Robert's Rules Are Destroying Your Club's Appeal To New Hams

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we're going to be covering new business,
followed up by maybe oldbusiness, and then cover all the
business, because we decided totable the business from last
monthly meeting.
And yeah, did I say we're goingto do business tonight?
Well, that's next on Live Freeand Ham.
Welcome and hello and welcometo Live Free and Ham.
This is our weekly show wherewe discuss ham radio topics in

(00:22):
New Hampshire, New England andbeyond.
I've just got business on thebrain.
I'm trying to be tooprofessional.
We are thrilled to have youhere, whether you're a regular
listener or tuning in for thefirst time, and we appreciate
you and thank you for joining ustonight.
So let's get into our regularshow.
Here.
I'm your host, Eric callsign,N1JUR, and with my illustrious
co-hosts, hey, it's Paul N1OG.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
It's the general W1STJ Todd.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Proud of it.
Proud of it.
Why do you sound?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
like a Eeyore, I know exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well, it was me.
I'm so proud of it.
All right man trying to getback on track here, Alright, so
before we get into that.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
So proud to be a general.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
We like to catch up On new things, sorry anyway.
So head over to our storefrontAt livefreeandhamcom and check
out all of our merch.
We're always adding new stuffto that and, uh, as always,
we've had a couple of new peoplepick up some cool things.
I'd like to thank thomas n7 tjgfor grabbing a sticker pack.

(01:36):
You know, if you've been on ourdiscord, we've been talking.
You know boston slang, so, heck, we're gonna be offering the
live free and ham sticker pack.
You know you can go pick upyour sticker pack, get the
original grouch sticker thereand, you know, maybe get the uh,
you know, the new og stickertoo, you know and I'm sounding
like more new york there, sothat I don't know that one's
gonna play off there.

(01:56):
But uh, yeah, you know.
Thank, uh, thomas, uh tom forpicking that up.
And he also picked up a whiskeydram.
As Paul so eloquently showedthere earlier, we love our live
free at ham etched whiskey dramsand they have been selling.
We appreciate all those folkshave purchased in the past.
There are still a few left.
So if you are awaiting andyou're one of those folks that

(02:18):
just drag your feet like you're,the guys or gal that you know
wait till the last minute on theday before christmas eve to go
shopping for your wife, thenthis is the time, my friend,
this is the time where you needto go head over to our store and
pick yourself up, you know, awhiskey, uh, dram there maybe
two you know, that way, you know, you're safeguarded to make
sure you have a spare in caseyou lose the first one, um, and

(02:39):
so you can always pick that up.
And then, you know, without anyado, we got to spread some love
this past weekend with our, youknow, lovely hammies.
Paul and I had, you know, hadsome fun hanging out with the
old salty Walt there atMarconi's wireless site in the

(03:01):
Cape, and you know, guess whatsite in the cape?
And you know, guess what?
We had a couple people come by,uh, showed up, and I was able
to pull those little hammies outand give them, uh, you know, a
nice token, because I forgot mystickers, but we won't talk
about that uh, and shared, uh,some ham love there.
Uh, and as paul is so, uh,wonderfully displaying there on

(03:21):
his uh microphone in full, uh,you know, naked view there, our
little hammy, there with alittle token on the bottom you
can write your call sign and youcan drop these again.
This is like the jeep community, but way better, you know.
So if you've got people thatyou've seen, that got antennas,
uh, you know, or you've beenwalking through parking lots and
you, I spy, you know, cars thatmight, you might have radio

(03:43):
antenna.
Well, now you can actuallyleave your calling card there
and drop a little pig either onthe dash or on the handle or
anywhere in the vehicle, andit's a nice way to say hey, dude
, I see your antennas and Ithink you're pretty cool ham.
So, you know, head on over toGet Hammed G-E-T-H-A-M-M-E-D and
check out that and maybe pickup your own ham, since, you know

(04:06):
, help support this and spreadsome ham love.
All right, well, and so did Itell everybody.
Like we always say every week,you know, we love feedback, you
know, and we are hungry for it.
We want to hear from you guys,we want you guys to be part of
the community.
It's a great way to kind ofjust being, uh, to be able to
engage us and and to have somegood old fashion back and forth

(04:28):
banter.
You can reach out in manydifferent ways.
The simple, easy stuff is,obviously you can use the sms
link in all of our show notesand descriptions, both on our
youtube channel and our podcast.
Just by clicking that, you cansend us an sms text message.
Make sure you leave your calland your name there so we can
give the proper credit due.
But, as we always like to say.

(04:50):
You can leave us a voicemail.
What are you waiting for?
As the ticker shows down below,this is the best way to be able
to reach out to us and leaveyour thoughts.
You know, tell us about, youknow the latest ham activity
you've done.
Or you know, maybe you pickedup a new radio and you're
struggling with something youknow we're glad to you know.
You know, give you some tipsand tricks.
You can always leave us avoicemail 24 seven and in fact,

(05:12):
if you're listening to this onthe podcast, I encourage you to
stop the podcast.
Dial our number and Todd whatis our number.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Why you ask me why?

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Because we do it every week.
It's almost like 978-233-1142well, and it's right at the
bottom of the screen, so youshould have no problem.
Except, you know, if you haveenglish as your first language,
we'll we'll have to work on thatone, um.
So, yes, you can leave us avoicemail, let us know.
Uh, we'd love to hear from youand it's uh always available 24

(05:44):
7.
So, like I said, you can stopthe podcast right now, dial that
number, leave us a voicemail,tell us.
You said hello, drop uswhatever, um, and actually we've
got a voicemail to share withyou soon, you know coming up uh,
in a second or two there.
So, uh, you know, don't waitany longer.
You know, we we want to hearfrom you and, as always, if
you're one of those types thatlike to send an email, you can
always send us an emaillivefreeandham at gmailcom.

(06:06):
So maybe you're new to thelivefree and ham community and
you haven't heard that once amonth, we always do a live
stream, and that could be anyday of that month, and you know
we usually don't even knowsometimes when we're going to do
it, and so the way you can bein on the know is to head on
over to our youtube page, makesure you're a subscriber and if

(06:27):
you are a subscriber, make sureyou take that next step and hit
that bell so you get notifiedwhen we go live.
Because, like we don't know,sometimes when we go live there,
we go that, uh, you know, we uhwill flip that switch and all
of a sudden, you know, uh, youguys can come be part of the
action, have some fun.
Uh, because once again, it's agreat way to be able to just be
part of the community and hangout with us and and we love, you

(06:49):
know, you know always, you knowsurprising folks with you know
these live streams because we,like I said, we're not that
coordinated, we're not thatscheduled, we're not that rigid.
We just kind of pick a day andgo with it, all right, well, so
with that, we also have ourlittle secret.
So if you're a patreon memberand we know there's a bunch of
people, uh, in our patreon groupthat support us um, you can now

(07:10):
become a patreon member.
And what do you get as apatreon member?
Well, you get immediate accessto all our shows before they're
released to the public.
Um, you get early access to ouruncut video episodes and now,
as we're finished working outthe details, you'll have a audio
only podcast stream of ouruncut episodes and that's
usually released a week to twoweeks before um, so you get all

(07:31):
of the, the ins and the nose andand and knows what's going on
with all of the lift free andham crew here.
Uh, way before all of the, theregular episodes are released to
the public.
Um, we also have uh access toearly discounts, merch meetups,
members-only live streams, whichare coming soon, as we always
say, as Bob Koff says you canjoin for as little as three

(07:54):
hours a month.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
It's not a big expense Nope it is not.
You can join for as little asthree hours a month.
It's not a big expense.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Did you get that?
It takes three times for peopleto get used to that.
So, anyway, no, outside of that, you can become a Patreon
member and come hang out with usand be the cool kids, as they
say.
All right, well, with that, letme shift gears here and head on
over to Ladies and gentlemen,can I please have your your

(08:24):
attention.

Speaker 4 (08:25):
I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news
story.
Everybody we got some news.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Slow down, boog, let me handle this.
We've got some news, I've gotbad news and bad news I have
reviewed ship's personnelcaptain.
Congratulations, you've gotmail all right, well over to our
mailbag man.
How's it go todd?
What do we got?

Speaker 3 (08:48):
it's going um, I just lost it.
We did get an email uh fromshannon who was on our last
podcast, uh, k1ly WN's.
No, that's not her K1LY that's.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Shannon.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, k1ly Is Shannon , and she sent us an email.
She addressed it to Eric and Ithink she just sent it to Eric
alone.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, she sent it to my.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
N1JUR account.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Oh, there you go.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
But it's for Live Free to Him.
So it says hope you're doingwell.
We put up a video link and gotyou all tagged on Facebook.
But good news, I also created aclub website on Monday, the day
after our interview with youguys working on setting up who
is going to do the Discord forthe club.
Would love to hear yourfeedback on that if you get a

(09:41):
chance.
I've included our website link.
We've also listed you guys asyou guys as honorary member,
club members, which is awesome,because that they that's pretty
cool.
Um, hope that it's okay.
But additional good news basedon your suggestion, the day we
put out the website, we hadthree new perspective members

(10:03):
reach out and we're working onoffering them an invitation to
join our club.
All our previous club membersfrom the other club that were
members that were members of.
Again, thank you for the club,thank you from the club and all
of us individually.
So that was awesome.
They are an awesome little clubthat they started.
Awesome people had a reallygood time on the last podcast

(10:26):
and, uh, when I go down to northcarolina I'm going to hunt them
down and to a with them in agood way, of course yeah, of
course they were a lot of fun.
I like them a lot.
So thank you so much, and it'san honor to be an honorary
member.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, dude, this is monumentous.
I could actually put this inour goals and accomplishments
kind of document.
So we get this set in stone andmaybe, once we can finally get
the official patches wheneverthose show up we'll all be able
to have a official club memberphoto of all of us together

(11:02):
wearing our patches and overalls.
Well and so what is it right?

Speaker 2 (11:04):
club member photo of all of us together wearing our
patches and overalls.
And so what is it right?
You know, you're famous whenyou get honorary positions right
.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
We made it, boys, we made it.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Nice job.
Now the only other thing on thechecklist is to get the hate
mail.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
That's when you know you're really good Two down, one
to go, very cool.
Well, dude, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
So we got anything else in the mailbag there uh,
not for us, not in the emails oranything, but uh, yeah, that's
it all right.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
well, we've got one special, uh you know thing
that's not uh related toanything except probably a
voicemail.
So I'm going to play it anywayand maybe those that have the
trained ear can hear exactlywhat the message might be.
But we'll have to have Toddexplain a little bit of what
they were hearing and why, andwho the evil crazy mastermind

(12:04):
behind it, who created it.
Let me cue it up here.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Is that AOL?
It could be.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
You've got mail Before AOL was popular yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
This is what we get.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
This is confusing, dude.
When I first got this I waslike did we get a fax?
Because I'm like I'm thinkinglike, why did we get a fax?
How did this convert to a fax?
And then I realized, oh, nowait this is slow scan.
Tv.
There you go.
I was like it's slow scan TV.
So yeah.
And it was, it was impressive.

(12:50):
So I posted to the guys ondiscord and and you know what,
what did we come to like?
Did we come to a conclusion?

Speaker 2 (12:55):
well.
So I mean I got some halfwaydecent decodes, but it wasn't
great.
It would have been much betterif the recording was a direct
sampling of the audio sourcerather than listening to all the
other ambient noises as wellNoises coughs mic.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
We have to say that I spent a little while decoding
it.
I think I it took me five timesto decode it to try to figure
it out, because my little mobileapp, this sstv mobile app I
have on my iphone, couldn'tquite hear the audio because it
wasn't strong enough in certainparts and I was like I was
getting a little bit of an imageand I was like, ah, give it to
paul and see what he comes upwith, and he wasn't a much

(13:43):
better luck yeah, well, we didfind out who it was from right,
so we knew it was from mike uhand to mak and uh.
He's always sending us win links, oh nice not really great, so
we did get the image we finallygot the official image and I'm
just gonna say, yeah, that's notour new logo.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
No, nope, not going to happen.
We're not expanding New York.
I mean, there's only a fewthings that are good about New
York.
I'm going to say the Yankeesand I know this is a New England
show, but the Yankees are,that's my team and then maybe
Cooperstown, but everything elseI don't think so.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, and then maybe cooperstown, but everything else
I don't think.
So, yeah, no, I'm with you now,mike.
I don't understand I'll stickwith this state exactly now,
mike, I don't understand whyblack and white was your thing,
but maybe it was like you weregoing for the simplistic kind of
logo because new yorkers arecomplex, you know we won't say
what they are, but anyway I'llhave to say that I am not saying

(14:50):
that Live Free and Ham is themost excellent podcast in the
Northeast.
Do we even consider New YorkNortheast really?

