can then forward on
more information uh to thatevent.
But I have to say you know itwarms my heart when I can see

(13:34):
other clubs realizing howawesome poda is and they're like
they want to go out and do itmore and they're getting more
people in the ranks and you knowit's just starting to make 20
meters more POTA specific.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
I'm going to try to make that one Should be fun.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, yeah, I think if we can get a crew to go down
there and check them out.
They invited all three of us tocome down.
So you know, we will definitelytry to see if we can get that
on our schedule there.
Alan, we've got a bunch ofthings coming up in and around
the end of the month so we'llsee if we can get on the
calendar and maybe we can comedown there and meet you guys and
say hello and do a little podowith you.
So there you guys go.

(14:12):
I mean there's a doing good.
That is a perfect example ofwhat we mean by doing good.
So you know, we just want youguys to share things.
Like you know, maybe you had afirst ham radio experience with
a total stranger and activatinga park.
Or you know teaching a student,family member or about ham
radio.
Or you maybe demonstrate someyou know new technician, the
thrills of HF radio.

(14:33):
You know we want to hear aboutstuff like that.
So you can always share thatwith us.
You can send us a voicemail at978-233-1442.
Or you can always head over,like Todd says, to our website
at livefreeathamcom.
But if you go to forward, slashdo good, there's a simple, easy
form.
You can fill that out andthat'll go right to us and we'll
read that on our next episode.
But you know we want to spreadthe love, so let's continue to

(14:54):
do that.
Submit your stories, let usknow what's going on and share
your club stuff and we'll beglad to spread the Spread the
ham radio love.
All right, paul, we don't haveanything.
You had mentioned already theWinlink.
So no DoGoods and the Winlinkstuff at all.
Okay, nope, all right.
Well, cool, all right.
Well, you heard it here.
If you actually want to be atype A superstar, you can send a

(15:16):
Winlink to Paul for DoGood andthen you're in the elite ranks
of sending DoGood messages viathe Winlink, which will set you
up to join some of our privatelive streams that we're
scheduling soon in the future.
Um, so if you want to get onthe action on that sentence,
paul's N one OG, a wind linkemail for do good, all right.
Now here is our creme de lacreme, the best of the best.

(15:39):
You know the show that, once itgoes away and he finally gets
his extra, will pretty muchbring the show to its knees.
It's everyone's favorite segment.
And now a little somethingextra with Todd W1STJ.

(16:12):
Well, you heard it here, and,dude, that is a perfect intro.
We're going to have to justchange that, just to say exactly
that.
I was just listening to thatgoing.
That's a way better taglinethan we got going on.
Now we're going to get together.
We're on the same wavelength,buddy.
All right, cool.
So you've heard it here.
This is where we help Todd studyfor his extra class.
And boy, is he going to have toget his extra class soon, but

(16:36):
we'll get into that in a second.
In each episode we pick threequestions the extra class
question pool, and now we aredipping into the entire pool, so
we're going to test hisknowledge and hoping he gets his
upgrade.
So if you want to follow along,head on over to hamstudyorg.
It's an awesome resource and Irecommend it.
Everybody I come in contactwith that's either studying or
want to study, and it's a greattool to help you prepare.

(16:57):
And it's recommended by fourout of four volunteer examiners,
because volunteer examiners areawesome and they just know
their stuff.
So, without any further delay,I'm going to hand it over to
just that perfect person, our VEQuizmaster.
Take it away, paul, oh, therewe go.
Wrong, nope, nope, nope, therewe go.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
All right.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Stay on target target .

Speaker 3 (17:26):
It's all blurry, I can't read it.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah it's a little bit all right, go ahead is it
blurry a little bit?
Sorry it's getting better.
There we go.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
All right, all right todd for question number one
this evening.
How is compensation of anoscilloscope probe performed?
Is it A a frequency standard isdisplayed and the probe is
adjusted until the deflectiontime is accurate.

(17:59):
B a DC voltage standard isdisplayed and the probe is
adjusted until the displayvoltage is accurate.
C A high frequency sine wave isdisplayed and the probe is
adjusted for maximum amplitude.

(18:20):
Or, d a square wave isdisplayed and the probe is
adjusted until the horizontalportions of the display wave are
nearly flat as possible.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Sorry, blow on the button.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Well, paul, I'm going to go with D.
The square wave is displayedand the probe is adjusted until
the horizontal portions of thedisplayed wave are nearly flat
as possible.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
You are correct, sir, that I do know.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yes, 100%, you are correct.
Great job, one for one.
Yeah, so the probe is adjusteduntil the horizontal flats of a
square wave are as flat aspossible.
This adjustment is equivalentto making the probe have uniform
attenuation over a range offrequencies to be measured In

(19:17):
passive probes.
This adjustment is usually asmall adjustable capacitor.
The silly trick cubes arethree-dimensional but squares
are as flat as possible.
Okay, all right.
Question number two whathappens when the level of a

(19:40):
comparator's input signalcrosses the threshold voltage?
Is it A the reference levelappears at the output.
B the feedback loop becomesunstable.
C the comparator changes itsoutput state.

(20:02):
Or is it D?

Speaker 3 (20:11):
the IC input can be damaged.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
You know this one, Eric Music no.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
Oh yeah, All right.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
I'm going to go with B.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
The feedback loop becomes unstable.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
I'm going to take a wild guess and say C Okay, well,
b is not the correct answer andC is the correct answer.
Love it when applying goodguess.
So a comparator does a greaterthan less than test on two

(20:57):
voltages, one of which is oftena fixed voltage reference.
When the input signal crossesover the threshold, ie the fixed
reference voltage, that outputgoes high.
When it crosses below thethreshold, the output goes low.
Thus the comparator changes itsoutput state.

(21:18):
There you go.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
Things that could have been brought to my
attention yesterday.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yes, the third and final question of the night, and
so far you're 50%.
What is Out of two.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yes, I'm still failing.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Alright, the third and final question what is the
yes Still failing?
All right.
The third and final questionwhat is the purpose of placing
an electrostatic shield around asmall loop direction-finding
antenna?
Is it A it eliminatesunbalanced capacitive coupling

(22:02):
to the antenna's surroundings,improving the depth of its nulls
.
B it eliminates tracking errorscaused by strong out-of-band
signals.
C it increases signal strengthby providing a better match to
the feed line.

(22:23):
Providing a better match to thefeed line?
Or is it D?
It adds capacitive loading,increasing the bandwidth of the
antenna I'm gonna go with A.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, I originally dived in thinking it was D, but
it's definitely basicallycoupling the antenna surrounding
, so it improves its nulls.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
And A is the correct answer.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
I am still an extra.
I am still an extra.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Now maybe we should just do my real test like this,
Can we?
Do that, so I make fun of youif you mess up, you just ask the
questions and then I can knowhow I'm doing.
Oh right, when I get towhatever I need, I can just quit
and be like I'm done.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
So we'll just set it up in a you know big giant, you
know game show event, and onenumber will be wrong answers,
the other one will be rightanswers and it buzzer time and
you screwed up.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
So just to give an explanation loops are sensitive
to magnetic fields and theelectric field interactions that
may be present are an undesiredeffect.
A grounded shield eliminatesthose interactions, which are
most noticeable when the antennais otherwise not receiving a
signal, which is in the null.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
Oh, the nulls.
Well, wow, okay.
Well, I've successfully passedall three questions.
Okay, but that was probably theonly time I've passed all three
in several months, so it'sstill, but Todd got two out of
three.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah, three in several months, so it's still,
but todd got two out of three,yeah there you go all right.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Well, so if you're on the journey of studying your
technician general or extraclass, like todd, then in that
case ham studyorg is an awesomeresource for getting your ticket
.
And so, like we say everyepisode, maybe you recently got
your license or you got upgraded, and we're going to talk about
that in a second we want torecognize you on your next
episode, on the next episode, Ishould say, for your hard work

(24:34):
and effort, even though theydidn't send anything in.
We're really close friends withthese two guys and I have to
say I felt duped a little bitbecause I was literally on
Friday afternoon with Todd onthe repeater talking to Kim
saying, hey, how's your generaltest studying going?
And the first words out of hermouth was like oh, I only get
55%, I don't think I'm going totest for it for a while, and I

(24:58):
took her word for it.
So I can't trust her nowbecause she is now.
She went to the test onSaturday and and Paul do tell,
uh, yeah, so we.
That was weird he was likefrozen he was so astute.
There for a while you were justkind of sitting there, like you
know, nonchalantly uh, elonmust have got me for a second.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
He did, uh, but yeah, so we we had a test session
yesterday.
Um, we, uh, we originally hadonly six people pre-registered,
uh, but we ended up having 11people show up.
One of the walk-insunfortunately didn't have his
FRN.
He didn't know what an FRN wasand unfortunately there was only

(25:48):
three VEs that were present sowe really couldn't take the time
to individually walk himthrough.
So he kind of got frustratedand said, no, he'll come back to
the next session.
But yeah, so we got one, two,three.
We got four new technicians,which is fantastic.

