PLEASE COPY - Mobile Signals: Ham Radio Meets Modern Cars - Live Free and Ham Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, I'm Eric N1JUR and welcome to
another Live Free in Ham podcast.
This week is the last of thePlease Copy episodes.
Again, if you've come in in themiddle of this, we apologize.
This isn't usually our normalprocess, but we're just trying
to get geared up and get backinto the saddle.

(00:23):
So we have decided that allthree of us we're going to pick
each our own favorite episodefrom the back catalog and share
that with you.
This episode and this week isthe last one and it is my Pick.
My Pick is going to be anepisode we did in August called

(00:46):
Mobile Signals Ham Radio MeetsModern Cars.
It tended to be the one of themost commented and engaging
episodes that we did.
It was also one of the episodesthat I don't think Todd was in.
He was away for work orsomething, so it was just me and
the grouch and we dove intosome interesting technologies

(01:10):
and how to integrate ham radiodirectly into our dashboards and
radios and got a lot offeedback from it.
I thought it was a really goodepisode, so I'm going to share
that with you.
And and uh, we will see you, uh,next week.
So all of our Patreon, uh,listeners, uh, fear not, uh, we

(01:30):
will be releasing our usual um,a live stream, a private link,
uh, and if you aren't a Patreonmember, uh, maybe you want to
head on over to our website atlive free and ham and become one
.
Uh, because you get to be partof the live chat for all of our
Patreon members and get to bepart of the episode as we record
it, and you get to hear all ofthe stuff that we talk about in

(01:52):
the background.
That doesn't always make ourpublic straight RSS feed.
So, yeah, head over there,check us out.
You got a bunch of differentdiscounts on all of our t-shirts
and merch, so, uh, alwaysappreciate all of those folks
that are supporting and helpinguh to keep live free and ham uh
doing its thing, and so, uh,with that, we will be back on

(02:15):
track with our normal episodes.
So, hopefully, uh, with that,uh, you'll still be with us
along the way and, uh, let's getinto it.
Hey, wouldn't it be cool if youbought your next car with the
built-in ham radio controls?
Well, we're going to talk aboutit more on Live Free and Ham
tonight.
Hello and welcome to a Live Freeand Ham podcast.

(02:35):
This is our bi-weekly showwhere we discuss ham radio
topics in New Hampshire, newEngland and beyond Used to be
global domination, but you knowwe've cut back a little bit.
So whether you're a regularlistener or first-time guest, we
are excited to have you hereand appreciate the support and
thanks for tuning in tonight'sepisode.
So let's get into our show.
I'm your host, as always, ericcall sign N1JUR, and I'm with my

(02:57):
co-host.
Hey it's Paul N1OJ, and Todd isMIA tonight.
He has had a long, roughbaseball weekend so he has bowed
out for this episode, but hewill be here in spirit and I
will step in as his body stuntdouble, for you know something
extra with Todd, so I might, youknow, it might crumble pretty

(03:20):
fast, so we'll see how it goeseither way, all right, well, you
know, like, like I said, we areback at the helm.
So you know, we are in totalcommand of our ship and we've
changed all the codes andeliminated all that riffraff.
You know, and maybe you knowfor those who are like, what's
he talking about?
Well, you know, then you needto go back and watch the
hammerdale clubhouse fellas, uh,they came in and wrecked

(03:40):
everything.
You know.
I don't know about you, paul,what you're feeling on that one,
but we're still picking up thepieces.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
They did a terrible job.
They can't compete with us.
Yep.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
And they sold everything, which is good
because that was all of our oldmerch.
So it clears the plate forwhole new stuff and a new series
of shirts which we'll have tocommiserate in Ham Radio
Clubhouse fashion.
So those are soon to come, butwe'll get into that in a second,
Hopefully the hopefully thesales offset everything they
gave away.

(04:11):
We broke, even sadly, and Ithink I actually have to send
them an extra bill for thecleanup of all the mess that
they left, of the extra beercans and, you know, mcdonald's
wrappers.
So we shall see.
She, shane, we're coming foryou, all right.
Well, so to help safeguard thatwhole process a little further,
you can now find us in threedifferent ways.

(04:31):
Obviously, at livefreeandhamcom.
You can now catch us at thoseguys up north and just a special
new one that we just set up andit's a hundred percent
available just for men likeCarlos.
So you can all visit us at anyone of those three links.
Find us in any corner of theworld by accessing that and come

(04:52):
visit us at our website, checkout some of our stuff.
But, as always, before we getinto our topic, we want to catch
you up again on our storefront,livefreeandhamcom forward slash
shop.
We've got a bunch of new merchwe still have available.
If you want to get your fingerson them is the limited run of
the the ham radio clubhousetakeover.

(05:13):
Those shirts are stillavailable, you can still pick
those up and if you happen to bewatching the previous video,
there is a couple of discountcodes in there.
So you want to head over thereand check those out If you want
to save a little moolah on that,but you can go over there and
pick up our limited run of theinfamous hostile takeover shirt.
Um, and I want to say thank youto the four or five people that

(05:34):
picked those up uh, devin,anderson, mike and to mak, our
best bud friend uh, he's a, anofficial owner of the hostile
takeover robert cough, jasonMary and all of the others that
purchased uh and one uh duringour HRC live stream.
They've got some sweet swag.
Um, and I know gray man Potayou know, hopefully he is a
listener Now he is, uh, thewinner of that uh, um, mad dog

(05:58):
coil, so We'll get a chance tosee that on his channel soon.
And again, we appreciate all ofthe help and all of the support
and appreciate you guys pickingup Live Free and Ham Gear and
we hope you wear it proudly, sowith that.
We also love feedback and so youcan always hit us up on our

(06:19):
Apple podcast and leave us areview there.
But if you're not an Applepodcast listener, you can now
SMS text us and so we want tolet you know podcast and leave
us a review there.
But if you're not an Applepodcast listener, you can now
SMS text us, and so we want to.
You know, let you know, we wantto hear from you.
You can just go down to thebottom of our descriptions a
little SMS link there.
It's on all of our podcasts andit's in our YouTube channel as
well.
You can click there.

(06:39):
Leave us quick text, tell ushow much you love us, hate us,
or you know, you know, tell uswe need to get better day jobs.
I don't know, you fill in theblank, it's your choice, but we
want to hear from you either way.
So with that, you know, send us, send us feedback, tell us how
we're doing.
And, as we always say, you know,we do a live stream once a
month and we are coming up inAugust and actually we're

(07:02):
already here in August by thetime this airs and we'll be live
streaming in the usual fashion.
But this time we're going tomake sure we have two-fender
application on.
We've got encryption.
We've even hired a bouncer forthe front door.
So you know, I think we got allthe bases covered and we're
going to be having a specialrepeat guest on this week.
We invited Mark Halibut fromHalibut Electronics back.

(07:23):
He's going to come back, tellus a little bit about a couple
of great things that are instore for us, uh, as we um are
going to be talking, probably,uh, with him about Ham X and so
those are in the New Englandarea.
Ham X is coming up August 22ndthrough the 25th Uh, the Liffrey
and Ham crew uh will be therein and out.
So make sure you come, find us,look us up.
We'll be there hanging out,hopefully doing some live

(07:46):
streaming and talking to folks.
But we're looking forward tothat and so, kind of to kick
things off, we're bringing Markback and he's going to hopefully
kind of set the tone for usgoing forward and getting ready
for HamX there.
So make sure you keep an eyeout on that and make sure, if
you haven't already, click thesubscribe and hit that

(08:08):
notification bell and we'll makesure we notify you when we go
live.
All right, well, let's kick offour usual streams here.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
The first one is our Doing good good doing good you
do, that's good, do good, dogood, you're doing good, good,
good, good's good.
You're doing good, absolutely.
I do Good, good.
Do it good, bob, do it realgood.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Right now my only outlet is my ham radio.
Now we do this segment everytwo weeks or roughly, even on a
live show.
We're starting to do that more.
But you know, again, thefeedback loop is dried.
Don't like I don't know what itis, man like.
Apparently we, we all suck asham radio operators.