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, we do, but they're not New England, even
though they want to be.
They're not Okay, all right.
So then we clarify they're theNortheast Maine, new.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Hampshire, vermont, but they are not okay.
All right, so that we clarifythey're the, they're the north
new hampshire, vermont.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, but they're, they are not.
They are not new england, eventhough they want to be and they
keep petitioning to be part ofnew england.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Us new englanders say nope, not gonna happen we could
say they're a dei initiative,maybe, maybe, okay yeah, I mean
I I.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
I think, uh, massachusetts Maybe.
I mean, I think Massachusettshas been annexed from New
England.
Now it's just Maine, newHampshire, vermont, that's it.
We're the last three states inNew England that have some
sensibility.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
It should be a rule.
If you can carry a gunconcealed without a permit, you
can be in New England.
So that leaves Maine, newHampshire and Vermont.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Okay, and like 29 other states.
Well, I'm just saying, in NewEngland you go to New.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
York, you're probably going to do a year in jail.
I know if you go down to Massyou're looking at a year in jail
for just so.
Anyway, I'm just leaving it atthat.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
So yeah, mike, you know New York yeah,
massachusetts, it's a felony forthe gun and then it's a felony
for every round that you've gotgreat and it will be a felony
now for poor, poorly designedlogos using the New York state
as an option there.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
So you know, add that to the list.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
I will say, though, new York York is quite a large
state, and upstate New Yorkespecially like where Mike's
from and up there is a lotdifferent than New York City,
which is a whole other animal,and the people are a lot
different too.
So New York City is just a hugecity, and when I grew up in

(16:47):
northern New jersey, when Ithink like new, when people
think new york city, I rememberthe first time I went to boston
I'm like this is it?
Like this is the big city ofboston, like that's it, because
new york is like, forget eventhe boroughs, but you know, if
you cross the, the hudson river,you've got newark jersey city.
It all blends into one hugething, and I don't know if

(17:09):
you've ever flown over new yorkcity at night.
It is just lights everywherefor like, for as far as you can
see.
So it is a huge metropolis.
But upstate new york I'll givethem this it is a pretty state
and there's a.
There's a lot of good wildlifeand a lot of good things to do
up there.
Yeah, there's good parks.
You got Cooperstown and yeah,they got some good breweries up

(17:33):
there too.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Still not worth their vote of changing the logo to
New York State.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
No no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
We're accepting any and other, all submissions.
You know submissions, but uh,you know new york is right out.
Yeah, thank you again, mike,though for you know, just
spending that extra timerecording you're still getting
tv message, so we can actuallyhave spend uh 20 more minutes of
our waking life trying tofigure out what the hell, this
is, and now I can't wait to seewhat he does next, because who

(18:02):
knows what he's going to send us.
Throwing the gauntlet down.
Yeah, all right.
Well, good deal on that.
Thank you again, mike.
We, we, you know we were, asyou, from New York, but you know
, definitely a good attemptthere.
I appreciate the all the effortand, you know, looking forward

(18:27):
to what concoctions you can whipup next that went through with
you.
All right.
Well, with that, let's uh gointo our next uh episode doing
good, good doing good you do,that's good.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
Do good, do good, you're doing good, absolutely I
do good.
Good, I'm doing good, bob,doing real good.
Right now my only outlet is myham Radio.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
All right.
Well, this isn't really a dogood thing, so I'm actually
gonna give the Florida Paul Forthis one for before I get into
the do good Stuff, because hedoes have a win link email, but
the win link person who sent thewin link Email didn't send it
as a do Good you know episode,so or do you think it is Do good
?
Okay, all right.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
The subject line is do good.
Okay, so do-good episode.
Do you think it is a do-good?
Okay, the subject line isdo-good.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Okay, so I'm not an air link, so I got the details
in the body of the message.
It didn't feel like it was ado-good.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
This is why Paul does the win link and not air link,
Exactly right, yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Well, hey, I can't do everything around here Anyway,
just kidding, all right.
So you know, hey, I can't doeverything around here anyway,
just kidding, all right.
So well then, we're just goingto kick this segment off here.
So we all aspire to do good inham radio, like including myself
, even though I fail miserably,um.
So, whether you're justassisting in a disaster,
providing communications forlocal road race or hosting a
poda meetup, we all love toparticipate in ham radio
activities.

(19:40):
So, uh, that includes thehillbilly guys too, and they've
got plenty of those.
They depot it literally everyfreaking weekend as an example.
So, um, you know, sometimes weallow those stupid negative
voices to take, uh, front andcenter and I'm saying no longer
are we doing that.
We're gonna give you guys thefloor to be able to share a do

(20:00):
good or share something you didthat you know you did with your
club, or did with a bunch ofpeople that you hung around with
.
Um, share that story withothers so that maybe inspires
other people to get out there.
And, uh, do more ham radio inthe public and just in general,
and have fun doing it.
And so with that we've got a dogood, apparently win link email

(20:21):
only, and so you know what thatmeans.
They become one of our honorarymembers, uh, that get added to
the honorary honor roll ofpeople that have sent type a do
good uh win link emails, whichuh basically gives them a front
row center ticket to our um.
You know, hopefully soon uh.
You know uh, private livestream.

(20:42):
So keep an eye out for that andmaybe that might be an
incentive for a few others thatmight want to throw into the
ring, maybe in the futureepisodes.
So there still is time, butwith that I'm going to throw it
over to Paul and he can readthat message there and, you know
, maybe inspire you.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
All right, so you too can be like Kilo Quebec for
Alpha Lima Kilo and send me yourwin link.
The subject is do good and hewrites Paul, Eric and Todd, I
found out about your podcastthrough the episode you shared
on Linux in the Ham Shack andI've been hooked ever since and

(21:23):
we're glad to hear it.
And I've been hooked ever sinceand we're glad to hear it Still
working on the backlog, Ithought I'd share something that
one of my clubs decided onimplementing.
Even though it's small, I thinkit will help.
As the VE liaison for the clubas of next May cheers, fellow VE

(21:43):
liaison.
I propose the idea of providingan inexpensive HT to anyone who
passes their technician exam anddoesn't already have a radio.
I will be pre-programming themall with the local repeaters as
well as the simplex frequenciesfor VHF and UHF, just to get
them started, Especially foryoung hams who may not have the

(22:05):
money to pick up even an HT, Ithink that this will go a long
way towards showing what kind ofpeople hams can be.
Anyways, thanks again for allyou do for the hobby.
I advocate for your show asmuch as I can down here in
Georgia.
73, Kilo Quebec four alpha limakilo derrick pain ve liaison.

(22:28):
Amateur radio club of butts,county georgia.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Nice, so nice that's awesome, that is, that's a.
Really that's awesome.
It kind of reminds me remember,eric.
We were at um, we were at someham radio thing and that little
kid just was working on histicket or whatever and you gave
him.
It kind of reminds me remember,Eric.
We were at some ham radio thingand that little kid just was
working on his ticket orwhatever and you gave him.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
The one at Ham X yeah .

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, and he was so excited and he was just hanging
around.
It was like our first timetrying to do a live stream.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
From Ham X.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah, it wasn't very smooth.
We did what we could, butanyway, I just remember the look
in that kid's eyes and he wasso excited To get like this what
did you get?
Was it the 300?
Or was it an HT?
It was a 300 and he was justlike I mean, it was like the kid
was having the best Christmasof his life.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Oh, so that's the second story.
That was that teenager that waslooking for the $300.
I gave him my $300.
I thought you were talkingabout the little kid who was
getting his extra.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Let's not go on to that kid.
That was last year Sorry.
These guys, they just will notlet it go.
I'm going to have to.
We'll go to that one, for thiskid was like he was a young kid,
you know.
Maybe it was a teenager like 12,13, 15, yeah, no, it's actually
15, 16, but yeah um, all right,well, anyway, he he really just

(23:57):
like he was so happy and hecouldn't have been more.
I I guarantee he went home andset that thing up like telling
his dad Now, speaking of theother kid, so that kid's dad was
a general.
And what did the?
He says, yeah, my kid juststarted taking tests.
And he he outranks me now andhe's an extra yeah, he probably

(24:18):
cheated.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
He definitely cheated .
Yeah, that's going to be thelogical answer.
You yeah, that's going to bethe logical answer.
You know he couldn't havestudied to actually, like you
know, give me an extra.
All you have to do is memorizethe questions.
There's 300 questions.
You don't have to memorize allof them because they're not
going to give you all of them.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
You see how well I do .
The extra class pool is, Ithink, 650 questions, if I
remember right.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Oh, is it that many?
Is that why it's taking me solong?

Speaker 1 (24:47):
I've seen them all, the quiz master 650 questions
yeah, I think yeah, tech tech ingeneral are 3 350 somewhere
around there and yeah well,richard said like some
percentage, it was so small andminute that you'll never see
every single one of thosequestions in the entire question
pool because of the way it'sstructured.
Yeah, yeah, never have toreally worry about that.

(25:10):
But yeah, dude, that's anawesome story.
I'm pretty impressed, you knowthat's awesome.
Keep it up.
Thank you for professing.
Live free and ham from themountain.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Maybe we, maybe we can bring that into our club.
Yeah, ralph has enough.
Ralph has enough Bao FengChinese radios To give away to
new.
Just have a box of them, takeone.
He's working on dealership.
You passed your technician here.
What radio would you like?

Speaker 1 (25:37):
You did hear about his story about how he was
trying to become a Quan Chengdealership or dealer for the US
In our general area.
The only issue was he had toactually my guan cheng
dealership uh, our dealer forthe us, and in in our general
area.
The only difference, the onlyissue was, is he had to.
Actually, you know, the ladywho was the sales rep from china
was also asking to be a mailorder bride for him.
So that was organized in thedeal or how it played out.

(25:57):
But I don't think it's.
You know it's still kind of inthe works.
So you know we'll leave it,we'll figure out how that plays
out I believe he's's alreadymarried.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
I'm sure his wife hey .

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Quan shangs are Quan shangs.
It's like Paul's t-shirt says20 bucks, 25 bucks and 25 bucks.
Oh cool, All right.
Well, as always, those are.
That's a good win.
A good win link do good message, and so hopefully that inspires
folks, so he's coming on.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
Right, he'll be on.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
He's part of the honor roll, the the crew that uh
as we'll call them private livestream.
Yeah, it'd be good to see himand definitely hear more of
their stories, because I'm surethose guys are definitely doing
more stuff even as we speak, soawesome.
Well, we obviously.
You know there are many ways.
We've shared several times overand over again, but this is
where we love to be able to hitour very special jingle, because

(26:51):
the easiest way is to leave usa voicemail, and so, paul, do
you have your finger on thepulse?

Speaker 4 (26:58):
yeah, you know you can Join the fun, be the biggest
fan, call that number and lendan ear, live free and have its
crystal From morning blues tomidnight snack.
They've got the scoop Neverlooking back Stories, news and

(27:35):
quirky bits.
It's the podcast that's full ofhits.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
You know, if we ever get the show budget, we're going
to have Vegas show girlsrolling in the back.
That's just the way I look atit, so awesome.
Well, like we say, you canalways leave us a voicemail or
you can head over tolivefreeandhamcom forward slash.
Do good, fill in a form thereor use our comment form, or I
don't care, just send us acarrier pigeon.
We want to hear from you, youknow, let us know what's going

(28:11):
on in your club, uh, or even inyour a little uh geographic area
of the world and uh, you know,share the ham radio love.
All right.
So as we finally roll into andas we give todd so much crap
over this, because we know howpopular this segment is with
this show, um, that you knoweverybody tails off after we've
gone through all of these, youknow this little segment here,
but we're going to dive rightinto it.
And now a little somethingextra with Todd WNSTJ on STJ.

(28:47):
So I'm going to modify thatintro a little bit.
As we start to get further andfurther into the question pool
and Todd does not schedule thetest I'm going to throw a little
zingers in there every once ina while.
So every new episode we'll havea little zinger just to add of
add to the fun element ofsurprise anyway.

(29:08):
So let me get into it.
Yep, you heard it here.
This is where we help todd studyfor his extra class license.
In each episode we soeloquently run, we pick three
questions from the extra classquestion pool to test todd in
his knowledge, hoping he getshis upgrade.
Hoping, hoping and waiting andpraying.
Whatever you did that generallike flying colors anyway.

(29:32):
All right, so if you'd like tofollow along, you can always
head over to hamstudyorg.
It's a great resource toprepare your free test and it's
recommended by four out of fourve's uh, because we don't go to
the arrow any longer to ask themof their opinion.
So, without any further delay,let's hand it over to our VE
Quizmaster, paul.
Take it away, sir.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Again, I hit the wrong one.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Oh boy, the button, again.
The button, the button.
Yeah, I guess the wrong button.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
All right.
So we are continuing with allquestions from the Extra Class
Exam Pool, so you never knowwhat you're going to get.
But tonight's first questionhappens to have SSTV in.
It can be used to receive anddecode STV using the digital

(30:41):
radio Mondial protocol.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Is it A, am, b Arden, c single sideband or D CDMA On
your button?
What the heck?
There we go.
Nope, there we go.
Third time's a charm gonnachange the button.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
So it actually plays.
I'm going to go with C, I don'tknow, just a guess.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
I don't know.
Isn't an answer?

Speaker 3 (31:11):
it's not on the list.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
At least it is on the list it's right there below D
come on, then I'm going to gowith D.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Eric, did you say D yeah?

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Just a D Because I like hearing the song.
I know it's sideband.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yes, it's sideband.
Cdma is the old cell phone.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yeah, that's what I was like.
I didn't have a phone that hadthat Uh-huh Alright cell phone.
Yeah, I was like I didn't havea phone that had that, all right
.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
So sstv, slow scan tv , is a digital mode used for
sending pictures, still images,to one another.
This is done in the phoneportion of the band using single
sideband um.
So you can look at the sstvwiki for more info.
But your hint is SSTV uses SSB.

(32:09):
All right, all right.
So question number two In whatunits are the wavelength scales
on a Smith chart calibrated?
Is it A in fractions of antennaelectrical wavelength, b in

(32:34):
fractions of transmission lineelectrical wavelength, c in
fractions of antenna electricalfrequency, d infractions of
antenna electrical frequency orD infractions of transmission
line electrical frequency?