(26:08):
Kilo Charlie won.
Victor Yankee Mike KimberlyKates upgraded to general.
Kilo Charlie 1, quebec DeltaKilo Mr Timothy Kates upgraded
to extra.
Then we had Kilo Charlie 1.

(26:31):
Victor November Yankee.
He passed both his general andhis extra.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Good job, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Kilo Charlie won Uniform.
Romeo Golf Passed his generalbut did not pass his extra Good
for him.
And then Kilo Charlie wonVictor.
Victor Juliet Quebec passed hisextra Nice.
Wow, yeah.
Congratulations to all of youwho passed and got your license

(27:04):
or upgrade.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Sneaky Kimmy decided to tell all of us on the
repeater, like I said, that shewasn't ready to study for her
test.
She was also very sneaky whenshe decided to say that she
wasn't going to go get hertechnician and then all of a
sudden got her technician andgot on the repeater.
But you know, I guess you gotto have a little fun with it,
right?

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yeah, well, so the old saying goes right what do
you call the doctor thatgraduates at the bottom of their
class?
A doctor, right?
Well, so while Miss Kate's, youknow, got 26 out of 35, what do
you need to pass?
You need 26 out of 35.

(27:50):
So, yep, it doesn't matter whatthe score is, it's a passing
score.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
I assume she kept her call sign right.
She didn't actually put in arequest for an upgrade yet.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, no, she elected to keep it.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Oh, interesting.
So since Tim passed, I startedtaking the test.
I took two today.
I wasn't close to passing.
Okay, I got 29 and 26.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
What would help you, Todd, to be able to push you at
a date no, no.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
I'm taking this test at least once or twice a day,
and I think that'll do it.
The problem is, when I focus inon the one section, I get
really good at it and then Iforget the other stuff and then
I go back.
So I'm starting to.
If I take the test out, andthen what I've been doing is
reviewing the questions I gotwrong and find out why I got
them wrong or whatever.
Cool.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
All right, well, you've heard it here.
Keep cheering Todd on.
Send love, send encouragement,send him updates.
The pressure's too much.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
I think we should stop doing this so I can just
quietly get my extra and justshow up one day.
But I got it now.
I'm not even going to tell youguys.
I think I'm doing that.
You think I'm doing it at theclub?

Speaker 1 (29:06):
no way good luck because I'm sure you know,
Paul's already got his feelersout to every other V team in the
area.
If you see this call sign comeacross your desk, let me know.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
He's going to do like a walk-in somewhere.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
We'll all show up.
As a club, we're just like oh,todd's going to show up, we'll
all show up, all 25.
We're going to watch you testTodd, all right Well.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
I'm going to film.
Are you allowed to filmyourself?
I don't know.
I mean, I don't.
I don't think that it's notallowed just have it look like
having me like sit there and belike as I do it.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
I think if we did an individual session for just you,
right, then no big deal, we canhave all the cameras we want,
because we're not.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, you know, I don't want to have to do waivers
and things for all the otherpeople I think we should
basically do that individualizedsession and then take the
tiktok filters and just imposeon his face throughout the whole
entire time, like the the angryface, or you know the cat face,
or you know whatever, justreally like mess up the whole

(30:21):
entire video.
I don't know why I'm a catright now sorry, todd identifies
as a cat this time?

Speaker 3 (30:29):
are you eric?
Are you a ve2?

Speaker 1 (30:31):
not yet.
I've actually just startedreading the materials.
But Tim is right, Tim is yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
And now that he's an extra.
So basically the three of youcould do it yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Actually we have a couple of these Once Eric gets
his accreditation.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, because we just need three, right, and then you
guys will be up my ass like, oh, you registered for the
accreditation.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
That's all it takes.
All I have to do is finish myVE accreditation and I can be up
your ass all the time.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Well, no, when I get my extra, you'll be like oh,
you're not a VE, you're the onlyone on here that's not a VE.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, please, that's the big deal.
You can ignore all that,because I've been hearing that
for several years Like, yeah,I'll get there when I need to.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Come on, Eric.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
I see, yeah, see how it just rolls right off my back.
What, what'd you say?
Huh, I'm actually studying,isn't?
It an open book test.
It is, yeah, I know, trust me,you just have to read the book.
That's what I'm starting to do.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
All right, bring a book with you.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Well, it's all.
It's a PDF file, it's not hugeat all you.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Literally, you just need to sit at your computer
with the book open on one pageand the questions on the other,
and you just find the answer andfill it in.
It's not that hard.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
That's true, I could do that.
I was just thinking I'd read itfirst at least, so I could find
the answers quicker.
So it could take me 10 minutesto do the test instead of 25
minutes to search throughsomething.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
But all your studying will take you like hours.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
I'm not studying that at all.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
The book's only like 20 pages.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yeah, so it should be easy.
I got it downloaded so we willget that done.
I promise if that's going to bewhat's going to be enough to
instigate Todd to get his extrathere, then sure If I get my
extra and I studied to become aVE.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
Then we'll we'd be a VE.
Live free in ham.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, we could.
We could have a live free inham VE team.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah.
If there if there is aninterest in folks want to test
with the VE crew, yeah, thatwith the VE crew, yeah, that'd
be cool.
I would love to do that.
One more thing to offer Sweet,alright.
Well, that's a good segue then.
So we always like to get in ourusual formats where we talk
about our Ham Radio Week.
Paul, what's your Ham RadioWeek like this week?
What's been going?

Speaker 2 (32:47):
on.
Well, let's see what did I do.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Ham.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Radio related this week I finished my Cape Coda
video and I'm very proud of it.
I think it came out fantastic.
I had to go back and redo theending because I didn't like the
ending after I had alreadyuploaded it to YouTube.
That's alright, I re-uploadedit.

(33:11):
I'm really really happy with it.
I, I, I just I, I re-uploadedit.
Uh, yeah, I'm really reallyhappy with it.
Um and I, I did the V sessionyesterday, so I think that's
about all I did ham radiorelated.
But uh, you know, it was a goodweek, awesome.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Well, hey, dude, we're always entitled ham radio
adjacent stuff, and that videowas definitely important because
you are like the last one, butgo ahead yeah, uh.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
So other ham radio thing I got my near fest tickets
in the mail, nice, so, yeah,yeah.
No, it was really quick.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes, uh, so I think I , I think I ordered it paid on
friday and I it was there, yepWell if for those that might not
know what we're talking about,what comes to New Year fest um
and we should step back,actually but those that don't
know what we're talking about interms of videos, paul's
referring to a awesomeactivation that will forever be

(34:06):
a memorable one Um, because Toddwas working, but he was invited
because I've had severalcomments.
I don't think.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
I was invited.
Uh, but he was invited because,I've had several comments on it
.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
I don't think I was invited.
You know what Well you were onthe live stream.
For the record they didn'tinvite me.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
They didn't say one thing.
Let's have WIK.
Can you take a day off of work,Todd?
Can you come down to the Capeand do this?

Speaker 2 (34:25):
We did it on a Sunday .

Speaker 3 (34:27):
And the reason why is because I'm just a general.
That's what it comes down to.
It was all the extras.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
You stood as the general person of the band.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
It was extras.
Only Generals were put to theside.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Wow, this is going to be a bitter fight to the end.
Just saying so those that mightnot understand what's going on
Walt put out his video.
So Paul and I attended a meetupwith Walt.
Uh, the coastal waves and wires, and uh, if you haven't caught
his video, head up to hischannel.
He's got us up there.

(35:00):
Um, and he got his video aquick, which at that point I was
like oh crap, I'm really behindthe ball, I gotta get my going.
So be damned.
I shared this with Todd earlier.
You think everybody would belike, oh hey, great
Congratulations, this is reallygood.
They're like you know whatwould be better for this whole
activation?
This activation would be greatif you had Todd there and I'm
like, fine, I'll remember thatnext time.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
They didn't say that.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
They did.
Go look at the comments.
Go look at the comments.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
They're like it would serves you guys right for
keeping me out perfectly intoour conversation today.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, exactly so, yeah, so, if you haven't had a
chance, head up to Walt's video,check it out.
On um, activating the Marconisite, he did an awesome job, as
always, as Walt does and then Idid mine um, and I got a lot of
awesome feedback and I had ablast going down there and we're
just waiting for Paul's.
Yours is premiering whatTuesday night?

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Tuesday night.
I believe it's 7.02 pm Easterntime.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Okay, well, by the time this one airs, we'll be a
week out.
So, in essence, you know youcan always head over to his
channel, check that out, and Ithink it'll still be there.
Yeah, it'll still be there.
I've linked to, uh, walt'svideo in my description.
I'll do the same for paul'sonce it gets posted, um, and
then you can watch excuse me allthree and get a feel for it.

(36:26):
We want to hear your feedbackon it and what you thought of it
.
Everybody so far has been superpositive, um, and it's been a
blast, and I really am lookingforward to the next time.
We gotta get walt to come upthis way.
We have to do something.
He would be an awesome rove guy.
I can't tell you we should do aseven park rove of walt along
the shore a 10.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
What did we do last time?