(08:55):
We do absolutely nothing good.
There's.
Nobody has any time whatsoeverto email us, to say hello and
even tell us you know thatthere's some great stuff going
on in their club.
Um, I don't know how about you,paul, have you run into any of
that?
Well, I don't know how aboutyou, paul.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Have you run into any of that?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, it seems like the Flagand Torch Society is the only
club around that wants to letanybody know they're doing good.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Well then, shall we give you the floor then.
Is there any other additionalFlag and Torch stuff that you'd
like to promote?
That is showing the good in hamradio.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
No, I mean nothing specific.
I'm no, I mean nothing specific.
Uh, you know, I'm sure we'll.
We'll be doing a testingsession up again here, uh,
pretty soon.
I think there's one scheduledfor the ninth um, but otherwise,
you know, I mean uh, they'rejust a great club, very
welcoming to all uh active anduh veterans, um, so if that fits
your bill and uh and you likeradio, it might be a good place

(09:43):
for you.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Well, and you've got also another side venture there
too.
So like, put some kudos there.
You know, promote it a littlebit, let them know about it.
You know, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
All right, yeah, well , so there's the Weekend
Warriors podcast.
We're three episodes in at thispoint.
It's a great opportunity foractive duty and veterans just to
have conversations about what'sgoing on in their lives and
what's important to them.
We kind of treat it like anopen discussion.

(10:14):
Sometimes we have a topic thatwe'll stick to, but a lot of
times it's just us talking aboutwhat's on our mind.
I encourage anybody that wantsto take part in that to hit us
up on discord flag and torchsociety.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, definitely, and you can always head over to
Paul's channel, which are downin the show notes to check that
out and subscribe to his channeland you'll get updated when a
weekend warriors kicks off andany of the cool videos Paul puts
together, cause I know he kindof infrequently he probably puts
out more videos than Shane doeson his usual schedule which is
every 12 to 24 months.
I think Paul's a little bitahead of that curve there.

(10:50):
So you know you go check outsome good stuff there just a bit
.
Yeah, exactly Right, I thinkit's a magic radio, though Once
you bought the magic radio youtook all of Shane's you know
ability to record videos.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, I hope that I got all his mojo with the radio.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Me too.
I mean a good radio and thestickers in a perfect location.
It's like you say that.
All right, well, so with thisnext episode, since our lovely
Todd is away and not here withus, I will be stepping in, like
I mentioned, as his stunt double.
So we're going to kick off ournext segment called and now for

(11:35):
something a little extra, withTodd W1STJ.

(11:58):
All right, well, we are rollinginto.
Yep, the we're todd, uh akaeric.
Uh, who's orian extra?
I should put that in mysubtitle here.
Uh, I'm helping todd and bystepping in and taking his extra
class license so we can testhis knowledge through me
vicariously.
I know it's weird and we hopemaybe through my mess up he'll
get his upgrade, but we'll see.
So if you'd like to followalong, you can always head over
to hamstudyorg, which is a greatresource to help you prepare

(12:20):
for your test and is recommendedby three out of four volunteer
examiners, because the americandental association was
unavailable for comment when wetook the survey.
So, without any further delay,we will hand it over to you.
Our lovely ve quiz master.
Go ahead, take it away.
Paul, hammer me hard wait,don't that just came out wrong.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Sorry, you know, I just noticed uh, for those that
can see the video, that thatthis layout is really nice.
We should have been using it.
I know right.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
So we should just have to kick myself to the you
know the green room every time.
Well, hey, you know, we learnsomething new every episode, so
let's kick this mess off.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
All right.
Question number one from subelement number one, because Todd
wants the easiest questions.
So here you go.
Under what circumstances mightthe FCC issue a special
temporary authority, aka STA, toan amateur station?
A To allow a VE group with lessthan three VEs to administer

(13:25):
examinations in a remote,sparsely populated area.
B To provide for experimentalamateur communications.
C To allow use of a specialevent call sign or is it D to

(13:51):
allow a licensee who has passedan upgrade exam to operate with
upgraded privileges whilewaiting for the posting on the
FCC database.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Oh, wow, man, that was a close one there.
One correct answer yeah, right,exactly so.
I was originally going to gowith C, but I'm going to go with
D because I think that's, youknow, a better fit for that type
of question.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Oh, all right, I see I was going to say B, so let's
see who's right.
Oh, it's not you.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
It's, it's B, oh, it's me.
Well, you are V, so I wouldhope you you have those tattooed
on the backside of your arm,front side of your arm.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Backside of my eyelids.
Every time I close my eyes,it's just VE questions.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
You go to sleep thinking VE questions.
This is the way it goes.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
All right.
Question number two which ofthe following geographic
descriptions approximatelydescribes Line A?
Now you're going to have tothink about where Line A is.
But is it A a line roughlyparallel to and south of the

(14:58):
border between the US and Canada.
B a line roughly parallel toand north of the border between
US and Mexico?
C A line roughly parallel toand east of the US Pacific
coastline.
Or is it D A line roughlyparallel to and west of the US

(15:20):
Atlantic coastline?
So where around the U, aroundthe US, is line A?

Speaker 1 (15:27):
You know, it's one of those things that it sort of
makes me think that we'relooking at.
Oh man, is line A Canada and US.
Why does that seem to stickwith me?
I know we had this conversationor I've heard it somewhere.
Yeah, we're going to go with A.
We've definitely had thisconversation.
Yeah, we're going to stick withme, because I know we had this
conversation or I've heard itsomewhere.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
We've definitely had thisconversation.

Speaker 1 (15:47):

Speaker 2 (15:50):
A is correct.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, woohoo, all right, something sticks.
I'm not getting as old as Ithought.
Woohoo, all right, I pat myselfon the back.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
For the third and final question.
For the third and finalquestion which VHF amateur bands
have frequencies authorized forspace stations?
Is it A, 2 meters and 1.25meters?
B 6 meters, 2 meters and 1.25?
.
C, 2 meters only?

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Or D, 6 meters and two meters.
Well, alex, I am almostpositive.
I think it is the C, because Idon't think any of the other
bands offer anything else.
So I'm going to go with C.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
You are correct, c it is, so two out of three ain't
bad no, no, dude, I you know Ipulled it out.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
You're welcome, todd.
That's all I have to say.
You know that's 70.
Pretty much at this way I lookat it all right.
Well, you know, my my trainwreck of an attempt here, it
wasn't too bad.
You know, I can actually put myhead on my pillow tonight and
know that I am still an extra.
So it's always a good thing.
They can't take away myprivileges, or at least the FC
currently, unless they have alegit reason why.

(17:11):
But we won't go into it.
And so if you're on the journeyto studying for your technician
, general or extra class, likeTodd, you can go to hamstudyorg,
as it is an excellent resourcefor getting your ticket.
And we want to know if you'verecently received your license
or you've been upgraded.
You know, let us know.
We want to celebrate when yourhard effort and your work.