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Oh, I hate these questions.
It's like every other word iswrong.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Ah, that sucks like.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yes, this is a trick question.
This is just to make you loseone, all right, let's see.
Just to make you lose one, allright, let's see.
Fractured transmission.
It's either I think it's eitherB or D, and I'm going to go

(33:29):
with B, wait a minute, it's d ofcourse it's the one I didn't
pick all right.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Well, todd said b oh yes, oh wow he is correct nice,
I actually might be, I actuallymight be learning this shit as
we had a post on our youtubechannel a while ago, like in
this last episode, someone'slike someone should take eric's
extra level away because hekeeps screwing up like thank god

(34:10):
, they can't see, now I gottaget this last one right or I'm
screwed all right well to toexplain uh question number two.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
so the wavelength scales on a smith chart are
calibrated in fractions oftransmission line electrical
wavelength.
The outer ring of a smith chartdefines fractional electrical
wavelength of feed line,starting at zero and ending at
0.5, just half the electricalwavelength.

(34:38):
It also defines the directiontowards the generator.
This is a hint indicating thatthis is a feed line length and
not an antenna length.
Smith charts are useful todetermine feed line length
required to match a load to aradio transmitter.
So your hint, think wavelengthhow far a bird flies, or bird

(35:04):
flew, f-l-e-w fractions oftransmission line electrical
wavelength.
I mean, that's a complicatedlittle acronym there.
All right, suck, suck.
That's a complicated little, uh, you know uh acronym there, but
all right that's what I feel,like some.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Anyway.
All right, let's get out, andthen we're getting into the

(35:45):
graph sections of the rest.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
I hate this circuit consisting of a 300-ohm resistor
and 18 microHenry inductor at3.505 megahertz, and I'll move
the question down so you can seethe answers here.
Is it a 0.7 which is down here?

(36:10):
Uh, in the lower left quadrantb, point one, which is in the
bottom right quadrant C, pointeight, and point eight is in the
upper right quadrant.
Or D, point three, and pointthree is in the very top of the

(36:35):
right upper quadrant?
You're going to do a littlemath there.
You know 300 ohm resistor, 18microhenry inductor.
I'm going to say it's D.
You're just going to wing itand go yeah, it not that little

(36:56):
guy up top there.
I think it's d.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
I'm gonna go with d because I you know just kind of
copycat.
It sits well with me.
I'll put it that way radioshack.
Bam.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Three out of three Look at that Nice.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Point three is correct.
There's the Explanation.
So here we go.
Technical explanation.
We need some ape slides forthis maybe?
Yeah, pretty much.
The impedance the impedance ofthe inductor, z sub L equals 2

(37:45):
pi FL, where F is the frequencyof interest, l is the inductance
in Henry's.
So you have to convert yourmicro Henry's to Henry's.
The J value of the impedance ofan inductor is positive.
So Z sub L equals 2 pi times3.505 megahertz times 18 Henry's

(38:14):
, since the frequency here is inmegahertz and the inductance,
oh, I'm sorry, it's microHenry's, since the frequency
here is in megahertz and theinductance, oh I'm sorry, it's
micro Henry's, since thefrequency is in megahertz and
the inductance is in microHenry's.
Then the mega 10 to the sixthpower and micro 10 to the
negative six power exponentscancel one another.

(38:36):
And so your long form math hereZ sub L equals two pi times
3.505 megahertz times 18microhenries, equals two pi
times 3.505 times 18, whichequals 396.4 ohms.
And in a series circuit with a300-ohm resistor, the total

(39:02):
impedance is 300 plus the 396.4ohms which is in the upper right
quadrant of the figure, atabout the 300 in the plus X
direction and about 400 in theplus Y direction, corresponding
to 0.3 in figure E5-2.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
The Holly Smoot tariffs did what again?
Or Mono, mono, mono, mono.
All I have to say Mono, mono,monomino, monomino, monomino.
That all sounded great on paper, yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
It's a little bit of math and a little bit of
understanding, but great guessand congratulations, todd I knew
the answer.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
You know how many I got when I've been studying that
I got it wrong so many times.
I just the three sticks in myhead.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
So I think I got one question right, and I still want
to hear my song.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
No, no, I got none 75%, my friend 75%.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Just because Eric wanted to hear it.
Awesome, all right.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Well, so if you're on the journey to studying for
your technician general extraclass license, in that case
hamstudyorg is an awesomeresource for getting your ticket
.
And so, as we always like tosay every episode, and we really
mean it if you've received yourlicense, or maybe upgraded, we
want to know, so you know, andwe want to recognize you
obviously.
So you need to head on over tosend us an email at

(40:46):
livefreeandham at gmailcom, orhit us up on the discord, and
we'll make sure we give you thecreds and kudos for you know,
getting your upgrade.
And, paul, do we have any inthe pipeline that you know of?

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Uh, none that I'm aware of, okay.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
No problem, sirs and madams and everybody in between.
Uh, you know, if you get yourticket, we want to hear about it
, we want to celebrate with you.
So send us an email, post up ona discord or send us using our
comment form and we'll make surewe mention you in the next
episode.
Okay, well enough with all ofthe pleasantries there, my
friends, so let's get into ourusual show format.
As always, paul, how has yourham radio week been, sir?

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Well shit All those weeks.
No, it was all right.
So it was a long drive.
It was the goo shit, it was thegoo.
So it was a long drive.
It was the goo shit, it was thegoo shit.
Yeah, it was the Well shit.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
That type of.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Get that from here, type thing Got it Understood.
Yeah, so it was a long drive.
It was just under three hourseach direction.
Um, but awesome to uh to go tomy least favorite state in the
entire country, uh, out on thecape, and uh activate a park
with salty walt and and the oneand only infamous, n1jur.

(42:13):
Um, yeah, well it was.
It was a great time.
You showed up late and that wasokay.
It gave Walt and I some time Toget some contacts.
He showed me around Before weset up.
You totally missed it.

(42:34):
So I was bragging about myawesome poda antenna right and
how I love my poda antennabecause it sets up so fast and
it's resonant, so I don't need atuner and we we happen to have
a tree that was like the perfectsize and the perfect distance

(42:56):
from the picnic table and thepicnic table.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
And for those that do not know the Grouch, what is
your perfect?
Pod antenna, my friend.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
The Reliance Bugout Mini N-Fed Halfwave 40-10.
Okay, yeah, and so I keep allof my antenna components.
My antenna components, uh, it'slike the bnc to so239 peeled uh

(43:25):
259 adapters, uh, tent stakesfor staking the, the uh anchor
line down, uh, throw weight, uh,paracord, I mean you name it,
it all fits in one little bag.
It's phenomenal.
But so, uh, so I was setting itall up and I and I and I
grabbed my throw weight and I goto throw it, and I literally
threw it straight up in the airand it came straight down and

(43:48):
and so, you know, walt, walt,kind of chuckled, and he was
like, hey, it's all right.
You know, like I, I playedbaseball and I can't throw an
antenna in a tree.
And so, yeah, second attempt, Igot it nailed.
It went right over the tree,just sailed right over, yeah,

(44:10):
and it was awesome.
I had to in my AI song that I,you know, I write the lyrics and
shit for for my songs, for myvideos, uh, I had to put in a
funny bit because we had aspectator.
Now, this guy, uh, I meanCarolina, we dubbed him that,
yeah, I think.

(44:31):
I think he he might've beenmaybe missing a few circuits.
Uh, up top.
Uh, he kept like he, he had afedora like a, a, a basket weave
kind of fedora and he kept likethrowing it into a bush and
then and then he'd get up andhe'd pick it up and he'd he'd
hold it upside down likecatching rain and but but the

(44:52):
funniest part was so the thepicnic table that I had the
antenna anchored to right, thefeed line part was hooked around
the bench of the picnic tableand I figured I mean nobody's
going to sit there.
You know, I mean there's clearlya fucking coax line running

(45:13):
from one picnic table to theother with the antenna line
coming up in a diagonal off thepicnic table like nobody's gonna
sit there.
No, this guy, he sat there andhe sat there for a long time and
he'd get up and he'd go backand he'd sit there again right
next to the feed line and it'slike man, this guy has to be

(45:34):
like glowing by the time he wenthome.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
We were recharging him like a battery.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
So if you pay attention to the song lyrics
when the video comes out nextweek, you'll notice that there's
a part of the song where it'slike this dude sat down next to
the feed line and now he glowsand he picks up shortwave.
There was molars.
Yeah, I just, you know, Icouldn't help it.

(46:06):
I thought it was too funny.
But yeah, what a greatactivation though.
What a ton of fun.
The food was great.
Afterwards it was 100% wellworth the drive.
Um, so I mean, uh, that's,that's all I did, ham radio wise
, but it was.
It was a ton of fun, awesome,and it made the week so yeah,

(46:29):
dude, I I'll tell you my side ofthe story.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
But yeah, it was, it was, it was a blast and it was
awesome, even though the weatherwas kind of like driving down
there like oh my gosh, we'regonna be in rain, I'm gonna feel
like crap, it's gonna be sucky,and it didn't turn out that way
at all, so it was awesome.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
But yeah, I mean it was.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
It was still cold and wet, yep, but it was, it was
tolerable wasn't breezy, like ifwe had a huge breeze, I was
like, oh, that would have beenmiserable.
But yeah, it was actuallytolerable and and I it, I had
fun.
So, yeah, I'll tell you mylittle two cents worth of that.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
You can go, because I didn't have a ham radio week,
so go ahead.
Okay, fine, you know, okay.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
So yeah, I too attended, you know, the weekend
with Walt, we'll call it that,and actually it wasn't a weekend
, it was more of a Sunday, butit was pretty cool, you know.
I know, um, I kind of will sayit invited myself in, and not
that I wasn't welcome, it wasjust like I was like hey, guys,

(47:24):
I'm coming.
They're like okay, sure, noproblem.
And I know paul and walt werehaving communications with one
another with location and stufflike that, why is?
he coming.
Yeah, it wasn't like that.
It was like oh, again, n1jur ishere, let's make this.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
Let's go down to DC instead and we'll tell them.
We changed plans and forgot totell them.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Yeah, but the thing.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
The thing of it was, though right Is, we discussed
this all in the near Livestream,and that's where we Decided we
were going to do this.
Eric couldn't even make thefucking livestream.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Well, hey, I had work , I had work.
So, in essence, you know, Ican't, you know, fault myself
for that.
The one time I have work I haveto go, so yeah, you were in the
chat, though I never understood.
You were in the chat so, likeyou're working and chatting, you
couldn't have like all thedetails, final details, were
going to be ironed out in thechat.
I assume that's like kind oflike hey, we're starting to have

(48:15):
this conversation, so a weeklater we go to act, you know, to
the activation.
Um, and so like in theconversation in my chat I was
like, oh yeah, the marconimuseum is like down in chatham,
and so those that know where themarconi museum in chatham is,
um, there's a park, monotony,wildlife management, that's
literally like two miles fromthere.
It's in a private neighborhoodand I've been there before I've

(48:37):
activated.
So I was like, oh, dude, I knowwhere to go, like you have to
go on the beach, blah, blah.
So I get there after drivingand paul's like, oh, I'm already
there.
I'm like, oh, cool, wow, he'sreally quick.
I mean, it takes like 20 minutesto get to into the cape from
there and and so he, him and Iare texting back and forth on a
ride down.
And I get to the parking lotand I'm looking around and
there's two cars and neither ofthem are paul's or walt's.

(48:58):
I'm like I'm looking for a jeepand I'm looking for a truck and
none of them there and mywife's like where the hell are
they did.
They just kind of stiff you andI'm like no, they couldn't have
.
Maybe like maybe they're theother park over by the museum or
maybe at the museum.
So I texted paul.
Long story short, the decisionwas that they were going to the
wireless site, that marconi didhis thing, which was totally

(49:18):
fine and that which was listedas marconi beach, if you googled
it correct.
Yeah, and that, that that I knowof, because it's like there's a
nice, because I remember in thechat I was like, dude, you
should go over to wellfleets,you know beach, because
wellfleet beach actually hasanother park there and that is a
phenomenal place to activate.
I've been there before and andactivated from there, but I
didn't know, like you know, itdidn't make the connection in my

(49:40):
head.
So anyway, I text paul andpaul's like I'll send you the
pin, and I get the pin and I'mlike that's another freaking 30
minutes away and we're like,okay, great.
So of course I had to stop towater the dog.
You have to stop for the wife.
You know myself and you know ofcourse you know what?

Speaker 3 (49:54):
it was all part of the plan.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
It was right like I said, like I told my wife, I'm
sure paul and waltz want to havea lone time to kind of get to
know each other a little bitbetter, you know, kind of that
thing, you know.
And so when I got there it wasjust like they were already
full-bore and uh, you know, 15meters and activating, and paul
had his setup and everything.
And you know, it was reallycool because I didn't have to
like I should have just left mygear in the truck.