Speaker 1 (36:45):
seven we did seven.
We need to do, I'm saying seven, but if we have a, two teams
and a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
I gotta do 10.
I want a different.
I don't want the warthog again,I want the next one.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Okay, fine, ward chaser, paper chaser.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
So you know it was funny as uh on on on Walt's
video.
Um, I went through the commentsearly on uh and somebody,
somebody had said you know youand the Grouch should do a live
stream and it'd be.
You know, salty Walt and theGrouch being grouchy and you

(37:23):
know it'd be the Salty andGrouchy show.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
That would be awesome .

Speaker 2 (37:26):
It's like the Red and Stimpy show hey.
Stimpy, what Red.
What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (37:34):
You're blowing things up, all right.
Well, you heard it here, youknow.
If you want to see that happen,you know, put it in the
comments below.
We want to see if we can getsomething to go in here.
It'd be cool, all right.
Well, with that, todd, how wasyour Ham Radio Week, or Anti-Ham
Radio Week, whatever?

Speaker 3 (37:49):
You tell me it wasn't really happening.
I do want to thank you, eric.
You saved the day.
I wouldn't be here without himtoday because my kid decided to
have a sleepover and of coursethe Internet just died and I
went on the phone talking topeople, talking to Comcast,

(38:10):
talking to Eero, and then Ifinally just called Eric and
Eric came over and took a goodtwo hours.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Were you here?
Yeah, it was about two and ahalf hours there getting that
back up and running.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
And he freaking saved me.
The bills were in the mail.
Yeah, it would have nevergotten fixed, he was like, so I
got to buy some more equipment.
This is the clover, this thing,shit the bed Little firewall
wet belly up.
So he was able to Jimmy Ray Sand get me back online, which

(38:43):
saved the evening with the kidsand got me on tonight.
So, eric, I owe you big time.
Appreciate it.
No big deal.
And yeah, that's what handbuddies are for.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Even if it's it related, you get this.
Here's the funny part.
What happened after I left thehouse?

Speaker 3 (39:01):
I get a phone call, so then he leaves and I'm like,
dude, did you do anything to myflex?
It won't turn on.
So I'm like you know nothing'sgoing right today.
So I, the solution was unplugit, unplug the, the power supply
, let it sit overnight, comeback.
And I did it this morning andnothing.
I'm like you gotta be fuckingshit me.
I'm like I am not sending thisflex back.

(39:22):
So I think what happened in theback of my rack is a plugin
that everything, all the uhpower poles plug in.
I and I think the one, um, oh,the fuse, the fuse.
But I couldn't, I didn't gounder it to look at it, so I
just pulled it out and I pluggedin another one and it worked.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
So I think the fuse went just make sure the one you
plugged into wasn't a smallerfuse, because you don't want
your flex to blow that fuse fastand you might actually blow the
fuse in your flex.
So yeah, the cheap fuse.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
Yeah, well, I know I got to look at it tomorrow or
tonight or whatever.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
I got to crawl under the desk and look and I just
wasn't in the mood to do ittoday.
I didn't see, I didn't knowthat, ryan, when he wired up
that linear power supply, thathe wired it to like a
distribution, like a power poledistribution block.
So yeah, that would make totalsense if the fuse blew on that,
for whatever reason.
Yeah, wow, well, cool.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Well, flew on that for whatever reason.
Yeah, wow, well, cool.
Well, I'm glad you got thatsorted out.
Yeah, so that's all good.
So everything's uh,everything's good now, and um
part should be in in a coupledays and eric will have to come
back, and he also.
I have to get a new mesh system, because the hero doesn't seem
to want to play play nice it?

Speaker 1 (40:32):
It sort of does, but you've got to get newer hardware
.
Those things have been aroundfor a while Time to get faster
internet.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, so we're going to.
Is that going to?
Is that mesh system that youtold me to get?
It's going to be faster.
It won't have any moreslowdowns or freezing on the TV
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yep, yeah, we'll be able to place them in a nice
little spot where we canactually visualize where your
coverage is in the house throughthe app.
It'll be pretty cool.
I'll show you how to do that.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Alright, anyway.
So that's what friends are for.
That's a song, isn't it?
That's what friends are forCome on Paul.
Let's go, you're in front ofthe camera.
You're slowing down here.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
So yeah, ham radio wise.
Holy cow Like a test tone for atornado or something.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
It said it was a lobotomy.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
I felt like I had one .

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Anyway, I just been on the repeater going to and
from work.
I appreciate the guys in ourclub that talk to me in the
morning makes my commute go well, gets me not thinking about
work on the drive-in.
And then I pull in and I'm like, oh crap, look where I'm at.
So anyway, it's been good Beentalking to our president Ralph.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
Oh, again.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Who gave him the button?

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Yeah, Getting ready to do some fishing and that kind
of stuff.
But I've been really busy withbaseball.
I kind of got myself into alittle predicament where I'm
assisting the middle schoolcoach because you know my middle
school that my kid goes to.
I think they're a bunch ofidiots because they hired this

(42:17):
guy two days before the firstpractice and, um, they didn't
cut any kids.
So he's got 20 kids and he'sthe only guy there.
So I introduced myself to him,say, hey, do you need help?
And he asked me to help him out.
And then he's like, hey, wouldyou mind?
If you're around, you know youcould come out the other nights
and help me.
So I kind of got swamped intoit.
So now I'm like baseball out ofmy mind so I'm going to miss.

(42:40):
Zach has a game becauseeverything got snowed out here
in New Hampshire.
He's got a game Monday.
I've got middle school practicewhere Zach will be at the game,
and then I've got directpractice where Zach will be at
the game.
So my son won't be at the twopractices on the two teams that
he's on.
That I am doing tomorrow.

(43:00):
Yeah, ben there done that.
Yeah, it's not the first timebecause, you know, a couple
years ago I coached my son onthe minor league team and then
the majors didn't have any kids.
So me and the other minorleague coach coached the majors
team.
So that's what's going on.
And then Tuesday we have a gameand Zach has a middle school

(43:23):
game.
So I'm going to go to themiddle school game in Manchester
and then I got to leave like anhour into it to head down to
Amherst to do our game and thenZach and four other kids should
come down.
So it's going to be tight, it'sgoing to be a mess.
This three baseball team stuffis just it's not what it's

(43:45):
cracked up to be.
It's just too much.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
For those that are not watching the video side of
this the Grouch has left thebuilding, yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
I know he doesn't care so much about my baseball
life, but this is a terrible.
I'm very passionate aboutbaseball, and so is my son, so
it's an opportunity.
It's the last year I'm going tobe able to do this, because he
will be full-fledged middleschool no more rec and he'll be
on the travel team, which all Ido for them is cook lunch and

(44:12):
film.
That's it, so, um, so it's,it's like the last time, but
it's, it's a lot, and uh, so I'mtrying to get everything as
much in as I can and, uh, stillstay sane.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
So the only thing.

Speaker 4 (44:29):
I have to say to you is yes, you do.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
And superb, and superb.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Superb.
After one of the practices Idid batting, I was hitting
grounders for two practices.
So what is that?
From 345 to 7.
So how many hours is that?
That's a lot of hours, Justconstant swinging.
And then I get home and I'mlike, how did I get this blister
on my finger, not even thinkingthat it was from the bat.

(44:58):
The next day I go and I do itagain and all of a sudden I'm
like, oh, that's where I got itfrom.
So I had to borrow one of thekids batting gloves.
I said, dude, I need a battingglove.
I mean, it's nasty, it was likea.
The skin was like it's all red,like you know, like fresh skin,

(45:19):
and it hasn't healed over yet.
I'm like Jesus.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Well, you heard it here.
We'll eventually sometime seeTodd in the future in Ham Radio
World.
Right now he's currently inbaseball land.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
He's visiting?
Hey, but you know what thatWestford POTA activation.
There's no baseball Knock onwood scheduled, yeah, Weekend.
Yep, you heard it here, folks,the only thing is it's my dad
and my son's birthday, but Ithink I can get away for a few
hours for a POTA activation.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
The weather's good, that'll be an awesome place to
do it, for sure.
Actually, you've been there,because that's the place we
activated when you got yourgeneral, the first one, right?

Speaker 3 (46:00):
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Yeah, so we'll do it again.
Well, we activated.
I was a kind of disaster, thatday.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Oh, whatever, you got the points, you got the
contacts.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
It's all the same.
It doesn't matter how you gotthem, just as long as you didn't
cheat.
Yeah, and I'm recruiting Paulfor one of my assistant coaches,
so he'll be.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
You're a huge embarrassing failure Totally.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
All you need is a baseball hat, and you've got one
, so get your ass down here andhelp me out.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
He's already wearing one.
He's halfway there.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Ted Nugent called.
He wants his shirt back.
Oh man.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Alright, let's start getting into this podcast and
stop talking about my hecticlife you got a tiktok sound
there, paul, you can use he'ssignaling to you oh shit, you

(47:05):
can say it too eric, eric, howwas your?
Like what was your radio week,jesus paul, you could just set
it for it was much better for acomic.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
I'll fill you so full of lead you'll be using your
dick for a pencil.
Alright, well, my ham radioweek.
Well, you know, it was actuallyham radio focused, we'll say
what are you doing?
Do you want to see my ham radio?
Come on, play that one.
I love that one.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Hey, walt, do you want to see my ham radio?
Go on, play that one, I lovethat one.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Hey, walt, you want to see my ham radio?
No, yeah, dude.
So I let me see.
What did I do?
So I had a couple ofactivations.
I stupidly decided to go out onFriday when the bands were crap
.
I don't know what I wasthinking, but I was like I'm
going to go do it anyway.
So what are you doing?
The tapping Crushing cans I wasSorry.