(17:31):
So just send us a quick email,livefreeandham at gmailcom and
we'll make sure we mentioned youon the show and give you some
props.
So with that, you know, asalways, we thank you guys for
tolerating our torture.
I know, I know we almost gotlynched on the ham radio
clubhouse because we ran ourregular show and they're like

(17:51):
what the hell is this crap?
And so we survived.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
We came out.
That's a drinking podcast.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, exactly right, that's all that podcast is, and
maybe a little ham radio.
I think we overkilled them withham radio, that we lost a lot
of people.
They're like why are theytalking about ham radio?
I think we overkilled them withham radio, that we lost a lot
of people.
They're like why are theytalking about ham radio?
All right, well, anyway, so inour usual format, we're gonna
talk uh, you know how's yourhammer, you rick paul, what's
what's been going on?
Any ham radio at all?

Speaker 2 (18:19):
uh, yeah, well, so this week has been tough.
Uh, there's been a lot of solaractivity, a lot of um, x-class
uh, m-class players, cmes.
There was a, a cannibal cme,because I guess it was um like
three that uh all kind of cameout together and so the one just
ate the other two and itcreated a much bigger blast uh,

(18:42):
right at us, um, noticeablyrough band conditions, like I
mean, I'm talking s9 plus sixnoise floor.
It was, yeah, it was.
It was pretty crazy for uh fora good majority of the week, but
, um, I was able to make a fewcontacts here and there.
Uh, actually last night it was,it was really cool there was a

(19:03):
guy uh in virginia driving tolouisiana and so he was
operating hf while he wasdriving on the highway, wow, on
the 20, 20 meter band, and I hadhim, you know it, granted, I
mean an s9 noise floor and I hadhim about six over, you know.
So I was able to make him outnice and clear.

(19:25):
Wow, we had a, we had about ahalf hour a little rag chew and
and, uh, I said, listen, it's,it's 1, 30 in the morning.
Uh, I'm done with my videoediting.
I just need to go to bed.
I wish you all the best.
Have a safe drive.
But I thought I thought it wasreally cool that he was.
He was running portable, uh,that far south and yeah, it was

(19:45):
nice there that that that's likeI'm getting one step closer.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
I'm almost done.
I finally have finished myplethora of 3d prints and
finally got everything narroweddown and got the right base set
for my car.
So I'm now like 80 well, I'dsay about 90 ready to record the
videos so I can get hf in thetruck.
And I'm looking, oh, I can'twait till I have hf in the truck
.
That I mean, I'm like at thatpoint, you know, I just want to

(20:11):
start playing a little hf when Igo out and you know fool around
, or when you know the wife's inthe store, you know just the
simple stuff, just to enjoy thepleasures of that.
And then you know my benefitsof going to a podo park.
I'm like, dude, I can just pullup and you know, power up hf
and I'm off to the races.
So, yeah, I'm gonna be enjoyingdoing that soon.
But uh, yeah, cool, you know.
So that's a perfect example,dude, like, even though the

(20:33):
conditions sucked, what'd you do?
Terrible, yep, yeah terrible.
You played radio though playedradio, dude, don't give up.
You know you might not bepulling contacts like uh, you
know every three a second second, or you know like, you know a
madman in a contest, but youknow the contacts you do make
man, they're quality, that's theway they work.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Oh, got to give a shout out to Steve KO4 AFL.
I was having issues with myremote setup and RC4 wasn't
working it was rejectingeverybody and he jumped on Zoom
with me yesterday morning and inabout an hour we had all the

(21:16):
problem resolved and so yeah, sobig shout out to him.
I got my remote station back upVery cool, very cool, and
enough.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
so Shane could get in there and he can get off of
Steve station right although I'mnot sure.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
I'm not sure he'll he'll like it so much because I
mine doesn't rotate.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
I right, exactly, you don't have a big giant.
You know beam up on the roof.
You know pulling multi band offof it.
You know, and he's got anamplifier too, right from last I
heard so.
You know you have a littlecompetition, but not much, I
mean it.
You know, and he's got anamplifier too, right from last I
heard.
So you know you have a littlecompetition, but not much, I
mean heck.
You know you're running akilowatt.
He's only five.
So there is say something forthat.
Oh yes, full power is fullpower.

(21:53):
Yep, that is for sure,especially coming in from the
barefoot community over here.
So, all right, well for me, um,man, I'm trying to get my
bearings.
Like we said, it's been a while, I know.
I've been on some vacations onand off here, so my ham radio
weeks, um, I ended up actuallygetting a chance to go activate
again.
Um, I took my daughter with me.
Um, yeah, her and her, uh, youknow she came, brought her art

(22:16):
book, but I didn't understandwhy.
So we brought the dog in tow,went up to mount aggie and and
york main, um, and it's rightaround the.
You know, I think it was a G3storm right around that week too
, and I knew kind of going in itthat I was going to be like you
know, the bands aren't going tobe great.
I'll be lucky if I pulled 10.
I think I pulled like 35contacts in about almost an hour

(22:36):
and a half, but I was alwayspresented and actually still
have it over here.
My daughter thought she'd befunny because I was still doing
recording.
I actually two things came outof it and I wish I wrote this
woman's call down.
But to talk about what mydaughter left me, I'm sitting
there on this and she put thisin front of me and so I'm in the
middle of, you know, recordingthe video.
So I'll have a video launchedon the Tuesday night taco.

(22:57):
You know, ham radio clubhouseplaylist.
You know we'll check it out andyou can see her little antics
there.
Um, but I didn't have thecamera running.
I was kind of bummed.
I ran into a couple actually Iwas, I was just starting to set
up when I got there and it wasalready overcast and it was kind
of a rainy day in general.
So I was like this is gonna beshort activation and this couple

(23:18):
came over with their two girlsand, um, she was off in the
distance and the only thing shesaid in the office she's like
soda.
And I'm like no, no, thanks, Idon't need anything.
And she's like no, no, you'redoing soda.
And I'm like no, I'm doing apoda.
I'm like, oh, I thought youwere like offering something.
She was like she's like no, no,no.
She's like what's, what's poda?
And I'm like my jaw dropped.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
I'm like right how do you know about soda and not
poda?

Speaker 1 (23:41):
exactly my.
I thought I'm like you've neverdone, like you don't know what
POTA is.
She's like no, I'm like, ohwell, I've got something for you
here.
And of course I would havethought her husband was also a
ham no ham whatsoever, I mean.
He was like two left thumbscouldn't hold the microphone the
right way type thing.
He was asking the very basicquestions like what's radio,
what's what's this in the thingover here, this standing up, you

(24:03):
know, 14 feet in the sky, youknow that type of stuff.
And and so once he realizedthat when she came over and she
introduced herself, she gave meher call sign and her name and I
totally forgot I, I, I somehowmust've stopped the recording in
the midst of it, because shewas just like a name, like she

(24:23):
was like oh, I've got an eight57.
And I do, wow, that's a lot ofweight there, especially doing
soda.
And so we started showing her alittle bit of the 891 and the
setup and I gave her my stickers.
So she hasn't hit me up.
I'm always hoping she would hitme up on my channel or
something like that.
So hopefully she's a listenerand if she is, maybe if she
recalls that conversation, shecan send us an SMS text there,

(24:48):
let us know, because I want tomake sure I get your call sign
right and give you kudos becauseit was a blast talking with you
.
It kind of made the wholeentire activation that much
smoother and fun.
To actually see another hamthere who was new to the podo
world.
I was like, oh cool, this issomething I want to get her more
involved in.
And she goes to the LakesRegion world.
I was like, oh cool, this issomething you know, I want to,
you know, get her more involvedin.
And she's, she goes to thelakes region um club.

(25:08):
Uh, and I can't remember whattheir club name is, but uh,
again, I'm bad with names firsttime out, so I didn't write any
of it down and I feel bad for it.
But, uh, it was a good contactand so hopefully, you know she,
uh, she digs us up and learns alittle bit more of us.
But you know I'd love to, youknow, talk to her.
But you know, love to, you know, talk to her more.
And you know we're actuallysometime in September I think,
putting together a YL's episode.
So, uh, you know, maybe we canhave her on.