(50:17):
I mean, it made no sense tobring it to the bench because it
just got rained on.
But uh, yeah, dude, thatactivation was totally awesome.
I I sometimes I don't know howpeople are going to take my
humor when I'm on the radio andI play, you know, and I do an
activation.
So I jumped in and I was likeall right, cool, I cool, I'm
just going to be me, and like Iwas being funny.
And after a while I kind of sawthis pattern that like we were

(50:40):
like a direct line of like siteinto North Carolina and South
Carolina, we were getting SouthCarolina stations Like there was
no tomorrow.
My boy Exactly, and I wasgetting to, like I was getting
to the point.
I'm like we just have this lineof sight right to North
Carolina.
We can't get anything else.
And every time, like Walt jumpson he's like, oh, what part of

(51:00):
North Carolina or South Carolinayou're from.
Oh yeah, I've been there.
And like he's got a story andit was like really cool to watch
all this.
And so I'm getting like youknow, spicy, I I Georgia, you
know Indiana, I don't careanywhere else, just don't like,

(51:20):
if you're from those states,don't answer.
And of course everybody youknow, took that as a challenge
and answered more.
And so, yeah, it was, it wasawesome.
I was very, very happy and it'slike Walt actually even jumped
in.
I was pretty cool because, youknow, know, you watch Walt's
videos and he's pretty like kindof serious.
I mean, he does kind of, yeah,have conversations, but he's not
like the you know the guy tokind of just chime in and go hey

(51:43):
, you know, I love only NorthCarolina and South Carolina
people and I only want to hearfrom North Carolina and South
Carolina people.
And so, yeah, I've got a lot ofouttakes in my video clips and
stuff like that that I I mayhave a second separate video
just alone of all of those youknow kind of banter back and
forth.
So yeah, I had a blast too, andfood and and hanging out walt
is walt is impressive.

(52:04):
I mean he is a restaurateurvideo kind of like.
You know, if you ever go withhim, be prepared that he's going
to take pictures of therestaurant.
He's going to take pictures ofthe menu, the food, his, you
know five seconds of, like youknow, dialogue about what he
sees and tastes and feels, andyou know it's pretty cool.
So yeah, it was.
It was good stuff well, allright.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
So I gotta tell you this because you, you can, you
can feel a little better aboutit, because at least you made it
to the activation before theActivation was finished.
Okay, all right.
So now Mike, uh, tortoiseoverland Was on the the near
live stream Because he's inmassachusetts, and so While we

(52:48):
were discussing this, he waslike, oh yeah, I'm in
Massachusetts, like I'll comemeet up with you Guys too, now I
don't use my phone when I'mdriving, right, all right.
So, uh, he, he called me at onepoint and I was I'm, I'm trying
to navigate through freaking, Ithink, lemonster or some shit

(53:11):
to like get over to the highway.
So I didn't, I didn't call him,I, I was.
I asked my phone.
You, you say those infamous,you know two words.
And and the ai starts listeningright, you go, all right, send
a message.
And so I, I did that, and myphone sends him a message and I
was like, yes, we're still on,I'm, I'm on my way, and

(53:35):
apparently Communication is notmy forte, and so he didn't get
to show up there All in yourin-ham radio and communication.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
I know right, exactly , we found that Very funny.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
I suck at communicating, but I love Ham
radio.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Now, we did mention to the illustrious, like you
know, random stranger.
If you want to see that randomstranger, head over to Walt
Coastal Waves and Wires video,check out the one with the
N-O-N-O-G and you'll see whatwe're talking about.
For the guy you know, as Waltdubbed him Mayor of North
Carolina because he literallykind of walked around like he
was the mayor, you know, in someform or fashion.

(54:19):
But yeah, I, I dude, it wasawesome, I, you know.
I thank you again for you know,let me kind of come hang out,
but at the same time it was justreally cool.
Just to you know, do a, youknow, three off activation and
the bands were awesome because I, saturday, I was like man, uh,
this is going to be horrible.
I even brought my laptop to doFT8 with the possibility that we

(54:39):
would be doing FT8 because Idid not know what the bands were
going to be.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
And see.
So I got a part in my songwhere their lyric line is who
brought FT8?
Not you, because I never bringFT8 to the field, fuck that oh,
I do.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
That is my backup to a backup, just in case I can't.
Uh, you know, all my fail safesmy daughter's recorded voice
doesn't get me any contacts.
I can't make contacts on anyband.
Ft8 is the the saving grace tolike, get me over to 10, so so I
always keep that with me.
But cool dude, yeah, I'mlooking forward to more stuff

(55:21):
like that.
I know we've got some plans,obviously coming in May, so if
you're in the New England areaand you want to hang out with us
, we will post more about that.
We might be doing some funstuff with Nearpest and whatnot,
so we're going to work thosedetails out.
But yeah, I'm looking forwardto it should be fun.
This is, this is where warmerweather's finally coming,
although today felt like it waslike the dead cold of winter

(55:43):
it's snowing all day, yep april8th it's snow, and I was.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
I was literally outside three quarters of the
day today.
It sucked and then it got.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Then the sun broke through and it started to get
windy as hell yeah, and it'sbeen windy all day so it sucks,
so you didn't do any ham radioat all.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Todd like any like at all during the week I mean a
few people on the repeater onthe way to work, yeah, um, but
yeah I um.
So one of the reasons it wascrappy out and rainy out and
then I kind of got into, I hadto uh, do my other hobby which
was out of my three hobbies, my,uh, my bonsai trees, and I

(56:29):
needed to before they.
They're just some of them arestarting to bud, so you have to
trim them before that.
So I and it takes a lot longerthan I thought it would, because
I guess I have well, no, Ithink I have a lot of trees and
then, you know, some of themwere dead.
You know some of the I mean Idid a lot of.

(56:50):
I have a lot of clippings andstuff that I was trying to root
and grow, and so, you know,cleaning that stuff up and
getting it all ready, and uh,and then I started doing the
inside ones and next thing, youknow it was like a whole weekend
project but I'm all caught upnow and then uh, and then, yeah,
I just didn't do the uh, Ididn't get on and I should have,

(57:13):
but I just one of those days,those weekends, and work's been
Kind of busy where I've had someTough things going on In all my
cases.
So I've been kind of more Busyand then I wanted to bring.
You know I've got my gearsitting in my car, but the
weather's been so shitty it'slike.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Should start activating 107.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Oh my god 110 total.
I sit in my jeep.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
It's what I have a radio for in my truck.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Yeah, I know more cheating.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Oh my god, that's not cheating.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Listen, todd, there's nothing wrong with a Little
Miyagi time, right?
Because it Takes some patience,right?
Oh, you know a little Miyagitime.
But Mr Flexing on the Flex allthe time, like you're always
bragging about how you can flexfrom your iPad and you can flex
from anywhere and you can flexoh, look at me and my Flex Come

(58:11):
on.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
Do you not have internet anywhere?
You in those very remote placeswhere you can't do internet?

Speaker 4 (58:21):
I guess like yeah, I guess I could.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
I just yeah.
And plus I've been studying formy extra.
I'm really trying to.
You know, now that my buddy istaken in, he's probably going to
pass.
This weekend I'm going to feeleven more like a loser Silence.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
I didn't say anything .
I told you I would, but I'm not.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
He said something like if I take it and fail, he
was going to change his callsign to like W1TOD.
I was almost thinking like Ishould just go there and fail
and that'd be pretty funny, butI wouldn't be able to do it

(58:59):
anyway because, well, I might beable to do it.
But yeah, I've got.
It's our opening day, sothere's a parade in the morning.
I got our first game at one andI've only had one practice.
I was going to practice todaybut the fields are still closed.
I guess it's like a swamp outthere and I don't give a crap
what they say.
I'm practicing tomorrow,whether the fields are open or
not, because they're not goingto be around to see if I'm

(59:23):
practicing or not.
And I'm having it.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
It's going to be sunny and hopefully I hope
you're cold, as it was today letme tell you the exam session
starts at 9 am at bedford pd andI guarantee you you will be
done and out of there by 10 30well, that's great, but I have a

(59:47):
parade in hollis that I have towalk in with my team at nine
and I have to be there at eight,so it really doesn't work and
I'm not ready for it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Anyway, I I haven't passed the test on the practice
test, I mean like I haven'tpassed one tim's gotten, I don't
know.
He said he did like five or sixtimes or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
So all right.
Well, listen, uh, start takingsome practice tests.
I guess you know like, getyourself ready and when you are,
when you are ready, right,because I'm the team lead, I
think Eric's going to get his VEcredentials.

(01:00:31):
We've definitely got enough VEsthat can do it.
But we can do an imprompturemote session just for you and
we'll play the quiz music foryou.
We'll play the quiz musicthrough the whole session.

(01:00:53):
We can do that for you, todd.
We can do that for you.
All right, an impromptu remote,know, we can do that for you,
todd.
We can do that for you.
All right, an impromptu remotesession.
We can do that, All right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
And you know we can make this a pay-per-view type
thing.
No, no, no we can pay in towatch test.
Listen, you guys are puttingtoo much pressure on me.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
I don't want to be the loser that takes it and
fails Members only I know right.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
You heard it here let's see how we can cash in on
Todd's failures.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
That's awesome, what I might just do is I might just
go do it without you clowns andthen on the bottom where it says
still a general, I'll be likenow an extra and see if you
clowns even notice.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Well, just because you changed the title down at
the bottom, we have to see a 505submitted.
Well, just because you changethe title down at the bottom, we
have to see a five submittedwas a 605 or whatever it is,
I'll have my.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
I'll have my in the background.
I'll just have my license orthe the full official.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Yeah, the letter slash ag.
No, I mean no, I'm starting.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
I mean it's crazy because I mean I've been doing
it so long now it's like I'mstarting to understand some of
them.
And then the questions that II'm not exactly sure I can
logically work through it andtake an educated guess, instead
of just like randomly pickingletters like the first.
The first time I I didn't, Ijust did the test and I was like

(01:02:14):
let's see how good I do withjust guessing.
And yeah, it wasn't pretty.
I restarted the whole thing.
I didn't want that in my stats,in my study.
I'm like, yeah, that's notright.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Hey, that's alright.
You don't have to pass, just topass.
You don't have to pass for theflying colors.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
I know, yeah, all you need is 37 right and 37 out of
50 yep, all the way I looked atit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
All right, all right, yeah, yeah, let's get into the
business.

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
Part of the now that everyone's now that we've now
that everyone's left the podcastbecause I've already done my
practice test, I got three outof three.
It's just the three of us now,because no one else is listening
, they've all shut down andbusiness okay, well, good, we're
gonna be talking business sortof, I guess, tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
So it's just the three of us now because no one
else is listening, they've allshut down and we can talk
business.
Okay, well, good, we're goingto be talking business sort of,
I guess, tonight.
So, like we've been doing forthe past couple episodes if
you've been tuning in already oryou're a consistent listener
we've been doing a discussionaround ham radio clubs and, as
we're starting to see, maybe thestuff we're talking about is
seeming to stick in people.
Maybe the stuff we're talkingabout is seeming to stick in
people with.
You know, we've seen, you knowfolks like the ham radio

(01:03:18):
hillbilly club, a ham radiohillbilly ham radio club.
My gosh, I kind of believe I'vescrewed that one up.
I'm an honorary member and Ican't even get our club Right.
But you know they, they'veobviously felt inspired.
They built a website shortlyafter we've had a, you know, an
episode with them and, dude, Iwent up to their website and a
lot of the stuff that we talkedabout is there.

(01:03:39):
Like dude, they knew theynailed it.
Like it was like if we put themup to a head to head, toe to
toe, to all of our otherwebsites, they'd be taking five
out of five stars, like youwould guarantee that they would
take five out of five.
So you know it's good to seethat stuff like that is sticking
and hopefully maybe otherpeople are taking that same
advice and running with it.
And you know we've had somereally cool discussions, you

(01:04:00):
know, on the discord there.
So you know, if you haven'theard that, head on over there
and you know, talk a little bitmore clubs, but you know.
So we we obviously took thelast kind of.
You know we'll say this is ourlast episode kind of in the club
series, although uh, you knowwe never knows what happens
after this if we uh inspired todo more.
But we figured you know whatone thing I mean we led to a

(01:04:22):
discussion sort of alluded to, Ishould say a lot of, uh, you
know, discussion about robert'srules of order, you know, and
kind of joked about that lastepisode, um, but you know we're
going to talk a little bit aboutbusiness.
I mean, you know, if you'vebeen to a ham radio club and
some of us have, and all of ushere, at least on this show, are
participating actively in oneor been a part of clubs like ham

(01:04:43):
radio, clubs that use thingslike Robert's Rules of Order and
have official business meetingsand stuff like that.
And if you're like me, you kindof.
I've been in the system for awhile when it comes to ham radio
clubs and one of the things Ialways struggle with, especially
when I started in ham radioclubs in my local town and
teenager way back when, was,like you know, they did business

(01:05:06):
and it was business and thenthey went straight to a guest
speaker and then they had coffeeafter and then that was the
event of the meeting.
And every time I went to themeeting I felt like they, you
know, when they did business, itwas never really business with
the action kind of side ofthings and I always felt like,
why do we always table stuffLike, why is it?
Why is that the normal MO formost clubs to have a discussion,

(01:05:28):
have original business?
Have you know old businessdiscussed and or just that
business portion?
And so I wanted to, you know,have that discussion because I
know Paul's got a great, youknow he's a great resource in
that area because he's dealtwith it a lot and he knows
obviously the kind of the insand outs of why it's there and
what its purpose is and and whathe can bring to the table.

(01:05:48):
And you know Todd and I kind ofhave, you know, different walks
of life and flavor of it, andso couple with that and all the
stuff I've seen on the internetwith you know, hayden, from you
know ham radio, dx and stufflike that, saying you know clubs
are just wasting time andwasting their resources doing
all of the business, officialstuff, um, instead of trying to
draw new members in and andbring in you know more people

(01:06:10):
into the fold and letting themkind of get in and experience
ham radio, um, so kind of wantto talk about that.
You know I I think when you saybusiness it stirs up or conjures
up different feelings fordifferent people and for me it's
a negative kind of conjure.
It's like and I want to dealwith it like it's not helping
from a traditional club place.
So let's kind of frame it outhere and so let's talk.