(48:05):
I was like, wow, that soundsfamiliar, like I've seen and
heard that sound before.
What is that?
Oh, weird, that's crushing cans.
All right, well, as Paulfinishes recycling there, I went
over to Great Brook.
I was actually down in theboston area and I was like, oh,
I'm gonna go activate a park Ihaven't activated in a while.
So I went to great brook, butof course I didn't bring any of
my gear, I just had the hf inthe truck and I figured you know

(48:27):
, hey, I haven't activated thispark on 15 meters.
Well, so I tried.
I actually tried 10 meters.
10 meters was kind of you know.
I got nobody.
And then I went to 15 and theantenna was having some
struggles, trying to get abovebelow two to one.
I don't know what it was, butit was a little wet, so nothing
happened.
So then I went to 20 meters andthe first guy I got was another

(48:47):
park to park.
And I'm like, dude, you'rebooming in, and he's like he's
like yelling on.
I'm like it's like overmodulating.
I'm like it's likeover-modulating.
I'm like, dude, I got your parkNow I got your signal report,
but I don't know what your parknumber is.
And he's just like he keptrattling it over and over again.
And finally, when I finallyrealized that, when I turned the
volume down a little bit, hewas giving me the same park
number and I'm like, why are yougiving me my park number?

(49:10):
And he's like no, my parknumber is 2435.
And I'm like you're in the samepark.
I'm in right now, my park's 2435 and he's like, yep, I'm like
where are you?
And he's like I'm literallyover on the other side of the
parking lot.
We were literally I don't knowwhat he was driving or what
intent he had, but he was likepounding me hard and I'm like I

(49:30):
don't know, I'm putting you inthe log as a park to park for
the same park.
I'm in, why not?
And so like that kind of set.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
The rest is that is that is that legal in the rules
so it must be.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's funny, you know, if you have a
giant like, if you go to, likeyou know, yellowstone park, I'm
sure there's probably 300 therefrom yellowstone right, dude,
you, you could be freaking threefeet from one another and talk
to each other on simplex, on ht,and log it, park to park it,
yep.
Yep, Exactly, Park to park.
Yep, oh yeah, he booming in andI was like all right, well, hey

(50:00):
, cool.
And then I tried to go find himlater.
But I guess you know he must'vebeen far.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
That's what we're going to do for, uh, when you
guys do the uh the street toyeah, over to the Miller State
Park.
Yeah, just get two-meter,two-meter parks and then do it
on 440.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Yeah, you could do it on 1.25 if you had that too 220
.
And, of course, just make sureyou look both ways and run fast
when you cross over that road,because people coming over that
hill are doing like 65 miles anhour.
They'll kill'll kill you I knowyou don't see anybody.
I was like whoa dude, that was65 plus anyway.

(50:48):
So yeah, that was my funactivation.
And then, um, you know, my flexhas been acting up, man, I
don't know what it is like.
I've tried three times to, likeyou know, use it remotely and
for some reason it just you knowI've had to reboot it three
times.
I don't know what it is.
I've tried three times to useit remotely and for some reason
I've had to reboot it threetimes.
I don't know whether it's justsoftware or not.
Like you, todd, I've got to goback in and figure out what's
going on to get it to behave.
So I haven't done much remotestuff.

(51:09):
But yeah, the bands have beenkind of okay.
I'm looking at 20 meters now onmy console and there's like
less than 12, no, 18 actually.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
No, it's probably 100 , 100 stations on 20, 15 meters,
20 meters, so on, fd8.
So it's a little tough, buteither way, the good news is is,
after this week and the crapthat goes on this week, with the
weather up and down, it's goingto be warm tomorrow, then cold
and warm, but after that thelong-term forecast looks it's
going to be warm tomorrow, thencold and warm, but after that
the long-term forecast lookslike everything's going to be in
the 60s.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
So if it's going to be the 60s, you're going to be
taking a lot more lunch breaks.
Yep, okay, you're ready to hearI am.
Oh, I definitely am.
I want to go to the rail trailone more time and I'm thinking
maybe, if I hit a good day, Imight Hallelujah.
Exactly, we've all been waiting.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
That's 107 contacts you've got to catch up to.
I've been ahead of you for liketwo years and you've been like
A year and a half, but whatever,a year and a half.
So you get one activation.
When I was stuck in Californiawith a freaking anti-ham, the
potions were in my favor.
Yeah, not in mine, that's forsure.
Yeah, you could barely make 12.
All I wanted to do was getHawaii.
All I wanted.

(52:22):
Hawaii and Alaska, that's all Iwanted.
I could care less if Iactivated the stupid part, but I
did.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Here's my solution, my dude If you forget about them
and you ignore them like achild that just has bad behavior
, if you ignore them all thetime, then magically you'll all
of a sudden get them, becauseyou're not expecting to go find
them.
That's just the way you have totreat it.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
I get, I rush and I get on a hammer.
I can never hear them.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Sucks, it does, it does Maybe if I put up.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Maybe if I put up my vertical, I'll have better luck,
hopefully.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Well, we gotta get that up too.
I mean, hopefully we can getyours up before Shane and HR two
oh, decide to get their headsout of their butts and decide to
do their joint to buildwhatever that looks like.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
We can run it.
We could run it live and justset up cameras and do a live
stream, just a live pot, toddand Eric building and you're
technically a commander classic.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Hey, this is what it looks like.
Ham radio 2.0 and Shane Wow,this looks amazing when it gets
up in the air.
Let's play.
Contacts with the.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
CW, you'll see me digging the trench.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Dude, we can do a whole lot more.
That'd be cool.
Yeah, we'll have to plan thatwhen you're not busy doing
baseball.
All right, so let's get intoour topic for tonight, because
we've done enough screwingaround.
So we have got a listenersubmitted topic and so, just to
kind of backtrack a little bit,we've got on our Discord a
channel that we call listenersubmitted topics.

(53:48):
So if you are, you know, a live, free and ham listener and
you've been thinking to yourself, oh man, I wish they would talk
about you know this topic, or Iwish they'd dive more into this
topic, well, we've got a place.
Now you can head over to ourdiscord, come join our discord
links in our show notes and inour website, um, and you can
head over to that channel andsubmit, you know, a show topic

(54:09):
idea and if we decide to take it, you, as a submitter, get a
free sticker pack and I say thatwith my Boston accent because
those have been paying.
To turn to the discord, knowthat I love the fluff another
and I love vanilla nut taps.
That's just the way it goes.
So, and you know what I mean,go back to Starbucks.
I'm the president of Starbucks,I'm so.

(54:31):
I love Dunkin' Donuts, so much.
I'm the president of Starbucks.
Yeah, it's not Dunkin' Donutsdonuts, so much, I'm the
president of stop.
It's not dunkin donuts, dunks,dunks.
Sorry, yes, yeah, my mistake.
Yeah, you gotta go to dunkies,kid, you gotta dunk us.
Yep, get your vanilla nut tapsand your large regular.
So all right, so with that.
So we have a listener submittedtopic that we dug into the the

(54:52):
archives there and pulled it out, and so we are going to treat
you to uh list or submit a topicby w1ted and his topic was um.
Ever that I grew up here, heposted um.
Heck, I know it's all screwedup today.
The topic was how our liveshave changed now that we are

(55:13):
famous content creators and Iput famous in big quotes because
we all are not famous by anystretch of the imagination but
we thought it'd be cool to kindof dive into it because it just
gives us an opportunity to talkabout some of the stuff that we
do on our own channels,independently, but at the same
time that we do as live free andham, because we've been what
doing live free and ham forabout two years now, and you
know, paul's been almost a yearand a half now, I think is your,

(55:36):
your anniversary coming up,okay so he's been around a year
now, two years next month, right, yeah, uh yeah, you're looking
at the stats probablyyep first episode was june 5th
when we did it, so we're notthat far off, um, and yeah, our
show has been going for twoyears and so june is our first.
Yeah, that was our firstepisode launch.
So, if the 5th of june, sowe'll have a big party on that

(55:57):
and maybe a live stream earlythan we usually do, but Paul
came in a little bit shortlyafter that.
But, yeah, all of us have beenhanging out doing this show for
two years and it's been anawesome ride.
I don't think we're famous.
I know that's kind of a.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Eric, I'm sorry I'm going to have to disagree with
you on that.
I'm not famous, but you aredefinitely ham radio famous
because I've been doing podaswith you and we've had to stop
pileups because someone wants totalk to you, because you are
the infamous N1J you are.
They love your videos.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
So I'm going to throw a rebuttal to that because I
think I've been put in my place.
I have sat with the, the giants, the ham radio tube giants,
walt being one, and I literallysat next to him and I was
running the poda and I have tosay I never got one.
Hey, I love your videos, keepup the great work.
It was always every time themic went to walt it was like hey

(56:54):
, I love your, love your videos,keep up the great work.
So that would mean my friendPaul's shaking his head.
Yes, if you're watching thisvideo.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
Well, now the Grouch is.
I mean, he's pretty, everyoneknows the Grouch.
I mean I think we were at thelast near fest and someone came
up to you like hey, I love yourpodcast.
Is the Grouch coming?