(25:29):
It'd be kind of cool, so eitherway.
So that was kind of my radio.
You know ham radio week in anutshell.
So you know some POTA goodcontacts, but, uh, you know bad,
uh, bad bank additions for sure.
All right, all right.
Well, so this leads us up to uh, todd we don't know what he's
his hammering.
A week is probably filled withbaseball.

(25:50):
So, todd, you can fill it inthe comments below, um, and so
with that, let's kind of getinto our topic tonight, and so
tonight's topic is a little bitof a special one.
Um, we had a listener submittedquestions.
So, yes, you, the listener, cansubmit questions for us to have
, you know, conversations abouttopics.
This one came into our inboxand and I was like, oh, wow,
that's a really good topic.

(26:11):
This one, uh, the contact isjim rice and no, he's not with a
baseball player, no matter howmuch we really want.
You know, I looked him up tomake sure his call sign, the
name, were correct.
Uh, this is k4lxk, um, and hesubmitted a question to us that
says why doesn't the majority ofmanufacturers Yaesu, icom, et
cetera make way to utilizescreens inside of new vehicles

(26:34):
to operate a radio?
I have a new 2023 Tacoma with agreat screen and, for example,
plenty of complaints about theA57D screen which we all know
it's like the size of a quarterand all the buttons.
They're always complicated.
And yezu menus, we all know andwe'll get into it a little bit.
They are, you know, somewhatcomplicated to to navigate.
If you haven't, you know, beenin that interface, if you're an

(26:54):
icon person, like paul is, andyou know he'll contest that, you
know yezu can be a painsometimes.
Um, you know, and he's askingwell, wouldn't it be cool if we
put it on a screen or, you know,integrated it into the vehicle
as kind of a vehicle?
You know, one screen, touchpaint, a glass display type
thing, and it kind of got methinking.
I'm like well, you know, whydon't we talk a little bit about

(27:14):
that?
Like what the heck?
Like?
You know, maybe this might be akickoff for manufacturers to
get their heads out of the 1990sand realize that you know, hey,
this is the 21st century, wespend a lot of time in our cars.
You know we all have someinfotainment system in some form
or fashion.
Why can't we integrate in thatwhat's so hard to, you know,
make a black box or someinterface or some piece of

(27:36):
software to be able to controlthat radio.
You spent like $500 on that.
You know you have to mount upabove your dash so you can see
it, because you don't want toget into an accident when you're
trying to switch a simple bandor whatever the case.
So we're going to talk a littlebit about that tonight and
share our thoughts on it andhopefully it will spur a little
bit of discussion.
We'll open it up in the show onour Discord.

(27:57):
So if you haven't been over toour Discord, the show link is in
our description and show notesbelow.
So head over there.
Let us know what would you loveto see stuff.
But we don't talk about it.
And if you've got some opinionson it we want to hear and keep
the conversation going.
But so you know, paul, tell me,you know what, what's your
struggles and what do you do?
You see this as a benefit?
You know, either in the latestcars of today or like in.

(28:20):
You know, at the aftermarket.
In that sense, like would atthe aftermarket, in that sense
Would you like to see some ofthat integration, or are you
just like, hey, keep my radioand FM radio separate.
Church and state don't mix.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Well.
So when I read the email I wasreally intrigued because it's an
interesting thought and I don'tknow necessarily that it should
be left up to the manufacturers.
You know YACI or ICOM, butperhaps a third-party software.
It should be left up to themanufacturers.
You know the ACRI com, butperhaps, uh, you know, a third
party software you know could,could find a better, easier,

(28:51):
better solution.
Um, you know.
But so I drive in, I drive an,oh seven, uh, tundra, uh, I've
done so many modifications tothe truck.
Uh, I got, you know, 250,000miles on it.
I've driven it cross country,I've up and down the east coast
every year.
So you know, I mean, I, Idefinitely spend a lot of time
in my truck.

(29:12):
Um, the radio that I've got inthe truck, as we've all talked
about before, uh is the acu,it's the ftm 400 xdr uh, and
it's literally mounted rightabove my steering wheel, so it's
right in my face.
Uh, nighttime it, even on itsdimmest setting it's kind of too
bright.
Um, I had bought an, uh, anupgraded radio.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Uh, you're probably going back uh like a, like an fm
kenwood type radio.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Right, yeah, like a truck radio or a car radio yeah,
yeah, yes, stereo, I should sayright, yeah, right, yeah, um,
you know, but it was a touchscreen with a dvd player and
navigation built in andeverything and and and it was
really nice for a while, butyou're going back probably about
eight years and it and it died,uh, about six months ago, like

(30:04):
the radio's just kaput, stereo,the stereo's kaput.
So I've been looking at otheroptions.
You know that would suit moreneeds than just playing music.
Yeah, and one of the thingsthat's fairly common online with
my generation of the ToyotaTundra is they make a seven inch

(30:26):
, almost like a tablet displaythat that goes in place of of
the stereo, and so everything isthen controlled from the tablet
.
And so if there was, uh, youknow an android application that
I could then install and run acable to my radio and get rid of
the display completely off mydash and control everything

(30:48):
right from the app you know likea, like a wfu or you know any
of those types of softwares, butin an app form, that would be
really really neat yeah, yeah, I, I would agree, like I would
think you know, and and we'llget clear the air pretty quickly
here for me, like I, I look at,like the manufacturers today
and I see icon, yezu and well,let's put kenwood in the mix.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
They aren't even kind of in the the mobile game per
se anymore, but maybe they mightget there.
But, um, you know, if you lookat those manufacturers and you
say like okay, well, yeah, theyhave all of these great touch,
like somewhat touch interfaces,like the like the FTM 500, the
FTM 400 for Yaesu ICOM's menuingsystem, they built a platform,

(31:33):
a software platform, and thenbolted it on top of their radios
for the purposes of simplicityand control.
So, whether you go from HF toVHF, uhf, all of them pretty
much are the same you know menumenus obviously a little
different based off of bands andthe flexibility that's up.
But like finding the menucontrols going through
navigation, you could literallygo in with one eye and one arm
time behind your back and knowhow to operate the you know

(31:54):
interface, no matter what's a9700 or 7610 or 7300, right,
yeah, I mean, if you're familiarwith one of those radios, you
can pick up any of them andyou're good to go yeah, whereas
you go into the yezu world, forme, I have a dx10, I had a.
Well, we can't put the 450 inthere because they didn't have a
you know large display, but uh,or an ftm 300.