(01:06:32):
Just like we have a monthlyclub meeting.
You might have a monthly clubmeeting in your club and you may
follow the same format a littlebit.
I know with our club.
You know we have the sameformat and it's pretty much the
same format that I remember whenI was a teenager.
You know you come in, you'd havethe Pledge of Allegiance and
you'd have the business portionof it new, old and you know any

(01:06:53):
new business that people want tobring to the table that might
not have been listed under newbusiness and then you may vote
on stuff if you know things needto be brought to the table, and
then shortly after that youbreak for coffee and then you
roll into your guest speaker andthen the night's over, and you
know, biggest complaint, atleast for me and for I'm
standing, is like I didn't get achance to interact with people.

(01:07:13):
I got a chance to raise my handor vote or, you know, become the
you know the second person to,you know nominate a you know
emotion, but I didn't reallylike participate.
And so I, you know I'm bringingit to these guys.
I want to hear what they haveto say, I want to see what they
think about.
You know, you know what thewhole business portion is and
how and what it means to them,and we'll kind of go from there.
So you know I'll get thrownover to you, paul, because I

(01:07:36):
know you've got a good focus anda good understanding of that
whole process and you know youcan definitely kind of explain
your point and why.
You know the backstory of thatstuff, and then we'll go kind of
from there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
All right.
So I was going to ask you, likedid you want to hear why
business meetings are soimportant?
Did you want to hear whybusiness meetings are so
important, or did you?
Did you?
Did you want to, like you andTodd, give why you hate business
meetings?

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
And then I'll tell you why it's important.
I think you should set thefoundation first to the purpose
of why clubs do it and why, injust in general, you know,
organizations do it from abusiness perspective, and and
then we'll business perspectiveand and then we'll go from there
and then we'll get crappyopinions all right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
So, first of all, from a business standpoint um,
most of the amateur radio clubsare registered as 501 are
relatively non-existent.

(01:08:43):
Until you're making in excessof $50,000 a year, you still are
accountable and you have to beaccountable for all of the money
coming in and out and all ofthe things that the club is
doing.
And and the executive, uh,officers of of the club do not

(01:09:07):
get to make all of the decisions.
Okay, they get to make certaindecisions.
There are some things that youknow are written into the bylaws
that would be, you know, boardonly applicable kind of
decisions, but typicallyanything involving spending
money, it has to go to themembership for a vote.

(01:09:27):
And the importance of this andthis is I'm going to stress this
because if you are notparticipating and paying
attention to your club'sbusiness meetings, right, like
Todd cutting his fingernails,but if you're not paying

(01:09:52):
attention, okay, then you're notbeing an active participant and
you're not voicing yourconcerns or lack of concerns for
how your club is spending money.
Okay, all right, and so inmoney.
Well, hear me out though.
Okay, so before we get to notspending money, because, yes,

(01:10:13):
there are those people that theylove to hold the purse strings
tight.
There are also people on theother side of the coin that just
love to spend the money and ifthere's no accountability then
they can be like well, you know,I need this $7,300 for you know

(01:10:34):
the club, but I'm going to keepit at my house and I'm going to
use it all the time.
And you know they basicallytreat it as their own radio and
then it never gets actually puton club books because it didn't
go through a club meeting and soit's not in the club minutes
and right.
And so you get into these,these things where you know

(01:10:54):
people, either inadvertently orintentionally, will pocket club
money or benefit from club funds, and so it happens all the time
.
And I'll tell you, coming fromthe VFW side of things VF, the

(01:11:15):
VFW, is a.
It's also a nonprofit.
Nonprofits all function in thesame capacity.
It's a.
You know, it's just a differentclassification.
It's a 501C 19 being a militaryveteran organization, as
opposed to a 501C3, which is ageneral nonprofit.
And I realize I'm kind ofprobably getting into the boring

(01:11:35):
shit right now, but stick withme, because if you're not paying
attention, there are peoplethat will take advantage and
they will personally benefit.
And so club meetings are.
That's the time for opentransparency, that's the time
for everybody to voice theirconcerns about the finances and

(01:11:55):
and the direction of the club.
And that is why you followRobert's rules and you've.
Everybody follows the samemeeting format because it
provides structure and rigidityso that you don't get people
speaking out of turn, you don'tget people talking over people
and a big argument and chaos.

(01:12:16):
And there has to be order andstructure to it.
And so you follow Robert's rulesand you cover your old,
unfinished business first, thenyou go into your new business
and then, typically, you'll havea segment at the very end.
It would be the good of theorder or, uh, the good of the

(01:12:38):
club.
And, and so that's the part ofthe meeting where you're not, um
, you're not voting on anything,unless something got overlooked
, but you're, you're typicallynot voting on things, uh, but
rather you're presenting ideasto be looked up and looked into
of the, the direction that theclub is heading in.

(01:12:59):
What do we want to do?
What is our mission?
What?
What is it that we should beorganizing ourselves so that we
are staying in line with whatour club mission is and what we
want to do, so we can furthergrow the club now that all that
boring stuff had gone sorry Idon't have a sound file for that

(01:13:22):
.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Anyway, I was kidding , okay, all right.
So I, in theory, I kind ofunderstand no knowing those
rules and the purpose of themand why they're created, because
everything you know needs somestructure, especially when
you're dealing with money andissues around money.

(01:13:44):
Um, where do we think?
I mean obviously in the processmaybe, and this is possibly
part of the struggle that I haveis like I feel that in life,
especially when you have a club,a lot of times the locations or
places that you do meet you'relimited to that.

(01:14:04):
You know time frame, you knowof whatever hours or set, you
know availability to be able todo those things.
A lot of times and a lot offeedback come from folks that
the business portion, althoughimportant and useful, can always
take away from the per se, thecore of the purpose of the club
in in meeting and buildingconnection and you know learning

(01:14:28):
something or engaging withothers or you know, introducing
yourself to new people.
It doesn't foster or it takesaway from possibly the fostering
of, you know, thoserelationships to grow the club
that you know, all of thosehealthy things you need to be
able to have a good working club.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
Well, sure, if.
If you're, if you're having abusiness meeting followed by a
lecture, then there's no timefor socialization.
But if you're having a businessmeeting followed by a lecture,
then there's no time forsocialization.
But if you're, if your solefocus for the evening is the
business meeting, then you havesocialization before the meeting
, you have the meeting, and thenyou have socialization after
the meeting, right like right,and then, and then you, you, you

(01:15:06):
get both things accomplished inone night so do you find?

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
the funny thing is, I find, like, find, like in it
doesn't, you know, particularlyfocus on, say, our club.
But I find, in general, otherclubs, the common feedback that
I've always heard from theexecutive team or the folks that
are leadership have always saidwell, you know, we're not going
to, we want to be transparent,and that's always in the kind of
the foreground, and so in thattransparency message, they use

(01:15:32):
the, the business portion askind of this, um, we'll say, a
weapon to beat the membershipinto submission, to stop asking
for, you know, having thebusiness portion of the meeting,
because you know we're bringingevery little small, little
detail or issue or thing thatneeds to be membership voted

(01:15:53):
upon or discussed, and and I,you know, I, I kind of from my
vantage point, I feel like thattakes away um more so, but from
the, the meeting purpose,because I think you can get
through a business portion of ameeting pretty quickly in most
cases.
If you know, most people have,you know, been educated prior to

(01:16:17):
the meeting.
You know, a lot of times boardmeetings or even just club
meetings will be like oh, I justgot the minutes 10 minutes ago
and you want me to like, voicemy opinion on you know subject
matter and then vote, which, inessence, I think from my
experience, has always been onits ear and been always tabled,
and I think that's a frustrationpoint too.
But, um, what I was kind ofthinking was is, like, in

(01:16:42):
today's space, I mean, obviouslyyou have components and you had
mentioned, uh, the, the speaker, um, you know being, you know
obviously a point that takesaway from you know, say, the,
the opportunity to fosterrelationships and and grow.
You know the social aspect whatwould you propose?
Like, would you propose or doyou have concern?

(01:17:03):
I'm not concerned.
You did you have any ideas oflike how to change that format
around so you become morefocused on you know the social
aspect of it?
Like, you know what?
What if you let's back up, whatwould you look at as a large?
Like, if you could run yourclub the way you wanted it, what
would that look like?

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
So all right.
So if it was my club, all right, and I was, I was the president
of the club, I would.
I would run the meetings, justlike I have run many, many VFW
meetings.
I was a post commander forthree years.
I was district commander fortwo at the helm.

(01:17:52):
Who is good at running ameeting?
Who is good at taking chargeand putting people in their
place?
That's an important part of it,right?
Because meetings can get awayvery, very easily if you do not
have a good leader in charge.
So one you got to have a goodleader.
So if it was my club, themeeting would be kind of a brass
tacks, no nonsense.
All right, let's move throughthe things.

(01:18:13):
We're going to read the minutes, because not everybody gets the
minutes in the email, right?
Even if you send it out a weekahead of time, not everybody is
going to get it and read it.
So you read the minutes in themeeting and you go.
This is what we did last time,which gives everybody a reminder
of anything that was tabled.
Okay, cause anything that wastabled means that it had to be

(01:18:36):
further researched and and itwas going to be brought up for a
vote at the next meeting.
So that's going to come upunder unfinished business.
So you, you, you go throughthat, you do your treasurer's
report, you do your, yourminutes and your minutes, and
then you touch on the unfinished.
All right, this is what wedidn't address last time.

(01:18:57):
Let's address it.
Has everybody had time toconsider the options?
This is what we're going to doone way or the other here.
Put it to a vote, then it'ssettled, it's done, move on.
Put it to a vote, then it'ssettled, it's done, move on.
You know anything new?
Business that's going toinvolve a lengthy discussion.
Uh, you know something that'sgoing to be a hot topic.

(01:19:18):
It's probably going to end upgetting tabled for the sake of
time, because people are goingto want to go home, they're
going to want to research otheroptions.
Then come to the next meetingwith those options.
Um, but you got to make surethat you're remembering that
whatever was tabled, it needs tobe brought back up.
Agreed, you know.

(01:19:38):
And then, and then, yeah, justyou know, go, go through the
business portion and do thebusiness and then socialize.
Don't have a lecture after.
Socialize, because you've goteverybody there, everybody's
there, and and now the meetingis fresh in your mind.
Well, let's talk about thefuture of the club amongst

(01:19:59):
ourselves, outside of themeeting.
You know what I mean.
Like I, I feel like that wouldbe so much more productive than
having to rush through themeeting agenda just because you
don't want the the lecture guyto have to wait, you know?
And then everybody's going tosit through the fucking lecture

(01:20:20):
and the powerpoint, fuckingdeath scroll like, oh god it,
please just shoot me in the head, like that is.
It's just so awful.
Have the meeting focus on themeeting, then focus on each
other okay, todd, how would yourun your, your ideal meeting?

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
well, first one thing I want to say is I don't think
we've ever read in our club theminutes from the previous
meeting, no we don't Tim readsthem, no, he just, they go.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Oh no, you're right.
Yeah, no, the minutes wereposted or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:20:58):
Who agree?
I, I, I look at our hammer inthe club.
I think, if you polled everyone, no one really cares because
they they care about a big issue.
But the generalized budget,day-to-day stuff, it's like
they're there for thesocialization or they're there
for the lecture.
I don't think they're there forthe business meeting, unless

(01:21:22):
there was something like we'regoing to change something that
might be controversial or we'relooking to make a big shift in
the club.
I mean, that's the way I see it.
Um, you know, I don't know.
Do you have to have?
I mean, I don't know what ourbylaws are, I haven't but do you
have to have a business meetingevery month?

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
can you do it every quarter and have our bylaws
don't have it written pod pods,naughty sorry, paul's nodding
his head.
You should have every month,but, um, it's not clearly
defined in in if we're using ourclub as an example, in our, our
templated bylaws it's notstated that way, like there's.
There is a membership component.

(01:22:05):
Uh, there's sorry.
There's a note-taking componentabout our you know, capturing
all of the stuff, but there'snot a review or um, you know
that we're required to.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
Yeah, that detail you know, and I think I think you
know the.
You know, I think the most, atleast for me it's more of like
where are we at financially?
You know where's all the money,because the money leads to the
activities the club's going todo and what we could possibly do
with it.
I don't know.
I mean I thought about maybe,you know, maybe you have a

(01:22:38):
business meeting.
You know a different time thanwhen you do the socialize.
So maybe you do a businessmeeting and you do it on Zoom or
something, and you go througheverything, you read everything
and then the people that want tobe there be there, and then you
have the club meeting where youknow you have the lecturer, you
have the coffee, the hangingout, that kind of stuff.

(01:23:00):
I mean we do it all in once.
But I mean I think we wentthrough one of our meetings, we
did the business meeting.
I think it was seven minutes,like the whole thing, seven
minutes because we had a speaker.
And I mean I thought, okay,cool, we're going to go right to
the speaker, but if people areinterested or caring about it,

(01:23:20):
you kind of it is important.
I agree with Paul, it isimportant to make sure
everything's in there, but onthe other hand, I don't know how
many people want to be therefor the business meeting.
I could be wrong, but I wonderif you said okay, from now on,
the Friday before the clubmeeting, we're going to do the
business meeting on Zoom.
I honestly wanted to see howmany people show up for it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
A separate kind of.