Speaker 1 (57:16):
I'm like, yeah, he, he's coming, he'll be here he,
yeah, paul has made a name forhimself being the grouch.
I can't tell you everywherelike I'll listen to like live
streams from the traveling ham,from um a couple other guys that
I just like I randomly they'relike hey, I last week on our
live stream the the grouch wastalking about this, so the

(57:37):
grouch was doing this and it'slike what is like?
He's got a lot of time on hishands to like you know, visit
these shows and, you know, makeappearances.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
It's awesome Dude.
I'm just going to ride yourcoattails, that's it.
You guys just do all the workand I'll be like oh yeah, this
is the general here all right.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
So since obviously todd thinks I'm the famous one I
defer to paul as the grouchbeing famous, more famous than I
, and he's had in a shorter time, you know.
So tell me kind of what your,you know, your, your feel is on
that statement itself.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
I mean, we obviously talked a little bit offline
about it, but yeah, well, so Imean I'll just, I'll reiterate
what I said offline, right?
So while I don't considermyself famous in any way, um,
you know, I do recognize thatprior to me starting all the
youtube stuff, like I mean, Iwas really I was well known in

(58:34):
my local community for all thethings that I was doing with the
vfw and and that right, um, butlike it's, it's kind of it's
kind of nice right to get, toget a little bit of
acknowledgement, like that.
Somebody watched my video,right, hear me out, okay.

(58:54):
So when I started the theyoutube channel, like I said,
I'm going to do this for me,this is going to I don't, I
don't care if people like it orif they don't like it.
I'm, I'm going to produce thethings that I want to produce
because it's interesting to meand I and I think that style.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
I mean like if you did it the way I wanted it, then
that wouldn't be grouch.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
Like yeah, exactly, um, you know, but so, so, yes, I
will say like, I mean, I, I, I,I greatly appreciate the small
following that we've got and andour, our, our loyal listeners
and fan base.
Um, it's, it's awesome, it's agreat feeling to uh to have that

(59:36):
.
It's awesome, it's a greatfeeling to have that.
I can only imagine what peoplelike Matt Carriker from
Demolition Ranch I don't know ifyou guys are familiar he's a
gun tuber and one of theoriginals he just retired.
He had his channel going, Ithink, 18-19.

(59:57):
Um, yeah, he started when hewas like 15 years old, like I
mean it was.
It was early, early on, youknow, like 2007 welcome to
youtube.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
He's like the first one on.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yeah, um, it's like look what I'm doing it was so
cool though to, like you know,kind of hear his progression
from you know, just creatingvideos to to make extra money
for for ammo, ammunitionpurchases.
You know we're like we're kindof doing the same thing, but you
know it's it's ham radio, sowe're we're hoping to make some

(01:00:32):
extra money for some ham radio,you know, related purchases,
yeah fund your hobby exactlyyeah, the only reason we're
doing this, guys, is just tofund the hobby.
That's not true, but no, becausehere's the thing.
So like, while, yes, the theextra little bit of money is
great and and it's superappreciated, no matter what, you

(01:00:54):
know, somebody can afford togive it's, it's all very, very
appreciated.
Um, and never in a million yearsdid I think that, like I would
be making money on youtube, likeI didn't, I didn't think that
that was the thing you know.
And now here, here I am, uh,I'm I'm three months into being
monetized and I'm getting myfirst check from YouTube and

(01:01:19):
it's not.
I mean, it's not huge, right,it's 135 bucks, but it's 135
bucks that my, my fans andsupporters have contributed and,
and, honestly, I mean, that'sgoing to help offset the cost of
buzzsprout and, you know, allof the other things that I that
I pay for to help make theproduction a little bit, a
little bit better, and I onlyhope that, as time goes on and

(01:01:41):
the fan base grows, that I'mable to continue to upscale the
production and the type ofgiveaways that I've got
available to offer.
I'm very appreciative thatanybody, you know anybody's,
willing to listen to me talkabout anything.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
But that's the nice part about YouTube is that you
have a place and a voice.
Like it's funny, cause I'veseen your evolution.
You know, from you starting andnot to say like I want to get
sappy about this, but you know,it's like I remember when we had
the conversations you were likeoh, youtube, I don't know if I
want to do this.
I hate Facebook, I hate YouTube, I hate social media, blah,
blah, blah.
Like I mean, everything waslike the grouch in its early

(01:02:25):
form.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
I still, I still refuse to use the book of faces,
and you know social media, sobut yeah, you've did basically
like your channel just isliterally just like to be.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
To be truthfully honest, I am totally like
enamored and surprised because II always knew you were the type
to just like, hey, once I'mgoing to get into it, I'm going
to get into whole hog and I'mjust going to go at it and do it
however I want.
But like the fact that like allof a sudden, like one day you
weren't doing it and the otherday you're like, hey, I'm doing
this weekend warriors thing andit's like I'm like where did
this come from?
Like I mean, like I didn't have.

(01:03:00):
Like the paul, who's the quietguy sort of like, wants to like
chime in a little bit here andthere, you know, it's just, you
know very good when you give himthe stage to talk about
something topic wise, but, dude,he's like doing his own thing,
own production, and I'm justlike sitting back going.
This is cool, this is awesometo see.
So it's always fun to see thatside of YouTubers that you're
good friends with, obviouslyoffside of being YouTubers, but

(01:03:21):
just being able to hang out andsee that progression and then
see a side of you, that's notdifferent.
I mean, it's the same.
I get the grouch whether he'son YouTube or not, and we don't
have to worry about it.
He's not always grouchy.
No, but grouchy, like we allknow, oscar the Grouch growing
up, because I grew up on PBS, Ithink he was always somewhat
grouchy, but he was also kind ohyeah, oscar the Grouch I'm

(01:03:42):
saying, paul is not alwaysgrouchy no, no.

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
I've hung out with him and he hasn't been grouchy.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
You caught me on good days.
Yeah, I got you on a good daybut yeah, so it's been.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
It's been really cool to see like all of that aspect.
And you know I'm awesome to seethe channel just going and
exploding because you havesurpassed.
You know, not that we weregrasshopper master, but like I
remember when you were like dude, you were 2000.
I'm like, yeah, but you'll getthere soon and all of a sudden
this is like you put it in,where you went from first gear
to fourth gear and then you justlike blew by me.
It was like like whoa, dude,it's awesome.

(01:04:17):
It was like really cool to seeyou and I was like, okay, well,
I've been slacking then.
So now I've got like I love thelittle game of competition to
play.
You know he's doing this andhe's working that.
I was like, okay, well, how canI turn my volume up a little
bit to get more people involved?

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
So yeah, which is good.
You know.
We should, as friends, you know, encourage and push each other
to continue to, you know, getout of our comfort zones and,
you know, try something new.
And even if that's something assimple, as you know, wasting
six hours out of your daysitting down and trying to

(01:04:59):
figure out how to do magic,masking and Da Vinci Like yeah
just hold on.
you know seats man we could usethis episode to help our fan

(01:05:21):
base understand is like thereare countless hours that are
spent trying to learn and figureout new things to up the
production level and up likewhat we're putting out to our,
to our you know, our fans andand I and I and I hope that,
like todd learns from all of ourmistakes and he just like jumps
into the video thing like feetfirst with with all of our

(01:05:45):
mistakes already under his belt.
Yeah, because, dude, I'mtelling you, like you'll, you'll
, you'll grow like hotcakes ifyou just learn from the mistakes
that we've already made.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
Yeah, yeah, don't dive into an empty pool with no
helmet on your head, kind ofthing.
You know, it's just the way yougot to look at it.
You know I'll be honest withyou.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
I mean I love watching your guys' videos and I
think it's helped this podcasta lot.
You know, huge contribution.
I think a lot of people foundus through maybe your channels
and then they come in and youknow I haven't really
contributed to that.
But I'm hoping my life slowsdown a little bit and I'll have

(01:06:23):
more time I'm working on videos.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
One more year, dude.
You got one more year afterthat.
Then you'll have free time onyour hands.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
And in the meantime, you could be our chief
fundraiser.
You've bragged and braggedabout how great you are at
fundraising.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
You do, you have, I'm not.
My wife is good at it?