(32:17):
They are night and day to eachother.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
They don't they don't talk the same yeah 991.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
They don't talk the same, they don't look the same.
That you know.
I mean, granted, the 710 andthe dx10 are sort of like close
cousins to each other but theirmenus are just a little tad
different, you know.
But there's never a forethoughtlike hey, we're gonna do
software first and then, youknow, let that talk to the
hardware.
They were like we're gonna havehardware first and then let our
software be secondary, which inmy mind is like a 1980s, you

(32:44):
know 90s.
You know philosophy of.
You know hardware first andsoftware, you know, last of you
know afterthought, because wehave to have something to
control the radio but to be ableto take, like you said, like a
software app.
I always kind of envision, likeI look at my, I drive a 18 Ram,
you know I drive a 18 Ram, youknow 15 half ton and I've got

(33:06):
that 10 inch display on it.
Love it, I mean.
But the display and some of itis, it's very like specific to
the manufacturer and that's howthey did it, that's how they
built their interface.
Fine, but you know, it would beawesome and it's sort of like
how I have with my, as youdescribed, the Android ecosystem
or the Apple ecosystem, likewhen I plug my phone.
In guess what?
All of a sudden I get my Appleinterface and all of my apps and

(33:27):
everything that I'm used to inthe app world, for you know my
experience.
Well, why can't I have thatwith, like, the radio?
Why can't I be like that, youknow, instead of that stupid
mini didn't connector on theback for the 300 that does zero
of you know anything.
It's not even a TNC per se.
You can't even use it foranything.
Why can't I have a USB port,whether it's B, I don't care, or

(33:48):
A or even C?
C would be miraculous, butlet's just not go down that road
.
Be able to plug the radio in,have my Uconnect system say, oh,
I've got an app, let's justinstall that, launch it, or go
to the app store and pull itdown.
And now I can do it from my,you know, from my phone and from
the Uconnect Apple ecosystemcontrol the radio and see my A

(34:12):
channel, my B channel, thelittle like quick program
buttons that I have at thebottom that I can all touch and
I can just go in through, likeif I want to see my well, I'll
call a phone book or my channels, be able to select the channel
just while I'm driving andtouching the screen, because I
can see still eye level and I'ma little bit more safer than if
I'm looking down at my radio.
Even though my head, you knowunit, is right up on, like yours

(34:33):
, is up on the dash, I stillhave to like look away and look
at the unit to figure out whatbutton's going to get me where.
And thank god I have knobsbecause I can turn the volumes
up or down versus having topress.
Imagine having to press avolume button like that would
just kill me.
I'd be like, okay, the radio isjust going, I'm vaulting it out
the window.
It's as simple as that.
But having all of those move tothe controls of like the dash

(34:55):
freaking phenomenal, like dude,that'd be awesome.
Be like I would be able to havea hundred percent ham radio in
my truck, driving my wifetotally, 100% nuts because
there's nothing else but hamradio in this truck and so she
can't touch the controls, shecan't modify them and I can
control like the radio throughBluetooth and you know my hands

(35:15):
free, you know steering wheelcontrols, all of those cool
things like that would bephenomenal if they could get
their heads out of their buttsand figure out how to make
software around that.
That would be like the bomb Iwould spend bazillions of
dollars to just buy.
You know, a vhf and uhf headunit that was available to me.
I don't know.
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (35:33):
about that.
So, um, as, as we're talkingabout it, right, it, I mean it's
, it's got my wheels turning andI'm trying to think, you know,
somebody would have to come upwith, like the OHIS kind of
theory of things, where it's a,it's a universal in between,
because you're talking aboutintegrating with several

(35:53):
different major automanufacturers plus the radio
manufacturers.
Right and and, to be fair, you,ideally, I think you, would want
this interface unit to have asound card built in, so that way
you can take radios that don'thave sound cards and make them
nice, compatible, through maybelike a, you know, one of those

(36:15):
little tiny cube computer thingsthat you would have installed
in your dash, or something right, like, I mean, I, I'm sure
there's, there's a milliondifferent, uh, solutions to this
.
That I'm, that I'm thinking of,and I'm sure that somebody out
there who is a hell, a lot moresmarter than I am, yeah, they're
like oh, I could do that well,huh, yeah well, hopefully

(36:37):
they're watching, right, exactly, if you are watching, let's
have a conversation because wecan do a brain dump together and
give you everything you'dprobably think they want to
build in your interface.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
But like this would solve my number one complaint.
You know I love the guy butKMurder always a big anti-APRS
person like, because it's sodifficult to build not even
KMurder KM4ACK.
He complains about the Yaesuinterfaces being able to text
and I'm with him 100%.
I don't disagree, but disagree.
But like being able to like, oh, all of a sudden on that now
software display on my dashpress, the hey, I want to reply

(37:07):
to that aprs text.
Now I can be like, oh, engagethe voice and say blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, and ittranslates my voice into the
aprs text and then I can pressthe button on the screen if I
want, or even say in my voicecommand send the message, and it
will send the message via aprs.
And now it's gone over the aprsrf neo.
You know I feel much coolerbecause I'm actually using a
technology that's, you know,lockstep with the technology

(37:28):
that we all pay for on a daily,you know, monthly basis with our
cell bills.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
But you know Well, and it's keeping you safer on
the road.
You know Totally, you're nothaving to, you know, fiddle with
knobs and buttons.
Like you can voice command it,like that would be amazing.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Yeah, voice command it like that would be amazing.
Yeah, that that'd be the onebig thing.
I think, out of the gate wouldbe awesome to be able to do all
of that.
But more so, like, imaginebeing able to actually just
program a frequency, like youknow how you do with your
current radios today, like, oryour stereos today.
You just hold the button orpress it firmly and now it saves
the memory in the channel.
It's not like I have to holdthis button and this function
key to be able to get it to savethe menu.
It's just like a matter hey, Iwant to tune this, like when you
know todd gives me a.

(38:07):
You know you should check outthis repeater.
I can go in and like programthe repeater in by just punching
the numbers and it knows theoffset, can calculate it
automatically.
And then, hey, I want to saveit to memory six.
I'll save it to memory six andyou know it will make, uh, you
know that much.
Uh, that much more of theexperience for me.
Like so much, like way freakingeasy.
Like I don't like.
It's just so mind boggling.

(38:27):
Why, why do we have to likeplay in 1980s, like when it
comes to our radios, like do youfeel that way?

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, I think what it is right Is there's there's all
these different advancements inthe technology, and that people
need to come together, right?
So, like Icom, with their theirfeature where you can scan and
it'll pick up the localrepeaters and real tones and all

(38:55):
that Right.
So that feature needs to beshared on all the radios.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Oh yes, get rid of this Right, you know right.
Oh yeah, and all the radios, ohmy gosh right, holy crap like
yeah, a standard of bluetooththat is used a while the world
not like a half-baked versionlike geizu does oh yeah, it's so
frustrating that the ftm 400has bluetooth capability.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
I I bought the module , I put the module in so just to
have the bluetooth capabilities, but then it it only works with
like certain stupid lookinglittle tiny ear pieces and no,
that's not convenient while I'mdriving, like I, I wanted it to
connect straight to my freakingradio, my, my, my stereo
bluetooth right, that would beawesome.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, that would be freaking awesome.
That would be a step in, likethe right direction.
First step, I mean alone, justto be able to have your radio go
, hey, connect as a device andnow I can hear it through the
stereo and I don't have to crankup the volume all the time on
the radio to hear something.
That would be phenomenal.
But nope, not gonna happen.
No, because they have to.
They have to meet the marine,you know, and the, you know,
police force.