Speaker 3 (01:23:43):
Yeah, so let's say the first Friday of the month is
the business meeting and thenthe second Friday of the month
is the club meeting, where wehave a speaker or an activity or
or whatever, and socialization.
I wonder what percentage of theclub shows up for the business
meeting only, even if theydidn't have to go anywhere, they
just got to get on zoom, and Iguess that would be maybe a good

(01:24:07):
experiment to do to see see howimportant people think it is.
But I mean, I agree with paul,there has to be accountability,
because people will steal andtake things and you got to keep
everyone in check.
You know some guy could be like, oh well, they'll never notice
this because it's only a hundredbucks here and you know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Next thing, you know, you know the ham radios don't
keep their value, doesn't reallymatter yeah I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:24:32):
I mean, I mean it's, it's it's something that you
know.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
I I find the business part of the meeting unless it's
something that we've beendiscussing and we're trying to
make a big change I just findthem just repetitive.
It's like the same thing we getthe budget, oh there's so much
money we have, we approve lastmonth's budget, and I don't
think anyone or last month'sthing, and I don't think

(01:24:56):
anyone's read it, to be honestwith you, except for what they
remember from the last time.
And so I do like that pointthat we should read it, you know
, because that might stirsomething up or bring a question
.
So I agree with paul on that.
I just don't know how manypeople are so into it that they
they want to be there for thatnow, you did allude to like

(01:25:17):
having a separate businessmeeting.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
Like, paul, what's your take on that?
Like, do you feel like it'sthat, would on?
That would not to say honor,but would be you know best way
to kind of describe honoring thecomponent of, you know,
following due process with thebusiness minutes and that whole
process, to be able also createspace for those to ask questions

(01:25:39):
and be able to do that withoutfeeling like there's a time
limit.
Like, do you think that's a youknow an alternative to maybe
not having to do that in aformal meeting per se?
Or do you very, you know, clearon the, because I know you've
done it, you know, in severaldifferent ways.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
Yeah, well, so, um, all right.
So, like the, the, I I'll I'llkeep referring back to the VFW,
cause that's what I know thebest.
Um, but when, when I would runa meeting, or when I would coach
another commander on how to runa meeting, it's all about

(01:26:14):
efficiency, right, and thebetter that you are familiar
with Robert rules and and theformat of the meeting, the more
efficiently you can run throughthe meeting.
And so there were many timeswhere we would conduct all
business and all formalities.

(01:26:36):
Everything start to finish in20 to 30 minutes.
Then there are other meetingswhere you've got elections, or
you've got some big purchasegoing on, or you've got some big
plan, and it involves a bunchof discussion.
Well, discussion will prolongthe meeting length, and so you

(01:27:01):
gotta take that into account.
And that's where I truly thinkthat ham radio clubs are doing a
disservice to their members bytrying to cram so much shit into
one night.
And if you pick a Friday nightat seven, seven, 30, like,
you're wrong because you're not,you're not going to get anybody

(01:27:24):
.
That's under, you know, 65.
It's going to be like oh, Ihave nothing better to do on a
Friday night at 7 o'clock thanto go to a ham radio club.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
I know we're all losers.

Speaker 3 (01:27:37):
I'm there.

Speaker 1 (01:27:41):
He's the VE guy now and he has to report in.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
I make like what, four club meetings a year maybe
it's just Friday night is datenight Like I would much rather
be out with my wife enjoying agood night, you know, than than
sitting in a fucking clubmeeting.
So make yeah.

(01:28:08):
Okay, I always laugh at that butyou know, I mean, I mean, make
it a Monday, tuesday, wednesday,Thursday, make it a Saturday
morning, make it a Sunday, youknow, whatever, like, just come
on, just think about like, ifyou're trying to bring younger
people into your club, then youneed to schedule things that are

(01:28:28):
going to be conducive tobringing younger people into
in-person meetings, and whetherthat's whether that's your
business meeting or whetherthat's a lecture, or whether
that's a POTA meetup or or any aworkbench build, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:28:44):
Like, just fricking, be smart and and schedule it so
that it's conducive for morepeople to be able to be there so
to kind of boil that down, isknowing your, knowing your
membership, knowing wherethey're at, you know where they,
you know their lives, theirstyles, their age groups, you

(01:29:05):
know all that stuff is important, obviously, and and making
those better decisions as towhether or not the night you
operate as your club is a goodnight for most people there.
Now, you know, I I would throwin the caveat, I know from what
I've seen in our club, ournumbers seem to weigh better on
friday nights and the minorityseem to be the ones that

(01:29:26):
obviously have date night onfriday night or whatever, and
those that don't, and that'stotally fine.
I mean, in essence, you can'tdo everything for everybody, as
we all know please everyone doneexactly.
You get nothing done.
So you know, definitely, I youknow, and actually that's
probably a good point.

Speaker 3 (01:29:41):
So I guess what about ?
What about rotating uh?
Nights start off on a sundaythe next month go to monday.

Speaker 4 (01:29:49):
Live streams what are you talking about?
The next month go to Monday.

Speaker 3 (01:29:51):
The next month go to Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
Then everyone's happy .
It's a random, targeted day.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
I agree, fridays is not.
It's a terrible night for ameeting.
If you're retired and you havenothing to do and the days of
the week don't matter becausethey're all the same, then it
doesn't really matter.
But For working people, I mean,I'll be honest with you for me,
like Friday's the start of myweekend, like the last Thing you
know.
It's like, oh, I gotta Go tothe club meeting.

(01:30:23):
It's like that, oh, I gotta goto the club meeting.
It's not like, yeah, it's aclub Meeting tonight.
I got something to do tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
You know, I mean I'm not raising a fist to the sky,
going yes, but you know, for mea Friday, you know, is kind of
50, 50.
I, we, I don't always do daynights, but yeah, Okay, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:30:41):
I mean, look at, I mean my, my job is not
physically demanding, butmentally maybe, or draining, I
would say Okay.
So by the time friday comesaround, like I'm just a mush,
like I don't want to do anything, let alone listen to ham radio,
club finances and new votes andall like I'm just kind of like

(01:31:05):
whatever.
But like my flying club, likethey meet on on a wednesday, but
you know we're kind of in thesame boat, like not a lot of
people show up for that either.
You know we have one, we have ashow and tell in april where
everyone shows up because that'sa big club, you know, meeting
where everyone shows up and seewhat they built over the, over

(01:31:27):
the winter.
So that always draws a lot.
But like, and basically ourother club meetings are just
business and we don't we getgood question, actually.

Speaker 1 (01:31:37):
You have a flying club, so what's that format look
like for you?
How's that differ between, likesay, our club example?
You know, using that to compare, so we don't have.

Speaker 3 (01:31:45):
So we have, um, we have like meetings.
We have meetings once a monthon a Wednesday night.
April is the designated showand tell where people who have
been building stuff over thewinter they bring it in and we
vote on them and check them outand they give a presentation.

(01:32:07):
It's a longer meeting.
They do the business part realquick, um, they kind of get it
out of the way and um, and thenthey have a budget meeting where
they discuss and present thebudget.
Then the next one.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
Is that separate to that, it's a separate meeting
all together well, it's part ofthe club meeting.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):
So, like you know, like let's I don't know let's
say like they're gonna do thebudget, so typically they
present the budget.
Let's say like they're going todo the budget, so typically
they present the budget, let'ssay in March and then.
Or let's say in February andthen in March they vote on it,
so it's presented.
People can ask questions, sendemails, and then it's the next
month they do it, then it's theshow and tell and then we do

(01:32:48):
meetings at the field in thesummer.
So we do that.
Then we switch it fromWednesdays to a Sunday and we do
meetings at the field in thesummer, so we do that.
Then we switch it fromwednesdays to a sunday and we do
it at noon.
Huh that's a lot of days toswitch around and well, only
because sunday sundays is theclub day of flying, like that's
where the whole club getstogether at the field and flies.
So it's nice out.

(01:33:09):
We got a little pavilion, it'slike why not go and do it
outside?

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
and so on those days like you're doing stuff, you're
not doing business discussionsthough, like when you're doing
activities like show and youknow fly it, float and fly that
type of stuff, those aremeetings, but you're not doing
business like stuff at those allthe meetings, all the okay.

Speaker 3 (01:33:28):
Every meeting they do business, even at the show and
tell, but it's very brief, likeit's like real quick.
Oh, you're still.
The other ones are are longer.
Um that they, they propose abudget, they also have elections
, so they, they, they nominatepeople and then the next month,
you know they, they vote on whothe, the leadership's going to

(01:33:50):
be.
Uh, christmas they do a um,what do you call it Yankee swap?
So they do a quick businessmeeting and then everyone is
swapping gifts and we, they buyfood and cater and do that kind
of stuff.
So there's some special meetingsand then sometimes rarely,
we'll get like someone to comein and do a like a presentation

(01:34:12):
or something.
One of the guys years agowanted to do a solar charging
station and he presented thishuge thing and I mean it took a
lot of time and work and it wasgood and it got voted down.
But now we have a chargingstation because the reason it
got voted down is like when hewas proposing it everything was
so expensive.

(01:34:33):
So now that all the solar stuffhas gotten cheaper, it was more
feasible for the club to do andit's awesome and you know he
had the idea to do it, but thatwas a whole meeting of his
presentation trying to convincethe club why we need this.
And then you have a month tothink about it, talk, ask
questions and then you vote.
So I I mean our meetings, youknow, we, we, it seems like we

(01:34:57):
go through the business partreally quick and then we do,
like the presenter, which iscool, which I.
Like the presenters some ofthem are more into than others.
Um, and you know, and we havethat break in between and then
there's beginning, people mingle, and then after people mingle,
you know, and socialize.
So I mean it's hard to say, Iwould rather have the social

(01:35:18):
aspect and have the businessmeeting like every quarter.
I don't know how necessary fora club like ours which isn't
doing a lot of business typethings, doing a lot of business
type things.
Um, I mean, we have more sidemeetings that I think are more
important, like when we do fieldday, like field day prep and
that kind of stuff.
Right, we have the little sidegroup meetings to do it.

(01:35:40):
We talk about field day.
You know you might bring it upin the new business or old
business we never do a businessmeeting on a field day meeting
whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
It's just like you know, field day stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
Yeah, because those those would be committees and
and you your committees,whatever, I mean like, like our
club.

Speaker 3 (01:36:00):
I mean honestly, what have we done?
What have we?
What has changed exceptmembership?
What has changed?
And what have we done in thelast three months?
Have we spent any money?
I don't think so.
Have we?
I mean, we we we changed?
Uh, what did we change?

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
We don't have to get into the details, but yeah,
there's stuff that has happened.

Speaker 3 (01:36:23):
I mean, yeah, I mean, but we, we, we made a vote and
we changed something about thequorum or whatever which you
know makes sense, or whatever.
Fine, something about thequorum or whatever which you
know makes sense, or whatever,fine.
But there really wasn't.
Like it's not like we've got aan ongoing business thing that
we have to continue to talkabout.
It's like it's same old, sameold, like it's going to be the
same meeting this month as it isgoing to be next month, and

(01:36:45):
maybe the numbers change alittle bit.
So I mean, I I don't know.
I I'm not against having these,but I just don't know if they
need to be on our, our club, inour situation.
Do they need to be every month,and or do you do them
separately?
And I'd just be curious to seehow many people would actually
come.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
Well, even if it was on zoom.
I can sort of answer thatquestion a little bit, just
anecdotally, which would be thatyou probably would not see the
level of physical involvement ofpeople on a separate Zoom
meeting to attend anothermeeting, because we all know, no
matter what age group you're in, that your life and time and

(01:37:27):
availability is, you know,precious, so you try to use it
as best as a possible resourceto doing certain things and not
doing other things.
So if you had a board, if we hada separate business portion
meeting, we probably would nothave the numbers that we would
need to have, you know, any justformal discussion or due

(01:37:49):
process or any of that, becausepeople just don't want to and,
as paul alluded to and youtouched on, todd, that they
don't want to, um, unless itpains their wallets, hurts them
in some, you know, personal way,or, you know, concerns them in
some personal way, or they havea very strong opinion of it.
It's not going to be discussed.

(01:38:10):
So I would say that youprobably wouldn't see the level
of involvement as a separatemeeting.
Now I take on that.
I would love to have a separatemeeting but what?

Speaker 3 (01:38:20):
what does that say about the, the value of the to
the club members, of thebusiness meeting?
Because I hear, hear whatPaul's saying and I'll, and I'm
not against not having businessmeetings, but I think the bigger
problem is the importance ofthe business meeting and getting
people to understand theimportance and take it seriously
.
Because we don't take itserious.

(01:38:43):
I don't think our club takes itthat seriously.
I know in the flying club but Ithink in our flying club, like
we spend and make huge purchases, like we, we, we paid, we spent
10 grand to knock down trees,like that's a huge expense,
right.
Like we spent 16 000 to buy alawnmower, right, like, well,

(01:39:05):
this stuff isn't like, oh, we'regonna buy the lawnmower, who's
up a?
I mean it's like months ofdiscussion and research and
people being assigned tasks andcome back and report.
It's not just like a snap ofthe fingers.
There goes our whole savings.
And I think with our club wedon't do that kind of level of

(01:39:27):
stuff.
And I don't think people takethe business part too seriously.
I don't think they take like wevote members in.
Like I don't even understandwhy we do that, because half the
time roberts rules thing.