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Oh no, no, don't do it.
Like I have had conversationwith Ralph and Ralph's.
Like you know, I was talking toTodd and Todd was telling me
you should mention about LiveFree and Ham.
I'm like he asked you to dothat on a podcast you're going
on to talk about ham radio andI'm like that's awesome.
But you don't have to beobligated to do that.
It'd be cool, but you don'thave to be obligated to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):
So I said hey, throw us a plug.
You're going on a podcast,that'll help.
Maybe someone will check us out.
I mean, I don't know about youguys, but I go to work and
they're like, oh, you do apodcast.
I'm like, yeah, you shouldcheck it out Live free at ham.
And then I'm like you guys areall probably hate it, but when I
set up my flex at my office andI get it on my iPad and I'm

(01:07:24):
just fucking around and I make acontact to, like you know,
europe or something, they'relike dude, that was over the
radio.
Like yeah.
I'm like, oh, wow, can you dothat again, you know?
I'm like, yeah, oh, you want togo out.
You want to go out to lunch,I'll show you.
It's a real fun.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Trust me, dude, I will never, ever turn you away
from self-promoting of the hobby, because even though it's like
a little odd or weird.
Sometimes I'm like dude.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
I'm going to do more of it because I'm going to get
more and more.
You know, I work in a schoolthat has a really big what do
they call that when they do likethe trade yeah, stem, is that
what it's called?
Stem, where they do all thetrades and stuff.
So you know, there's a bunch ofpeople that they do radio stuff
and I said, well, let's dofreaking radio.

(01:08:14):
I'll get you all set up here,I'll bring some of my buddies.
The problem is, is you got todeal with all the political bs?
You have the approval, yougotta do this, you gotta do that
.
I said you know, one of thesedays I'm just gonna freaking
come park my ass in the middleof the football field and set up
and I said you're gonna have noone in class because they're
all gonna come see me, like what?

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
the hell is this guy?
Well, let me know when you'reready to stage.
I'll reach out to good game,because he is like so every time
I mention him, I've gotteachers lined up.
He's like when are they gonnacall me back?
When are they gonna sign up forti?
When are they gonna startmoving?
I'm like I'm trying to get themto move towards that.
So yeah, I mean, when you'reready to kind of do that, let me
know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
Yeah, but if you're going if I'm talking to someone,
they're like oh, we're going ona podcast, that's like a big
podcast, like this podcast ispretty, they've got a big
downloads, we're good.
I said fricking, throw thefriend ham out there.
You know, ralph hooked me up.
Yeah, dude, do it.
I also want to.
I don't know how many people inour club even watch our podcast

(01:09:08):
.
When I was doing a net, Ialways brought up live for in
handcom, where I worked.
We got to record anotherpodcast today.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Well, you've got at least three people recognize
your voice, so I have to saythat you know, out of those
three people go oh, you're onLive Free and Ham.
There are people out therelistening, so we appreciate
folks.

Speaker 3 (01:09:26):
And when Keith came up to me, he goes.
He came to our club for likethe first time and Ralph's like,
oh, you got to meet this guy.
He's all in the poda and thenhe goes are you on a pod, are
you on live free?
And ham, I'm like, oh yeah, I'mlike, have you heard about us?
He goes.
I was just listening to you onmy ride that's awesome.
Yeah, that was classic too yeah,I was like what the hell, yeah,

(01:09:50):
but no, that was, um, that wasgood stuff.
So, anyway, I mean I, I thinkit's I, I, I am really
interested in doing it and I amslowly learning the video stuff.
I'm very slow at it.
I've been watching a lot ofvideos on how to form it up,
because what ends up happeningto me is I get so much fricking
stuff from videos.
Like I'm working on a videothat I did when I was with my

(01:10:11):
brother in California with allthese dolphins and sharks and
sea lions and shit out in theboat in the middle of the ocean
and there's just so much clipsand so many things.
It's like how do I evenorganize it all?
And then I'm like, well, I haveto organize, I can't have it
too long and I got to, you know.
So it's kind of like my show.
So I've been watching howpeople are organized and stuff

(01:10:32):
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
So I envy you guys, the listeners who aren't
watching the video on thepodcast.
You see paul's face, it's kindof just like blank.
And that's my face.
When I have to go through thesix bazillion clips I have and
go, I'm tired of like goingthrough the 55th time I've
activated trying to find thatone clip because I don't pay
attention when I'm in the heatof the you know the boda well,
look at I, I'm going to beresourceful.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
So.
So, as Eric was here yesterdayfixing my internet, the kids
were upstairs and guess whatthey were doing?
They were making videos ofSpider-Man diving overhead
different angles, and you knowthey're using what?
Is it CapCut or something toput on Snapchat or whatever?
So I'm like, hmm, there's myboy getting into videos.

(01:11:18):
Maybe I can hire him, Because Ibuy him everything anyway.
Maybe I can get my money backand say all right, you want this
, you want a new pencil bat?
Well, I got three videos thatneed to be made.
Get on it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
You heard it here slave labor, it's all right.
Slave labor, it's accepted nowbecause they're doing it in
Florida, right?

Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
Yeah, I tell them all the time I said the only reason
I had you is so you could dothe chores around the house,
like cut the grass, make yourold enough now to learn how to
do that.
He goes that's not true?

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Well, Todd, you're really good at social media, so
I'm looking for a social mediamanager.
You could be my social mediamanager and I'll pay you when I
get paid, Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
All right, I'll start now.
We all know what they have inthe world.
I'll start now and.
I'll promote you, I'll promoteall you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
Well, here's the benefit is you can make all the
mistakes on Paul's channel,bring him down to zero subs and
then get yours boosted up.

Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
At that point you're gonna be like todd takes off to
4 000 subscribers n1og is movingto w1stjcom totally I'd never
do that to paul.
Come on oh totally man.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
He's going to have to show us the way at this point.
He's getting close to his 5Ksoon.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
The other thing that I thought is kind of cool and
it's more, I think, from you twois the way we have, over the
last two years, have kind ofbeen known through um the other,
the other YouTube channels,right, like.
Like we kind of got into hamradio clubhouse through Izzo

(01:13:05):
right, and I don't know who metIzzo first, but somehow we're
the guys up North and next thing, you know, you're like calling
me and say, hey, can you get onham radio clubhouse tonight?
And I'm like sure, hey, can youget on Ham Radio Clubhouse
tonight?
And I'm like sure.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
And then it was just from there Then you know, now
we've got Walt coming in, theydo individual invites and they
invite Paul to go do one episodeand then they say to all the
rest of us, yeah, we'llindividually send you on.
Have we gotten an invite after?
No, because Paul broke thesystem.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
That's what I'm good at.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
You know, and then like Burn the village before you
know, after that nobody elsecan go back in.
But then you know, then you gotlike carlos, right like carlos,
and I talked, um, yeah, shit,you guys, when we did that
digital thing right and it waslike just a random thing on the
america's net or whatever thatthing was called, and it just
happened to be him and I'm like,oh my god, this is like the

(01:13:54):
dude that like jumps out ofairplanes.
And then he's like almost likehe comes on the show and he's
like, hey, man, what's up?

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
that was my favorite episode.
I've never seen you guys sofanboy so hard that whole entire
episode I love this.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
I tell everyone.
I said, listen, I go, one ofthe guys that does ham radio,
he's also, he's in the parachuteand I said he does ham radio
while he plummets to the ground.
They're like get out of here.
I'm like, oh yeah, watch this.
And I showed him the videos,like that is so cool.
Yeah, I said, well, you knowone of the guys that I do the
podcast.
He's going to be doing thatsoon too.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
So here's my thing is like Paul the new things in
this kind of channel in general,and he just goes and runs with
it and does it.
Amazing, what's our next bigthing that we're going to get
Paul to do?
We should start brewing that.
Do a little back channel talkand see what we can get Paul to
do.
Climb Everest maybe Is that thenext one.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
Because he's got a bucket list.
Well, I mean, if we're Well,all right.
I guess, if I'm climbingEverest.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
That's got to be crowdsource funded.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
I can't afford that shit.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
I can definitely make sure we get it.
I'll hang out at the base campwith you while you hike up.
I'll just interview you.
Hey, Paul, you still up with us, buddy.
I'm smoking a butt.
Smoking a butt.
There's like no oxygen.
I can't get the thing light.
There's not enough oxygen.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
Watson's like it's fucking freezing Dad, why the
hell are you here?
But oh man, we joke man.
But you know I have to say thisride's been fun.
I'm definitely super excitedwith what the future holds.
But, yeah, I don't know, likeI'm still struggling with that
famous line.
Like I think you're right onthe fact that you know we have a

(01:15:46):
great fan base.
You know both.
For if we just talk live freeand ham, I don't know how many
times when you guys went to nearfast last year, like you were
like I would literally walk by abooth and they'd like see, like
my live free and ham shirt orhat, and they'd be like, hey,
you're live free and ham.
And they'd be like, and I'mlike when I first did that, like
that was a little weird becauselike I wasn't used to that