(40:04):
I'm like they would probablylove to have that feature too.
Like, why aren't you likecharging them, you know, a
premium and then selling it tous cheaper?
I mean that, like, yeah, itgets me aggravated.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Every municipality, I'm sure, would be super
appreciative to have Bluetoothradio to their car stereos.
Oh, yeah, yeah, hands-freewhile they're driving, while
they're, you know, having totype in license plates and do
other you know police things orfire things, like yeah, that's
just, that makes sense, just doit yeah we need to have John

(40:38):
Crook on and just, you know,grill him hard about like how we
can't stand, why we're justlike being sold a bill of goods.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
That just sucks, you know.
But do it in a nice way.
I guess I don't know, we'llhave to figure out how we do the
nice way part.
But I I know a few folks havehad them on and you know they've
done an okay job.
But I think you know we couldhit them hard better because we
don't have to worry aboutsponsorships.
We're so young, we're so smallwe're not.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
We're not monetized, we're not monetized either.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
So you know we can drop whatever we want for
f-bombs too.
So yeah, well, yeah, that is myfrustration.
Like I mean, obviously there'sa lot of technical things, but I
think the only way to like, aswe all know, like we're talking
with mark at halibut electronicshe's, he's similar to that same
tinker.
He'll build, like solutionsthat you know, interface to the

(41:23):
manufacturers, because themanufacturers won't do it for
whatever reason, or just don'thave the budget to do it.
Um, you know, but like havinglike his, like you mentioned the
ohis and those that don't knowwhat.
Ohis is a open headsetinterconnect standard, which is
kind of that open standard.
So, thinking in those terms,like it would be cool if there
was this we'll call radiointerface standard, ris or you

(41:45):
name whatever you want to callit, and it's like that's what.
Like every manufacturer justconnects to, so it passes
whatever information it needs to, whatever method, cables,
whatever connection to thislittle black box, and you buy
this little black box and thatlittle black box has the
interface to your said vehicle.
Because we know the vehiclemanufacturers aren't going to be
like, oh, that ham radio market, we need to get involved in

(42:08):
that quickly because they're,you know, a big space.
I mean we're like a smalllittle drop in the pond to the
bigger, you know.
I mean, as it is what Tesla isfighting against hard for
removing AM out of theirvehicles.
I mean, come on, what you thinkthey're going to be putting ham
radio in Jeez.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, that's a shame.
I mean, am radio is stillfantastic for a lot of different
things.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Well, and you heard their reason why right?
No, not at all.
Their reason why is AM causestoo much interference to their
electronics in the car.
They definitely don't want aradio, then that AM would be
messing up all of their safetyfeatures and functionality.
I'm like, really Like we've hadAM in cars for a while and
you've been throwing more safetyfeatures at those left and

(42:53):
right Like, and they haven'tfailed.
You think all of those accentsare related directly to AM band,
because I turned my AM radio onand all of a sudden it's like
oh, my car got into an accident,it's driving, it's self-driving
.
It's crashing into the truck infront of listening you were
receiving am radio, not eventransmitting it already I know

(43:13):
exactly so bizarre.
So yeah, I mean having a blackbox, this would be phenomenal.
Like I mean, I I'm not going tobe pioneering this because in
essence I just have way too muchon my plate, but if there's
somebody out there, like paulmentioned, that you know has the
time, as you know, deep pocketsand doesn't mind tinkering with
electronics and coming up withthat interface, this would be
one thing that I think from theham radio community as a whole

(43:35):
would both be a safety plus buta great feature to be able to
have that capability where I cantake whatever radio I have, as
long as it meets that.
And again, this is the problemwith some of the older radios
that we already face now.
It's like you can't get stuffout of them because they're so
locked, like the Apple ecosystem.
I mean Paul's loving it when Isay that, but you know it's very

(43:57):
much like Yezu was like hey,you can't get into that radio
unless you get in there hardcoreand solder right directly to
the board.
I mean that's like your onlyoption and 90% of us probably
aren't going to do that for thefact of voiding warranties, if
we, you know, still had awarranty on the radio.
But you know, like a goodexample of um the ivy azu, was
it 450?
Yeah, I have an ft 450 andthere's a new display that I can

(44:19):
actually put a full uh spectrumscope tied to it.
I just have to tie in the iffilter.
Well, you have to solder the ifinto the specific space on the
board.
The if filter.
It's like in the toughest placepossible to get at it and I'm
like, well then, that's justgonna cross me off the list
because I can barely like mysoldering is crap in general.
But like you know me trying tosolder, I'm gonna probably
solder to five other connectorsthat are already on that board

(44:41):
and catch the 450 on fire.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
But you know, yeah, you need, you need a.
You need a workbench with a.
You you know microscope and a.
You know super fine tip youknow for for doing the, the.
You know service mount stufflike yeah, exactly.
That's beyond the averageperson, I think.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
And myself for sure.
So yeah, I mean to have a blackbox.
I think would be an ultimatedesign.
So I think I well, so we shouldask really the question in
general and to kind of answerJim's you know point is like do
we ever think manufacturers aregoing to get to that point like,
will they ever allow a, youknow, a common interface?

Speaker 2 (45:18):
yeah, no, I think I.
I think it has to be a thirdparty, and and so that's where
you're going to end up withsomething that's either, uh,
linux or Android-based, because,sorry, apple, but you're all
proprietary and fuck you.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
I'll agree with you on that, although it is getting
slightly better in terms ofbeing able to release some of
the hardware side of things,which I'm hoping in the next
couple of years we'll start tosee more of that, at least from
the developer conference andstuff that I've seen, or them
hinting to.
They're starting to allow moreof that, and again, it's because
security and that's where theirstance is.

(45:58):
So I get it, I understand.
I mean, heck, we were hacked.
So you know who are we.
We're a small little, lowlyshow and you our.
Our password of monkey one, two, three is now monkey four, five
, six, for those that might wantto try um exclamation point,
exclamation point, exclamationpoint.
Exactly right, two exclamationpoints.
There's a difference and acapital m, um, and so you know,

(46:20):
it's one of those things that'slike I would love to be able to
have those capabilities, but Iknow, like you said, third party
is going to be the way to beand so so you know, maybe there
is.
You know, I know there areobviously tinkers out there
because we've got, like you know, like I mentioned before, full
spectrum scopes to like radiosthat don't have that capability,
that now are software drivenand they're small little Android

(46:43):
you know, kind of four inchscreen, you know that you can
attach to your radio and andthose things are pretty sweet.
I mean they offer all of thisfunctionality pull all the data
that you know you need off theradio that you would normally
get on a larger, more expensiveradio.
But now it's better and youknow, even look at like things
like the FX4CR.
I mean that's a full software,pretty much radio.

(47:04):
I mean there's like hardwareinvolved in it.
But it's not like a proprietaryplatform.
I can go in and tinker andtweak that if I wanted to and
make something a littledifferent.
I'm not held to themanufacturer's warranty
standards.
Well, maybe, but I don't know.
I'm sure he wouldn't careeither way if I was improving
upon the platform.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
I'm sure what it's going to come down to right is
it's going to be a ham with somehamgenuity.
Yeah, and they're going to comeup with, you know, one of those
little tiny box computersrunning you know.
Linux or some type of operatingsystem with a sound card
attached.
And the key here right is ifyou use the 891 as your first

(47:49):
radio Yep, Very popular Yep lookat how many people run poda and
they've got an 891 and to havethe ability to take that same
radio instead of being outsidethe vehicle, plug it right in
directly to this interface andhave it come up on your display
so you can have the radiositting off to the side and you

(48:11):
can just sit and you can log andyou can do everything right
there and the first version.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
I wouldn't even care if you didn't have a spectrum
scope either, like that would bea bonus if you could have that
capability of being able to, youknow, do the same thing we do
on the larger hf gear.
But you know, not even havingthat but having just the
capability to be able to doeverything from the radio, um,
you know, minus some of thechallenges, I think, and one of
the things popped in my head waslike I already have a big rf um

(48:36):
noise issue with my truck ingeneral.
If I'm running, you know, uh,accessory or not, in accessory
mode or even with accessoryswitch on, I hear a nice little
hum on my 891 on hf, on 20 and15 and sometimes 40, but I
haven't done 40 much on thetruck um, and I know it's
probably a grounding issue, it'sprobably poor.
You know wiring and you knowall the other stuff they chose

(48:59):
not to do at the factory, youknow.
But that would also require alot more manufacturers to clean
up, like a lot of the rfi andand other stuff, because I'm
sure the radios would definitelybe, you know, especially with
that third-party box in themiddle of it, be prone to
picking up a lot more.
You know RFI in your noisefloor.
Your truck might be an S9 plus60 over.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Well, I mean, you would think that the auto
manufacturers, at this point,like everything is so
computerized that they wouldhave some type of rf protection.
You know, just even for thebasic, you know, your, your,
your, you know cpu that runseverything in your vehicle.
Um, you know why they don't?