Speaker 1 (01:39:37):
Paul speaking of yes, okay members into the club.
Yeah, it's not really read,it's not really written into our
members.
I know like gun clubs and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
Do that like you have to.
You know you have to show yourdedication.
You know, go and meet someone,get sponsored, whatever, and I
mean every club's different.
But like half the time we votemembers in, they're not even
there, no one's even met himbefore and they all get voted in
.
But then if someone has aproblem with the member, they're
going to be like wow, I mean,you know what I mean.

(01:40:11):
So to this, to this, date.

Speaker 2 (01:40:13):
Yeah, go ahead so the the point of the process isn't
to meet the person because theperson might not be there.
The point of the process isthat you're, you're vetting
through the membership, the newpeople coming in, and so you go
okay, here's who we haveapplying for membership to our

(01:40:36):
club.
This is their qualifications,that meet our membership
requirements.
And is everybody inapprovable?
Personally knows somebody andthey're like oh no, that person
is a shit bag and they're shadyand they're a thief and they're,

(01:40:56):
you know, a pathological liar.
Well, that's your time to standup and go.
Uh no, I object to that personjoining this club, like and so
the person being there isirregardless, it's presenting
the— but no one even knows whothey are.

Speaker 3 (01:41:14):
I mean, we'll go through it.
We just say oh you know,charles Manson signed up.
Call, sign out.

Speaker 1 (01:41:20):
He just got his technician license.

Speaker 3 (01:41:25):
I mean it's not like there's any kind of like
biography.
I mean it's very basic.
It's not like there's any kindof like biography.

Speaker 2 (01:41:33):
I mean, it's very basic.

Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
Well then, your membership coordinator isn't
vetting the prospective memberswell enough.
Do you understand the criteriathat I have to vet them against?
Do they breathe?
Do they have money?
Are they licensed or not?
And that's the criteria.
The the option is like ifthey're not licensed, okay, fine
, you know they aren't a votingmember.
If they are licensed, well,they're a voting member.
You know?
Simple as that.
That's the extent of it, paul,like you know, they got a

(01:42:01):
heartbeat.

Speaker 3 (01:42:02):
Okay, check boxed have you been to the barn?
Have you been to you go thatroute?
Yeah, no, I mean, like I said,I I just I don't think our club
members take the business partseriously at all and I think if
you pulled them they would say,well, I, rather not even I,
could care less what happens,unless it's a big topic, like if

(01:42:26):
we're going to spend money.
There's going to be like, if Isay, hey, we want to buy a new
repeater and a tower, and theysay, are you?
No, then it becomes important.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
Let's move on, right.
I mean.
So it actually kind of bringsup an interesting topic.
It's like so yeah, it's, it's,it's almost comical.
And this is kind of why, like Ibrought this up and I know it's
like one of those things wecould go forever.
But like it's almost likemundane, like because we just do
it, because a lot of times itfeels like it's just due process
and it's part of the, the clubstructure.

(01:43:02):
But when 90 of the conversationis like yeah, uh, okay, same
stuff, blah, blah, blah, let'sjust get it over with and done.
You kind of question, at leastI do, like what does it bring
value and what can the valuebring?
And obviously Paul'sdescription it brings a lot of
value if you're following it andthere's, you know, activity to

(01:43:24):
support it.
But if you don't, then, likeyou know, you're just now
following, you know, just a ruleto follow the rule right.

Speaker 3 (01:43:43):
Well, I mean, look, we spend more time at the
meeting trying to find out whowhat call sign is seconding the
motion on the table or whomotioned it, and giving everyone
an equal share to I mean Motion?
Right, I mean it's.
I just think that it that it's.
I'm kind of split between two.
You know, if this was a debate,I could debate it either way
and I think I would be a gooddebate.
I could argue they're notnecessary.
Every month they're there.
No one wants to go there,they're boring.

(01:44:04):
You know we don't do anything.
You know it's just, we justwait and go through the process,
get it done as quickly aspossible.
And you know it's just, we'rejust waiting to go through the
process, get it done as quicklyas possible.
And you know, I could arguethat.
I could also argue what paulsays and say they are important
because it does holdaccountability, it does show,
it's supposed to show, thedirection of the club.
And you know, my thing is is,when I've seen in other clubs,

(01:44:27):
like the flying club, like whensomeone is passionate about
something and brings it up andthere's someone that's not on
board with whatever that topicis, that's when they become
really important.
So what does it bring to?

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
the idea.

Speaker 3 (01:44:45):
I'm just saying like look last month's meeting and
this month's meeting.
If we didn't have those twomeetings, nothing's changed
except membership let me ask aquestion.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):
So let's take a step back on this like.
So what do what do you guysview the meeting as?
Is it a place for a prospectivenew person, member or, you know
, pam radio operator to come inand experience what the club may
offer, or is it more, not thatis it like?
Is it more is that like?

(01:45:17):
Like?
I view obviously the, the wholerules, robert's rules, the
structure, the business, veryimportant, but I don't feel like
that's important for a newmember to the club or a ham
radio person just getting in thehobby to really have any deep
interest in, because they're notthat, they're not in, they're
not deep enough into the club tounderstand the, the day-to-day

(01:45:40):
or whatever activities you know.

Speaker 3 (01:45:42):
You know, for me, I mean, look at this, what are
club meetings?
What's the purpose of a meeting?
Is it to?
Is it to recruit new members?
Is it to learn?
Is it to hang out?
Like what is the whole purpose?
We did the mesh tastic ummeeting and that was huge, huge.
I mean there's people comingover, we got members out of it.

(01:46:03):
People joined up, people weretalking about on the repeaters.
You know it was like they hadit was.
It was a great meeting becauseit was interactive and people
were business.

Speaker 1 (01:46:13):
Yeah, we did the business, but no one was in the
business yep, what, but no oneno, I guarantee you ask anyone
there what?

Speaker 3 (01:46:20):
what was said in the business being that I can
remember, I would remember.
But they're going to rememberthe mesh, tastic stuff because
that's what they were interestedin.
You know we get a a coolpresenter on something that
you're interested in, you knowyou that's.
You go there and it's like, oh,that was a great.
You know we get a a coolpresenter on something that
you're interested in.
You know you that's.
You go there and it's like, oh,that was a great.
You know that was a great.
Um, what do you call it?
Like presentation.
I learned something that wasreally interesting.

(01:46:41):
I love that again.
Are they going to remember thebusiness meeting?
What was said?
Of course not, because werushed through it so fast.
I don't even know what they'resaying.
I tried to take notes and I waslike whoa, whoa, slow down,
because it was just going sofast.
You know, I mean I I listenedto the money and I listened to
the membership.
Those are the two things to meare like okay, we still have

(01:47:02):
money in the bank.
Cool, oh, we got five newmembers.
Awesome, are they here?
Darn it.
I would like to introducemyself to them.
But I mean, that's to me that'sthe best part of the business
meeting.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
Thank you, todd being a membership coordinator anyway
.
So I said the membership I likethat you got something on your
mind all right.

Speaker 2 (01:47:29):
So, um, so in in in my mind, the, the club meeting
is for business, okay, okay andso.
So if it was my club, all right, I would have a monthly club
meeting and it would be, youknow, uh, at some point that was

(01:47:50):
convenient for the majority ofmy members, and that meeting is
for conducting business and thensocializing afterwards.
Now, if I want to have alecture, if I want to have you
know, a 4-H event or a POTAmeetup or any of the other cool

(01:48:12):
things that a ham radio clubshould be doing, that is not
going to take place inconjunction with a meeting.
That is going to be a separateevent where I'm going to have my
membership coordinator doingrecruiting.
I'm going to have, you know,somebody there that's, you know,
got pamphlets and informationabout the club, somebody that's

(01:48:35):
going to give a talk onsomething that is important to
people, to bring in people thatmay or may not be members of the
club.
And so you grow in that wayoutside of your business meeting
, grow in that way outside ofyour business meeting, and then,
when your business meetingrolls around, you go hey, listen
, we had this event last month.

(01:48:56):
It took place in betweenmeetings, but we, you know it
was after the last meeting.
It was a great success.
This is what we did X, y and Zand now we have X number of new
members to vote on that wantedto join after attending our
event.
And so if the new members wantto attend the business portion

(01:49:19):
of the business meeting, thenthey attend the business meeting
and then they socializeafterwards, where you've got
knowledgeable, experiencedmembers of the club hanging out
and welcoming you know, hey, allright, yeah, great, what do you
got for an HT, what do you gotfor this, what do you got for
that, what do you need help with?
And you have thoseconversations where you know,

(01:49:40):
maybe you're exchanging contactinfo and you're developing those
personal relationshipspost-meeting, but you've got to
have events, uh, you know, thatare specific to growing the club
and furthering your knowledgeand doing builds and and
whatever.
Don't, don't try and lump itall into one thing, because

(01:50:03):
you're you're ruining thefucking business of the meeting
by doing that.
And and, and most people, I, I,I, I would think most people, I
would think most people aremore in line with me in the fact
that, like I don't want to sitthrough a rushed business
meeting to get to a fuckingboring PowerPoint.
I don't give a flying fuckabout it.

(01:50:25):
Now, if you're going to dosomething where we're going to
do a meeting and then we'regoing to build something that
doesn't require soldering,awesome, let's fucking do it.
You know, let's let's have somefun hanging out after the
meeting and let's just dosomething together.
But to just sit there for aboring PowerPoint or a lecture,

(01:50:49):
lecture and a powerpoint, likecome on, this isn't 1998 anymore
.
Like this is 2025.
Let me say that again this is2025.

Speaker 3 (01:51:03):
Like enough with the powerpoint lectures well I I
just go there for the freecoffee.
It's really the only reason Igo.

Speaker 1 (01:51:11):
I just go for the food.

Speaker 2 (01:51:14):
Dude, you know what?
Not this meeting, because thismeeting is this Friday.
At what?
7, 730?
Like, I will not be there.
I have other things to do, butyeah, so maybe next meeting.
Uh, I will.
I will bring a thermos ofcoffee for you so you can have

(01:51:36):
free coffee.

Speaker 3 (01:51:37):
No, the club provides this coffee.

Speaker 1 (01:51:39):
I'm doing my POTA presentation, so you better
bring no coffee and damn wellwatch that presentation, because
I'm going to get to make sureit's a fucking interactive one.

Speaker 2 (01:51:48):
Actually, you know what Next meeting will be.
May uh I I will be out of state, so I maybe I'll attend
remotely.

Speaker 1 (01:51:57):
You can zoom in.
Thank you appreciate thesupport there, mr.

Speaker 3 (01:52:00):
No, no, I will I will say I think I I'd never been to
our club.
The flying club doesn't do zoom, makes it available online, and
I think that our club I thinkthat's awesome because there
have been times where, forwhatever reason, I wasn't able
to make it and it was nice to beonline to do it.

(01:52:22):
So I think that's cool.
It gives everyone anopportunity, whether they can
make it or not.
You know, if you're sick orwhatever, you don't want to get
people, you know you can stillsee the, you know the business
part of the meeting and hearwhat you have to do.
And so I mean, paul, I agreewith you a hundred percent.
I just I think that there'sjust I don't think people value

(01:52:46):
the business part of the meetingas much as maybe they should,
because you're right, it is, itis important and you know,
sometimes the the not the funstuff is, is is important to
keep the club running.
So I don't know, I mean I don'tknow what you do to how you
change it.
I do agree with you that Fridaysuck as a night and you know,

(01:53:08):
maybe I'll make a motion tochange the meeting club nights
that'll stir up a whirlwind makeit Thursday make it Saturday
morning?

Speaker 2 (01:53:18):
I don't think we have to talk our club.

Speaker 1 (01:53:20):
I was just trying to like broaden the base a bit, but
I'm sure every club has theirown thing.

Speaker 3 (01:53:24):
But I bet you, if you look at all the hobbyist clubs
in the state, I guarantee youwe're probably one of the only
ones that do friday night no, no, really surprised, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:53:37):
So here's another, like mike, and I can't remember
if mike said he has it on awednesday or thursday.
He goes to his club once amonth and it's always like on a
wednesday or thursday and everytime I've talked to him he's
like I really wish it was someother day, this, that week,
because I am just so busy atthat point of my schedule, like
I sometimes can't even go to myown club meeting and I'm
presenting, you know, that weekor that month or whatever.

(01:53:58):
And so you know it's.
It's just different foreverybody in different walks of
life and depending on whereyou're at.
And so, yeah, there's nevergoing to be a perfect night,
which I don't think, no matterwhether.
Are, you know, using our clubor any club for that matter, if
you try to find a better night,I do, I'm all about for the.
You know, if our club, we'lluse our club, since we've been
talking about it, if we had aphysical place that we call

(01:54:20):
their own, that we weren'trenting or borrowing or waiting
around, you know, for you knowon top of a mountain with an
antenna and a repeater and atower.
Paul Todd shack on top of amountain with an antenna and a
repeater exactly tower paultodd's dream.
Yes, yeah.
So if that was some place thatwe could be there five days,
seven days a week, yeah, right,exactly.
You have a flex, and how manytimes you're on your flex I'm on

(01:54:41):
it, okay?
Well, again, we're not at thelast week.