(01:16:06):
attention and people just goinglike I know you from live free
and ham and I'm like, and theydidn't mess me up with like you,
or you know they knew who allthree of us were and they had no
problems, like you know, justsaying, oh, dude, I'd love to
listen to your stuff.
So you know it's really cool,you know in a nutshell, but at
the same time.
I think it just it encouragesme to be, you know, more.
Like you said earlier, paul,just like just continue to do

(01:16:28):
your own stuff and then we'dbring that into live free and
ham too.
So like we're not doingdifferent stuff here.
I think you know all of our hamdiaries that we've sort of put
out there.
We've kind of stopped a littlebit but it's been, yeah, I've
been a little crazy busy stuff,but I got some stuff too as well
.
But if you like those ham diarystuff, those are kind of just
some of our like you know, insand outs of daily life and

(01:16:49):
whatever.
And I, you know, I I enjoy kindof doing them when I can kind
of remember to do them and andso you know, let us know if
you're, you know, listening tothose things and you watch those
things and you enjoy them.
You know, let us know in thecomments.
Share that stuff with us andand that way we can, uh, you
know, keep uh that, uh movingforward.
But if you know not, hey, I'm,I'm happy doing what we're doing
now with the live streams inour podcasts and everything else

(01:17:09):
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
It's always been a blast yeah, that that is my um.
That is my favorite um.
Part of the whole thing isdoing the live streams.
I have the most fun when we dothe live streams, either with
Nir or with us.
It just seems to be.
I just think it's a lot of fun.
I like interacting with thepeople.
I like the jokes that come up,the comments, the ideas.

(01:17:31):
It just feels like it's fun.
I wish we were doing almost.
If it was up to me, we would doevery podcast live.
I know I have a confession.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
I know Paul said he loves live streams.
That's where it's at.
When you guys say live streams,a little bit of me goes panic
mode, because I like to kind ofhave Not that I'm rigid with my
scripts, but it at least givesme a security blanket to hold on
to when I kind of flow with itand then it allows me then if I
get stupid or I say dumb thingsor whatever, or just I let

(01:18:02):
whatever my brain and mouthdon't connect and let it come
out Like in this environment, Ican say that with you guys,
because you know what I'mtalking about at the same time,
but it doesn't come across likeI'm a total moron, which you
know.
Hey, fine If you think that,whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:18:14):
But well, our, our patreon members know that they
do they hear the rants, that'sthat.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
That's a panic thing for me too.
It's like every time we releasethat, it's like what did we
talk about last week?

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
I forgot, yeah no, it's um, yeah, I like, I mean.
And then when we first starteddoing the like the first couple
of times with the podcast, I, I,I mean, eric, you had done one
with your buddies Um, and so youhad the experience and I had no
experience.
And then all of a sudden itjust kind of, the more we've
done, it just it's gotten.

(01:18:47):
I wasn't anxious about it, Iwasn't.
It was just like oh, we tonight, yeah, all right, I gotta go
down and do it.
And for me it's almost like ascomfortable as like turning on a
zoom meeting for a meeting atwork, and once we get going it
just kind of flows and it's notlike we're thinking about, oh,
what are we going to say next orwhat's the next thing.

(01:19:08):
I mean, most of the time wejust wing it, we just come up
with a topic and and we haveenough to say about it well,
yeah, okay, so I, we definitelycome up with a topic.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
But I feel very much more secure than I have Paul on
board because, um, he knows,like he just prepares in advance
just because we know Paul isthe boy scout who's not really a
boy scout, you know, he, he,he's always the guy that like
always know, like when we'retrying to get to that topic or
come up with a better formulatedidea, he's already like got it
in his head or laid out and it'slike, oh well, cool, we'll just

(01:19:38):
follow that path.
And you know he makes us alllook good.
I guess has been what I'mtrying to get at.

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
He's the most prepared man I've ever met.
Yeah, you're with Paul, youneed something.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
He's got it guaranteed, yep, and for not
having it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
So there's a challenge.
If you bump into Paul, mysuggestion is go hey, do you
have this, and we'll see if he'sgot it.
And if you stump him, I willthrow you a t-shirt myself Stump
Paul, see what he has, becauseI guarantee short of, like, you
know a nuclear, you know warhead, you know in his back pocket
he's probably got everythingelse I.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
I try to be as prepared as I can be.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
Yeah yeah yeah, modest whatever and but.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
so, speaking of fanboy stuff, though, right can,
can I just tell you like howexcited I am for the first week
of may, like I get to hang outwith Carlos in person, and we're
probably going to jump togetherwith him as an instructor.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
Hand in hand with the music in the background, like
walking through a rose garden orwhatever.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
Yeah, no, it'll be more like he'll have one hand on
my shoulder and one hand on onmy on my my leg strap.
If he's got it, he'll give methe thumb Five point harness.

Speaker 3 (01:21:10):
I was.
I was thinking of you, paul.
The other day I watched a clipI don't know if it was on, I
think it was on YouTube the RedBull.
This dude jumped out of anairplane at like 40,000 feet or
something crazy.
He had oxygen on and he was ina wingsuit.
And he jumps out and he hit thejet stream he goes.
I got the jet stream and he wasdoing like 550 miles an hour in

(01:21:33):
a wingsuit, just hauling.
He broke the record for thespeed and the longest flight on
a wingsuit.
But it was crazy.
He said he goes, I hit the likehe goes.
I just hit the jet stream andhe went from like 4, 3, 40 to
like 550, just freaking, haulingass in a in a wingsuit let's

(01:21:55):
look at paul get his class afirst, yeah, but I was just
saying I mean the thing last, itwas like a it was.
I want to say it was like almosta 20 minute video of of just
this guy, you know, hauling onand it had like a little thing
of like how he was getting lowerand the speed was slowing down
and he finally like pulled thechute.
But I was like that's in thefuture.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
So if well, if I remember right, um, it's, it's
200 jumps before you can do acamera or a wingsuit, um.
But speaking of Red Bull, thoseguys are fricking unreal and I
don't know if you saw, but they,they, they did this thing where
the skydiver jumped out and theplane nosedived.
They did this thing where theskydiver jumped out and the

(01:22:38):
plane nosedived, and so they'refalling together and as the
guy's falling, he reconnectshimself to the plane and the
plane goes back up so that hecan unhook and do it again, and

(01:22:58):
so it was just like repeatingthe skydive over and over.
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:23:04):
Yeah, and he jumps, so cool, he climbs in right Does
that count as a jump every time.
Yeah, before he touches theground.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
You can get your lessons quicker that way.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
Infinite skydiving, yeah that skydiving yeah, that's
very cool.
Red Bull does.
They do some crazy shit, like Isaw.
Like one of them was likeliterally going down a ski
resort, like just above thelifts at like 200 miles an hour.
Just whew, you want to talk?

Speaker 4 (01:23:31):
about famous.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
Those guys are famous .
They've got millions offollowers.
Yeah, because they're batshitcrazy.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
Exactly, they have no value for life at that point.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
I mean I'm batshit crazy.
I just don't have the moneythat they've got, Not yet.

Speaker 4 (01:23:50):
You want to help fund .

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
Let's see how batshit crazy the crouch really is.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
I want to get a little bit more into your fanboy
with Carlos in a second, butbefore we do that, for those
that might not know because wehaven't promoted this heavily
but if you want to help Paul getto that because in essence we
all know where Paul's at he's alot like us.
We're all living on some formof fixed income and our money
flow is not always available todo all the cool stuff, and so

(01:24:17):
he's got to work towards gettinghis class A, and that does cost
money.
Obviously.
You know it's jumped up by athousand bucks, I think you said
from the last time you weredoing it.
So if you want to help him out,head over to our website, go to
livefreeandhimcom up in the topright-hand corner.
There's a GoFundMe there.
Chip on a few bucks.
Help Paul out because in essence, he's getting close to May and
so you know he's obviouslyfunding most of this stuff and

(01:24:38):
Carlos is definitely going to bethere helping him.
You know getting the jumps inand stuff like that.
So we're going to see someawesome content.
But at the same time, you know,help him, get that you know to
that point further and help, youknow, any way you can a great
friend out here get his, youknow, jumping license or not?
Jumping license class A license, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
Yeah, no, I greatly appreciate it.
I mean, even even five dollarshelps.
You know, jake, jake fromFlying Torch donated five bucks
the other day.
Thank you, jake, for that.
Yeah, every little bit counts,I mean.
So so far the bills up to fivegrand, um, and, and of course it

(01:25:22):
could go up from there if Ihave to repeat jumps.
So, yeah, it's a, it's it'scertainly not a cheap venture,
um, and, and I'm I'm hearingabout it all the time for the
wife, so but uh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):
So, yeah, help him.
I mean, you gotta get someawesome content.
I, I guarantee hanging out withcarlos is just just alone.
That content value is gonna befreaking through the roof just
to watch paul get super excitedabout anything carlos says.
We just cool it up.
But uh, yeah, looking forwardto all that stuff and even that
he's gonna be doing some potasout there.