Speaker 1 (49:44):
I don't, I don't know well, yeah, why they don't is
because you know every dollarthey can squeeze out of the
vehicle that they can save ontheir own to make on the profit
end is why they do it, and if itever becomes a recall situation
then they'll fix it.
But nine times out of ten,that's just kind of the struggle
.
I think that's kind of why.
Maybe that's why we haven'theard anything in that space,

(50:06):
where we all know that everymanufacturer is a closed system.
They're not the same, no matterwhat.
I like, the only thing anybodywho has any penetration is Apple
and Android.
That's just kind of the marketshare that they were faced with.
They had to install thosebecause there was a big people,
a big user base already saying Iwant to have Android control, I
want to have Apple control inmy truck, get with the program,

(50:28):
and so you know, once theyfinally succumb to that, then
they started making theirinterfaces a little bit better.
But you know it's still.
They're not going to open it up, they're not going to create an
open standard, because you knowgod forbid that.
You know, if they had an openstandard, you know the hackers
would be having a heyday andthey'd be like, hey, I'm gonna
take over all the teslas andwatch.
You know what we do?
Not the tesla would ever allowanybody to touch their software
whatsoever.

(50:48):
But you know any of the bigones like dodge, or you know ram
or you know, it would be the,the new kia boys pretty much
that we'll have to buy.
We'll have to buy kias and thenyou'll be hams, will be
identified by them driving, notbecause the antenna is in their
car, but by driving a kia.
That's pretty much, and theantennas too.
But you know that would be thesecond thing you notice.
Oh man, yeah, it's, it's, it'sa bummer, but I, you know,

(51:15):
that's kind of one of the thingsI think with the hobby that I
struggle with.
A lot is like we are still inthat battle of, you know,
ultimate control and ultimate,you know, dominance in terms of
interfaces, and nobody's sharing.
Everyone thinks there's their,their, their shit's proprietary
and their shit's better than thenext guy, which is kind of sad

(51:35):
because their market space isalready small enough.
You know, I get the fact thatthey're pinching pennies, but at
the same time, it's like theyshould be playing, you know, in
a better space where, like, Idon't have to worry about codex,
I don't have to worry aboutproprietary design or desires
because they're trying to gainmore market share.
It should be ham radio, likewe're all fricking tinkers, like
you said, you know, we, weshould be also having hardware

(51:57):
from the manufacturers thatallow us to tinker more and be
able to do that open standardstuff.
But I don't know, maybe I don'tknow what you're feeling on
that.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Well, so, as as an avid Shark Tank fan, I I see a
lot of times.
You know these businesses.
They have really great ideas,but they have really poor
execution and they're just notreally good at playing with
others, and I think that thereis an existing solution there

(52:34):
where you patent yourintellectual property.
And then you say OK, now wantsto use this?

Speaker 1 (52:37):
just give me a cut you know, and it's just that
simple, like play together.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
You know, play together well, did you see?

Speaker 1 (52:43):
I don't know if you saw came.
This is a sidebar again.
We read another going down here.
But um, you see k Murder'slatest video about you know
helping out who's the guy whodeveloped the Farajay?

Speaker 2 (52:55):
I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
No, I haven't seen that one.
He put out a video because theguy who developed the Farajay
was curious as to whether or nothe should go through that
patent process of patenting hisFarajay.
And then everyone's like youshould, you know you should blah
, blah, blah.
And.
And then everyone's like youshould, you know you should blah
, blah, blah.
And it's like, well, you can'treally because you're using an
existing design.
But at the same time it's likewhy create a patent?
You know you should really justget the patent pending thing,

(53:17):
just so you have at least a legto stand on, because I guess the
patents today are worth shit interms of trying to chase them
down and get, you know,proprietary payments on.
Yeah, you got to get lawyersand whatnot to fight the
knockoffs, but I don't know, doyou have?
You have a good set of lawyers,I assume you, except I like to
borrow them because I don't havemy own lawyers I haven't had.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I haven't had a need for a lawyer since my divorce in
04, so well there you go andeven then he probably couldn't
help you with patent law.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
So yeah, it's kind of it was an interesting video.
Uh, you know, head over therewe'll put in the show notes.
But uh, he was talking a lotabout the patent stuff which is,
I think, kind of one of the bigthings a lot of hams I'm sure
struggle with with.
You know, kind of come up withsomething like this.
It's like, oh my gosh, well, ifyou developed it, you know what
would you have to do to be ableto kind of keep your ip under
control, because in essencethat's a lot investment, a lot

(54:09):
of time involved with it.
And you know that's what youhear from folks like the guys
like Flex all the time.
Oh, we had to spend a lot oftime and ramp up in design.
And you know I remember a fewother guys in our club, you know
, when I was always complainingabout why the heck can't Yezu
come out with every you know, atleast two years a new radio.
Why is new radio?
Why is it every five years?
And he's like, oh well, they'regonna catch up on design and
development costs.

(54:30):
And I'm like, really like ittakes that much these days to be
able to design and develop aradio.
They've tweaked just a littlebit, you know like, come on,
like do they have to hire 14consultants to come up with?
Like hey, let's make thedisplay a little bit better?
You know why, or?

Speaker 2 (54:45):
not even better, just slightly bigger right, exactly
slightly.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Make that, make it bigger, so we can use words like
big, you know big, big, big,you know everyone will buy it,
like, oh my gosh, like, and youknow, nevertheless, you spent on
marketing.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
But yeah, that's my another story, for another time,
I guess, uh, yeah, speaking ofspeaking of ham, genuity and
k-murder, um, I gotta say I Iwatched, watched the two videos
on the solar panel extensioncords.
Oh, okay, amazing.
I love the data collection thathe did.

(55:18):
I love the fact that he waswilling to put a little bit of
money out there, right, and Ithink at one point he explained
that like, had he bought theproper cables, like it would
have cost him about the same asall of the all the stuff he
bought.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Well, that's, that's his typical ham right.
You know, instead of the buyonce, cry once, we'll spend
gazillions of dollars getting tothe point of the buy once, cry
once.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
But yeah, I thought he did a great job with, uh, you
know, just showing us the, theactual data and and how it all
worked out and, um, you know,interesting to see, like I'm
with you.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
I haven't had a chance to catch up his follow-up
video.
I did see that one out recentlyand we refer to him as k
murderer for all of our pokes.
That might not know him, but heis.
He's officially called the hamradio tube, you know.
So just you know, also known as, according to frank um, k8mrd
radio stuff.
So, um, you probably can findhim in both places, but he's
more known Ham Radio Tube andhe's got a good channel and I

(56:15):
think the solar stuff too.
It's right up his alley.
It was really cool to see.
The total volume was from a10-gauge to 12-gauge or whatever
.
One odd.
I can't remember what cable hewas using, but he was like a
regular, like 12 gaugeelectrical cord, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 (56:32):
yeah, but he was using all three wires.
Oh, so, yeah, so one one, one100 foot cord, was um 12 and one
was 10, and and the differencebetween them was negligible.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
I think it was, uh, you know, maybe a, maybe an amp,
oh, well then, but even then itwas still, you know, maybe an
amp, oh well then, but even thenit was still a lot of loss
anyway, based off the length ofit, right?
I think it was like the totallength was the problem.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
No, by the time he did the second round where he
did all three wires in theextension cord all connected
together, the losses were superminimal.
Even over the 100 feet run itwas two amps at most.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
What?
Oh wow, I saw his first one.
He definitely had a lot moreloss over a period of time.
But yeah, cool, that'spromising.
Not that I'm going to berunning a lot of those types of
scenarios here.
If anything, I put somethingpermanent, I'm going to have to
put something permanent in.
But I don't know of scenarioshere.
If anything, I put somethingpermanent, I'm gonna have to put
something permanent in, but Idon't know well.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
So you know I I was interested in it because you
know I've been watching a lot ofvideos on, um, solar backup
setups and, and you know,keeping things charged in the
field and, um, you know I've gota bank of four batteries, uh,
that I I have in my boiler room.
My boiler room is just off theshack here, um, and you know, so
those are always connected to,you know, a commercial charger.