Speaker 3 (01:54:45):
Part of the club, part of the club and and part of
being in the club is alsohanging out with people, right?
So, like we have, we haveoptions in our club where you
can choose to hang out withpeople at certain times to do it
.
If we had a club shack orwhatever clubhouse whatever you
want to call it physical place,you can go and hang out whenever

(01:55:07):
you want.
I think that would be huge fora club.
I've always said, you know Iwish, I said if, if we own the
flying field, if I ever hit thelottery.
You know I'm building.
You know the tower.
You know the control towerwhere it's going to have hangers
for all the planes to be storedso we don't have to drag our
shit back and forth.
Right, I'm going to have ameeting room.

(01:55:29):
I'm'm gonna have a hangout room.
You know tv we can watch.
You know whatever place for abeer yeah, taps coming right.
I mean, it's just one of those.
You know things that would begood, but even that stuff is
wicked expensive.
I mean, you, you either have tohave like an endowment or
something, or you know you haveto have a huge club with

(01:55:52):
financial.
Our club will never have thatunless someone donates it.
But you're right, if we didhave a place, I think it would
be more.
You would get more Now, granted, where we go, we go to the
school library, and it's a niceplace.
It's much better than thechurch we were going to.
I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:56:08):
But so back to the point of like nothing against
churches no, it's just hard towork in a church environment,
you know, especially in yourbasement.
But, um, I think from astandpoint of like, whatever
your scenario is, if you arestuck to that, you have a
four-hour block of time thatyou're granted to your club
session, you should treat thatlike gold and because if you're

(01:56:31):
using it as a way to getmembership or new people to come
in that might be want to bemembers, that is, I think, the
first place, at least from atraditional Hammond.
So let me kind of tell you mystory.
I think when I started gettinginto clubs and started, you know
, being more involved,especially when I was in
Massachusettsachusetts, I had togo to those clubs to be able to

(01:56:52):
experience what was going on.
And two of the clubs you knowhad facilities that they were
their own and so you could hangout for hours after the fact at
the location because they werethe ones to have the keys to
lock up.
And what I learned from thosescenarios was that the there was
a club session that they onlydid what they called.

(01:57:12):
They called it business, but inessence it wasn't a voting per
se session.
It was like uh hey, this iswhat we had in our business
meeting as a club that everybodywho was a member would go to,
because that's where all of thediscussion was had.
That's where you know the the,the nuts and bolts happened, you
know, in terms of discussionabout a topic or a you know a

(01:57:33):
move that the club was making orpurchase, or you know all of
the budgeting.
All that stuff was all done ina separate space that the
membership would all go to.
But their monthly club meetingwas really just intended to
bring perspective hams in,people that were interested,
family members that don't knowwhat the hobby, with the
intention that when they wentthrough their regular format,

(01:57:55):
the business stuff that theytalked about was just only like,
kind of like they were readingfrom um, I hate to say it a
script, but it was just asummary.
It was like, hey, this is the10 things that we all covered,
we're just giving you an fyi.
And then they dove right intowhatever topic they were doing,
whatever discussion they had,whatever open you know kind of
social aspect that they were,you know doing at that time.

(01:58:18):
And that club, from myperspective, flourished because
in essence they knew that theirfirst target and first like kind
of you know, um, know,involvement into ham radio was
that club meeting.
Now, obviously, today we've gotthe internet.
We have all of the you know,other resources that you can
find about a club, so website ismore important at that.

(01:58:41):
You know in that that realm.
But you know, I still think thevalue of like having a space
and you know less about the rulestructure, for you know those
that come in and in myexperience at least, you know
from our club oh, that's what Ican share is that the people
that come in aren't members,like we've had like probably
half a dozen people that maybeare ham.

(01:59:01):
They're working on theirlicense, they will be a
protective ham, but they'recoming in because they saw our
club and they wanted to find outmore and the way look at it
like they're going right intothe Roberts rule stuff and
they're seeing all of thisformality and like discussion
and so forth and so on that youknow they kind of get like is
this what the club looks like?
And then they have the othertalk of the like we have a

(01:59:23):
lecture and then it's so passive, it's so non engaging for both
aspects that they just don'tcome back because they're like,
well, that this is all theyreally do.
And so I'm, you know, kind ofin that boat like, yeah, we
should maybe look at thoseprocesses that we do, because
they all bring value andeverything that paul discussed
and and shares and and and verymuch you know, um, you know,

(01:59:45):
shared here is that that'simportant because you have to
have that with, like all things.
Todd said accountability, youknow, uh, ownership and you know
, uh, discussion and you know,healthy discussion.
All of those things have to bedone.
But I, I don't think, you know,from a club perspective, you
have one opportunity to be ableto bring someone new into the
club or someone to come into theclub.

(02:00:06):
I don't think we're doing thator any club today is doing that
in an effective way, becausewe're just so doing the routine
that you know.
Maybe it's something that youknow.
I'm hoping and I'd love to havemore discussion with this,
because I'm sure there's a bunchof different people, totally
different opinions, and all ofus that we talked about tonight,
um, and so to kind of put somerap to this a little bit,
because we could go for hours onthis and and trying to tear it

(02:00:30):
all apart, um, you know, I'llthrow this out here.
You know, if your club is doingwhat we just discussed and you
know that's a format and youfeel like it needs to change,
well, you need to figure out whyin your own life, why that's
important, like what, what, whatis, what thing is driving you
nuts or not driving you nuts orwhat thing is not?
You know, shared enough drivingyou nuts or what thing is not,

(02:00:51):
you know, shared enough orcommunicated?
Well, you know.
Figure out what that is for youfirst, and then you know, come
up with a better way orsuggestive way that you know
your club can change to, to, youknow, to meet the need that you
know might not be being met atthat point.
Not to say that you shouldthrow the baby out with the
bathwater, because that's notwhat I'm suggesting here,
because that's important, um, todo all that stuff.
If that's the only time you getto do that, like I mean that you

(02:01:14):
know we, we didn't touch uponthat and saying that you know,
if we, if your club, can onlymeet once a month and they only
meet after three hours and youhave to do business, then you
should be doing business becausethat's the only time you can do
it.
But if you have otheropportunities to be able to
branch out.
Maybe those should be exploredand discussed, because you want
to create environments for thatto happen.
And and you know, I think youknow from a standpoint of

(02:01:38):
engaging and being out in thecommunity and doing all that
that that that definitelyhappens inside your club meeting
too as well, and and how thatshould look like.
Well, you know, it shouldn't bethat you talk at me or it
shouldn't be a talking headtelling me you know something
about this antenna.
That's great, because he wentout and did a poda with it and
then I leave the club and I'vedone nothing with it except just

(02:01:58):
absorbed a, you know, a warmseat, you know, for two and a
half hours while listening tosomething that I wished I could
go do.
Versus, like, your club shouldbe getting those people into
poda and building antennas andlearning that stuff and and
giving them the tools and theskills, because we all know and
todd's, you know, has said ithimself we all study and we all

(02:02:19):
get our license, but it's alicense to start learning and
you know what better than a clubto start teaching these people
how to build an antenna, like Ihaven't built my own antenna yet
, but I've had a desire to wantto.
I know you're looking at meweird, dude I I have not, not
that I don't want to, but inessence I haven't had, like the
moment, and no one's pushed meto that moment.

(02:02:41):
Um, you know, I've had a lot ofpeople tell me oh, you should
be pounding the brass and Ishould be doing cw, but that's
another story for another day.
So well, so well.

Speaker 2 (02:02:49):
So before we, before we wrap, right, I just want to
clear something up, because itsounded like you said that when
you were first gettinginterested in ham radio clubs,
right Way back when, right thatyou were attending an event
where they recapped the businessmeeting at the beginning of the

(02:03:13):
event to say, hey look, this iswhat our club is doing and now
let's do this fun thing, but FYI, there is business that goes on
and this is when the nextbusiness meeting is going to be.
Or did I hear you wrong?

Speaker 1 (02:03:28):
Well, yeah, so let me clarify that a little bit.
So my first interactions with aclub and their, their business
process or their monthlymeetings was I went in and they
had, you know, gone through.
Basically just a quick summary.
There was no like motion tovotes.
There was no like let's raisean issue.
There was nothing like thatbecause they all phrased their

(02:03:51):
previous business from theirseparate business meeting.
But what I came to understandwas is that they had a separate
environment where they allowedthat to happen and that's where
you would go to if you wanted to.
You know raise an issue.
You know work through problemsbe part of solving separate
business meeting.

Speaker 2 (02:04:09):
Correct be part of solving separate business
meetings, exactly correct.
And then they'd follow theevent.
But the event was hey, we havebusiness meetings and this is
what we did at the last businessmeeting.

Speaker 1 (02:04:20):
Now let's go do something fun it was very much
like someone reading a chapterand verse out of a book.

Speaker 2 (02:04:26):
Yeah, perfect, that's .
I think that's how it should bedone.
Like I don't understand why allthese clubs stick to that
stupid format of rush throughthe business because you have to
have a lecture like nobodywants to sit through your
fucking powerpoint.

Speaker 1 (02:04:47):
Let's go do something fun yeah, well, I think the
reason why they do the powerpoints is because you have
presidents and executive boardmembers that don't have a
creative aspect to their youknow life, where they're like,
hey, what else can we bring intothe environment?
Because a lot of people arelike, well, I'm just going to

(02:05:07):
line up 12 people that can dothe job.
That I don't want to do,basically, is what it boils down
to, and that's kind of why Ithink that they they hire all,
they bring all these people into do these lectures because
they're hoping to inspiresomebody, but they're not
inspiring within.
They're just bringing people into feed them information, which
you know is fine, but it's notreally interactive, it's not fun

(02:05:28):
.

Speaker 3 (02:05:29):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (02:05:32):
Okay, What'd you say, Paul Todd anything else, Wrap
it.

Speaker 3 (02:05:36):
No, I'm good.

Speaker 1 (02:05:38):
Okay.
Well, this one was a tough one,guys.
I don't think we came to anysolid conclusions, except that
you know your club is going toprobably struggle with some of
this stuff, I came to aconclusion Paul doesn't like the
lectures we I came to aconclusion.

Speaker 4 (02:05:50):
Paul doesn't like the lectures.
You got that one Okay.
So yes, we came to one point.

Speaker 1 (02:05:53):
Screw your lectures, yeah yeah, fuck your PowerPoint.
Yeah, exactly, ban PowerPoint.
So yeah.
So ultimately, with that, wejust want to throw it out there.
Guys, if you're struggling withthis stuff, we want to hear
from you.
Head over to our Discord.
We'll post this in the shownotes and, you know, let us know
what you struggle with, becauseyou know we can only be better

(02:06:14):
ham radio operators, clubmembers, better clubs if we can
help each other and learn fromthat.
And you know, maybe there is abetter way.
Maybe your club has, you know,gotten over this hump and you
just haven't shared the liquidgold on how you do stuff.
Or or maybe you know what wejust shared about a little bit
has inspired you to kind of, youknow, try something.
So let us know, we want to see.
You know how we can keep thisgoing and you know we need to

(02:06:36):
improve.
You know clubs and the way wedo that is by sharing with one
another.
Not any one of us has thecorner market on ham radio,
sorry.
We all.
We all do ham radio.
We all share the same airwaves.
So let's's share information,support each other and let's be
better clubs for the future, forall of those way younger than

(02:06:57):
us that are coming up in theranks.
There, you go there, you go, allright, cool, all right.
Well, with that, well, let'swrap this up, as always.
So thank you, as always, forgoing through this process with
us.
Hopefully, you found somethinginteresting out of it.
I know I did, you know, and I,you know, I get closer with
these guys every day.
We, you know, we trulyappreciate those that are, you

(02:07:18):
know, always part of ourcommunity, like that and that
want to help and, you know,continue to see this hobby grow,
you know.
So we thank you guys forsupporting us and supporting,
you know, the ham radio hobby.
So, as always, like we say, youcan connect with us by heading
over to our discord server andjoining the conversation.
Um, there's some awesome uhchannels over there.
We're talking about a wholebunch of different stuff, um,

(02:07:39):
and we'd love to have you bepart of that and, uh, help that
grow.
Um, you can always subscribe toour youtube channel if you
haven't and, again, as we alwayssay, make sure you set that
bell to notify you every time wego live or anytime we post
something on our YouTube channel.
That way, you could always bein the now and you can always
always please, hey, contributeback to the community If you've

(02:08:01):
got questions or maybe we'veinspired you with this
discussion here to want to sharesomething, feel free, go ahead,
pick up that phone, you know,leave us a voicemail and leave
us a number.
And as, uh, I just saw belowthat I'm way out of the script
here paul flashed up the patreonstuff.
We I haven't done a good jobwith this, I totally forgot, and

(02:08:22):
I should do this every time and, paul, you should kick my ass
when I don't.
You know, we want to look tothose paid patreon numbers now.
Ronnie jay, you know paul roy,which he's in there, we know.
Thank you, paul.
Mike, ted Russ, skidget, irv Bobyou know all you guys.
Thank you again for supportingus through our Patreon, because
you know it helps us continue tothis mission and you know

(02:08:44):
having fun doing this and we wehope you know we continue to do
this.
You know five more and wecontinue to grow that as well,
and we thank you again foreverybody who's helped,
contribute and supports the show.
And, as always, head over ontolivefreeandhamcom and learn
about the show.
You can pick up the latestepisodes, you can check out our
cool videos and you can visitour storefront and pick up any

(02:09:06):
of our latest swags or I'llstick a pack because you know
you want to, and with that, asalways, thanks again for
listening from all of us at lookfree and ham seven, three,
seven three.

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Robert's Rules Are Destroying Your Club's Appeal To New Hams

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