(01:25:57):
So if you're, you know, headingout that way, you know, look
them up, make sure you hit themup on, you know, the spotting
page too as well, because he'llbe traveling sometime in May.
So we'll get you more updatedon that, as we kind of, you know
, get all the details ironed outand we get closer to May.
But yeah, dude, that's justanother cool thing that we get
to do as YouTubers.
Not to do as YouTubers, butjust our bucket list.

(01:26:20):
I mean, you decided that youonly have what?
15 more years left of your life, so you're going to get every
fucking thing done as your bossweekend, something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
So what I'll do right is, as I figure out where I'm
stopping in each state, from NewHampshire to Illinois and then
back, I'll post the schedule upon my channel and I'll post it
up on the Live Free at Hamchannel as well.
So that way, if you're in oneof those northern states that

(01:26:53):
I'm going to pass through andyou want to meet up for a quick
POTA, let's do that.
If, uh, if you're in one ofthose Northern States that I'm
going to, I'm going to passthrough, and you want to meet up
for a quick POTA, like, let'sdo that and we'll, we'll record
it, we'll make a video out of it, We'll have a lot of fun with
it and, uh, we'll, we'll put itup on both.
We'll put it up on bothchannels.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
So that way, uh, you know my budget currently is not
letting me get there but heck,yeah, next year my big goal and
I think, todd, you share thesame one you know, dayton.
We got to head to Dayton.
We got to put that on the to-dolist next year, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
Yeah, dayton next year for sure, I do have
Huntsville booked.
So I'll be down in Huntsvillefrom Monday to Monday, so the
Monday prior to the ham fest tothe Monday after I'll.
I'll be down there at Montesano.
Um, I got camp campsite number33.
So if you're coming down, uh,feel free to hit me up, we'll,

(01:27:47):
we, we gotta do a live free andham.
Uh, you know, live or somethingfrom from down there, you know
uh, from down there.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
Totally, man.
If you want, I'll ship you mystreaming Corvette too, so you
can fool around with that stuffand do some good live streams
from there.
Obviously you'll have your owngear, but that'll make it way
easier to do streaming from thecampsite, so you're not stuck in
the trailer.

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
Yeah, no, that'd be awesome.
We could get a live streamgoing outside the camper, you
know Because?
Not for nothing, but thislittle studio is little.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
Camper size.
This is a perfect size.
It's one person.
You can't put more than one.
But all good stuff.
Oh yeah, dude, like I don'tknow Anything else you guys want
to add to this whole famousthing.
Todd, you're kind of new tothis, but in essence it's going
to get.
I'm just hanging out withfamous people, famous, smart

(01:28:45):
people Now you have stickers,and once you start giving
stickers away, then you becomefamous.
That's basically what I'll callit.

Speaker 3 (01:28:51):
I have stickers.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
Yeah, I need more stickers.
Liv Freenham stickers.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
I got one left.
Oh well, then you definitelyneed more.
So yeah, when we do the batteryexchange there I'll make sure I
throw a bunch in with you.
So I'll make a note to give youa bunch more.
So cool, all right.
Well, anything else we want tokind of add to this famous stuff
, because you know, as toddkeeps referring, he's not famous
but he is is, I mean, he'sinfamous, you're so famous.

Speaker 4 (01:29:21):
You're beyond famous, it's very humbling to know that
people were wondering where Iwas with you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
I honestly didn't know that until you told me and
I was like I thought you werefull of crap, but that would
have been cool.
I and look I, I had to work andI mean I got so much going on in
my life.
It's like I would have loved togone down there and just wasn't
in the cards this time.
But if we do it again, if Ihave enough time to work it out,

(01:29:51):
I can plan it.
So I'm planning on taking I'mone of the things I'm doing is
I'm taking some time off.
I mean I took last summer off.
I'm taking Mondays and Fridays,I think, off for the summer, as
many as I can, so I can havelong weekends and be able to do
some stuff and dude, you'll beable to catch Todd's famousness

(01:30:13):
on things like Nearfest notNearfest but on.

Speaker 1 (01:30:15):
You know, near our Northeast Ham Radio crew, he
near fest but on.
And you know, near ournortheast ham radio crew, he's
always on that.
And you know we're gonna bedoing a live stream soon with uh
.
You know our livery and hamguys over at uh near fest this
year, so that'll be fun.
So if you're you're hanging outthere and you want to come by
and say hello, you know,definitely you're welcome and
you know we'd love to have you,you know.

Speaker 3 (01:30:32):
So yeah, that's gonna be fun too, yeah, remember our
first live stream, or the firsttime we tried to do it.
Oh my gosh, what a disaster.
I think back on that.
I'm like that was like adisaster.

Speaker 1 (01:30:45):
Well, if you ever want to see that, you can go
back in the channel and checkthat out.
I mean it was interesting, tosay the least, but definitely a
learning lesson for all of us,including Ryan, I think, at the
time, because he was doing allof the AV stuff.
Poor guy.
It was interesting, but anywayit's all good now Any last words

(01:31:05):
you want to throw in to wrapthis up?

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
Well, I guess what I would say is I appreciate the
fan base that we have thinkingthat we are famous.
Uh, I, I would say that we're.
We're not famous yet.
Uh, however famous, howeverright, because of the fan base
that we do currently have.

(01:31:29):
Um, that that is our foundation, right?
And?
And so you guys are the onesthat that have been there with
us from the start, and I hopethat you'll be there when we're
done and we decide that we'regoing to retire from all of this
.
So thank you to you for lovingus and supporting us and being

(01:31:51):
there for us.
While I don't think that we'refamous yet yet, I do appreciate
the fame that we do have.
So, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:32:00):
I agree, paul.
Just for the record, we're notending this until there's none
of us left so it'll be it'll bedropped down to two, and then
it'll be one and then the lastone, closing the doors.
You better hope it's not me thelast one closing the doors.
You better hope it's not me thelast one, or this is going to
turn into a shit show.

Speaker 1 (01:32:21):
That's totally fine man.
That'll make it more famous,for sure 90 years old.

Speaker 3 (01:32:26):
How come Live Free and Ham's not been on.
They're all dead.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
It'll be Live Free and Ham the Todd Flying show
Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:32:36):
The Banzai show.

Speaker 1 (01:32:38):
Paul could not attend show because he's busy
skydiving and refuses to get offthe ground or out of the air.
I totally share that sentiment100%, paul, with what you said.
We love you guys, our fan baseis our fan base and you guys
have been with us from the startor very early on and we
appreciate all you guys.
Like Paul said, and and it'salways great to meet you, we

(01:33:00):
will always I will always takethe time, and these guys too as
well always take the time to sayhello, uh, you know, and thank
you guys again for just you know, supporting us and and
spreading the word about livefree and ham, because I've had
several people you know, uh,that just come across me.
It's like, oh yeah, oh yeah,all the people know in Georgia,
everybody about Live Free andHam and I'm like, feel free,
dude, they're not going to getLive Free and Ham, but heck,

(01:33:22):
it's about ham radio, so why not?
It doesn't really matter.
We hopefully resonate in yourown little local neighborhoods,
even though you're not in ourown neighborhood there.
So we appreciate that and,again, show all the love, as
they say.
So thanks again for the support.
So with that, let's put alittle bow on this.
So, as always, I say thank youagain for joining us for

(01:33:43):
Lifferingham and our podcastcommunity.
We appreciate everybody who's inour discord and who contribute
to the you know comments in bothour YouTube channel and
everywhere else.
So keep it coming.
We appreciate you guys and ifyou haven't made that step to
join in, feel free.
The water's nice and warm.
We'd love to have you here andwe truly appreciate everybody
who supports the show and, as wealways say, we can't thank you

(01:34:05):
guys enough.
But if you want to connect withus, you can always head over to
our Discord server and join usin the conversation.
This episode will air next week,so you know you can always head
over there, check out the shownotes.
And you know, hey, throw yourtwo cents in, but hey, if you're
a Patreon member, you get thisearly.
So you know, there is, you know, an incentive and a bonus there

(01:34:28):
.
So you know, come be part ofthat fun and come help support
us financially.
As you know, this definitelytakes some time and resources,
involvement, as well as sweatand toil, but we all do it for
the love of it and for lovehanging out with you guys.
So head over to our YouTubechannel, subscribe there, check
out all the cool videos and allof our craziness that we do

(01:34:50):
there and, as always, we want tohear from you.
So hit us up on the SMS link,as you see the thing scrolling
down at the bottom.
Give us a call at 978-233-1142.
For a good time, as we alwayssay, and you will have a good
time, I guarantee it.
And you can always support ourshow.
We, you know.
Like I said, become a Patreonmember, get some really cool
stuff, be part of that.

(01:35:10):
You can support us at a onetime by using our buy us a beer
link and, as always, head overto livefreeandhamcom to learn
about us, the show, check outour latest swag in the store and
find anything you want aboutall of our hosts over here.
And thanks again for listeningand from all of us, as always,
and from the bottom of ourhearts, from us infamous famous

(01:35:31):
people 7-3 7-3.
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Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

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