(57:57):
But should the power go out foran extended period of time,
those batteries are running myheat and hot water, and so I
want to be able to throw thesolar panels out the backyard
and run a cord through, and sofor me that was perfect because
it's like alright, well, now Iknow what I need to do to make
these cords you should look.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
You stuck to the great old Ryan.
There he has done a full solarsetup on his.
Have you seen his or seenpictures of his solar setup at
all?
I've seen pictures and I mean hedid all that, himself that's
all he does, he does it right,we all know ryan is a by once
choir runs.
This is kind of where we, we,you know we have heard the
slogan and uh, he's applied ituh very efficiently and very
well.
Um, but uh, yeah, he did a fullhouse solar setup and I think

(58:42):
you know he's feeding it allback to the grid and you know
pretty much living, you know,happily, not uh, paying a dime
for electricity, but um, yeah,his solar setups are pretty
slick and uh, you know, kind ofinspired me.
But being in an hoa, I can dozero, like, if I put a solar
panel, I have to drag it outevery day to be able to make it
worth the effort and even thenit's probably not worth the
effort.
So I I run some, like yourself,a little bit batteries, but I'm

(59:05):
all generator and and uh dinofuel when uh the power goes out.
So much for saving on fossilfuels, I guess.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
You know, I don't know.
I read a study once at theactual statistic of how much CO2
that we as humans put in theatmosphere is less than 1%.
So I don't know.
I believe the actual scientistsand not the hype.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Yeah, the hype and the naysayers.
Yeah, and I actually justnoticed that I'm wearing his
K-Murder shirts.
It's so crazy that we'retalking about them.
Anyway, that was not planned.
I was just happy to end upwearing this one, but whatever,
yeah, this is one of the OGshirts.
You cannot get these anymore,from what I understand.
And now the ham radio tube.
So you know, it is what it isfor you, all right.

(59:55):
Well, let's kind of put a bow onthis and kind of give our
little last-minute thoughts onthis, because obviously we're
not going to be able to takethis process anywhere or, you
know, it's kind of apie-in-the-sky thing for us.
But we want to definitely thankjim for submitting uh, you know
this this comment and and thisquestion.
And you know, if you have aquestion like that and you want
to share with us and we you wantus to talk about the next

(01:00:17):
episode, you know, submit it tous.
You can head over to ourwebsite at livefreeandhamcom and
click our comment form and fillit in there and send it over us
anytime.
Um, as long as it's not to ask,uh, you know what size t
t-shirts we're wearing andwhether or not Hammerdale
Clubhouse is our favoriteclubhouse to watch, but cool,
all right.
So how do we kind of put a bowon this?
You know what's your kind ofthoughts on it.

(01:00:38):
You know anything you mightwant to add to that, or we can
just, you know, put this to restand tell Jim sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Well, no, I would say 100%, I agree.
Agree with you.
Thank you, jim, for thesubmission.
Um, you know, I think we weneed good feedback from our
listeners, um, and so that's,that's fantastic.
Uh, I truly believe, though,that it is going to be a third
party that's going to come upwith the solution to this, and
so we just need to figure outwhat it's going to take and

(01:01:10):
who's really good at, you know,some programming and getting
that computer and TNC workingtogether to interface with
different manufactured vehicles,but I believe that it's
possible.
So, you know, somebody outthere is going to hear this and
they're going to say, yeah, no,I'm going to work on that
because I can do that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Please email us, we'll support you, we'll rally
the troops around you.
Yeah, I'm kind of in the sameboat, I think.
Obviously, the two big giantsin the whole game itself is
obviously the radiomanufacturers, like Geizu,
kenwood and ICOM, and thenyou've got the vehicle
manufacturers, and so you've gota big feat in front of you to

(01:01:52):
try to figure out how to takethat black box we'll call it and
make it work between both waysand work, you know, in a way
that you know also works withthe cell phone manufacturers and
their platforms, because, godforbid, apple doesn't get their
act together and start openingthings up more.
You might see more Android whenit comes to, you know, ham
radio gear, which you know I'mokay with.
You know, I eventually have toget around to, you know, finding

(01:02:15):
my Android phone and startdoing Android reviews from ham
radio apps.
That's coming eventually, allright.
Well, so with that, weappreciate everybody here for
listening to live free and ham,as always, and we thank you guys
for being part of the community.
And so, remember, if youhaven't subscribed, we always
ask you know, what the heck haveyou been doing?

(01:02:35):
And I'm not feet up here.
And so you know, as always,this is the medication and the
solution that we want you totake to be able to get over that
hump.
And so you can connect with us.
First by heading over to ourlivefreeandhamcom forward slash
shop.
You need to apply copiousamounts of Live Free and Ham

(01:02:58):
swag, make sure you get the hats, the sweaters, the hoodies, all
of that.
And once you've purchased allof that, then you can proceed to
the next one and either headover to Apple iTunes to do a
review there, or you can evenmake it more simpler and click
that SMS links down in thebottom of our descriptions there
and leave us a review.
Tell us how good we're doing,how amazing Paul is, even

(01:03:18):
without his beard, you know,because Carlos still has it,
apparently.
And you know how we missed Toddfor his one show because he's
too busy, buried in baseball.
You know, and, as always, youcan help support our show.
If you refuse to do the firsttwo things, um, you know, can
support us through Patreon.
Um, we're starting to build thePatreon back up again here a
little bit.
We're going to hopefully beputting um, some of our pre uh

(01:03:40):
release uh shows there.
So if you want to get an earlyjump on some of that stuff, you
know, head over to the Patreon,sign up, become a Patreon member
, or you can just give us aone-time buy us a beer, links,
because it does help the show,it helps us get out in the
community, it helps us giveawaysand all of that stuff and just
keep this channel running so wecan deliver some awesome content
to you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
And we like beer?

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Yeah, totally, I'm with you.
We are big beer drinkers, sofeel free, or scotch, if you
want to.
So step up the level.
Paul can give you a couplesuggestions none of this, none
of this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Uh, tank radio crap we.
We want the real good stuff.
That's all I have to say.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
You know if they are some glenn levitt or glenn fitik
.
Yeah, 100.
There you go, all right, maybeeven four roses.
I've got a little four rosesand my bottle's getting empty
there all right, so but yeah,yeah, true, right, well, you
know bourbon.
Yeah, not a true.
Yeah, true, right, well, youknow bourbon.
Yeah, truly Polish and German.
So I'm always out to killmyself.
I'm not sure why, but with thaton a different note, you can
always reach out to any of ourhosts and all of our contact

(01:04:40):
info is over onlivefreeandhamcom or just like
men, like Carlos, orthoseguysupnorthcom, they're all
there, we're all at the samehappy place.
You know, come by, let us knowthat you're listening and, as
always, thanks again forlistening, and from both Paul
and I and Todd and Spirit 7-3.
7-3.

All Episodes

PLEASE COPY - Mobile Signals: Ham Radio Meets Modern Cars

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}PLEASE COPY - Mobile Signals: Ham Radio Meets Modern Cars